Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

My brother died. 

  • Sad 1
Posted
1 hour ago, diyer2 said:

My brother died. 

Sorry for your loss.

Posted
23 hours ago, diyer2 said:

My brother died. 

Sorry for your loss.

Posted

MDS took him and bone marrow transplants didn't take. 69 years old. 

  • Sad 1
Posted

I talked to my physiotherapist about the pros and cons of following my recent left knee replacement so closely with a right knee replacement.  The osteoarthritis in my right knee is severe but  the joint is relatively pain free at this time.  It possibly could remain functional for a long time.  However, if my overall health changes, I may not qualify for surgery at a later date.  I know of two cases where the individual delayed joint replacement surgery and lost the opportunity.   Not only are these two fighting health issues that prevent them from having the surgery,  they now have debilitating joints that could have been replaced years ago.  I am planning to go ahead with a second knee replacement at this time because I'm sure I'll have other things to worry about later!

Posted

I have very little pain in my muscles and joints unless I push it. The right shoulder and muscle gets angry if I over do it. My hips and knees get upset if I walk more than 7K steps. Heat and regular pain medicine makes it all but absent if needed. I’m able to function as a normal 70 year old. If I had chronic every day pain I would probably do replacement surgery.  There are risks with surgery. I’m going to stay away from the knife unless I have no choice. As long as regular pain medicine and heat therapy works I’m good. 

  • Like 1
Posted

Joint replacement surgery is a good option for me.  I didn't request surgery but have a huge amount of respect for the knowledgeable surgeon who recommended my operation(s).  My decision was made easier by two friends in their 80's who regret not having surgery when it was offered. They didn't take into account that waiting may allow other age related issues render them too high risk for elective surgery.

  • Like 1
Posted

Funny observation from an old guy. My wife’s hearing is waning a bit. I have an advantage because I lost half my hearing due to a high temperature situation at seven years old. Higher sounds mostly. The advantage is I can read lips and I don’t get stuck on not hearing one or two words. I wait until the sentence is fully spoken, I usually can figure it out. My wife gets stuck on a word. She misses a word, stop the truck she’s saying what? I say let the sentence finish. She’s learning conversations can be challenging. Close caption is always on now. That leaves me to a pet peeve. Why can’t the networks get the timing down? I understand a little delay for live shows. Sometimes it off by several seconds. We usually watch recorded shows it’s usually no problem there and you can skip the commercials. 

  • Like 1
Posted

Hearing remains okay for me although my wife may disagree!  I sometimes get caught not listening...  😉 

  • Haha 1
Posted

We both recently got hearing aids, to expensive.

  • Like 1
Posted

I got them at 27. Use them for awhile, put them in a drawer.

  • Like 1
Posted
2 hours ago, Donstar said:

Hearing remains okay for me although my wife may disagree!  I sometimes get caught not listening...  😉 

 A common affliction among husbands everywhere Donstar, here's my theory and breakdown: 50% of the time wifes expect their husbands to hear what they say when they're in the kitchen or laundry room when you're actually in the garage or can on the other side of the house, 30% of the time they're actually talking to a pet, 15% they're mumbling under their breath about some nonsense (don't mention cognitive testing unless you want Lorena Bobbitt nightmares) and 5% of the time they might have something actually worthwhile to say facing you and within normal hearing distance.

  • Haha 1
Posted

My brother-in-law uses a hearing aid and upgrades on a regular basis.  The technology and comfort continuously improves.  He is fortunate to have some insurance coverage and is able to afford keeping updated.  I am impressed with how discrete hearing aids are now.  In the early 60's the public school I attended doubled as the districts' school for the deaf/hard of hearing elementary students.  These were the very, very early days of integration for students with special needs.  Everyone was together on the playground but not in the classroom.  The hard of hearing were instantly recognized by the cumbersome  hearing equipment of the day.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

  • Latest Articles

  • Posts

    • Replace the fuel pump with an OEM AC-Delco.
    • Hello, first time posting here. I have an 03 Chevy 1500HD with the 6 liter gas engine. The truck ran fine until the fuel pump died on me and had to get it towed. Replaced the fuel pump with a precision pump from O’rileys and changed the fuel filter while I was there. The truck will run and drive now but it wants to idle around 500 rpm when in drive and it tries to stall if you touch the gas. It drives fine though, just doesn’t want to idle. Put a fuel pressure gauge on the rail and only have 50 psi. I guess these trucks should have 55-62 psi to run right. I thought the regulator might be the issue because when I would unplug the vacuum hose it jumped to 56 psi. Replaced the regulator and no change. The only thing I can think of is that I was sold a faulty fuel pump. Any help would be appreciated because I’d rather not have to take the bed off again if I don’t have too. Thank you!
    • I've been wrenching on GM trucks for 17 years. And I need to get something off my chest because it's been weighing on me for a long time. After all that time, all those motors, all those people standing in my bay, I've figured out there are really only two kinds of owners. The ones who already know about this. And the ones who are about to find out the hard way. A guy came into my shop a few weeks back in a 2018 Silverado 5.3. Sharp guy, maybe 35. Knew his truck cold. He'd been on the forums, read the threads, done his homework. He only rolled in so I could double-check a little module he'd already plugged in himself. Wanted a second set of eyes on it. Ten minutes, in and out, drove off happy. Two days later, a completely different story walked through the same door. Older fella this time, in a 2016 Sierra. Gorgeous truck, clearly babied, not a scratch on it. Wedding ring. Looked like a guy who took care of his stuff. He was in because his engine had started knocking on the way to work. And by the time I got the valve cover off, I already knew it was too late. Lifter collapsed. Cylinder 5. Camshaft chewed up. The whole top end shot. Same kind of truck. Same motor. Same roads, probably the same dealer. The only thing separating those two men was information. I've been at this since 2008, and I've worked on everything GM puts out. Silverados. Sierras. Tahoes. Yukons. Suburbans. Escalades. The 5.3 and the 6.2. Doesn't matter which badge is on the tailgate. They all carry the same problem. So here's the information one of those guys had and the other one didn't. It's called Active Fuel Management. AFM. GM started building it into their V6s and V8s back in 2007 to squeeze out a little better mileage on the highway. Maybe a mile or two a gallon. All to hit government fuel economy numbers. The way it works, the motor quietly shuts down half its cylinders when you're just cruising along. And the little lifters that pull that off have a tiny pin inside them that's constantly clicking in and out. Lock, unlock, lock, unlock. Hundreds of times a drive. Thousands of times a week. Eventually one of those pins wears through. The lifter drops. And it starts grinding the camshaft down like a chisel on butter. And what nobody tells you is that the shudder you feel around 40 or 50 mph? That's the system cycling. Every single time. Here's what really gets me. The pre-2007 trucks, the ones without AFM, they're bulletproof. I've got customers still daily driving them with 260,000 miles on the odometer. Not a problem in the world. GM took a perfectly good motor that would have lasted a lifetime and bolted this system onto it. And it is wrecking engines that should have run forever. The guys who hang around the forums already know all of this. So do the techs. They handled this years ago. They didn't sit around waiting for the dealership to mail them a warning letter, because that letter is never coming. It's the guys who figured somebody would've told them who end up on my lift. And I want to be clear, because this part matters. Maintenance has nothing to do with it. I've torn down motors with barely 30,000 miles on the clock. I pulled apart a Tahoe last summer with 24,000 on it. Practically a brand new truck. Owner had it less than a year. Spotless oil. Best synthetic money can buy, changed early every time. Made no difference. I've seen guys with full dealer records, every interval stamped. Made no difference. The oil changes were never the problem. The pin was. And no amount of babying that truck stops that pin from cycling every single time you drive. That's the part that eats at me. These are good motors. Take the AFM out of the equation and a 5.3 or a 6.2 will run 300,000 miles and never blink. So a few years ago I started telling every single owner who comes through my doors the exact same thing the smart guys already knew. Get yourself a FullForce disabler. It plugs right into the port under your dash. Couple of seconds and you're done. It just tells the computer to leave every cylinder running, full time. No more cycling. No more beating those lifters back and forth every time you turn the key. It doesn't reprogram anything. Doesn't touch your tune. And unplug it before a dealer visit and there's absolutely zero trace it was ever installed. I've had customers come back at 40,000, 60,000, 80,000 miles after I put one in. Zero issues. The trucks run smoother. And the lifters aren't getting beaten to death every single drive. I won't sit here and tell you it's magic. A lifter that's already damaged is a lifter that's already damaged, and this won't un-ring that bell. But it takes away the one thing causing all that wear in the first place. That's the whole game. You don't need a five-thousand-dollar delete. You don't need an expensive tune. You don't need to tear anything apart. You just need to stop the cycling. I'm not writing this for any company. I'm writing it because I'm tired of watching the guys who didn't know pay four and five figures for it. I'm tired of being the guy who has to break the news. I'm tired of knowing that the guys who did know fixed the whole thing for the price of a tank of gas, and the only difference was that somebody told them first. If you drive a Silverado, Sierra, Tahoe, Yukon, Suburban, or Escalade from 2007 or newer with a V6 or V8, you've got AFM. You've got those lifters, and they're cycling every single time you drive. So be the guy who already knew. Not the one I'm scraping metal out of next month. EDIT: A bunch of folks asked, so here it is. The one I put my faith in is FullForce. This is where to find it: https://www.tryfullforce.com/products/fullforce™-afm-dfm-disabler They back it with a 60-day guarantee too. I've handed out more than I can count and not one's ever come back to me. Not one. See less
    • Thanks for following along. I'm not author material, my tenses are all over the place and an editor would have a heck of a time cleaning up after me. Reading and writing is still a fun pastime though.   My new scanner came in yesterday, wow, where the heck has this thing been?! It connects right up to the Blazer, there's all kinds of bidirectional tests like EGR activation and percentage, toggle the fuel pump relay, EVAP purge valve, IAC control, AC relay, reset the transmission's adaptive learning, toggle shift solenoids and TCC lockup, and I can reset fuel trims with the click of a button...all things I could have used over the last 60 days!   It's also telling me there is a stored code in the ABS module for front left wheel sensor open and something about the brake switch. The ABS dash light works. It illuminates normally during the self-test at key on/ start and that's it. I cleared the codes and will see if they set when I take it out later. That, and I'm going to get (hopefully) real data on timing and cam ******. The PID's are there.   I connected the tool to my truck...holy smokes. Newer vehicles make early OBDII vehicles look like 8-bit, pixelated, early Nintendo stuff. This? This is like wearing 3D virtual reality goggles playing one of those elaborate, cinematic video games with seasons and plots in comparison. There are SO MANY modules and SO MANY tests and SO MUCH data. There's a scanner sequence for filling the coolant...   End of the day, it's a tool with way more power than I need, but the versatility to do old and new is there (and I need an adapter to connect it to my OBDI Camaro). It will allow me to do the first pass of diagnosis when out-of-warranty vehicles need help, and it will enable more DIY maintenance like brake system bleeding, ABS bleed, etc. I probably over-bought here, but, mission is accomplished.   Enjoy your Sunday...I need to shut this machine down and go get ready for the week ahead.
    • Not that I've read, after all the issues they've had in the past I'm pretty sure they learned their lesson. 
  • GM-Trucks.com Clubs

  • Popular Contributors

×
×
  • Create New...