Jsdirt

My buddy had a '99 Silverado 1500. I think he was on his 7th or 8th rear brake overhaul in 100k miles, when the parking pawl in the transmission let go (because the e-brake never worked right). He didn't keep the truck much longer after that. Was starting to have multiple issues.

I never get more than 30k out of tires and brakes anyway. The brake dust I can do without, but I like being able to stop fast whether the truck is solo, or pulling 8k. They work pretty damn good. If I can find something that stops as good or better with no dust, I'll be all over it. Haven't really researched that yet.

Here's the pic I promised. Guy didn't leave the e-brake on - everything rotted and seized solid, so it was exactly like leaving it on. He's been driving it like this for 3 months, as you can see, lol. The other side puked a mount rod, and all it's hardware. Found the spring trapped inside - everything else, gonzo. Wish I had a pic of the 6 month old rotor on the bad side. E-brake drum was trashed. This was after taking my backpack blower to the whole thing, and the driveway: Struts aren't even a year old - already rusted, and weeping oil. They actually look 10x better in this pic. Advance Auto quality for ya ... Almost forgot to include this pic of some "quality" modern engineering. Lets coat HALF the brake line with quality nylon ... but then just go back to basic steel for the rest of it. FANTASTIC idea fellas! FoMoCo, btw:

Got EBC solid rotors & Yellows on the front of mine - 30k HARD miles so far. Starting to get thin now. Only thing that sucks is the brake dust, but they work just as good as OEM.

I should've taken a pic of this Toyota. I had a MOUNTAIN of friction material an inch deep on the driveway when I was done. I'll get pics of the destroyed shoes later.

Took me a while to figure out that was a pad in the first pic, lol - I always forget the rest of you have discs out back. I'm doing e-brake shoes on a '98 Toyota Camry today. So far, I've got one stripped caliper bracket bolt on one side, and one busted caliper bracket bolt on the other. The shoes were a ROYAL PITA! Needed 5 hands to hold all the different pieces behind the hub to reassemble. It's non-removable ... until you remove the shoes, WTF. Even Toyota sucks today!! What a dumb design.

Fixed a '06 Impala driver's seat. Only 90k miles. Thing was slammed all the way to the floorboards, and wouldn't move. It went back and forth, but wouldn't move up and down. Could hear & see the motors trying to move the seat, but they couldn't for some reason. Found out why once I got the seat yanked and dove in. Seems whatever limiting device that's supposed to be on there failed, and caused both drive screws to bind up solid. Had to really put some muscle into a pair of vice grips to get the SOBs to move! Worked on it in the back of my truck - had the front of the seat down on the tailgate, and the seat back resting on my tonneau cover, so I could work underneath it. See 1st pic. Had to remove the drive cables (that was fun ... and getting them back in was even ... "funner"), & take apart the plastic gear housing, & remove the worm gear in order to relieve the tension, and be able to wrench the drive screws backward. While I had it apart, I threw some J/D Corn Head grease in there - can't hurt. Threw some all over the drive screws too, although it's probably just going to collect sand and grit. Was a complete pain in the ass. No surprise there. Can see in the pic how much room I had to get my 1/4" wrench in - could barely fit a finger in there. GM builds this stuff to be totally unserviceable. To that, GM can guess which finger I'm extending. Maybe this will help someone out in the future, when their seats seize up solid too. I'm sure this applies to all their models in one variant or another. Just FYI - there's a little piece that looks exactly like a watch battery that will fall out of there when you disassemble that little plastic gearbox. It goes right on top of, or under (depending on what side you're working on - can change orientation) the driven gear (the drive gear is the worm, the driven is attached to the drive screw). I don't have a good pic of it here, but you might be able to see it in some of them: EDIT: Found a pic of the "watch battery" spacer I was talking about.

I average 37, which is pretty high for the paved cowpaths of MA I guess. Not alot of highway driving at all anymore.

NICE! Some beauties there! Were a couple real nice trucks at the one last weekend. The step-side '71 was for sale. Way outta my league.

We entered our Marquis in one last weekend. Won a $50 Jegs gift cert - not because our car is so nice .... it was just the luck of the draw. I can't compete against a '71 Monte Carlo, '68 Camaros and Mustangs, a Grand National, 50's trucks, etc etc... We weren't the newest car there, as you can see. That Impala next to me was friggin beautiful! Guy left in a hurry. Wanted to check it out more. Check out this gem that showed up! Vega wagon! All original too! Didn't know there were any left that didn't rust away right back into the ground.

They ain't that bad, once you've got a few thousand under your belt.

Putting HIDs on our '86 Grand Marquis was the best thing I ever did. They've been holding up great too - been on there almost 3 years so far without a single issue. Huge difference from sealed beams. Probably won't be as dramatic a change with a modern vehicle, but an improvement nonetheless. This is high and low on at the same time. High is still the OEM sealed beam - it looks orange next to the 6k HID.

The wheels are ridiculous. I laughed my ass off when my cousin sent that link to me.

Wait! Stop the presses! I've found my new ride .... yo. http://atlanta.craigslist.org/atl/cto/5711493353.html

I'd probably leave the handle. Really no reason to remove it, since you're only painting the bezel.

They do that stuff day in and day out. They should be able to get it out of there pretty quick, although I have trust issues when it comes to stuff like that. If it were mine, I'd probably remove the part that was to be painted. Should save on labor too. I tried selling mine 4 years ago when it only had 50k on it. I couldn't give it away! Everyone knows about the AFM / oil burner issues with my generation now. I had people offering $13k at the time. Made the decision to keep the thing, and just run it right into the ground. Not long after I took the ad down, the upper ball joints and hub bearings failed. Gotta love it!

Yeah, no better performance enhancer than weight loss!

Yeah, the new trucks don't handle very well in the triple-digits. Feels like it's going to roll over backwards from the wind - the front end gets frighteningly light. My old trucks could easily traverse triple digits, and I'd still have confidence enough to change lanes without feeling like it was going to lose control at any second. Except for my TBI '94 - didn't have enough top-end power (nor the speedometer) to hit triple digits. Maybe it did - all I remember is the needle was getting ready to point straight down and bend.

Let 'em talk Chevyguy. I took this one no handed ...and bare-assed ... in a 15 mile-per-hour residential zone.

Yep - got one of those myself. Best thing I've done to the truck so far.

I picked up a control arm for that '00 C1500 ball-joint nightmare. Going to tackle that Monday. Went to go visit my buddy who was up from FL, and was headed back this afternoon. Massive t-storm rolled through. I had the Volvo doors deep! Shot a vid, but I was concentrating on not getting swamped, or t-boned by everyone panicking to get out of the gas station. Was total mayhem. If the SHTF, people in MA are screwed .... Wish I had a better quality vid for ya'll, but until smart phones get down into the FREE range, I ain't getting one. Not sure what you'll be able to make out, but I was coming out of door-deep water. Tried to edit out my F-bomb ... too much of a PITA, so viewer discretion ... http://vid297.photobucket.com/albums/mm215/jjs05polaris/Forum%20pics/0813161624_zpstyictq8c.mp4

Mine had 47 on it when I test drove it in April, 2007. 57 when they dropped it off at my house a few days later. Guess they had to fix a few things first ...

Wow that Vette is a beauty!