One thing I wanted to do before putting more miles on the truck was upgrade to an HEI distributor. I did this on my last truck and it really cleaned up the idle and responsiveness of the truck.
After completing the HEI swap, I had a chance to take the truck out on a longer test drive, this time a 25 mile venture. To do so, it was time for the first fillup. I hadn't even come to a complete stop at the pump when someone came over raving about the truck and how he used to have one ages ago. These interactions are one of the reasons I love driving these old trucks.
All was going well until about 15 miles in when I noticed the temp gauge was continuing to creep up. Then the motor started pinging so I knew the temp gauge wasn't lying to me. I was able to limp the truck home and by the time I reached the driveway the temp gauge was pegged.
On my last truck, I pulled the pan to fix a few oil leaks and replace the nylon timing gear. I figured this truck had the same, so I might as well move this maintenance item to urgent and inspect the crank bearings while I'm in there.
Upon pulling the pan, it looked very much like my last truck complete with the oil pickup jam-packed with bits of nylon from the timing gear. Logic dictated that possibly this was starving the motor of oil causing it to overheat, but my oil pressure reading was correct.
Ultimately, my brainstorming on what was causing the overheating was terminated when I pulled two of the crank caps off to reveal bearings that were very much at the end of their usable life. At this point, I knew overheating was the least of my worries and I was going to need a complete engine overhaul.
