Mall of America eh, So you live around the metro, where about?

 

Shakopee, you?

 

Saint Louis Park

 

Brand New alternator solved all my charging problems, and also got my HID's to work. Yippppeee. Pics will be up sooner or later.

 

Got my engine on the stand ... for the second time ...

Turns out when you install a second gen engine with the big cast aluminum oil pan in a first gen, that's the only way that pan is going to come out. Had a real big leak up in the front driver's side of the pan ... and oil leaks/burning was the entire reason for doing the engine swap to begin with. Wife commutes 70 miles per day round trip in this thing in the winter time, so small oil leaks get REAL expensive, real fast.

Wasted a few days unbolting motor mounts, front diff housing, & tranny mounts, and raising/lowering in every possible combination before I realized it was futile - engine has got to come out. Man was I pissed!!

So now that it's out on the stand, it's getting EVERY oil seal & gasket replaced, along with new COMP Cams 3202 High Energy timing chain set - looks much stronger than stock, so that's what I went with. Stock chain has about 1/2" play! Glad I caught that. Engine has about 160k miles on it now. Looking up though the crankcase, the cylinder walls & undersides of the pistons look real good - still has the crosshatch pattern in all 6 & the undersides of the pistons were very clean, which I was surprised to see since this engine spent nearly it's entire life in FL & GA as a rental.

I tossed around the idea of rebuilding the entire engine, but no sense in fixing what ain't broke. Runs REAL strong, zero smoke. I will install valve seals though while the heads are off for gaskets, just as a preemptive strike.

Man! Deja vu here - had it on the stand the exact same time last year: https://blazerforum.com/forum/genera...-begins-63094/

 

Changed my oil!

 

Smitty! sucks that happened. put in some poly motor mounts while its out,or hate yourself later lol.


Today i changed my oil,then later this morning My grandmother passed away. So now im having to deal with all that. Hopefully my grandfather will be alright. May not be on for a few days depending on what happens.

 

replaced the front brake pads and rotors on my 98 cuz one of the rotors was warped. the rotors were the stocks that came with it, one of em was rusted on. but nothing a little PB and a 3lb. hammer couldnt fix.

 

Over the weekend I

Had rear glass tinted to match factory side glass 15% (Why it wasn't tinted from the factory who knows... another "option" I guess - It can come with power everything, console shifter instead of column, delay wipers, heated mirrors but tinting the rear glass? Nah.)

Changed Fuel Filter

Redid rear side window trim - Looks so much better than that sun faded plastic

All bumper plastic and tow bar redone - looks great!

Found a power mirror switch at the junkyard - first one in two years of looking - and it only works down and right... but the last one didn't work at all so half way there! :/

 

I'm sorry to hear that chris.