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General ChatChat about all things Blazer (and related vehicles). Off-topic stuff should be in the lounge, and all mechanical problems should be posted in the proper forum.
Not what I got done on the Blazer, but what I did with it. We had a pretty good snow storm last week, a bit over 2 feet here at the house. Others in the county reported 4 feet. Not sure how they measured, but we had a bit of wind over the three days and I try to average the amount between the drifts and low points. Anyways, I cleared the driveway, about 100 feet long, including the front of the garage and house, and the turn around area first time on Thurs with about 18 inches and again on Friday with 8-12 inches. Got it done before the snow plow got the road done. Of course, the plow piled up about a 3 foot-ish barrier of heavy, rather large snow blocks across the drive. The sun had come out for about 2 hours before the plow showed up and there was no way my snow blower would clear that mess. I know because I tried. Figured I'd have to break out the shove, but had a great idea. My Blazer hasn't move all winter and it has a higher clearance than my 3/4 ton truck, so I used it to run through the blockage several times, back and forth, back and forth, repeatedly. Then brought the wife's car up there to make sure it could get in out without getting high centered. It pass the test. We have had full sunshine, like you only get in Rocky Mountains in winter time, since then. The blockage has melted considerably and is still melting as we have one of those beautiful days. So much melt that my dog has been getting off the cleared areas to romp in the snow and do his business. Except where the snow is still pilled up over 4 feet in areas on the edges or where it drifted up. He's happy and my wife is happy, which makes me happy!
Not what I got done on the Blazer, but what I did with it. We had a pretty good snow storm last week, a bit over 2 feet here at the house. Others in the county reported 4 feet. Not sure how they measured, but we had a bit of wind over the three days and I try to average the amount between the drifts and low points. Anyways, I cleared the driveway, about 100 feet long, including the front of the garage and house, and the turn around area first time on Thurs with about 18 inches and again on Friday with 8-12 inches. Got it done before the snow plow got the road done. Of course, the plow piled up about a 3 foot-ish barrier of heavy, rather large snow blocks across the drive. The sun had come out for about 2 hours before the plow showed up and there was no way my snow blower would clear that mess. I know because I tried. Figured I'd have to break out the shove, but had a great idea. My Blazer hasn't move all winter and it has a higher clearance than my 3/4 ton truck, so I used it to run through the blockage several times, back and forth, back and forth, repeatedly. Then brought the wife's car up there to make sure it could get in out without getting high centered. It pass the test. We have had full sunshine, like you only get in Rocky Mountains in winter time, since then. The blockage has melted considerably and is still melting as we have one of those beautiful days. So much melt that my dog has been getting off the cleared areas to romp in the snow and do his business. Except where the snow is still pilled up over 4 feet in areas on the edges or where it drifted up. He's happy and my wife is happy, which makes me happy!
Took this picture at midway through the storm:
Reminds me of when I lived in Idaho. Had any rodent issues making nests in your Blazer's engine bay? I have, and I was only parked for a few days and they already made nests on top of the motor and also in the air box.
Today I finished installing my new power steering gear from Red-Head Steering gears. I haven't even had time to do a proper test but it already feels tighter. I'll be doing a whole write up later on my build thread.
Looks good! I'll need to replace mine eventually, I'm sure. It's fine now; could be tighter; but it's not annoying. I'm probably going to rebuild the existing one since I like to do that sort of thing. Blazer has less than 140k miles on it so I doubt the steering gear is worn or needs to be replaced or rebuilt any time soon.
Thought I had a failure in my HVAC system that is one of the Computer Controlled versions. Turns out I think the blend air door actuator might not have been initialized correctly after replacing the battery. I even pulled a couple errors for the HVAC system using my iLink code reader.
The symptoms were that I could not change the temperature of the air. So my first task was to open up the air-box and look to see if the blend door was loose but it was not. The actuator was holding it in position. Access panel to inspect blend door circled in red. I believe on the non-computer controlled systems, the blower motor resistors go here.
Blend door marked with the red arrow. The axle for it is in yellow.
I then hooked up the iLink and found the DTCs (B0408 and B0415) which indicated issues with the temperature control circuit. So I went inside, copied a few pages from my service manual to have in the truck as I did the diagnostics only to discover that the temperature control was now working.
I did learn that I have access to the HVAC controls and sensors through the iLink scanner so that was cool.
That's really great. I replaced the blower motor/fan and the resistor a couple years ago. Wish these Blazers had a cabin air filter. Just one more thing I need to figure out how to do.
Installed a group 78 Optima Yellow Top AGM battery. It is larger than the stock group 75. I had to use a different, but I think better, way to secure it.
The group 78 has basically the dimensions of the 75 but is 1 inch longer.
So I said goodby to my Blazer yesterday, Its gone off to California. I gave it to my son last year after I bought a Dodge truck. Though I still took care of it after he joined the Air Force. He sent a truck for it and I helped the guy load it. I gave him the info to join the site. I'll be driving my Dodge's from now on. Thanks to everyone that got me this far over the years!
I replaced the rear speakers in my 1999 Blazer. I learned that certain 6.5 in speakers can fit. It comes down to the outer diameter of the mounting frame for the speakers. It cannot be too large otherwise it would interfere with part of the armrest on the door panel. Some will not have mounting holes close to the ones for the original speakers, but some do.
So I said goodby to my Blazer yesterday, Its gone off to California. I gave it to my son last year after I bought a Dodge truck. Though I still took care of it after he joined the Air Force. He sent a truck for it and I helped the guy load it. I gave him the info to join the site. I'll be driving my Dodge's from now on. Thanks to everyone that got me this far over the years!
