It just keeps snowballing. This time the rear brake line twisted even though I had sprayed it with P.B. Blaster and let it soak overnight. I pulled the drum to pull the wheel cylinder and found that the shoes on Old Blue were shot and I mean down to the dang rivets. I picked up a lifetime set at AutoZone for $18.99. After I got that wheel cylinder pulled off I wanted to punch the shmuck that designed it in the face. There is No Way to get to the rounded bleeder to replace it. I had to buy a set of wheel cylinders for it at $8.99 each. I went ahead and bought a second 30" brake line because I figure the way things are going the other side will twist as well.

Oh, also I wanted to punch the guy in the face for the way he designed the way that wheel cylinder is held on. For those that don't know, unless there is a specialty tool for it you have to pry one side of this clip out and slip a small screwdriver in between the cylinder and the clip. Then you have to do the same thing on the other side. After that you have to hold Both of those screwdrivers while prying the wheel cylinder out with a third screwdriver. Putting it back on was almost just as fun in reverse.

 

Got my Driver / Passenger Upper / Lower Control
arms... Shocks and new torsion bar mounts installed
today.

Merry Christmas to my Blazer...Lol

 

Reverse flush of heater core. 15 minutes work and I have heat again

 

In prep for my trip over the rockies I had the vehicle inspected. Inspection came back with a bit of a laundry list of work needed. Power steering box was leaky, Front and rear stabilizers worn, spark plugs and fuel filter needing replacement, wheel alignment, etc, etc.

I hummed and hawwed about it for a bit - talked to a couple more vehicle savvy friends of mine and decided to get most of the work done. So I picked her up today with the following repairs done:

-New Power Steering Box
-New Idler Arm
-New Rear Stabilizer Bar End Links
-New Front Stabilizer Bar Frame Mount Bushing Set
-New Front Stabilizer End Link Kits
-Red Line Synthetic Power Steering Fluid
-Front Wheel Alignment
-New AC Delco Spark Plugs
-New Fuel Filter

P&L came to just shy of $2000.00 CAD.

New tires go on tomorrow and hopefully we are back on a regular maintenance schedule after that. What do you guys think of the price and repairs? Have any of you had to do this work on your vehicle? I'm at 115,000km.

 

Yep, those clips and idiotically designed brake lines are a GM staple. Be glad you're working on an older vehicle - things only got worse as years went on. You wouldn't believe the crap they've engineered into the new ones! That Colorado has got to be the most poorly designed pile of crap ever to roll off their assembly line. Have to yank the oil pan in order to get the intake manifold, & valve cover off. Just a simple front brake job bills at 5 hours labor because half the front end needs to come apart to access. So done with GM. Sad times we live in!

In other news, my '94 S10 plow truck is dead after plowing just 4 times in the past year. Thing has barely over 100k miles, and is in decent shape for a northern vehicle. 4x4 failed, rendering the truck one step above useless (another crap design), and 5 minutes later, either the clutch fork or pivot snapped, and the pedal went to the floor. It spun it's tires and stalled. There it shall sit until I either part it out, or pawn it on Craigslist.

I refuse to put a wrench on it. I've had enough of these pieces of crap!!!

 

Man, I'll tell you what. There are some days I just think 'I'd like to beat the crap out of whoever designed This!' when I'm turning wrenches.

I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed but apparently I've got more of an edge than some of the idiots that come up with some of this crap.

Sorry to hear about yours going down. We've finally got Old Blue (a.k.a The Blue Beast) on the road. I had to get a little Redneck and wire in toggle switches for the wipers and the fan motor. I hope to replace the actual wiper switch at some point as I'm sure that's what's wrong with them. However, the 'Blazer budget' was depleted and it's now coming out of my budget until my son can get to work somewhere.

Same goes for the heater control but I'm not confident that it's the problem as it could also be a vacuum issue. It works on defrost only. The temp control also seems to work to a degree. The fan however would only run by running a hot wire to it. At least it has defrost though which is the necessity on winter days.

It seems to me that it's a bit sluggish. I know it's not a race car but it still seems a little lacking to me. I'm wondering if the timing might be off just a bit. I lost faith in the mechanic I paid to hook up vacuum lines and time it when I found a vacuum line that was two sizes too big stuck over something instead of having gotten the right size line. I told my son that after he's working it might be wise to have a shop I trust check the timing.

In other news; something seems to be screwed up in his transfer case as well. It's another 'after you're working' thing to be addressed.

Ah well, life goes on.

Merry Christmas to all.

 

We should have a cage match with some engineers for charity ...

A MERRY CHRISTMAS to everyone as well.

 

• how do you undo those clips that hold the plug wires? I actually broke a screwdriver trying to open one today

 

Usually there's a little tab you can pry with a pocket screwdriver, and they open right up. Some you just pull on and they'll open.

I'm guessing you have a second gen, since GM has made things harder and harder to work on the newer the vehicle, starting in '96.

If it were me, I'd just break all of them off, and replace them with something universal from Jegs - much less stress that way when it comes time to replace wires.

MERRY CHRISTMAS everyone.

 

[QUOTE=Smitty Smithsonite;671481]We should have a cage match with some engineers for charity ...

I'd pay to see that. While we're at it we could throw in some of those expensive specialty tools that some jobs require for them to fight with. Jerks.

On the brighter side of things, one of the forks in the pickle fork set (used for tie rod ends and ball joints for those who don't turn wrenches) which I've had for well over ten years broke... while my son was using it improperly. I knew I'd bought it at one of three places: O'Reilly's, AutoZone, or Advanced Auto.

Advanced Auto was the only place that sells them as a set. The gal I'd talked to said she didn't know if they were lifetime or not since it didn't state it on them but that most of their tools were. I had stated that I was sure they were lifetime when I bought them. She asked if I still had my receipt and I told her no because I'd bought them well over ten years ago.

For some reason she didn't think my accent was from around here. I told her I grew up in a town about thirty miles west of here and had been out south of here ever since. She asked if I was a regular walk-in customer. I laughed and said, "Nope! I'm a Roll-in customer!" She kind of laughed and then told me to come see her and she'd figure out a way to make it right. I told her I wasn't sure if I'd make it in to Wichita that day or not but I'd try.

When I showed up I rolled in - in my wheelchair and she goes, "I'll bet you're Brian!" "Yep, told you I was a Roll-in customer!" She laughed and said something about having a great sense of humor. Then when I showed her my set she asked if I had the plastic case. I said I'd had it for the first seven years or so but then it had gone to pieces but she could keep the packaging from the new one as it didn't matter to me.

Turns out the set they sell now comes in a fancy plastic case. The one I'd bought was just in that cheap snap shut on the edges plastic packaging. It also turns out that the set they sell now is not quite the same as the one I'd bought. The screw part of the handles is smaller. After much debating and checking and touching base with other managers she ended up swapping me for the new set, case and all.

Sometimes it pays to be patient and polite to those who are ultimately trying to help you.

Just call me Lucky