I tend to do my best diagnostic work over the long haul. About three winters ago, the Exploder began to produce a little ticking noise. Not unheard of, and not uncommon. My first thought was to yank a head and see fi I had a sticky lifter- a very common thing on older 302 V-8 engines, and this one is sporting 260,000 miles.

Today, obsessing a bit over whether I should try to rip this lifter out and replace it before going to Dallas, or see how it fares during the trip, I had an interesting thought.

I had been under the truck yesterday, doing a trans filter change. A pain, but worth doing on a truck that old. And while I was down there, I noticed the headpipe on the driver’s side was clean. Not “new” clean but abnormally hot clean- like it’s had a lot of heat.

So tonight I scoot back under (amazing how easy this is, when you don’t have an extra spare tire!) and look at that joint. I can slip the tip of my knife blade into the joint.

So I spray a little penetrant on the bolt, and unscrew it.

Now, most may not have any idea of the import of that statement. Let me repeat: I sprayed a little penetrant on an EXHAUST BOLT, and then UNSCREWED IT.

mechanics among you will marvel at that statement. For the rest, unscrewing an exhaust system bolt on a 9 year old truck with 261,000 miles on it is IMPOSSIBLE. it has NEVER HAPPENED.

until today.

So I took it out, ran the threads with a die, anti-seized the bejus out of it, and ran it back in.

And my rattle almost disapeared.

I still have to do the OTHER bolt, but I will get to it when I can.

Just knowing that it’s not a lifter rattling around in there waiting to fail is a godsend. It makes me feel 100% better about the trip.