Atlas

Carbon on valves would be the least of my worries on a light duty, 1500-series pickup with 357k provided the engine still ran halfway decently. Everything else is likely toast, on its way out, or has already been mauled to death by cheap mechanics and backyard fixes. Those kinds of trucks nickel and dime a guy to death. I wouldn't think having the top end cleaned once or twice would be a big deal on a 5.3 but maybe it is?

When I had a Bumper subscription for a few days when I needed to run title histories on cars I was looking at, I decided to look up a few of my old/past vehicles. My 2015 Silverado was still actively registered and it last sold in 2024 with 160k on the clock. No idea if that's on the original engine but someone's keeping it on the road or the original AFM stuff is still going. It used 0w20. I remember feeding it Mobil 0w20 AFE for the first 30k of its life on <5k OCI's. Edit: Just did a nationwide search on Autotrader for 2015-2025 Silverados with 5.3's and sorted by highest mileage first. 357k 352k 292k 291k 290k 277k 271k 268k 266k 259k 256k High mileage on a modern 5.3 doesn't seem all that uncommon, but that's just searching mostly dealer ads on Autotrader. FB Marketplace has all kinds of high mileage 5.3's going back to 2007

Good looking Olds, and TRX! I haven't been into car shows either. I'm probably not a convert but I did push myself this year to attend a few select events to challenge some assumptions and try to experience car-based social clubs in a different way. I joined up with the local Hagerty group for some cars/coffee events, group drives. A month ago I showed my '94 Camaro I rescued last fall at Radwood. Had a good time, but, there was some sitting around with the car and that's the part of shows I don't enjoy as much. I prefer to be a spectator, walk the show, grab a burger, go home. Radwood was the only era-limited event, but where it had strict model year limitations, it made it up in variety. Having Jason Camissa there was also a hoot. Where I see old 50's car shows, doo-wop and winga dinga music stuff fading out, same with "only" vintage muscle clubs, it seems to be the activity-based clubs/events which are gaining strong popularity. Places where all cars and interests come together.

$5.06 at our Kroger today

I never liked the choppiness of AFM (or DFM) in my '15 and '20 Silverados and IMO it's worth disabling just for the driving experience alone. I wonder what the actual failure rate of AFM/DFM is.

Thanks for following along. I'm not author material, my tenses are all over the place and an editor would have a heck of a time cleaning up after me. Reading and writing is still a fun pastime though. My new scanner came in yesterday, wow, where the heck has this thing been?! It connects right up to the Blazer, there's all kinds of bidirectional tests like EGR activation and percentage, toggle the fuel pump relay, EVAP purge valve, IAC control, AC relay, reset the transmission's adaptive learning, toggle shift solenoids and TCC lockup, and I can reset fuel trims with the click of a button...all things I could have used over the last 60 days! It's also telling me there is a stored code in the ABS module for front left wheel sensor open and something about the brake switch. The ABS dash light works. It illuminates normally during the self-test at key on/ start and that's it. I cleared the codes and will see if they set when I take it out later. That, and I'm going to get (hopefully) real data on timing and cam ******. The PID's are there. I connected the tool to my truck...holy smokes. Newer vehicles make early OBDII vehicles look like 8-bit, pixelated, early Nintendo stuff. This? This is like wearing 3D virtual reality goggles playing one of those elaborate, cinematic video games with seasons and plots in comparison. There are SO MANY modules and SO MANY tests and SO MUCH data. There's a scanner sequence for filling the coolant... End of the day, it's a tool with way more power than I need, but the versatility to do old and new is there (and I need an adapter to connect it to my OBDI Camaro). It will allow me to do the first pass of diagnosis when out-of-warranty vehicles need help, and it will enable more DIY maintenance like brake system bleeding, ABS bleed, etc. I probably over-bought here, but, mission is accomplished. Enjoy your Sunday...I need to shut this machine down and go get ready for the week ahead.

Declaring victory would upset the demons that possess this Blazer, so I won't. But I did make progress today--after it put up a fight. Always a fight. I had the day off so I spent the morning cleaning up the shop and I thought I'd get ahead of things by filling the cooling system in prep for the final part I needed to arrive: the driver's side knock sensor. Glug, glug, glug....and then the unmistakable sound of liquid hitting the shop floor. It induces the same chagrin when the sonar and targeting laser temporarily malfunction during a late night bladder evacuation over the toilet with the bathroom light off. D'OH!!! That made a mess... Oh, hey, that knock sensor I removed? It threads into a wet port. Who knew?! Learn something new every day. Put a pin in that chore, I'll fill it the rest of the way later. The knock sensor arrived at about 1pm. I threaded it in, connected the wire, filled up the coolant, checked for leaks, and... drumroll.... fingers crossed for a perfect start, excellent timing, model fuel trims, and ...no squeaks... Here goes..... No, it didn't start. At all. I cranked it a few times and it wasn't sounding good. Furthermore, I heard leaking again. Jesus H Tapdancing Christ, stop leaking all over the dang floor. This time I had accidentally overfilled the coolant reservoir and the churn of the water pump via cranking caused a bit to burp out. Ok, just, breathe... Put the flamethrower down. Dang thing wouldn't burn anyway, leaks too much... Did you know the rotation of a round crank sensor in a round hole, matters? I do now. Took me about half hour to retrace steps and realize what I had done. Then it started right up. No squeaks. The squeak was the old balancer. Once it entered closed loop, fuel trims are dead on, hovering right around zero at idle. No more -30%. I'll credit the injector rebuild on that one. Timing? I think there's an OBD 1.5 translation error with my Actron scanner. It's anywhere from -20 to -30 at idle, sometimes as high as -40 cruising. Sorry, the engine just isn't running that smoothly at -40 degrees ignition advance. It's just not. It's smooth all through the rev range and has decent power. I'm going to have to trust the seat of my pants on this one. The new exhaust is very quiet. The old catalytic converter? Not melted, but definitely not healthy. Rains glitter when you turn it on its end...all the precious metal is flaking out. Once the new exhaust system burned in/smoked off a bit, the engine's exhaust smell is normal again. Not that I'd recommend going around huffing car exhaust, but, you know what I mean? One problem to correct. The new exhaust has the opposite problem of the old spliced up exhaust. It wants to hit the floor where the old one wanted to rest on the cross member. Happy medium, please? Still noodling on that one, need to look at how I can adjust some hangers. I don't know what's next. On one hand I want to run away from this thing as far and as fast as I can -- there have been a lot of NOT fun moments. On the other, now that it kinda drives nice, maybe drive it around for a little bit? Shhh... it's not currently dripping oil all over the floor. I can see just a little wet at the bottom of the timing cover where it meets the oil pan seal. It's not dripping multiple drops with every ignition cycle, in fact, after some driving this evening it has yet to even form a drop that could drip off yet. But the weekend is young... I fully expect this could turn into Exxon Valdez by Sunday. Because this Blazer hates me. LOL.

Triumph makes me think of cars not bikes. Especially with model names like the TR7, that was a Triumph car model too. Peak TR for me was the TR250. You could retain the post-war roadster looks, with an optional surrey hard top, but with an inline 6 engine instead of the TR4's anemic 4-cylinder, but still have a 4 speed, optional overdrive. I know almost nothing about Triumph bikes, except that they exist. Good looking bikes though. I don't know if I could just have one vehicle. The Silverado does it all except for fitting anywhere. But it leaves a void in real driving enjoyment, unless driving an extremely large sofa is your thing. What did I do to my 'other' (muslce car - which one!?) vehicle lately. I took my '23 SS for a drive. It's only got 1600 miles. I keep reminding myself I shouldn't be so precious about this car. It likes to be driven. Needs to be driven. Life is short and if I don't enjoy it, someone else will. The other half calls it "the garage ornament".

No stick in the RS3. It's 3.6 seconds 0-60, there's no time to shift manually. Too much interruption for the transfer of that kind of power. Our last S4 had the 7-speed dual clutch setup with the supercharged 6. That was a fast car and the DSG fired off lightning fast shifts, up and down. It's wasn't a manual but it was a different kind of fun. Point and hang on. DSG's have a manual mode and they shift as fast as you can click the paddle even when you want to skip multiple gears on a downshift.

In addition to a cell or wifi connection, the infotainment needs to be enabled to download software updates. That's a toggle within the system settings. But...if the truck was prevented from receiving updates in a past life, missing a bunch of updates may mean it won't go back and download all of those because they're not available or the system is too far out of date. If a formal recall depends on a software update, the recall for that truck remains in an open status until it's applied. The dealer would need to apply the software update in that instance. Most updates downloaded and applied via the infotainment aren't recalls/safety recalls, they're enhancements and usability fixes which aren't critical.

For most of you, this is probably outside your realm of interest, but, maybe you can appreciate it. The hood and wheels aren't something I'm interested in, but someone made a very rowdy Audi S4... amazing sound. These were/are very fun cars for the money. Not going to lie, I'm getting an itch to own a newer Audi RS3. The 5-cylinder will be changing, or going away, at the end of this year.

There's a Falcon for sale near me, red. A bit of a basket case, but highly original and not much rust. Would be a fun project! The one in the segment posted above sounds amazzzzing!! Tasteful upgrades, too. If anyone reading hasn't watched it, turn your sound up!

Why is gas up? Same reason the deficit is now $40 Trillion.

True. My statement needs qualification. "For a shade tree mechanic, re-assembling the front engine to achieve a rough baseline timing of 0 degrees, as is approximated and indicated by common visual indicator mark alignment, measured with a human eye capable of 20/20 vision *with correction, I am reasonably confident that I have followed the outlined procedures/ prescribed methods for verifying baseline timing." In the end, the computer sets the timing, it's continuously variable based on sensor input, and the distributor only has a degree or two of physical adjustability intended for dialing in the final setting for cam ****** once everything is back together. But even that final value is acceptable within, I believe, +/- 3 degrees. I thought my exhaust project was going to be a bear. To my surprise, the old clamps came right off last night, and I was able to unbolt all the hangers instead of having to muscle the rubber mounts. The old cat is ready to slip off the factory y-pipe. The rest is ready to come out with one or two cuts, and I've got a fresh blade waiting. I love living where rust isn't a thing.

If there are updates/fixes you want, you could pay to have the updates applied by the dealer.

I ordered the Snap On...waiting for it to come in later this week or early next week. New front cover, new crank seal and new balancer are on. Water pump, pulley, fan, hoses, and plastics reinstalled. I can move forward knowing all my timing marks are dead on and the front engine is hopefully sealed better than it was. Take 2 with the water pump...trying high temp thread sealer on the lower bolts. Rebuilt injector and new-new regulator is in, it looks like new. Top intake reassembled and all the bits are reconnected and snugged down. Thinking about knock sensors again, I located both of mine and, there's your problem, Francis... The driver's side one is broke, plastic is bashed in, part of the wire is bare, and it appears to have been damaged like that for a long time. I saw the wire but didn't think anything of it. The knock sensor might not be my pulled timing issue, but it sure looks suspect. It must still be conducting, otherwise I'd expect a CEL. But perhaps with its sacred crystal inside exposed, jilted and dirty, maybe it's sending mixed signals. So I'm waiting for one of those and a new pigtail to come in. Pass side sensor looks good, except for the spark plug wire resting on it (!). The plug wires are healthy so it shouldn't be causing an issue, but I separated them and added zip ties to nearby looms to keep everything well apart. So, I'm down to installing a knock sensor AND, oh, replacing the exhaust and cat. I actually think that's going to be fairly easy, it's all bolt-together, all new stuff from Walker is laid out on the shop floor ready to go. Hopefully have this thing on the road again for the weekend. My luck? It will still be leaking oil, coolant, pulled timing, intermittent CEL for running rich, or it probably won't run at all -- because that's how this project has gone. I've never worked on a vehicle so ...hurt? ...cursed? in my life. Everything has been effed with SO HARD, but I think...knock on wood...I've managed to undo all the backyard stuff and we're almost reset back to "just" an 80k mile, 30 year old Blazer.

This actually happened. Be careful where you get your information re: gas price trends.

I understand the principle...you don't want to spend $150 for a $0.02 piece of plastic or a little screw and perch thingy. But this is a problem that looks like it can be reliably solved with a zip tie. That might hold you over until you can score one at a pick-a-parts yard.

It's possible the two trucks are using different body control modules which is why yours works and the OP's doesn't. So much in these newer vehicles depends on model/trim configurations, production date. They don't all use the same modules like back in the day.

Understanding and using modern scan tools is its own body of knowledge. I had little hope that would work...programming access to the BCM is probably required and that is not easy for us consumers. Expensive scan tool, GM programming subscription, online authentication, etc. It also may be a matter of finding the right dealer to program it for you. Flashing a modern BCM might be a little too advanced for most tire shops.

Facts tell the story, news agencies sometimes add spin. Some agencies more than others, and some have been found guilty of actually lying and making things up. If you think one or two agencies are the only ones who tell you the truth, more than likely you've only found your preferred flavor of spin, not a cornered market on factual information. And that's just as dangerous. Folks are going to lie to themselves anyway and form opinions which aren't based in reality or fact and they live amongst us.

Unauthorized use will turn your truck into a 1995 Chevy Cavalier. Use with caution? Can you get a refund?

My TV remotes are fine, thanks.

I only have a few of the ACDelco blue remaining. One or two of the (old, old) ACDelco Professional boxes, and a couple of the newer style GM boxes with the simulcast in Chinese along with English. FWIW they've all been pretty good, regardless of where they are made, and in 20 years I've never had a problem with an e-core filter. Now I have a couple of the "A" series in my home inventory. They come in a plain white box with the GM hologram sticker and model information. Have not installed one yet, want to use up my oldest inventory first.