Well, went to my local mech for my usual oil change and decided since my
thermostat stuck on me last week that I would go ahead and change it to a 180
deg. one today. While drinking coffee and shooting the breeze, I get asked a
few questions by the owners son.. has your trook been making any ticking
sounds? Not that I have heard(explained other than the usual lifter noise
from almost 200k on the valve train). Then he showed me my brand new front
driveshaft, where the balancing weight had been hitting my exhaust pipe...
Oh nice, I figure something is out of whack(drivehaft out of balnace now?
maybe). Anyway while I'm there I look at the rear of my rotors, OMFG look at
all that chewed up disc! Those front discs and pads were brand new in May,
directly after I had all new ball joints put in in March. Well, that was the
next topic... My upper driver ball joint is about to fall out of the cup,
hence the clunking on rough roads and gravel. So I called the Casey dealer I
refuse to go back to and got the info about my ball joints, replacement dates
and mileage etc.. less than 20,000 miles on the new ball joints. The other
3 are solid. So what should have been a $30 oil change(with lucas oil
stabilizer) turned out to be $130 having rotors turned and added cost of a
cheap set of pads($25.00) I am home and leaving my truck sit until monday
when it goes back to the dealer.
I will venture to guess I have less than 500 miles on my truck since I got it
back in the middle of January(from car pooling to work).
What really pisses me off, is that they tore the entire front drive line out
of the truck, inlcuding the axle, rotors and hubs to replace the motor/front
drive shaft mounts and they did not notice 2 of the 3 things? Certainly
after reinstalling everything, and driving it they would have returned it to
the rack and inspected the driveline(they should have immediately noticed
these problems).
Anyway, enough bitching. A question here. My temp guage normally ran about
3/8 to half with the 195 thermostat(compared to fuel guage) and now runs
slightly off the cold (about 1/8 to 1/4) mark with the 180 thermostat. Is
this a normal operating zone for the 180 on the v6 magnums? Just curious
cause I drove it home and it never waivered on the gas hard or not.
--Bill Day
"A rich man isn't always wealthy, he just has all the love he can give and ever wanted.." http://counter.li.org #384146 284016
. . .------------------------------------------------------------------. | Make your plans NOW to attend the National DML Meet in Colorado! | | Date: July 15-23, 2006 - More info: http://meet.dakota-truck.net | `------------------------------------------------------------------'
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