The Rest of the Truck Fix

Putting my truck back together ended up taking a little longer than I had previously expected, and I was working on it until about 1 pm on Sunday.  The job overall took just about 21 hours to complete.  On Saturday I knocked out about 10 of those hours and I was pretty tired by the end of that.  I tried to take a few more pictures this time and here they are:

Here is the lower part of the engine after I cleaned off the gasket surface and before putting the new gasket on.

The mating surface of the lower intake manifold cleaned up nicely too.

The lower intake manifold is back on with a new gasket and seal!

The gasket kit also came with a new gasket for the upper intake manifold.  I liked that the new gaskets were blue.

Here is everything put back together except for the air cleaning duct.  Figuring out where all the sensor plugs went actually was pretty easy, since they are all uniquely shaped.  Also notice the brand new serpentine belt.

The whole project, including coolant (but not including oil change stuff), cost about $90.  This includes a few extra things that I replaced while I had everything apart, like the serpentine belt and the PCV valve.  The price also includes a couple tools I needed and some new heater hose.  I haven't called for an estimate for what the repair would have cost me had I taken it into a shop, but after reading some forums, it sounds like it would cost around $800 to take it in.  And that is of course for just the gasket, which was only a $30 part.  So I think I saved myself a nice chunk of change for a lot of hard work.

I did have a little bit of a scare when I turned it back on.  First, the fuel line fitting wasn't put back together quite right, so I was leaking fuel.  But worse than that, one of my pistons wasn't firing.  After a lot of stressing out, talking to Sean, looking at a couple things, assuming it was a clogged fuel injector, feeling like I just wanted to tow it to a shop, and a lot of praying, it somehow worked itself out.  It shouldn't have, but it did, so I think I am going to attribute that fix to answered prayers.

Since I was so busy working on my truck any minute that I wasn't working, I unfortunately had to pass up a lot of hunting opportunities during the final week of the deer general season around here.  I did go out for a few hours when I was done working on my truck, but under quite non-ideal circumstances.  It was actually a very hot day.  I decided I wanted to try the same canyon I hunted last time from the bottom, but I couldn't find it, so I ended up going up a different canyon- John Nisqually Canyon.  It was a pretty decent spot, but the farther up I got I started to realize most of the deer sign was pretty old.  The only animal I saw on this outing (besides a bunch of birds) was a rattle snake.  He really freaked me out partly because I shouldn't have to worry about rattle snakes during hunting season, but more so because he started rattling about 3 feet from where I had just put my hand as I was climbing up the ridge.  Anyway, it was a still a nice little hike and I got some really great pictures.

Across the canyon you can see really well the entangled web of deer trails, which I thought was a good sign.

Here is a nice view from about halfway up the canyon.

I rested for a little bit and tried to watch for deer.  I had a view of the entire canyon, but there wasn't any wildlife to be seen.

Here is a nice shot of the sun setting over the Snake River Canyon and setting on the last thirty minutes of deer season.

This weekend I take off for the Selkirk Mountains up in the Northeast corner of the state for some elk hunting.  I am pretty excited for the trip.  The area where I will be hunting is actually the only mountain range in the entire lower 48 where caribou (reindeer) live, so hopefully I will get to see some of those (but definitely not shoot, since those guys are federally protected).

Nasty Gasket

I've had a very slow coolant leak for at least the last year and half now that I have tried my best to mostly ignore.  Starting back at the beginning of the summer, though, it started getting worse so much that my truck would start overheating if I ever used the heat.  But since it was summer, I decided to ignore it a little longer.  Now that it is getting colder, I don't have the luxury of ignoring it anymore and I have been forced to fix it.  The first challenge actually came with finding the leak.  With the engine block covered in dirt, oil, and grime after years of no attention, it was very difficult to see any new leak.  Nor was the leak in any of the usual places such as the radiator or a radiator hose.  With the help of some internet research done by Sean, I was able to pin it down.  That was the good news.  The bad news is the leak is through the lower intake manifold gasket.  To get to this, it meant I would have to disassemble about half of the engine.  And to do that, it meant I would have to disassemble everything that is on top of the engine under the hood.  

Well, I have gotten that far.  I have gotten all the way down to the guilty gasket, and there is no question that this is where the leak is coming from.  Apparently this is yet another common problem for my truck.  I was pretty happy, though, that getting to it only ended up taking a total of about 7 hours.  I imagine it will take me another 2 or so to get it cleaned up, and then hopefully less time to put it all back together than it took to pull it apart.  Of course, that is also assuming I remember where all of the sensor and electrical plugs go.

It is probably really good that I didn't ignore it for much longer, because the coolant passageways are starting to looks so bad that I am actually surprised I didn't end up with coolant in the crankcase.  My approach with my truck up to now has been to just fix problems as they arise, since there is so much wrong with it.  It looks like that philosophy could have spelled a lot of trouble (and probably a dead truck), but I don't really have the time or money to preemptively fix everything that is wrong with the truck, so I will just have to keep responding to problems as they arise.  I guess I could respond in a little more timely fashion next time, though.

This was the first picture I took during the job.  This is after everything above the lower intake manifold, including the upper intake manifold had been removed.

Here you can actually see the gasket/sealant protruding out from between the engine block and the lower intake manifold.

After I took the lower manifold off, you can see the horrible condition of the gasket all around.  Coolant was leaking from all sides, not just one point.  And there is clearly nothing left to the front seal.

Here is a closer image to the front seal.  The instruction said that I would have to pry the manifold off of the engine block, but since there was absolutely no seal left, it just popped off.

This is the left rear coolant passageway.  Not only was I leaking, but because of GM's awesome Dex-Cool, the passageway was mostly blocked with gunk.

The right rear coolant passageway was just as bad, if not worse.

Here are some of the random parts I removed throughout the process.  The black thing in the middle with the orange gasket is the upper intake manifold (upside-down) and the thing in the lower left corner is the lower intake manifold.

Deer Hunting!

Last weekend, I spent a lot of time carrying my gun around, up and down a bunch of canyons.  That is probably the best way to describe it.  I have yet to shoot my gun, though I have had a (legal) deer in my sights, but more on that later.

Saturday morning started out, or rather continued on from Friday night (I worked until 4:30 am and then took a shower then went out to hunt with no sleep), with a trip just about 15 miles from here to a spot called Almota creek.  Here, there were a few forested canyons that has a creek flowing through the bottom of it.  I saw a lot of does and a lot of Blaze orange vests, but no bucks.  There was one point, though, that a buck called after a whole stand of does for about 7 minutes so loud that the whole canyon could probably hear him.  Unfortunately, he was probably about 1000 yards away all the way across the canyon, not to mention I couldn't find him, despite seeing the 12 does.  Anyway, after walking around for long enough, and getting irritated with so many other people out there, and falling asleep in a wheat field for about an hour, I decided to call it a day and go home.

It has been cool enough lately to give some great fall colors.

This was in the bottom of the canyon here and a pretty cool tree by itself.

If my camera was better, you would be able to see all the of the orange speckling the hillside.

The next, having been so frustrated with how many people were at Almota Creek, I decided to try another spot.  On Sunday, I headed down to Rimrock Canyon.  It was a little farther away at 25 miles away, but it is a pretty sweet spot with canyons that start at the elevation we are at here in Pullman (actually a little higher), and go straight down to the Snake River Canyon 2000 feet below.  Right when I got there, I already knew it was going to be better because there were a lot less people.  Or maybe there was the same amount, but it seemed like less because there was about three times as much land.  Then, only about 10 minutes into being in the canyon, I saw my first buck.  He was running down the canyon, so I started to stalk him and tried to get close to him and above him in order to set myself up to take a shot.  After he disappeared behind a ridge line, I was able to get him in view again.  I brought my gun up just as he paused for a second.  But he was about 250 yards away and started to walk again.  I wasn't confident enough for my first shot to be so far away while he was still moving (not to mention I am not sure I completely trust my $35 rifle scope at that distance).  After that happened at the beginning of the day, I thought for sure this was going to be my day.  But after that, I saw a whole lot more does, and a couple coyotes, but no more bucks.  I heard a few shots, so I am pretty sure there were some other successes that day.  I also ran into a couple guys who were hauling their deer out from the day before, so it is pretty clear that this is a place where you can get a buck, which I was unsure of at Almota Creek.

Overall, it was a pretty awesome day.  I already like hiking, and this is just hiking plus the added potential of stalking and killing something that I can use for food for the winter.  It is just more time I get to spend outside in this awesome place that I live in.  I actually never realized that there were so many farms on the edge of town that had property lines that jump straight down to the river.  I love it.

I can't wait to get back out this weekend.  Hopefully I can make something happen because this weekend is my last chance to get a muley this year.  

The canyons here were crazy steep and much rockier than the day before.

Here is a picture showing the steepness of the canyon.  It was a little harder to walk up and down this one like the day before.

Once I was about 1/4 the way down, I finally had a nice view of the Snake River, 1500 feet below.

This was the canyon right next to the one I spent most of the morning in.

Trailbuilding and My First Hunt!

I know it has been a while since I have posted, but that is again due to not having too many adventures lately.  I have been pretty crazy busy working.  And when I am not working, I am usually trying to catch up on sleep.  But this weekend, I decided to forego the whole sleeping thing and have some adventures.  After working all through Friday night and getting home at 5 am, I slept for a couple hours and then went over to Moscow Mountain to help with a trail build day.  It was really hard to actually peel myself out of bed, but after working up on the mountain, I was very happy that I did.  I had a ton of fun, worked myself until I was sore, met a lot of cool people, and experienced some cool sights and sounds on Moscow Mountain.  One cool things that I heard was just as we were getting started, I heard a bull elk bugling in the distance.  It got me pretty excited for some elk hunting in a few weeks.

Here is a really big hole in a tree made by a very big woodpecker.  These were all over the place in one area we were working.

Here is one picture of the trail I was helping to build.  That log was actually already very conveniently cut down and cleared off a nearby logging road.  It served very well for a retaining wall. 

 Then after working hard on the trail, I made it back to Pullman started getting ready for the next day's adventure.  It might be about 20 years late, but on Saturday, I got my first ever hunting license!  I got the small and large animal license with tags for deer, elk, bear, and cougar.  I only had to work until midnight on Saturday night, so waking up early Sunday wasn't as hard as Saturday.  I got up and headed up to a spot a little north of here to hunt quail, chukar, and grouse.  I flushed a couple birds while I was out, but they were both too far away for me to get a shot.  I also saw a coyote in a field below me, but he was way too far for shotgun range.  I tried to get above him on the other side of the tree stand that he entered after the field, but he never came out.  And then I saw a couple deer, but deer season doesn't start until this weekend.  So, I came home empty handed for my first ever hunt, but it was still a ton of fun and it was a beautiful morning.

I also saw some cool things while I was out on this land.  The first picture on this post is a really cool old railroad bridge that crosses the South Fork of the Palouse River and was my access over the river to get where I hunted.  Below is a picture of an old homestead.  Once I saw the homestead, it made the random apple trees I had found make a lot more sense.  There are actually of a lot of relics and remnants of homesteads in the area, especially over on Moscow Mountain.  Then the other two pictures below are more pictures of the old railroad that was following the river.  The one that didn't turn out so well because of the lighting was a shot of it going straight through a hill, which this particular railroad does a lot.

And finally, yesterday I also made the drive up to Cabela's to get some other essentials for hunting, particularly a rifle.  Unfortunately, the trip was mostly unproductive, since they didn't end up having any rifles quite in my price range.  I did however, end up getting an awesome hunting pack that wasn't actually on the Cabela's website when I was scouting them out.  The inner chamber is much bigger than my current backpacking pack and it also has some other big pockets on the side and front.  One of the coolest parts about the pack is the hide-able hauling flap for hauling game out of the woods.  Now I am all set to do some backpacking hunting.

That's all for now.  Hopefully some future posts will have some pictures of some successes!