Just one word of advice - when you cross the border to the peoples republic of MA, just make sure all your lights work & watch your speed. Our state government can't control their spending, so they extort it from hard working people in the form of traffic tickets. In light of the economy, they've ramped up their efforts. They're ruthless. It's not the cops fault - they're getting it from above ....

On the Blazer front, I'm kicking myself for not changing the oil pan gasket when I had the engine on the stand.

Got a good sized leak that's coming from the front left corner. Thought it was my sealer job on the crank position sensor, but that's a minor one. Also thought it was the Dorman lines I installed during the swap, but after some investigation it turns out to be 100% from the pan. Looks like I've got plenty of room to drop the cast aluminum pan though, being that the engine is in a '89. It's almost summer, so that can wait until late fall when we start driving it again.

 

Nothing fancy. Just washed and waxed it...again! lol. I swear there has to be at least 20 coats of wax on that beast! But she looks good. You can see the reflection of my house in the side of it! Almost like a mirror!

 

Installed new lift gate struts on my '98 LS 4dr. Kind of a wrestling match, but I won. Man, those things are stiff. Using all my weight and a lot of muscle I could not compress one of 'em even a tiny fraction of an inch. Thought they might be defective, but they work fine. Brand = Armstrong. $14.00 each.

 

Damn, time for brakes. I hate doing brakes. I really hate paying other people, so I guess I'll be doing front pads this weekend. Anything I need to know before I dive in?

 

AND WHAT IF they catch me with a gun?

 

They'll hang you if your from out-of-state. They barely let us have any! The Constitution does not apply here ..




Make sure to LUBE the pins! Nobody seems to do this around here, especially those quickie shops like Midas. So every time I buy a used vehicle the pads are worn diagonally from the caliper hanging up. Clean & grease those pins! Then your caliper is allowed to move freely, and you get max life out of the pads.

Any grease will do, but I like to use the stuff made for the job. This stuff is expensive ($20 for that little bottle at NAPA), but it lasts nearly forever, & is good to 2,800°F! If my brakes get that hot I think I'll have some other issues to contend with ....

 

In the last two days the Blazer has had 1. an oil change, lube and filter 2. half a tune up and 3. a new set of tires.

The half a tune up is because it took me longer than expected to get out the middle, driver's side spark plug. The front passenger plug is cross threaded. I could get it out but was tough to get the old one back in. I tried putting in the new plug but the threads got tore up trying to install. Will have to work on in to get the new one in. It was getting dark out and a little difficult to work on the Blazer. Three plugs, plug wires, cap and rotor, and fuel filter and the parts are installed.


This is the first time the Blazer has had decent tires and what a difference! It feels like a brand new car. Sweet! Taking a road trip this weekend and looking forward to a nice smooth journey.

That is all.

Bob

 

I was on my campus to take my last exam of the semester and came out to the blaze in the parking lot...

I must of sat there and tried turning it over for a good 5 minutes. I knew the battery had been on its way out for a little while, but didn't have the time. The weird part is today it would crank and crank and it sounded pretty darn close to starting up, but no cigar. The battery had just enough juice to finally crank after 5 minutes (lol?). I went to a buddys apartment complex and returned something I had borrowed, left the blazer running, then took the blaze over to Sam's Club. That battery I got from them was marked 11/10 on it. The sucker didn't even last 2 years and it was already bad!! Good news there is I got a brand new battery free because of their 3 year free replacement warranty. Other weird part is they stopped using Energizer batteries and went to Duracell. Probably because they were tired of replacing batteries for free lol. Just thought I'd share. A free battery? Heck yeah I'm down with that. Look at this pretty thing haha:

 

duracell makes car batterys nice

 

Pretty much used it as a farm truck. Went to a town about an hour away and got 2 calves and put them in the back. Man it was fun. Loaded them into a dog kennel and laid a tarp down under them. It stank but it was fun.