Found a small puddle of gear oil on the garage floor under the rear end of the Tahoe Christmas day... Drove the K5 for the rest of the day only to find a pool of gear oil under the front axle on it! ARRG!

The Tahoe was easy. Two loose bolts. So much for factory torque specs. This time around I just applied "adequate" hand torque and cleaned up the axle with a wire brush & some brake clean.

Thought I might have gotten lucky on the K5 as I found a plugged vent. No such luck though as it was still pushing out rather profusely after a short test drive. Gonna replace the pinion seal this weekend.

 

i hate pinion seals, front one on my ranger leaks now, probly only a matter of time before the S-blazer needs them, just turned over 189,000 miles, all axle seals in both axles have been changed in the last year-except for the pinion seals, 'spose thats what will be next. got one heck of a gear/bearing whine from the rear axle, it was low on oil when i got it, after changing the oil in it i found out why it was low, bad axleshaft seals, spiders looked very worn too, almost like it had done 50K miles with different size rear tires. one thing about 80w90 hypoid oil, for being thick, it sure gets into dry hands quickly, seems like it has to be wore off your hands rather than being washed off.

 

This one shouldn't be too hard to replace. Air tools makes a pinion seal replacement a lot easier as does a good puller just in case the pinion yoke wants to be a pain.

Anymore, I wear gloves when working with oil/solvents/etc. I have enough problems with dry skin & cracking on my hands (finger tips are the worst!). Working around automotive oils/fluids just makes that worse without gloves.

 

Had an exhaust leak at the flange between the cat and muffler. Replaced cat last year. It was OK for a while, but started leaking and was getting worse. My first thought was to get a new gasket and some Permatex copper, but the guy at the auto parts suggested using 2 gaskets. Cleaned the flange surfaces with sandpaper and gave it a try. Can't detect any leakage... will see how it holds long-term.

While I was under there, replaced the fuel filter and treated it to a new air filter. While replacing the air filter, I noticed traces of coolant around the upper hose connection to the radiator. Had smelled coolant a couple of times, but never got to the source... Tightened the hose clamp and all seems well. I had replaced the radiator & hoses this past year... maybe I need to tighten things more.

Started to rain here, but I got the important stuff done for now.

Peace and Happy New Year!

 

Did a much needed oil change, and I think I need to replace my remote oil filter assembly. I always thought it bolted into place, but it's just kind of hanging there on my truck behind the skid plate.

 

Bought some really nice all weather mats for the blaze since they were a good price! My stock mats were kind of muddy
Don't mind the fact that one seat is leather and one is cloth. I'm still on the search for a leather driver's seat in good condition!




Also, removed the plastic plate covering the oil filter area and finally got a.... dum! dum! dum! Skid plate installed there. Got it from the yard for $5. Not a bad deal imo. haha. I'm excited! Took me forever to get the dang thing clean though. I got it off a blaze with a leak around the oil filter.

From this:

To This:

To Final Product on the blaze:

 

Besides tapping on it (mine is filthy) is there another way to tell if the skid plate is aluminum like that or plastic? I'm wondering what I have on my truck.

 

Well the easiest way for me was because my stock plate was bent lol. The little oil access door was bent in a way that it had to be plastic because I'm pretty sure metal wouldn't bend like that. But don't Zr2's come with metal skids stock? I thought they did.

 

For some reason I thought older models did but then it was switched to some composite whatsit plasticy nonsense or something.

 

Oh, you're right! I just looked it up. In 1999, they switched from aluminum to composite skid plates. But the composite is pretty strong, so if you hit something, you should have nothing to worry about. Plus, it is a lot quieter than aluminum and doesn't weigh as much.