Well crap. . . Had a whole post ready and then lost it. Can't believe I haven't posted since Oct!! Just been driving the Blazer a couple days a week, not much else I've done to it.

A/C stopped again. Leaked out from the hose manifold because my crappy off brand compressor's flange was not machined correctly. We just drove it 1,500 mi round trip to TN so I got it charged up again for that, so far it's still working. Compressor sounds like **** through, so my new plan is to try to upgrade to a Sanden 508 compressor I have sitting around from an old project that never got completed. I just need to get the correct pulley for it, then see if I can fab up a bracket.

I finally got the tires balanced lol. . . On the way up I realized I was getting a lot of vibration, so took it in to the shop Fri morning. Lol biggest wheel weight I've ever seen.



I assume that means I've got at least one bent wheel. Definitely drove better on the way home. . . I got it up faster than I ever have before and it still had more left in it. . . I won't say the exact number but it will keep up with FL Interstate traffic

We drove through some pretty epic rain and storms. The pic doesn't do it justice but the hood has some major dirt tiger stripes .



Driving around town in TN I kept breaking the tires loose from a stop. Tires aren't bald, but the rubber must be getting hard, so I'll have start looking for new tires soon. I also need to upgrade from the open diff, but $500 for a new True trac unit isn't in the budget right now. Maybe I'll see if I can find a cheap used G80 for the time being.

It also clicked over 238,000 miles. About 6,500 mi since I rebuilt the trans. It acted weird once or twice on me from a stop after 7 hrs on the interstate, but otherwise it's still shifting nicely.

The trip got me a little more motivated to do some more work on the truck, so I'll try to get some more done again in the near future and will keep you guys posted. I'm also going to try to make a point to make some videos documenting things so I'll hopefully have something more interesting to go along with the next post.

 

Sucks about the ac, my compressor doesnt even engage, so I'm waitting to be able to get a new one.

As for the tire, sometimes repostioning the tire on the rim will reduce the weight size as well...

Glad to hear shes doing good otherwise.

 

Thanks Don. Sorry to hear you don't have AC. . . I know it still gets hot up there in Ontario. . .I used to go fishing with my Grandfather in Peterborough as a kid. The compressor is another one where it's probably worth paying double for Ac Delco.

Good tip on the tire. . that's another thing I've always left up to the shop to do. Since it's improved, and since I want to upgrade to some 30s I'm just going to leave it as is for now. I still have a little vibration going on, but I'm thinking it could be the worn out inner Tie Rods I haven't replaced yet.

 

Always good to check the tie rods, idle arm, and maybe check your yokes (ujoints). My rear u joint went, caused a bad vibration before it let go and cost me a driveshaft.

 

I had checked most of it out before, and I did put on a new idler arm when I did the steering box and outer tie rods. . . .I did suspect my u-joints were going but most of that ended up being wheel bearing noise. I do still have new u-joints on the bench waiting to be installed.

I now have a new problem. . .It's puking ATF. I think it's coming from the vent tube, as there are drips on the corners of the pan and it's getting on the Y-pipe (YIKES. . .Fire Hazard). Got home Sunday after driving around town for a while and I started to smell ATF, was also starting to smoke when i pulled in the garage.

So far from my reading it seems like a not so uncommon issue on the earlier 4l60's. . . Not sure why it has just started doing it. . . unless it was overheating or starting to have Pump/TC issues.

Going to do some more checking, but if it's an internal issue there's a good chance I'll just be ordering a reman unit with a warranty.

 

Just did some checking. . I can't exactly see where the fluid is coming from. Although it looks like my engine oil cooler is leaking more. I checked both oil and ATF.

ATF was a bit low once I started it and went through the gears but not horrible.

Pulled the fill plug out of the transfer case and I could not reach any fluid with my finger. . . .So it seems that the front transfer case seal is bad. Anyone that is familiar with the issue I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

I've read that when the seal is bad it will pull fluid from or pump it into the transfer case. . .which would explain it pumping the extra fluid out the vent.

 

So I filled up the Transfer case with fluid yesterday and 4 wheel drive engages properly again. (I tried using it a month ago in the mud and it wouldn't engage. . .apparently from low/no fluid).

After about an 8 mi round trip I got home and it was still leaking ATF onto the Y-pipe, but I still couldn't seen a clear source.

Just went out and fired it up again, and it was suddenly obvious. . . I have a hole in the cooler hard line. . . The one I made and fought when doing the trans. Apparently it had a tiny hole and by moving things around checking I made it bigger. It was gushing out this morning at idle.

I didn't get low on fluid in the trans or anything so a new piece of hard line and I should be back in business.

 

It seems I've fixed my Transmission Leak. Got a new piece of hard line from O'reilly's. . .Like the last time I did it, it was too long, so I spent the time to cut out the excess. Since I decided to not half *** it this time I also got a tubing bender to make sure it didn't kink and start leaking again.

Turned out pretty well, much nicer looking than the way it was hanging down before.



Of course I got home from my test drive and found out my hood release cable broke, so now I've got to fix that.

 

Out doing some more maintenance today.

Changed the oil.

I think I fixed my broken hood release cable with a cheap cable stop. Went ahead and left my homebrew wire release in there in case the stop doesn't hold.



I also realized I never did change the fuel filter so did that. . . . . Of course whoever did it the last time had installed it backwards (out goes toward engine). . .Forgot how much of a pain they end up being. As usual I got totally covered in gas.

Biggest surprise of the day was this:



This was about 1/3 - 1/2 of the crap I got out of the blower motor / evaporator housing (pliers for reference). . . .I took the blower motor out because I've been getting a slight noise at high fan speed that was annoying me. . . . I didn't expect to find all of this down in there.

Boy does it blow more air out the vents now. It was a real pain reaching down in to clean it out. I sucked as much as I could out with the shop vac, then carefully went back with a small screw driver to loosen up the debris that was packed in there. Did that about 4 times until I couldn't get anything else out, but there's still probably a little bit in there.

Another one of those fairly obvious things that's often overlooked. . . If you haven't checked yours in a while it might be a good idea lol.

 

Oh wow! I'll have to check my blower motor box. I hope the new hard line fixed your ATF leak.