Tom's Doy-O-Maintenance

[MountaineerTom]

Today I decide to change the plugs in my truck and rotate the tires. While I had it up on jack stand, I decided to adjust the parking brake shoes. It was fairly easy to do, just took some time, trial and error with the adjustments until I got it how I wanted it. I took a couple pics of the park brake shoes and adjuster installed on the truck so people can see what they look like. A lot of people ask about them. I didn't take them off, just adjusted them. After changing the brake pads on Elwood's Blazer last summer, mom and dad's Buick Rivera, and now messing around with them on my truck I'll have to say whoever designed the caliper/bracket set up that GM uses now deserves a . These have been the easiest brakes to remove and change I've ever worked on. All used regular bolts, none of those torx head screws, or as I liked to call them "knuckle buster screws", like in the past. Just unbot the two bolts on the caliper (use another open end wrench to keep the insert from turning), remove it from the bracket, slide the pads off the bracket, then unbolt the 2 bolts on the bracket and remove it. I had tons of pad left on both the front and back brake pads too. All were wearing evenly.

 

Here's the AC Delco 41-952 plugs, after a little over 43,000 miles. They looked pretty good. All the platinum discs were still attached too. I've never removed them since I bought the truck and these were not gapped consistently. They were anywhere from .050 to .055 . I replaced them with Autolite Copper Core 605's gapped at .060 , which is what the owners manual and decal under the hood called for. Oh yeah, the plugs were all pretty easy to get too also. Actually easier than my '91 with a 350. The passengers side rear was the tightest, but I found that it was easiest to get to from under the truck.

[RyanbabZ71]

Tom how did you get the spark plug boot off the plug? Is there any rick? I was messing around but couldnt pull it off and didnt want to force it off so i left it

[MountaineerTom]

Just grab the boot that slides over the plug, twist it around a few times to loosen it up, then just pull on it. Try to grab just the rubber part, that metal heat shield just slides over the boot and I don't think it will help any if you pull on it. I looked to me like it would cut into the boot if you did. Make sure you don't pull on just the wire, or you could pull it out of the boot. I did that once on our Beretta. Some were pretty tight and took a little bit of pulling to get off.

 

I forgot to mention that I added a light coat of anti-seize to the top half of the plug threads, and put small amount of dielctric grease in the boots before putting them on th eplugs. Did the same to the other end of the wires, where they connect to the coils. Didn't change the wires though.

[Shaners]

 

Thanks for the pics Tom... That should be a big help to our members here!!!

 

[MCourson]

Plugs dont look bad at all. I did a little test on the ACs that were in my truck. Ran them as long as I could and never had ANY problems. Finally replaced them at 150k miles.