Actually it didn't really make any noise, just started stumbling a little and a couple days later (this morning) the temp spiked hard. I only had about a quarter mile to go and got it into work before it red-lined. Just got towed into the local dealership (they're as reliable here and in the same price range as the local shops, and the timing is way bad for me to wait in line at the little guy's place). Naturally, I can find no leak, so it must have blown in and not out.

I can't remember seeing it, but anyone else blown one on a high-mileage T? How'd it work out? Or did it? They're skeptical about resurrecting it with 197k on it...well, I think the service advisor is more skeptical than me and the tech, but............

Pisser is just six weeks ago I had a Marlin transmission dropped into it.

I had one of mine go out, but it was collateral damage from a bad fuel injector. Injector went bad, cylinder ran lean/hot, took out (melted/wore down) spark plug and cracked gasket. Gasket didn't really show itself for a while after I replaced the injector and spark plug, but eventually coolant was disappearing and then steam was coming out of the exhaust as it got worse.

Anyway, that was a year or less ago, so I had well over 250k (280k now). I replaced the gaskets myself and have had zero problems since. Engine runs like new. I think the head/intake gaskets were about $500 from the dealer, but I'm sure that's cheap compared to what they'd have charged to do the whole job. I didn't do any head or bottom end work either. Just checked/adjusted the valves while I was in there.

Cool, so I'm going to continue to be hopeful.
Naturally this went down the second day that I went back to work, so I'm having to have it done, and yep, it's steep. The math of the transmission reman and this, I figure I'll have as decent a used car as I'd get if I threw up my hands and said "no mo T."
The reports have been good: crosshatch still visible from the recall job 13, 14 years ago, no temperature discoloration anywhere or other collateral damage so far. No knocks. The heads went to a machine shop yesterday to be resurfaced and pressure checked.

Bummer to hear about the headgasket. Any clues as to a cause? Just the 197K? Glad to hear the prognosis seems good.

Joel

Seems to just be age. I picked up a buzzing/whirring on the way out of the woods the week before that sounded like a pump or pulley bearing, but I'm not sure it's related...or it might have been the hiss of this starting to leak. When the noise appeared I'd just exited a creek and was climbing up a fairly loose hill. Kinda figured I'd wasted the alternator or maybe that the fuel pump was reaching that point...and maybe I still get to look forward to that, too. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" />