i recently made a post re: excessive oil consumption in my 87 half ton sl6 pickup. i appreciate the excellent advice from Dan and others re: flushing the engine, fixing leaks, etc but none of those seemed to help. it is now consuming oil at the rate of 1 qt per 250 miles or so and puffs a lot of blue smoke on downshifts. I think it is probably a broken oil ring but have pretty much given up on any solution short of a complete rebuild. My question is what kind of experiences do you all have with the rebuilt / remanned engines from any of the big suppliers like jasper or recon, etc? in addition to perhaps buying a fresh rebuild i am also considering installing an extra sl6 i have from my big block duster project. it is a solid lifter motor with 75K miles. it ran good but i really didnt have it long enough to know how much oil it consumed. it has been in dry storage but i didnt put any oil or lube in the cylinders before i put it away. Thanks for any advice. This is an excellent site and i read it every day. Dean

It wouldn't hurt to check the other motor out (they are pretty durable)... it might get you by for a while longer than the 'road oiler'...
I have yet to buy a remanf engine, for the 'wait' and the price if you do your own assembly you can do much better yourself if you have a good machine shop supporting you....

Give the other mill a try and in the meantime check your options before getting a '1 year' warrantee motor...

-D.Idiot

If you absolutely have to have a "remanufactured" engine I would insist on a Jasper unit; they have built up a very good reputation for quality and for standing behind their products, and they even have fairly good flexibility as far as specifying components and such for your particular engine if you want. But as DI says, you can do better by assembling your own engine. And really, it wouldn't be hard to check out the spare engine you have. It'll either be a drop-in-and-go or a good one to build up locally.

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Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Hello,

Right off I'm gonna say "no way" to the rebuilt because of bad experienceswith them and price. BUT as the old saying goes, "there's rebuilt and then ther'is rebuilt!

Ordinarily I'd jump at the chance to use a slant with only 75 thousand on it....hard to see much that could be wrong that wouldn't be easy to correct. Hoist it up, pressure wash it, look it over, turn it over with a wrench, and slide it in. Fundamentally you are gonna be pulling one and putting in another. If you find a problem with your 75k in hand, here is a third approach:

Use a rebuilt very short block from ebay seller Robzet. These are GREAT rebuilds in my experience and his service is superior re. shipping. You add your head, pan, cam, lifters, and pumps. The blocks were bored, tanked, new bearing and seals an so on and were done for military use back in the 80's. They lived in a parts depot in wood crates and Robzet bought some. They come with the FSM for the engine and it is still wrapped up inside the crate.

Other than price the reason I like them is because you clearly see what you have to start with, which is new and matched, and if you are going to swap in an engine anyway, you have a real good start to add a few goodies to and you will have a really good engine for less than the cost of a so called rebuild. This option does mean you don't mind adding parts to a block though. I enjoyed my first one as a way to learn and save money.

rock
'64d100

thank you all. based on this i think i will use the solid lifter engine off my duster and maybe clean it up a little and replace all the seals and gaskets and other easy stuff that can be done while its out (like the oil pump).

aside from jasper (which has a pretty good reputation) i really havent heard anything good or bad about the other remanned engine brands but based on your advice i will steer clear for now. i would love to rebuild one but just cant find the time anymore for that it seems

thanks again. any other thoughts are appreciated. dean