Jsdirt

I'm a big fan of black and chrome.

Back? When did it ever go out?

Might be the winter oriented compound of the tires too, unless you got all-seasons ... My Blizzaks have a noticeable change in handling from my wide summer tires - they don't like being pushed at all. They handle it pretty good though, given how soft the compound is.

You'll be alright, so long as you keep up with it. My glass catch can holds maybe 4 oz. tops, and it gets to about halfway with mostly water (in cold weather - below 40°F) after a couple weeks of local driving.

You haven't rode in my truck - sounds the same as it did the day it left the showroom floor too. More squeaks and rattles than my '94 K1500 had with 266k miles on it. A fine example of modern engineering ... Spent the past 3 days overhauling my trailer brakes and bearings. Yanked the backing plates off both axles, and installed new complete brake assemblies - genuine Dexter 7k lb.. Ripped all the brake wiring out (wrong gauge from factory - had 21' of 16 gauge ... which may work if you live in Phoenix, but not New England), and ran jacketed 10/2 down both sides of the frame to each pair of drums, eliminating the through-the-axle brake wiring. Thing stops unbelievably now. Trailer is only 6 years old - the roads up here just beat the thing relentlessly. Found another angle iron support that busted free. Welded that back up while the backing plates were off - made that task nice and easy. Got ripped off buying bearings locally. Nobody had the damn things in stock, so had to buy them piecemeal all over the damn place. What a pain in the ass! Local store sells me 2 bearings and 2 kits, because they didn't have the 4 bearings I needed. Get home, and find out they sold me JUST the bearing with no race! WTF ... so bought the races at Advance Auto. Local store has ONE ... the other 3 are 30 miles away round trip. Man, I'll tell ya! Should've just bought the damn things online and been done with it. Think I'd have learned this by now ...

I see that green crap in every piece of OPE that sits any length of time. When they won't start, I get a call ... If not for ethanol I might be starving, LOL! Older OPE, like snowblowers, had a thumb screw main jet that was infinitely adjustable. You can run those on moonshine, and just fatten the mixture up until it runs good. Quite a few turns out from where it needs to be to run on gasoline.

My truck loses power in direct proportion to how much ethanol is in the fuel.

That thing is F'in GREAT!

Yep - most people wouldn't believe a Model T would go through terrain in 2wd that would get any modern 4wd stuck. All due to the super skinny tires. When they first came out, there were few paved roads - they had to be more of an ATV than a car in those days.

Enough to drive you nuts! My brother had the Duramax running out back for the first time in 4 months. Idled 5 minutes, then blew fuse - suddenly developed a dead short ... in FIVE friggin minutes. We stuck a jump wire in to see how bad it was - dead short, no question about it. Instantly caught the jumper on fire. Talk about a friggin needle in a haystack! 100 billion miles of wiring all across that engine block and intake. Going to check a bend in the harness over the FICM - known issue there from what I hear. Hopefully that's it - nothing is ever that straightforward on modern vehicles - at least not at my house! Friggin electronics!!!!!!!!!! Minute this thing is running, it's going on Craigs or eBay. Someone's gonna love this driveline if they can see past the rust. I drove it last year. Weighs at least 7k, but accelerates like a 2k lb. sportscar ... while melting the tires drifting sideways. If it weren't for the damn electronics, I'd buy it off him and throw that driveline into my next classic car or truck. I want no part of unrepairable breakdowns on the side of the road ...

Damn - that's fun too! I've gotta do that some day. My buddy got to drive a Ferrari and a Lambourgini on a local CT racetrack this summer. Cost an arm and a leg to do it, but he thought it was worth it. First time I'd ever seen either car in person. They were brand new. Like a sportbike with 4 wheels. What a sound too. Quiet as a mouse idling - idles like a normal everyday econobox ... but mash the throttle and holy s*** what a GREAT sound!! Music.

That is so friggin mint! Wish I lived near those! When I was much younger, we used to ride the local sand pits. Would be like a postage stamp compared to that place, but we had a blast there. It was as close as we could get to the places like Glamis we'd see in magazines. Would ride there from sun up to sun down every weekend. I had a '86 TRX250R that was all hopped up - thing used to RIP up ANY hill I pointed it at, even with those crap tires in the pic here. I used to climb the ones where the sand was excavated out of the day before, and there would be a full vertical, and sometimes inverted ledge hanging over the last 10' or so of the hill. I'd peg it in 3rd and go full bore until my front wheels hit the lip. I'd let off, lean forward, and the lip would kick my ass-end out so it would land perfectly level, right on the very edge of the cliff, and shoot 2 rooster tails out from the tires. Good times! Now I white knuckle just climbing the hill behind my house, LOL. Had no fear in those days. Could've been because I could blow a .23 breathalyzer when stone cold sober ....

Yeah when I was in Phoenix, I don't recall many systems coming out of the south. Seemed to always come from the west. Saw the radar there recently, and it was all coming from the south - must be part of that same storm you guys are getting.

Good place to be. The Northeast sucks ... but everyone already knows that, lol. I'm just being Captain Obvious ...

That might be soon for us up here. Was 23° Monday morning! Yesterday was close to 70°. Welcome to New England ...

Not a bad thing ...

Got Blizzaks on the OEM 18's that came with my truck. AWESOME tire. When we had that freak 2'+ October snowstorm in '11, I was driving back home from Worcester in the peak of it. I was just about to pass a guy on the right who was doing 10mph, since the right lane didn't have any tire tracks for the guy to follow. Someone in a newer 2nd gen Blazer came flying up on me just as I was about to change lanes, and attempted to pass, and almost hit my rear quarter. Then he hangs there for almost a mile. I finally got 1" of space to cut in, and got in there, and blew by the other guy. Now the Blazer is on my bumper following my tracks. Guy tailgated me for miles - I was getting aggravated. At one point I was up to 55mph - way too fast, but nobody was on the road. This guy was not far behind the whole time. Suddenly I saw headlights flashing in my rearview - I'm thinking "WTF is this guy's problem???" Thought he was flashing his lights at me, but it was him careening across one side of the road and bouncing off the curb on the other. Just missed a pole too! Had no idea I was on glare ice!! I let off the gas and started coasting at that point, and came into a tight turn there at about 40 - truck started pushing REAL bad, so I lightly throttled into it, and it straightened right out. I'd have wrecked if not for the Blizzaks. After that, the Blazer was miles behind me. Goes to show how good those tires really are. A full sized 6k lb. pickup did better than the little Blazer!

^^^ THIS!!

Nice. Yeah it takes forever shopping for tires. Gotta make the right choice for what they cost these days. I'm gonna wait until spring, since I've been bleeding money lately ...

I seriously flip out whenever that damned thing starts dinging. SO FRIGGIN LOUD!!! Drives me absolutely insane. Good thing is, I just pull the key 1/2 way out and stick it back in, and it stops ... for a while, anyway. If there's a simple, and FREE cure for it, I'm all ears. When listening to the radio with the doors open, you have to flip the door latch manually so the door thinks it's shut - then all that annoyance stops. Just have to remember to pull the handle before you slam the door ...

Sounds like it's not closing fully. Seems to happen a lot around here. Very rarely do they fail stuck shut, but it does happen. I've personally never experienced it - normally they just fail the way you described. Vehicle just never gets to operating temp in cooler weather.

We can't even run them like that up here. No heat - you'll freeze to death, lol! 23° this morning ... already! Then there's the check engine light on modern vehicles, if the temp doesn't stay above 193°, or whatever the magic number is. Fails inspection in MA for that ...

Oh yeah, gotta love road salt! This state dumps 20 tons of it per mile any time the road even LOOKS moist, or the forecast calls for any kind of precipitation with temps below 32°. The minute things freeze, people up here - even though they're born and raised in snow - start crashing into each other and running off the road like mindless dolts. It amazes me every winter. Gets worse every year too. Forget personal responsibility, like buying SNOW tires - or even GOOD tires. Nope! Just make everyone's car rot out in 7 years (GM, Ford and Dodge, anyway) so they can do 85 in 3' of snow!

Nope, not a thing! Was in such a hurry to get the car strapped down, and get on the road and make money, that I ended up doing the job for free ... plus costing myself $550. Learned a valuable lesson that day, LOL. Actually learned that lesson 25 years ago, but I tend to forget when $$$ is dangled in front of my face. Learning to slow down a bit, but it's tough! Oh, almost forgot to share today's adventure. Finally put the clutch line in the '94 S10 plow truck. Was WAY too pissed off to take more than one pic. I was cursing GM loudly EVERY ONE of the 2 hours it took to fish this line through, unbolt the master, and install a new slave. They BURY the friggin master WAY down on the firewall behind 500 BILLION wires in 5 different looms - can't even get one finger in there to grab the friggin nuts. THEN they put this stupid assed plastic insert on the pushrod where it meets the pedal - had to just about bust the thing in pieces to get the pushrod off. Then jam my air ratchet in between a bunch of brake lines, and finally get the 2 nuts off. That was just the master! Now I gotta get the slave out! In addition to that stupid assed push-pin retaining setup they engineered, they had to put a friggin crossmember right in front of the master .. and then angle the top bolt in the engine block so close to the control arm mount that you can't get a air gun in even with a swivel. 14mm box end by hand on that one, like I have all day to get rust in my eyes. Then, once all that's done, now I gotta find another body to push the damn clutch in - since GM designed this galactically craptastic bleeder system, with NO nipple - just a hex plug and a hole to squirt fluid all over the damn place. OH and when you try to get the 4mm allen socket or wrench in there, the line is angled upward, right in the friggin way, so each bleed cycle takes 2 solid minutes of fumbling with this key!! Got 3 good chunks of rust right in my friggin eye .. WITH safety glasses on! GRRR!!! I'm still digging the crap out as I type ... eye red as a beet ... I want to fight GM engineer!! I FRIGGIN HATE YOU, YOU M*#&$F^@*N#$ C#*$*K$ S((K N# G PR*$***#*# s!!!!!!! Ahh, now I feel a little better. Was able to drive the truck for the first time in 5 months. We weren't as lucky with my brother's truck. 2 dead batteries. Tried cranking in the hopes the moons would align and the magic box would finally fire the injectors. Fat chance, lol. It's electronic! Damn crap! $500 for a new one, half that for used. Just can't win today ... $15K into the truck, and every day it sits, something else rusts away, driving it's value down to nothing. Nice racket automakers have, aye? At least the S10 lives again ... until the next rust-related failure. Oh WOW ... now friggin photo upload don't friggin work!! UNREAL!!! I give up. Headed to bed. Someone put GM in control of photo uploads??? BWHAHAHAHA! Wow .....

I check mine before and during every trip. One of the reasons I bought that Viair compressor setup. One time I hauled a Toyota Tacoma up to the Quebec line in northern VT, stopped at a gas station, locked the pump handle (nice how other states give you that feature ... but few in MA do anymore), and did my routine walk-around. Right front axle low. Tried to run air hose from station through all the junk parked in the way - 10' too short. Had to leave .... get of next exit, wasted a half hour driving around and finding NOTHING .. so back on the highway. Next exit ... 10 miles before aa friggin station pops up. No air. Go past the highway the other direction. Another gas station, no air! Pissed off, I hopped back on the highway after wasting 2 hours. Surprised the tire lasted as long as it did - about an hour later the truck starts shaking violently - look in the mirror and I can see the trailer hopping around with rubber appearing out of the wheel well with every rotation. No tools, no spare, nothing! Dug into the Silverado's OEM jack kit that I had never used. Luckily the lug wrench just barely fit the trailer lugs. Wrestled with the jack for a half hour, shoveling sand down my shirt with every rotation, laying on my belly on the side of the highway, surrounded by dirty diapers, and piles of other trash. Finally up in the air , removed the lugs rest of the way, and burned the crap out of my hands trying to get the 200° tire off. WOW was that SOB hot!! Tossed it in back of the truck, and drove the additional 50 miles north with the axle hanging. Luckily I have twin slippers with the big pivot in center, so the pivot was all the way up into the frame, and that's as far as it would go, so the hub was high enough off the road to not hit anything. Dropped the truck at the new owner's place, and headed 300+ miles south with just 3 wheels on the trailer! Made it back safe and sound. Now I have onboard air, a spare, 4 brand new tires, & a pile of tools I carry on each trip. Probably will never need any of it again .. LOL. Lesson learned - be read for anything!