Vicki needs a new heart...

[Mile High VX]

Hey Mark that is so sad....

If you determine that you'll be doing the work yourself at some point I'd be glad to help!

[Scott Larson]

Sorry to hear that Mark, I was hoping it was a "simple" valve problem. I'll be glad to help if I can...

[MSHardeman]

I dropped Vicki off at the surgeons this morning and she should be going under the knife very soon. She was a little scared and nervous, but I held her tire and told her that everything was going to be just fine and that when she woke up she would feel like a kid again. I also let her know that we would need to take it easy for a little while, but that we would be tearing it up both on and off road before she knew it.

I have to say that the new Isuzu engine was VERY pretty and VERY complete with only minor things needing to be switched over from the old engine. It was still in the crate with plastic covering it, but I did get some pictures that I will share when I can get them off my phone. One of the pieces of paper stapled to the crate said that the engine had a manufacture date of October 2011. Super cool, because I thought that it was a "new" engine from 2001 or so.

[VXorado]

Does Vicki have an ETA for completion?

[MSHardeman]

Does Vicki have an ETA for completion?

The surgeon.....ummm, mechanic......thinks that they MIGHT be able to get it done by tomorrow evening, but it may push into Tuesday (due to the holiday) sometime. I also asked them to clean the fuel injectors and split the common chamber apart and give it a good cleaning too because the last time I looked in there it was covered with oil gunk.

Can't wait to have Vicki back to full power.

[VXorado]

Can't wait to have Vicki back to full power.

I bet you're excited.

My engine has been chugging a little recently, probably nothing but the exhaust sounds a bit like Vicki's in Moab. I haven't noticed any difference in power or had CELs, it's just the way it sounds. I'm changing spark plugs tomorrow and I'm hoping that will make the engine purr. I'll admit, i'm a little worried i'm developing the same issue... hopefully its just in my head.

[JoFotoz]

Get well soon Viki!!

Jo

[Gussie2000]

Good for you hard !

Make full sense get her a new engine if you gonna keep for the long time instead of getting into a car loan.

Wll you share how much $$$ the engine cost ?

[MSHardeman]

Wll you share how much $$$ the engine cost ?

OK, I PM'd this info to Gussie earlier and asked him to keep it under wraps until I talked to Jerry Lemond to see if it was OK with him to release the price. Just got a message back from Jerry and he said that it is OK to release the price of the engine and that he would be happy to help anyone else out if they needed/wanted a new engine too. I won't post it up here just to make sure that he doesn't get swamped, but I would be happy to PM anyone his email address so you can get in touch with him. When he ordered my engine last Monday there were only 15 of them left in the country.

Through Jerry I ended up paying $5700 for the brand new, zero miles Isuzu engine. Merlin was quoting $6500-$6700 for what I can only guess is the same engine. Again, these engines are BRAND NEW and they come with just about everything on them. They even have spark plugs already installed. The only things that you need to swap over from the old engine are the coil packs, fuel injectors, fuel injection rails, the intake manifold and maybe the fan clutch/fan assembly (I can't remember if it was there when I looked at the engine in the crate). From what Jerry tells me these engines have the updated pistons and rings and do not have the oil burning issues that some of the original engines have. He has one of these engines in his Trooper and has 166,000 miles on it, with the last 60,000 miles being super charged, and has not burned a drop of oil in all that time.

Jerry said that the $5700 price is only good for 30 days, or so, as everytime he gets a new quote the price seems to go up a bit.

Jerry also just sent me an email with a picture on where to drill the extra oil drain holes in the existing pistons. It, sort of, makes sense to me, but I will start a new thread with his instructions and the picture in case someone wants to attempt to drill the extra holes in their pistons. I may actually give this a try once I tear into my old engine to see exactly what happened to it.

If you have any questions about anything post them here for everyone's benefit, or PM me and I'll answer what I can.

GO FARTHER!!

[MSHardeman]

Just wanted to update everyone about what has gone on with Vicki's heart transplant:

We're about a month and a half, and 3,000 miles into the engine transplant and everything is going well. I don't want to say that the new motor doesn't burn ANY oil because I did have to add just a little bit the other day during a gas stop, but that is the first time that I have had to add oil in nearly 3000 miles. Since I used to have to add 3/4 of a quart every 300 miles, the new engine is a VAST improvement over the old one. The new engine does run a few degrees warmer than the old one did, but the mechanic said that is normal due to the tight tolerances with the new engine and it should run cooler as everything breaks in.

There were/are a couple of issues that happened during the swap. Apparently the mechanic had to drop the front axle out of the way in order to get to some bolts either on the starter or on the bell housing (can't remember which). When they did that the passenger side inner CV boot tore so they had to replace the boot. We are all still waiting on a new sensor that connects to the steering box, I think. Apparently, and this took a while to figure out, it senses when the VX is at a low speed and bumps up the RPM's of the motor to allow the steering pump to work harder thus making it easier to steer. The wire leading to this sensor had been broken for a while so it must not be all that important to the operation of the VX, but we figured that we should replace it to get everything back to factory. The sensor is on extreme backorder and won't be in from Isuzu until November sometime. Either way, I'm still driving Vicki and everything seems to be going fine so we'll just replace the sensor when it comes in.

One other issue that has popped up is a knock sensor throwing a check engine light. The knock sensor was moved from the old engine to the new one so who knows what's going on with it. The check engine light only comes on when I hit 35 to 40 mph the first time after starting the VX. If I clear it then it won't come on again until I stop the VX and turn the key off. The next time I start the car, whether it's 10 minutes or 10 hours later, the CEL will come back on the next time I hit 35 to 40 mph. It's got me a little baffled, but since I can't hear any knocking in the engine I can only guess that the sensor itself is bad.

All in all I'm extremely happy with the new engine and it's great to have Vicki back on the road again.

[Ldub]

Good to hear for the most part Mark...

I'm happy FOR you!...

[pbkid]

good on you mark! are we going to see the new motor next weekend?

[Triathlete]

Glad to hear you are getting her squared away Mark!

[Mile High VX]

Congrats Mark!

I'd do the same for mine...

Hope she's back in your hands soon...

[VXorado]

Mark, have you noticed a power increase driving up those mountain roads with the fresh engine, compared to before you started having issues on cylinder 3?