I know a bunch of people buy "known running" engines. but how many really dig the engines out themselves at the u-pull in unknown condition?

I mean yeah, if the car was in an accident, good chances are that the engine/trans are still good as long as it didnt plant into a tree @ 80mph.

but when the vehicle eg 02 1500 or equivalent is in there with a good body, do you still go after it? I know around me, they wont let you drag a battery and jumper cables in and jump the starter to do a compression test.

do you just spin it by hand and take a chance if its free? my local u-pulls charge by the component on anything over a basic short or long block, so thats a lot of pulling crap off to get it cheaper. Its hilarious that they now wont let you walk into the yard with a single bolt in your tool kit as they charge 15 cent per bolt/screw/nut.

I've never had good luck buying a "good used" engine locally off say craigslist either, always something stupid wrong with it. the only reason I dont buy one off ebay is because the freight shipping quotes usually double the price of the engine.

honestly, I have on clue how people like denmah repeatedly come across running engines (I could honestly care if it had 300k on it lol), transmissions and such as cheap as they do. its like PA is LS heaven or something. even the facebook page is littered with cheap stuff all over in that area.

 

PA is rough on winter-driven vehicles without proper care. ten year old trucks that run fine can be 100% unroadworthy due to rust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_Belt

out west here I have had okay luck pulling stuff myself from pick-n-pull yards. its a roll of the dice for sure. it's $189 for a complete engine w/accessories + $50 core about the same for trannies. but since vehicles last much longer, there arent many ls powered vehicles in self service yards.

my best scores have come from buying completes/wrecks and pulling the drivetrain and selling what i dont want. I have a guy that buys the rollers and parts them out further.

 

That's where I got mine. They do offer something like a 30 day warranty, which I knew I'd never be able to use (would never finish the project in that time frame and all their identifying "markings" were cleaned off and/or painted over). Tore the whole thing down, cleaned everything, lapped the valves (they were hideous), new valve seals, rod & main bearings.

After having pulled it all down and inspected everything, this particular engine would have been a headache had I not. It was definitely on the receiving end of an abusive relationship with it's previous owner. (there were clues before I pulled the engine) Probably overheated a handful of times along with infrequent oil changes. Crank had a couple very minor scratches, not deep enough to catch a fingernail... nothing to worry about. The most telling part of the tare down was the rocker end of the pushrods were severely worn (all 16) and the valve seals showed signs of heat damage. A couple minor scratches in the oil pump housing. Otherwise all good. All the journals were within spec.

I wasn't too surprised, given the overall condition of the truck it came out of. Just real obvious it wasn't maintained well as a whole.

If you're wanting something that you're not going to tare down, keep your eye out for indicators given the overall condition of the vehicle. Is it in total **** shape? Not too bad? What about the carpet? Unvacuumed and full of french fry reminents? How was it all treated?

I pulled a 454 out of an old work truck once. Had the name of the company and their telephone number on the door. Hell yeah I called them. Tranny problem and the engine was rebuilt relatively recently. When I got the engine home and apart.... clean and beautiful. Looked like it was rebuilt last month.

The 5.3... I kinda expected to see some stuff in need of some love.

Side note: Working out of a bag of tools in the middle of nowhere is like working with clubs and stones. Thank god for cordless impact wrenches!.. and even then, there's always the one or two tools you forget and you just have to figure out how to get it done without. Not my favorite thing to do, pulling engines from the scrap yard. Blah.

 

I work for a place that is a pull your own type yard and I would say better than 90% of the LS based engines are good when they go out to the yard. Most have been wrecked or had some other problem, Wrecked/Bad trans/electronics problems and so on. If you're unsure start by using an oil filter cutter and pull/cut the filter and see what's in it. Pull the plugs and see how they were burning.
If those check out pull the engine and drop the oil pan and check for play in the bearings/ Debris in the bottom of the pan, shine a flashlight on the cylinder walls from the bottom of the engine looking up. Look and see how clean everything is. We got in a Chevy express van that was wrecked hard in the rear, Even though I was able to hear it run I took it home and pulled the pan and valve covers and was shocked at how clean it was.

 

I have also seen that rocker/pushrod wear thing and concluded the previous owner was allergic to changing the oil