Quote Originally Posted by BradMph View Post
I didn't know you had an automatic in your truck. You may get a straight rod from them and have to bend it to match yours. You should check rockauto maybe and use promo code. Could save you a couple bucks if you have something else to work on until they arrive. Those auto stores are just so expensive.

Let us know how things go Tink.
Oh Brad, I'm so sorry I thought (wrongly) that it was in the profile info that shows on the posts here that it's an auto. But now that I just looked I don't see it, so I'll see about putting it in the signature? I know that's SO important too can't believe I didn't pick up on that before Dang it.

Sighs, been a long year already!!! Ok so I'll fix that, and yes, the auto shift stick (what is that even called not a stick-shift) isn't such an issue since I relocated the fuse box. My bf's legs are so long it was in the way for him but not for me so it was really only me trying to be nice. I still keep trying to find the clutch- 3rd pedal with my foot & miss the knob in my car a whole lot! Man anyways, thank you & YES that's what I was wondering about bending one or finding one already bent, you know those types that have skulls & eballs & stuff for knobs come with different length shafts - but never saw an auto w/one yet.

SO... I was serious about the head gasket. Went to deal with the radiator today, and my kid kept saying I should change the oil (since he drives the truck he's got a hundred opinions now what I should do). I kept saying: I'm not worried about the oil, I'm worried about getting it to stop using so much coolant, couldn't figure out where it was "STILL" leaking from since I replaced hoses, etc. etc. been watching it like a hawk. I'm always on his case about 3k oil changes (old-fashioned like my dad was)... yeah it can go longer than that but I don't like to & he picks up on that, 100 miles away from the 3k mark 'mom'.

Then today when I went out to find out where those tiny coolant hoses go I was poking around & checking all the fluids... pulled off the oil cap to smell it, even though the dipstick showed the level was good, since I'm anal like that and always smell the oil as if I know what I'm doing lol (aka for a gas smell just in case) and there was foam in the oil, thick grey sludge. Just on the bottom of the cap, no cardboard color crap or grey foamy sludge on anything IN the engine, pulled the plugs, fouled w/carbon but not oily at all, then pulled the valve cover, taking a billion pics in the process since I'm sure to forget how something goes back on.

The middle pic below shows the grey sludgey oil.

That was the ONLY spot that I've found with it other than the oil cap rubber o-ring gasket thingie itself.

I'm "thinking" I caught it just in time or just as it was starting happening since when I drove it to the store today it sounded & ran GREAT. I pull that cap off multiple times a week in all seriousness since it's still 'new' to me. But who knows?! I've got LOADS to learn.

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I'm going to read up on some sort of tool to lock the chain in place so I don't have to figure out how to reset the timing chain (probably saying that wrong), and where the heck the silent shaft is in this engine if it has one. Trying to go by the book of course and follow all the directions is hard when I'm not used to this engine - or an automatic - at all.