carkhz316

These trucks don't utilize a heater control valve like others do. If your truck is up to operating temp, but both heater hoses are not hot, then it would seem there is little to no flow to/ through the heater core. Is one (inlet) slightly warmer though? If so, then your core is plugged.

Absolutely. I often forget about the cracked accumulator pistons.

Yes, you should see a few plastic tabs that snap into place around the perimeter of the cluster. Release them with a pick or your fingers, and you can remove the entire clear lens from the front of the cluster. Start with the "top" and pull it back to release the two "bottom" ones that are a bit trickier to undo. When you have it in front of you, it'll make more sense.

Its most likely the sending unit if the DIC is correlating with the gauge. The sending unit has a pair of resistive contacts that wear out over time.

Bumping this because I finally jumped on board and did the car and truck this weekend. I'm wondering if the smell inside goes away for sure? The truck I'm not so worried about, but the car only has ~35k miles on it and still smelled like new car/ leather ( I don't use air fresheners, just keep the car clean), and now it smells like dirty socks and barnyard. I have the car sitting outside with the windows down and ~30* degrees outside to air it out. I'm hoping that the stink subsides.

Well, during the 1-2 shift, solenoid A is commanded off, so unless you have a shorted solenoid or harness (not unrealistic for a wire in the internal harness to be bad), I'd look into other areas, namely MAF sensor and TPS issues as they can throw off shift timing as well.

During normal operation, the valve body on the 4L60 is almost completely submerged in transmission fluid with a proper fill level, so that won't really be an issue. Think of sticking a garden hose in a bucket of water. It'll exhaust the fluid just fine if under any pressure (almost all of it is). The biggest danger of over filling is if it reaches the level of the gear train where it it'll be aerated and hitting the spinning parts. Rest of what you said is on point. In regards to LOW fluid level, the first symptoms you'd notice is slipping at highway speeds and/ or loss of TC lockup or overdrive. The more components and clutches engaged, the more fluid quantity is needed at that given time. At highway speeds (~45pmh) and above, you have the following applied: Forward clutch, Torque converter clutch, 3-4 clutch, and 2-4 band. In my experience, the 2-4 usually drops out first due to low fluid. You'll observe this as no OD/ 4th. Lastly, on the total system capacity is between 12-14 qts, depending of towing package, coolers, configuration, etc.

Yes, it still sounds like that, but can't say with absolute certainty without diagnosis.

I have the free/ basic version of Onstar for the next couple years. Every month I get the diagnostic email and ever since I changed the TPMS threshold, it always shows green/ good to go at all 4 corners.

The tire pressure threshold is set through your BCM, and the setting is changeable with a higher-end scan tool. I did it to mine with a Genesis Encore to lower the threshold from 60 psi to 35 psi.

Most of the additives are geared towards helping along a ailing transmission. So, if yours was working just fine, I wouldn't add them at this time. For myself, I did 100k mile service on my truck and my previous car in the last couple years, and I simply replaced the filter and fluid, and that was all since they were working perfectly fine.

Glad you got it OP. The small nick in the pump from the pick isn't going to do anything adverse. It's not really on any portion of the main sealing surface. As to the snake oil.......while I, too, shy away from using those, the Lucas Oil and another product called Lubguard, are the only ones I would ever condone using. Not much better than the others, but not terrible either.

So the whole metal portion of the seal is still there. The seals on these are rubber coated rings of steel. You have 2 options for getting that ring out now (you have to since you peeled the rubber off of it.). First, a sharp chisel to nick the edge and fold it in on itself and then grab it with a needle nose pliers and pull it out. The second method (which I am a fan of) is to get a 1/2 or 3/4 (I can't remember.....take the new seal and match a plug to that) NPT (pipe thread) plug from your hardware store/ parts store and thread it in as you would a bolt to the point of nearly bottoming out. Then grab the end of the plug and rock/ wiggle it back and forth and it should pull right out. Hopefully this works for you.

The reason you see RTV goobered all over everything on peoples rigs is because of the smart people that over torque the pan bolts while using the aftermarket cork or rubber gaskets (after they tossed the factory one). This then distorts the pan flange and causes leaks with any gasket. The factory rigid gasket has metal washers embedded in the bolt hole areas that prevent over-torquing.

.....3 times within 5 seconds. One of a few smart things GM has ever done is keeping the oil life monitor resets simple. Everything from my '98 Monte Carlo to my '14 SS has been able to be reset via this method, despite newer models being able to be done through the DIC as well.