Any Mechanics Here? Help, We Need Advice

Discussion in 'Automotive' started by Marie Mallery, Aug 5, 2022.

  1. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Please give me advice if I should just ignore, it or raise hell and insist he doesn't put another dime in this piece of crap. It is a 1986 Nissan XE King Cab.2,4 engine.
    We bought a truck off Craigs List about 4 years ago for $500 knowing hubby could make a good truck out of it in time. We drove it around short distance ' less than 100 mile' till he could fix it.All parts are new including all engine parts he just put on in to find out it has a cracked head!!!!! [ I'm in a panic attack and I hate this piece of crap.]
    Basically, he has changed almost everything on it. Now he wants to order a head includes head, Cam shadt,valves ,etc,
    He just bought new valves ,pistons,bearings,,etc,etc,etc.
    New brskes, tires,$, 700.00 carbonator, battery, basically everything.

    he found a head for $281.56 and $158.91 shipping, total $440.47.
     
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  2. Cody Fousnaugh

    Cody Fousnaugh Supreme Member
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    Well, Marie, you don't want to know how much money we have put into our 2005 Dodge Durango and our 1992 20ft Celebrity 200 Cuddy Cabin boat. Bought the Durango in 2005, it now has 176,000 miles on it and we just spend $512 on a full rear brake job and next Monday, another $350 for new spark plugs that last some 100,000 miles. Bought the boat in 2009 and, again, have replaced a number of things, including the block.

    Quite a bit of money on both, but we can't afford a better boat or newer Durango.
     
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  3. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Cody we won't get in dept for a new vehicle and older models are almost nonexistent down here.
    We had a 20' Larson cuddy cabin had lots of fun on it back in the 80s,90s.
    I am so disgusted with this truck but my daughter has a Lexus and its in the shop more than my old van is worked on by hubby. He repairs all our old autos and boats for years. Last time he took our vehicle to get one tuned they rimmed the threads on a plug, hubby had to drill it out an re-thread it.

    Anyway, I guess nobody here is a mechanic. We can't be stuck out in here in these woods.Last time someone called an ambulance the person was gone 45 minutes before they got here. That was about 20 years ago.
     
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  4. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I'm not sure this is a mechanic's answer or what you're asking, but for what you paid for the thing, if your husband can do the work, he should go ahead and repair it. It's not as though you have much money in it. And used trucks are non-existent everywhere, and they always have been my entire adult life. The only downside is a question of reliability, but it doesn't sound like the truck is the main transportation of the house.

    As an aside, back in 2018 my younger brother was looking to buy a used truck. He had been a mechanic in the region for well over 45 years and owned his own large repair shop...so he knew people and he had decades of connections. He ended up buying a new truck because even he could not find a used one. If you guys can keep it on the road for a reasonable amount of money, you will not be able to replace it for the little you've got in it, and you'll always get your money out of it.
     
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  5. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Thanks John, that's what he says too. He is really good with this kind of work but this time he has got hold of a real piece of work so to speak. he works on old boats and old vehicles, and I make trials and clear vines.
    I just hope it gets done soon.
     
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  6. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    I always paid cash for my cars, drove them for a period of time, sold them, then paid cash for the next one. I got lucky living in the DC region in that I was able to go to night classes to get a degree and have access to a strong job market where eventually I bought a new vehicle, but until then it was 100% Cash-on-the-Barrel head, baby, often selling the existing car for more than I originally paid for it (we're talking 100s of dollars, not 1,000s). I actually don't know why I even bought a new car, since used were cheap enough back then, as were property taxes & insurances.

    I bought a 1959 Austin Healey and hit every junkyard between DC and Richmond scavenging parts "just in case." I drove 100 south on I-95 and then back north on Route 1 filling up the car with boxes & boxes of stuff. I dropped in a later model drive train (went from 948cc to 1098cc) and converted the front brakes to disc. It had a mechanical cable-driven tach and a dynamo (not an alternator) with relays you adjusted for your kick-in/kick-out charging voltages. Good stuff. I'm a swapper, not a mechanic.
     
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  7. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Its long past made me nuts! It's always just one more part will fix it. Now I can't even get away from here, the van is broken down too.
    This is draining me and making me sick. Not helping all my other ailments.

    I have about accentuated the hell out of the positive. No sense in letting it get to me but its 'Too Hot To Fish' too hot to pull vine's and too bold at home. Not relationship wise but 'circumstances' are rough.
    We use to have a nice little Cheers type bar here but like most everything else it closed. It was restaurant bar and we knew all the people, sure do miss it.

     
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  8. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    I'm still looking for a part for my van. I'm stuck in these woods with no way to go.

    I need an ' alternator smog pump bracket ' for my 1995 E350 XLT Club Wagon. I called the ones open but not good with websites.

    1992-96 part will fit.
     
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    Last edited: Aug 20, 2022
  9. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    Have you tried Amazon, @Marie Mallery ? They have a section where you put in the information about your vehicle and Amazon stores it, so when you need a part, they already know what to find for your vehicle.
    It is called “Your Garage”, and you just fill out the information one time about each of your vehicles, and then when you need a part, you can just input what you need and Amazon will find it for you and give you the purchase options.
    Probably , @Bobby Cole can tell you more about using this since he is the one who deals with vehicle parts and repairs.
     
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  10. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Yvonne thank you so much for the help but yes he tried that already and they do have the info on both of these two rattle traps. Right now he is on EBay for $299.00 that is saying they have one so guess he will take a chance. Its a used part. Suppose to come in 4 days, we're discussing if we should take a chance.
    What is your opinion?
     
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  11. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Hubby is going to take a chance since parts are so hard to get now especially for older vehicle's, He's ordering it now. Yall wish us luck.
     
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  12. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    The easiest decisions are when we have but one choice.

    Did the description make mention of condition? I guess there are no engines newer than ±1990, so the best it get is "Not Cracked or Warped," huh? It could be worse. Life without EBay would mean on the phone all day with junkyards and perhaps a handful of fruitless drives.
     
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  13. Thomas Stillhere

    Thomas Stillhere Very Well-Known Member
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    Depending where the crack is a cylinder head can be welded then surfaced. If it has a cracked head you have am overheating problem or even possibly when it was sold to you. Shady people just put stop leak in and it can stop a leak internally for a while but it is a short time of repair, eventually the sealer deteriorates and the leak starts again. You can buy a small bottle of combustion leak checker, from NAPA it comes with the bulb and tube to draw the moisture from the top of the radiator, you should drop the water level while you test that way the bulb won't suck water up into the bulb, you only want the moisture not wet water. If there is the slightest combustion leak circulating the blue dye will turn a nasty yellow or even clear. If there is no change after it is warmed up there is no combustion leak in the water. If you do repair it and replace the head be sure to check that radiator and a coolant fan switch if it uses one, sometimes the fan relay goes bad and the fan never comes on unless you have the air conditioner turned on because it is direct wired to turn on when the A/C switch is turned on. I don't like aluminum engines simply because they are not dependable and if there is overheating the damage happens very fast. I drove my 68 galaxie running hot one night because it was 2 am and freezing out side, I had 15 or 20 miles to go before getting home, when I got there it was rattling something terrible. I had it wrecker ed to the shop I was working at , a Allis Chalmers dealer in Houston. At lunch I went out and pulled the engine and took the heads to be surfaced and valves done. I had cracked every piston ring in the engine and there was no cylinder damage. I overhauled and drove to San Diego one hundred miles an hour. The car ran great the day I sold it. They don't use good iron or aluminum today, the cheapest they can build one is what you get now. One of the best old commercial engines was the International 6 cylinder used in those large 2 ton vans. You could not wear it out the block was so hard.
     
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  14. Marie Mallery

    Marie Mallery Veteran Member
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    Bless your heart John now I'm confusing you with my long list of problems, sorry.

    This is the van part the engine is in the pickup, the other piece of crap. But then my van has been a good one for past 20 years now.
    Van needs a Alternator smog pump bracket that screws into the engine block. I think it holds up the tension pully too.
     
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  15. John Brunner

    John Brunner Senior Staff
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    Gotcha. How in the heck did that break? So it sounds like the head is still "in process."

    I was talking with a friend today who recently fixed the brakes on his daughter's truck and right afterwards on his wife's Kia. One of the lug bolts broke on the Kia, and apparently you gotta replace the hub to fix it...unless You Tube shows you how to grind down one side of the flange and wedge it in. I've done some work when I was younger, then my mechanic brother opened his own business and I got spoiled. My friend (3 years younger than I) saved about $300, but he's no longer getting the DIY Glow that he used to out of it.
     
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