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Catastrophe Strikes

colbystephens

colbystephens

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Last summer I put a remanufactured stock 5.7L long block in my Blazer. It had 206,000 miles on the original engine.

Upon first start up, it blew a ton of very distinct white smoke. That really freaked me out because I thought maybe I hadn’t sealed something correctly. Various people assured me that it was just the engine burning off the assembly lube. The truck did run great, and after it’s first drive (an hour long haul from where I worked on it back to where I live), I didn’t seem to have the problem anymore. Or at least I wasn’t noticing it. It was a hot summer.

I had some trouble getting it to pass smog, and the smog tech said I was running rich. I figured my previous engine had killed my cat since it was burning SO much oil. So I replaced the cat, barely passed inspection, and chalked it up to not being broken in yet.

Then the weather turned cold for the fall when I was out of town for a week or so. I came back and started up my truck and it blew a cloud of white smoke like you wouldn’t believe. It really worried me that either I had a bad head gasket, or perhaps I hadn’t sealed the intake manifold well enough and that coolant was leaking down into the combustion chamber.

So I made an appointment with a local mechanic to have the intake gasket changed because I simply didn’t have time or space to do the work myself (we were living with my in-laws at the time). I dropped it off, and over Christmas weekend while I was out of town, he swapped the gaskets for me, and apparently cleaned my EGR which was supposedly full of carbon.

When I got the truck back it ran like total crap. And I was getting SES codes every time I drove it. I figured he hadn’t timed it right, so I had him adjust the timing. He advanced it, and it drove OK, and threw an occasional SES code at me (43 - ESC). But I felt like it was too advanced, so I had him back it back down to just slightly advanced. Then it REALLY ran like crap. SES codes and limp mode every time I drove the truck. Had to put it in 1st gear just to get up the hill to my house every day for a week.

Then it ran really low on coolant this week. Where was my coolant going? I’d had it tested for hydro carbons in the coolant, and that passed. So no blown head gasket. So I made an appointment with a nearby reputable shop and dropped the truck off this morning. In discussing my problem with them and looking things over, I found some white corrosion around the middle ports of the exhaust manifold on the driver’s side.

:doah:

Looks like I got a no good remanned engine that has a cracked head. :( The mechanic is running some tests to confirm.

Now I’ll have to warranty it out and replace the engine again. I’m SO frustrated. I do not have time for this, and I don’t have the budget to pay the shop to swap the engine for me.

Lame.
 
I figured you were burning coolant. I've never had a new engine that was smoking from the exhaust pipe for more than a couple seconds on first startup. It's usually the rest of the engine that smokes for a while as you burn off oil, paint etc from the new parts.

Sucky, but I'm glad you found the issue!
 
Your situation is why I stay away from reman engines. Most engine cores became an engine core because a PO drove thier engine until it blew up and cracked somthing on the engine. That is why I bought a new GM Goodwrench crate engine recently. A new GM Goodwrench 5.7 crate engine is only a few hundred dollars more than a reman, and is worth the extra money to not be in the situation you are in.
 
The official verdict is in: cracked head. Apparently they're going to send me a new head and gasket kit. Lame.
 
campfire said:
That's their warranty policy? :eek1: :doah:

And you're stuck doing the work? :angry1:

Are all warranties this crummy?
Click to expand...

Yes. Most reman warranties require you to cover labor. I think I've seen something like $100 labor allowance but that's it.

I had to buy a reman engine once while I was in college. No time to have truck torn down waiting on machine work and hardly any money. I worked for an oreillys at the time and had sold several remans so I knew how the warranty worked and purchased my engine with something like 90 days just to cover initial start up.

The first engine I got I inspected and sent back. Don't remember what it was but something was funny about it. I scoped the cylinders (heard rumors of remans coming in with different bores) checked all the crank bearings etc before install.

Was about 8 years ago and the engine I ended up with has been in 4 different trucks, 2 of which were heavily abused and it is currently running strong in my IH scout.
 
Even the gm ones have problems. I have seen several with rod bolt nuts falling off. Finding a real machine shop with the odds guy that has 30yrs experience is getting harder and harder.
 
So here's my update:

The shop replaced the cylinder head. It checked out with no cracks, but it appeared to be overly machined and didn't have enough sealing surface between the coolant passage and the cylinder. So the engine builder shipped a new cylinder head over and the shop installed it. It fired up and ran well the first time I started it (a sunny, warm afternoon), but it smelled of coolant. And that really concerned me. But the mechanic suggested that it might just take a bit of time to burn off the coolant in the exhaust system (I was skeptical).

After starting up the next morning in the cold and seeing some smoke I became more suspicious. Then it ran real hot one day on my way to work, and I pulled over well before my engine overheated. My electric fans weren't working and I was in rush-hour bumper to bumper. I found the mechanic had only hooked up one of my two fans and it had blown a fuse (a now recurring problem I didn't have before). Now I'm relying on my backup fan until I find the source of the high draw that's blowing my fuse.

At that time I started photo and video documenting the truck's use of coolant and the cloud of smoke at start up. It's hardly noticeable when temps are above 50 and it's a low-humidity day. But when it's cold and rainy/high-humidity, it's quite the cloud. I took it back to the shop and put a pressure test on the cooling system at 15 PSI for 3 hours with the spark plugs removed. Here's a video of it cranking over, showing that I'm continuing to blow coolant out of cylinder 3 (the previously-confirmed location of the problem with a different cylinder head and a different gasket.)


I've sent an email to the engine manufacturer with all this stuff, and we'll see what happens. I'm angry. I hope they take care of me, but the terms of the warranty leave me powerless. Before I release the name of the manufacturer, I want to see how this plays out so I don't drag a potentially good company through the mud unnecessarily.
 
Is the new head failing or just the other side that didn't show a problem? Probably best to pull both heads and check them if one was bad enough to replace.
 
Both heads were checked initially. Driver's side was replaced for having been machined too far, which was also the side that was having the problem (cylinder 3 only). The engine was reassembled with a new cylinder head on the driver's side. The problem still exists on cylinder 3 only.
 
colbystephens said:
Both heads were checked initially. Driver's side was replaced for having been machined too far, which was also the side that was having the problem (cylinder 3 only). The engine was reassembled with a new cylinder head on the driver's side. The problem still exists on cylinder 3 only.
Click to expand...

Yikes, that's bad. I'd ask them for two new heads. They obviously have poor quality control.
 
Well, at this point I need the whole engine replaced because the problem clearly isn't a cylinder head issue.
 
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