Shoutout to the guy who showed me how to use a bore scope on a high mileage engine
I was fighting a rough idle on a 2005 F-150 with 220k miles and couldn't figure it out for two days. He took five minutes to scope the cylinders and found carbon buildup on the intake valves I would have never seen. Anyone else find that bore scopes are way more useful than you'd think for older trucks?
Carbon buildup on the valves gets overlooked all the time on those Triton engines. A bore scope is one of those tools you don't realize you need until you actually use it and see what's going on inside. I picked one up last year after chasing a misfire on my 2000 Silverado and it saved me from throwing parts at it. Ended up being a cracked piston skirt that no amount of regular diagnostics would have caught. Really changes how you approach older trucks when you can actually see the internals.