1998 Chevy Silverado Needs new engine

Well, Hmmmm. Can your 16 year old son take care of it? Mine can't. But, if he can, there's a couple of ways to look at it. Yes, it's ok to sink the money into a remanufactured engine. However, if the truck has been mistreated all it's life, then when is the transmission going to fail? What about the rear end? Power steering pumps fail. There's no way to get away from that. I wouldn't let that part scare me. Nor the distributor, nor the ac head. Those parts fail. I would call it a coincidence that it all happened at the same time. The only thing I would think long and hard about is what kind of condition is the rest of the drive train in. If it's an automatic, has the fluid been changed regularly? Have you been able to drive it any before the motor quit? If so, did the tranny shift ok? No abnormal noises coming from the rear end? If all that appears to be ok, the YES, by all means, fix the young man's truck. Make him mow your yard for the next 15 years to pay you back and let him know that it's not a tank and that he needs to be mindful of how fragile these things can be. And if he thinks HE'LL have to pay for the tranny or rear end when it goes out, maybe he'll take it easy on it. My son's learning the hard way. Just this morning, I had to go pull HIS out of the mud because he thought 'it would make it'. He was wrong. I hope I've been of some help. If you need anything else, just holler.

Not really. If it shifts good and strong, and doesn't slip when you're accelerating, it should be ok. I would recommend having it serviced. That just involves removing the transmission pan, replacing the filter and fluid. Have your mechanic look at the fluid that comes out and have him look at the little magnet inside the pan. If there are any metal chunks on it, there's a problem. There will be some gunk on it, don't worry about that. That's just normal 'dust' from the clutches accumulating. If there are any solid pieces of metal on it, though, there will be problems in the future. That's about the only way to predict any tranny problems. Same thing goes for the rear end. He can take the cover off and look inside for metal chunks or things like that. The fluid needs to be changed anyway. Good luck. If you have any more questions in the future, if you'll reply directly to this dialog, I'll get it. If not, one of the other guys might.