I enjoy the tinkering aspect of it all more than the finished project. That was why I recently decided to replace the 6.5 diesel engine in my original owner 95 Suburban. I have never done anything major on a "modern" vehicle. I was always in fear of anything with a computer controlled system on it. But it was fun and exciting to pull that 1,000 lb hunk of iron and install a brand new assembly line engine, and be able to remove and replace all the fuel injection components from the old long block to the new one. I even bought the diagnostic program for my vintage windows XP laptop to set up the injection pump and retime it. (A guy in Sweden, of all places, reverse engineered the OBD-1 program that GM no longer supplies to its dealers to set the TDC timing). I got a great deal of satisfaction when it actually started up! And the ultimate leap of faith was then loading the whole family in it and going on a thousand mile vacation trip.
It was also cool to do the autopsy on the old engine and actually confirm the worn bearings predicted in the oil sample diagnosis...as well as the cracked block that was expected as well.
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