sewebster

Why would a stuck thermostat give white smoke? Maybe "grey," normal smoke from a too-cold engine?

Either your thermostat on the temperature sensor for the gauge. It's right next to the coolant temp sensor for the ECU, so you might have knocked it or something?

Yeah, I guess this sounds like the thing to do and hope for the best.

Cool PDF James! So it seems like the sensors you "need" are: -O2 -TPS -coolant temp -MAF -crank position

Usually there's a bracket back there somewhere? driver's side...

Yup. I believe the oem VG33 studs are 10x1.25 so you might want to go with that and then just hit up the dealer. There is stuff on the board about this, try the search too.

Last time I had this sort of noise it was a piece of a branch stuck in my front u-joint. Lots of possibilities though

Hmm, I guess that's 272 instead of 271. It still breaks down at 250C though. Is that hot enough to last? I'm not generally familiar with people putting loctite on their studs, but maybe everyone does this...

I would probably just change my oil a bit more often... you will never get rid of all the old oil and it sounds to me like pouring it through is probably an inefficient way of getting it out? (i.e. you waste a fair amount of good oil to remove a small amount of "bad" oil).

When I rebuilt my engine I drilled and tapped my heads for M10x1.5. Currently the manifolds are held on by bolts. Studs can be better in theory because if you only turn the nut, then there will be no motion between the stud and head and less chance of the head being damaged over time. However, what seems to always happen is that the nut gets stuck and you end up turning out the stud. Even if you use antiseize or whatever, there seems to be no particular reason why the nut should turn instead of the stud. What would I do to get the stud to stick? I don't really have the luxury of using an interference fit or anything (and that's even worse if the nut does actually seize). I guess I'm probably ok with bolts as long as I keep using the torque wrench, so perhaps this is more of a theoretical question about getting studs to stay put. I'm not trying to reopen a studs vs bolts holy war.

I think a key thing here is to try to combine this sort of repair with any other conceivable jobs that require removing the transmission or oil pan. Do you need a new transmission? Oil pump? Check rod bearings? I'm basically making up random junk here, but the last thing you want to do is take the stuff apart twice. The annoyance of paying $2k for an RMS is that you're basically just paying a ton for "easy" labour. There isn't anything particularly complicated about it, practically no parts costs etc.

Generally speaking, I'd say that once you notice a loss of power due to lack of lubrication, it is too late and you have some major engine work to do. Something like a blown head gasket could cause lack of power and loss of oil pressure at the same time, but then I'd expect to find oil in the coolant or leaking somewhere. I guess you could have a leak between a cylinder and an oil passage... You could check engine compression as well, pretty easy.

How do you know if the oil pressure is high until it starts to warm up... do you have a gauge? I'm not so sure that putting that head gasket junk in your coolant is actually a good idea. Especially not for solving an oil pressure problem. Anyway, the oil light can't really tell you if you have problems with oil pressure at higher RPMs... as soon as you go above 5 PSI or so the light goes out. You need to have 50 PSI at 3000 rpm (about that anyway). If you have only 25PSI, the light will never tell you.

Yeah, I was just pointing out that when the switch is grounded, meaning that current can flow from the wire through to the engine block, the light is on. When the pressure is high enough it breaks the circuit and the light goes out. So you can't really test the switch without applying pressure and seeing if the switch "opens" and cuts off the current flow.

The light goes on when the switch is grounded... Anyway, normally I would have guessed that if your oil pump was dying, that you would have noticed the oil light when you were idling at some stop light somewhere, before any engine damage occurred.... but I guess if it died and you never actually slowed the engine down for whatever reason then you could have been driving around under load for a while with enough pressure to keep the light off, but not enough to properly lubricate the engine, which would be lame. Good reason for an oil pressure gauge! Checking with a gauge seems like a good bet... specs in FSM...

You'd think so, but I still have it! I replaced the crankshaft and now it won't die. I might let it go at the end of the month though when the insurance runs out... My in-laws are trying to give us a free 96 corolla, but it's in Ontario... I'm not sure we really need any more than the truck, but my wife doesn't drive standard yet, and the city gas mileage does leave something to be desired...

I think the rubber hardens and gets brittle? On my 93 Dodge Colt the RMS actually totally popped out and all the engine oil came out in a gush. Too bad my buddy driving the car didn't pull over when the oil light came on...

Factory installation problem? Having a seal die after 125k miles doesn't seem so crazy to me... that's a fair amount of driving!

I'm going to remove my rack and see how long I go before I need to use it again. If it takes many months then it shows me it's not such a big deal to put it on and off every once in a while. More MPG, regardless of how little would be nice! As for keeping the OEM stuff, I probably will, but I have no garage Hence the debate. They are in my clothes closet at the moment, along with the rest of my tools and truck stuff. I agree that selling the pathy is the reason to keep them, it could add value. Not that I plan on selling it, but...

Yeah, those look great!

Not sure if this is what you are asking, but: 1. Pull up seat bottom, should be a black strap to pull on to release it. 2. Remove headrest, there is a button on the side of the base. 3. Pull side lever and fold seat back all the way down.

Yeah, I think it depends on your specific setup as to the noise. Probably I should take off the roof rack just to see what it sounds like without, I just don't hear any obvious howling or anything.

Ok cool, I guess now I have to decide if I should leave them in my closet or try to give them away to save on storage space. I don't have the wind fairing/wing thing on my rack... looking around the web it seems that most people say it reduces noise (don't care) but a bunch of people the wing actually INCREASES their fuel usage, so that would be bad. I am debating whether or not it is worth removing the rack when I am not using it to save gas... but not sure how much it would help our not-so-aero trucks. I take the ski racks off in the summer, but the main rack itself is a bit more annoying to put on and off.

Same for me.

I keep getting crap in my eyes under the truck even wearing safety glasses. I think I need to get some chemistry style goggles. Just need to make sure they are properly impact rated...