Arrg, broke down with a dreaded lifter failure on my ‘23 GMC Sierra

This whole discussion has got me thinking... I have a 94 Chevy K1500 with almost 250K miles on it. 5.7 engine and tranny have been really good. My smog guy exclaims every time that my engine is like brand new. Passes with flying colors every time. But... the rear seal is leaking quite badly--I've put Blue Devil in it every oil change which only slows it down for a short time. The AC compressor has tanked and there are some electrical gremlins with the lights and dash. BUT IT RUNS AND DRIVES SO WELL inspire of those things.

I was given an estimate of around $4000 to fix the oil seal and one shop basically said junk it--not worth fixing.

But as @two-bit posted; The devil you know vs the devil you don't know. Right?! I kind of like the devil I know!
 
RunThruDaJungle said:
This whole discussion has got me thinking... I have a 94 Chevy K1500 with almost 250K miles on it. 5.7 engine and tranny have been really good. My smog guy exclaims every time that my engine is like brand new. Passes with flying colors every time. But... the rear seal is leaking quite badly--I've put Blue Devil in it every oil change which only slows it down for a short time. The AC compressor has tanked and there are some electrical gremlins with the lights and dash. BUT IT RUNS AND DRIVES SO WELL inspire of those things.

I was given an estimate of around $4000 to fix the oil seal and one shop basically said junk it--not worth fixing.

But as @two-bit posted; The devil you know vs the devil you don't know. Right?! I kind of like the devil I know!
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At 250k, that would be a hard check to write for a rear seal. Tough call.

We wrote a $6k check to rebuild the automatic transmission in our ‘96 F250 PowerStroke, which was almost as much as we paid for the truck used, but it only had 130k miles on it, and these routinely go 300k, so we figured it was worth it.

We’d loaned it and a large gooseneck trailer to a church camp to evacuate horses during the Caldor Fire, and they fried it. But the E4OD is a weak transmission anyway, and needs to be driven with care. so we couldn’t really couldn’t blame them, and we took the opportunity to upgrade components and add a big cooler.
 
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One problem with the older stuff is the lack of support from manufacturers. Unless it was extremely popular and used in many models some replacement parts are very hard to get. But then I’m comparing that to the lack of support for new stuff. What a mess.
 
Expensive repairs on older vehicles are painful, but when you compare shelling out a significant amount of dough for repairs several years into ownership to something like $800/month for payments on a new vehicle, if you like what you're driving and it's otherwise serviceable, it's awfully tempting to get it fixed.

The toughest part is finding a skilled repair facility that you can trust and that will stand behind their work. (Unless -- of course -- you are a @Rocket or a @Greaser007 [or any one of the other master mechanics around here], and then you don't have to worry about the risks of farming the work out...)

All that said...
 
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RunThruDaJungle said:
Whew! even admits he talks too much haha1

@Lookout Ranch and @Joe B you nailed my dilemma!

I have been looking up YouTube video and on the OBS forum with the idea of trying it myself.
It might be cheaper to do an engine swap but that could be getting the devil I don't know.
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The hardest part about the rear main on yer truck is gonna be get the trans out and back in !
If you have a good trans jack, thats half the battle.
You could pull the engine, but i prefer heavy objects close to the ground when possible.
Not sure what your set-up looks like for doing things like this.
But with enough cussing, borrowing, and friends. It "could" get done in a weekend.
 
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