2004 Silverado 2500HD with 236k miles. I recently pulled the motor and completely rebuilt it myself in my garage without even having to take it to a machine shop. Here we are 1000 miles later and figured Id give an update for anyone curious about doing this themselves.

The motor specs: The motor ran perfect prior to rebuild, but was hemorrhaging oil (1qt every few hundred miles), had blue smoke on startup, and had multiple broken exhaust studs.

I ran a compression test prior to teardown and had 170psi on every cylinder, verifying it was in good internal shape still.

I carefully disassembled the motor and measured everything and compared my measurements to the factory rebuild manual. Thankfully, the bores were not out of round, and pistons were still in spec as well.

Crank and cam had no scoring whatsoever and bearings were just mildly worn. The cam bearings were showing just a bit of the copper layer.

I replaced every bearing with the standard size oem replacement - main bearings, rod bearings, and cam bearings. Kept the stock Crank and stock cam.

I replaced all lifters, pushrods, springs, valve seals, retainers, and rockers with oem replacements. I cleaned the valves with my ultrasonic cleaner and lapped them in with lapping compound. Verified seal after with water test.

New piston rings were installed after running the pistons through my ultrasonic cleaner and getting every piece of carbon buildup off.

Every bolt that is a torque to yield bolt was replaced with all new hardware- gm genuine all the way.

Every seal, o ring, and gasket is all new of course.

Installed an oem Melling oil pump and new pickup tube also with new timing chain and gears.

Motor was stripped down to just the bare block and heavily degreased, scrubbed, and pressure washed in my driveway multiple times. Same for the heads.

The heads and block surface all showed no warpage with a straight edge and feeler gauge, so surfaces were cleaned and prepped both with white roloc discs (controversial method but this is what I have always used on my PWC aluminum engine rebuilds and never had an issue. Just dont be dumb with it, lol.

Used fel pro MLS head gaskets

Cylinder bores were just deglazed with a ball hone and honing fluid to regain the crosshatch and clean up the surface.

Everything was put back together, and now I've put almost 1000 miles on the motor driving it and only had a couple of issues:

1. Radiator blew about 100 miles in. It was the factory oem rad and I knew I should've replaced it when the motor was out, but was trying to save money.

2. Coolant leak at crossover pipe under the throttle body. I originally used fel pro seals on the oem pipe but found the pipe itself developed a pinhole leak after driving it. The new dorman pipe has had no issues.

3. Oil level sensor leak. Small oil leak from the oil level sensor. I could not find the original style o ring to reseal the original sensor, and I tried an o ring from a kit I had. It had a small leak, so I replaced the sensor with one that comes with the o ring, and it's all good now.

Other than that, everything else has been awesome! I did oil changes at the following intervals with 5w30 conventional oil:

- changed after immediate startup and running up to temp.

- changed at 50 miles, 100 miles, 500 miles, and now 1000. Next will be at 5000 miles and then every 5k from there, switching to synthetic oil at 5k mark.

Oil did have a small glitter shine to it at initial oil changes, along with a hazy cloudy look from assembly lube. Glitter has gone away after about 500 miles.

Makes 40 psi oil pressure at idle operating temp and feels like it's a new truck.

I can't wait to put another 200k+ miles on it, hopefully!

Feel free to ask anything, I did this all myself in my garage without a machine shop or anyone helping me. Im not a mechanic, Im actually a nurse who just loves working on cars and engines in my free time. So if I can do it, you can too!

This whole process took me about 5 months and right around $2500- including tools I had to buy. Parts were all bought from rockauto.

07 Silverado classic 1500 4x4 Z71
200k on body 150k on engine and trans

If you had your truck this far apart, what else would you replace. We have a new engine/trans/T-case/drive shafts, new front diff, tie rods, ball joints, and wheel bearings.

I think I'm going to go ahead and get new pitman/idler arms, since they apparently suck to replace. Do the actual steering boxes wear out? Truck has about 225k on it.

Edit to say this is a 2006 2500HD.

BARB COMPLAININ BOUT TAPS C0MING 4ROM ENGYN WEHN S1TTN IDOL 4 TO L0NG

I’ve got an 05 Silverado which I’m having some water getting into the cab issues. We don’t get much rain where I live so I don’t see the issue often but every time it rains it happens.
It’s on the passenger side, part of the carpet gets soaked, and there’s water droplets on the trim. When I’m driving at road and highway speeds through the rain I can literally hear water dripping somewhere in that area. Any tips?

I have an 2003 3500 84” cab and chassis weighs right at 12000 (gvwr). It rides fine and I have timbrens and the heaviest duty shocks I could fine and rear swar bar. My old service truck was a 1992 3500 and I replaced the rear leaf springs with the heaviest duty ones I could find, I am looking to upgrade the rear suspension some on this truck as well, is replacing the leaf springs with better ones the only choice or are there other options?

Original Photo Link

https://www.iaai.com/VehicleDetail/46844188\~US

Thinking about building the 4.8L in this truck any cam recommendations for a naturally aspirated build?

Just got my KSP uppers this morning, stock uppers were squeaking and balljoint boots ripped so figured go ahead and replace them before winter. Also used a camber locking alignment kit so I can align it evenly myself and prevent it from falling out of alignment. So far so good!

Well, I’ve got the infamous steering rattle/clunk but this one goes an extra mile. I purchased the replacement Dorman upper intermediate shaft and the intermediate shaft bearing like all of the videos on YouTube suggested. I went to replace the shaft but discovered that the shaft was completely seized. I worked on it for a couple of days and ultimately took it to a shop for replacement as I couldn’t get it to budge. The shop replaced the shaft and the bearing and called to let me know that the clunking problem I was having still wasn’t resolved. They seemed surprised that the problem still existed and speculated that something further inside the steering column was causing the problem. I fear that I may have let the clunking problem persist a bit too long but really didn’t think too much of it because this problem has been known to go for years, some never even fix it. I bought the truck about 6 months ago and it’s great otherwise; one owner 2006 GMC Sierra 2500hd 6.0 with 78k miles. Has anyone else had this issue? TIA

Ok so I need some help. I purchased a 2000 GMC Sierra 1500 SLE extended cab because it was my dream truck. Got a couple issues with it and would like to work on it myself. The ac is not blowing cold air, only cool. Did a test on the ac and it shows it’s at 50 psi and then when the compressor kicks on, it drops to 20, then back to 50 psi. Happens every 15 seconds. Any suggestions?

Hey guys as the title says I have an 02 Escalade that has a blocked passanger front sunroof drain. This is causing water to back up and dripping at a fitting I found inside the a pillar trim. I’ve snaked drains before, but for the life of me I cannot get my weed eater line down the drain, get about 4-5 inches before it gets bound up. I have the headliner dropped slightly and can see a sharp bend in the drain tube, I’m assuming that’s where I’m getting caught up at. Anyone have any tips or advice on a good method to get that drain cleared out? I didn’t want to use air, as I heard the drain line comes disconnected from the cassette pretty easily, and it looks like a real PITA to get to if that occurs.