2008 Silverado auction special with a 5.3. I bought it for something to do and to use it as a farm truck. It was only running on Bank 1. Fuse for bank 2 injectors was gone. Replaced the fuse and 2 and 8 fired but not 4 and 6. Verified spark and fuel but mostly dead. Cranking compression was 175 in both cylinders. Removed the valve cover and valves seem to move normally. I checked compression while it was running and 4 and 6 were 50 to 125 or so. I inspected the cylinders with a bore scope and found coolant.

So off with the head. The head bolts were about finger tight. Someone had replaced the afm lifters with regular ones already but they left the vlom and it wasn’t modified. So then I went to pull the drivers head and noticed it was never off. I pulled a pushrod and looked at the lifter on #1 with my borescope and it still has the afm lifters in. So one side had regular lifters and one side afm lifters. I’ve never seen such a hack job.

I was actually happy because the cam is in good condition so I’m just going to install the correct lifters on bank 2 and call it a day. That’s easier than pulling the other head. The lifters should outlast the rest of the truck.

Anyway, I thought I’d share these crazy findings.

 

Not surprised. Hacks are abundant. Most folks have zero idea of what they are doing in an engine….

 

Yea but I’ve never experienced one this bad, his loss ny gain I guess unless he hacked more things I haven’t discovered.

 

The engine longevity, or lack thereof, is often a diagnostic tool in itself! If someone hacks one bad enough, they can get mighty unhappy, mighty quick. They can often decide to take themselves apart before the new owner can even open his toolbox!! I once had a IROC-Z that the PO told me was prone to blowing head gaskets on the passenger side. I got it cheap, and quickly found that if you ran the A/C, the engine coolant overheated within about 10 miles of freeway driving. I knew the radiator was sufficient, so the A/C condenser shouldn't be causing the overheating scenario. Eventually, I tore it down on the passenger side. Took me about 10-15 minutes until I found the issue. One of the cylinder head hold down bolts had different marks on its head. Sure enough-It was about 3/16" longer than the others. It was bottoming out just before sufficiently tightening the head to the block. Using the A/C made the engine work just hard enough to cause the burning mixture to super heat the coolant......

 

Interesting as I have a similar issue. While trying to install the head, one bolt wouldn’t start. Find out that one head bolt was snapped off. I missed it when I took the head off as the previous guy just left it out. Luckily I was able to extract it and now it’s all good. That guy should not be working on engines!

 

HA!! He's sure as Hell not the only guy who shouldn't be working on engines!! A long time friend of mine has several grandsons. They've obviously spent a ton of time on their phones and laptops, and no time in auto shop or shop classes. But they're too proud to ask us old fogeys for help or advice. The following is what happened, and I'm not kidding!! Their car wouldn't start. So they googled starting fluid. But paid no attention to what the throttle body looked like. Came home with the fluid and........Promptly pulled the master cylinder cap and started spraying ether into the reservoir!!! When their dad heard them cranking and cranking the engine without even a backfire and the engine cranking slower and slower, he went around to the front of the garage. There he saw one inside the car cranking the engine and running the battery down, and the other filling the master cylinder with ether. True story!!!! Never heard what happened to that car. But it amazes me how little mechanical knowledge a lot of the current teenage generation has. But they're smart phone geniuses....

 

I had a customer car that ALL the head bolts were finger tight. It ran and didnt overheat but under 50% or more throttle it would pressurize the cooling system and blow the cap off.