Jsdirt

Yeah, hard to beat that these days. Just cleaned my oil catch can. Went to check the fluids and belts - happened to notice it was over half full! That cold air that's been around the past week filled it up in less than 400 miles. Was -0.3°F here a few days ago. Right now it's 48.5° . Gotta love New England weather!

I have no loyalty when it comes to suppliers. Any time I found a good one, they'd go to hell soon afterward when I needed them the most. Now I just jump around the net to whoever has the best deal. Problem with that is, wildly varying delivery windows, anywhere from one day, to 12 days worst case. That is infuriating. Our inept postal service doesn't help that scenario much either. Used to be able to send or receive goods from CA to MA in 3 days flat - always. Could set your watch to it. Now, if your extremely lucky you'll have it in 3, but more than likely anywhere from 4 -12 days.

Seeing how my dealer tried charging me $8 EACH for a tiny rivet, I don't doubt that one bit! GM should get out of auto making and get into government. It would be a perfect fit ...

That's a damn good deal right there. Can't find any wash that cheap around here. I normally just hit the automated in-town touchless one. Does a crap job, but at least gets the heavy stuff off. Plus it's convenient - just 2 miles down the road here. Leaves a film though, like all touchless ones do - really shows on a black truck. The nearest "touch" car wash is 15 miles out. I only hit that one when I'm in the area, which isn't often.

Pretty much the same here. I've already washed it 3x. $33 down the toilet. I give up!

Truck must look like mine now ... Can't believe in just a few months, it'll be 10 years since I signed papers on this thing. Man does time fly. Feels like I just bought the damn thing. Certainly won't get another 10 out of this thing at this rate ...

I have a 800 series Suburban here now. Thing came in with charging and stalling issues. Brand new alt.& battery. Someone installed 2 emergency clamps piggybacked. No troubleshooting needed, aside from checking alt output - touched one of the wires near those stupid clamps while it was running - went from 12.5v to 14.67v. Can't use those damn things on OBD-II vehicles in the salt belt! Just asking for trouble.

Went to the gas station and filled my 8 fuel jugs. I couldn't fit my fuel barrel between the door jamb and our Grand Marquis ...and with 15w-40 sitting in the crankcase, there was no way in hell I was going to fire it up with the indoor temp being 28°. The truck now has an additional layer of pure white on it. Never fails. Last year when the thing was Fluid Filmed from head to toe, I hardly drove in the salt. This year I get lazy & leave the undercarriage dry, and wouldn't ya know, I have to head out in every single salt event ... which has been just about daily lately.

I hear that ...

Umm ... normally when you drive 10 miles, it takes 10 miles to get BACK HOME again. So that's 20 in case you're wondering, and yes ... with endless water main and sewer repairs to our crap infrastructure, coupled with morons on the road, it literally takes an hour on a good day, ROUND TRIP. Remember that getting back home thing ... I don't live at the parts store, nor do I shop at Advance Auto - the place sucks - parts AND customer service. Didn't mean to be so harsh in my last post Mike - was having a bad day and took it out on you. Sorry.

Guess you've never been to MA. All it takes is one **** in a Prius that sees a "big evil truck" flying up on him. They slow down to 15 under the already ridiculously low speed limit, where there's nowhere to legal or safe pass, and make the trip take forever. Then, if someone crashes or gets yanked by the cops, they all have to slow down and gawk - some even come to a complete stop, and won't move until the cop starts screaming at them to MOVE. I live in a state full of MORONS.

They have a habit of changing stuff that worked fine for many, many years. I live 10 miles from the nearest auto parts store that would stock something like that. I live in MA remember. That's up to 1.5 hours out of my day - I don't get paid to be on the road fixing my own shit that a damn manufacturer decides to change every 5 years. I have the fuses here - why waste half the day plus $3? You obviously have a money tree in your back yard. I don't!

Love how GM decided to change the fuse on that to some strange thing. I had a pile of Maxi fuses, so I soldered 2 leads to it, and plugged it in. Been that way for 7 years, lol.

Ahh - didn't know that could be done. I'm looking into getting the J tool soon. Learned alot the past year on this OBD-II crap. Getting a handle on it, slowly. Never dreamed that in the 21st century I'd have to spend 8x what some of my cars used to cost just for electronic tools to do the job. Is what it is, I guess. Gotta pay to play.

Worked on a high mile '98 Suburban. Had to rewire some Euro headlights to make the halos work, and flip a clear marker light lens around the right way, so those little scoops become DRAINS instead of water collectors, lol - the lens was half full with ice. Then I yanked the primary and secondary clutches out of a '04 Polaris Sportsman 700. The primary was stuck! All the way into the house it stayed that way. Even rapping on it with a hammer couldn't make it budge! Never seen one this bad before. Back in the days before ATV's, nobody plowed with snowmobiles, so that's probably why. New set of clutches for this thing? $1,000!!! They're past the point of economical rebuilding for the owner. My labor would end up costing just as much in the end. Sum ting wong ...

So I take it you've got a J2534? Do you do just GM, or all of them? GM is a friggin pain in the ass. Have to have one of 2 Microsoft operating systems ONLY, then pay out the nose for 2 days, a month, or a year. I've been researching the past 2 days on trying to get set up for flash programming. I've got a splitting headache now ... Looks like I have to buy another damn Windows crap PC product, and sell my brand new scan tool and buy the high-end version. It just never ends ...

Yeah .. salt. I wish I hadn't gone out today. What a friggin mess! Roads in town were BARE. Truck WAS spotless when I left too. Not anymore. Took backroads home to try and wash some of it off by doing 50 mph in the powder. Wasn't a long enough stretch to do much. I'll tell ya though, these Blizzak DM-V2s stick like GLUE. I came down my hill at just under 50 & firmly applied brake - wasn't until I was almost stopped that the ABS kicked in. Was like driving on bare but wet pavement -felt exactly the same. Granted, this isn't crap for snow - barely 1/2". This storm is just getting ramped up.

I'm headed out in a bit - will be back with some good pics of that for ya.

HEY LITTLE PUPPY!!

Sorry to hear that.

DAMN! That truck is friggin SWEET!! Big block power too.

Craftsman isn't what it used to be. I'd go DeWalt, personally. I've had a DeWalt 18v drill I got as a gift (from Home Depot), and other than shooting flame,sparks and smoke out the air vents occasionally, and a failed charger, it's been great the past 8-10 years. Guess you really can't win today! I'd still take my chances with the yellow one over anything from Sears these days.

I lost key #2 to my truck years ago. No idea where. Never bothered looking into getting a replacement, because I figured GM wants $800 per key ...

I just watched a Youtube vid where Eric O. at South Main Auto had to delete and reprogram a set of keys on a F-150 - when he got into the programming part in his scan tool, it's instructions listed 2 keys. Insert key 1, stand on your head facing west and whistle, etc ... insert key 2 and repeat. There was no option for doing just one key - could be why.

Right back at ya, brother! I got a pile of Ferrero Rocher hazelnut chocolates - these things are friggin AWESOME. Just what I need, lol! Also got an Amazon gift card, some Mechanix gloves, and a throwback Metallica, And Justice For All shirt, almost exactly like the one I had in the day - I wore that thing so much that you could see clear through it by the time I finally retired it. I still have it upstairs somewhere, LOL.