What are you working on today?

New front and rear speakers on the Kia, the rear speaker I did a couple days ago the front arrived today and I could not wait to install them, massive upgrade. Plus it came with this awesome badge šŸ˜†
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Taught my wife and son how to swap a water pump on my C1500 w the 350ci. My son came over late last night when he got off work to pull it. He got it back on but we ran late and since he had to work first thing this morning we stopped. This morning I showed my wife how to put the fan, belt and shroud back on which she did. I have a back and shoulder injury from a fall on the ice back in January and am laid up. They followed directions perfectly and she is purring back on the road once again. My wife has been a champ with all this and has to take care of the whole .80 acres of trees, grass, ponds, shrubs and now more vehicle maintenance as she has learned to changed the oil in her Honda as well as the truck.
 
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Taught my wife and son how to swap a water pump on my C1500 w the 350ci. My son came over late last night when he got off work to pull it. He got it back on but we ran late and since he had to work first thing this morning we stopped. This morning I showed my wife how to put the fan, belt and shroud back on which she did. I have a back and shoulder injury from a fall on the ice back in January and am laid up. They followed directions perfectly and she is purring back on the road once again. My wife has been a champ with all this and has to take care of the whole .80 acres of trees, grass, ponds, shrubs and now more vehicle maintenance as she has learned to changed the oil in her Honda as well as the truck.
Do you use any RTV etc, or just dry with paper gaskets?
 
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Easiest rear shocks I've ever changed on the xBĀ²
Didn't jack it up or remove the wheels
17mm on the Milwaukee, a 17mm Gearwrench, and a 6mm Allen is all it took
Not much left in them, yet they weren't leaking

New ones are much more responsive

Soon I hope to have time for the front quick struts
They're much more work to remove
A spin around the block implies significantly better roll control
Now to the front ones that have leaked all their oil out šŸ™„
 
May have dodged a bullet. Had either a weak clamp or a bunch of condensation that let coolants squeak out past a hose and I was losing coolant finally enough to have my temperature gauge Spike and then continued loss of coolant so I was able to cut a hose to eliminate the part with the pinhole puncture and clean up condensation and put on a new clamp so now the system should bleed itself over the next few days and if the symptoms do not return then I have dodged a bullet. Still debating on actually putting a proper ATF cooler line hose from the dealer on instead of leaving it as-is, what would you do.

The engine did not suffer catastrophic damage thankfully it actually is running okay there are no bad noises so I'm thankful for how things turned out and I was able to catch the problem and not just keep driving on a spiked temperature gauge.
 
Thinking of going to dealer to get that proper replacement hose, it may be on there very well now but then I can introduce a chemical flush in the day or so before (Prestone I believe says you can leave it in for 3 days) to have an overall clean system.

Probably will partially exchange ATF fluid as well, since we can reasonably assume the transmission got pretty hot, thus shortening the life of the fluid (ATF) in there.

All this between now and the month of October, planning, seems reasonable and prudent to keep car running well without any surprises.

Probably will get ramps to aid with purging system of air with cap off since there are no hills I can use around.

Today I will be again cleaning the headlamps with WD-40. No money or good practice in application technique for the more lengthy and pricey methods to "restore" headlights, the quicker methods seem to work better than the longer methods anyway... yeah the WD-40 wears off this we can confirm, but doing that every week or two with a paper towel, I feel you come out ahead.
 
Thinking of going to dealer to get that proper replacement hose, it may be on there very well now but then I can introduce a chemical flush in the day or so before (Prestone I believe says you can leave it in for 3 days) to have an overall clean system.

Probably will partially exchange ATF fluid as well, since we can reasonably assume the transmission got pretty hot, thus shortening the life of the fluid (ATF) in there.

All this between now and the month of October, planning, seems reasonable and prudent to keep car running well without any surprises.

Probably will get ramps to aid with purging system of air with cap off since there are no hills I can use around.

Today I will be again cleaning the headlamps with WD-40. No money or good practice in application technique for the more lengthy and pricey methods to "restore" headlights, the quicker methods seem to work better than the longer methods anyway... yeah the WD-40 wears off this we can confirm, but doing that every week or two with a paper towel, I feel you come out ahead.
Dealer 99% of time means ā€œyou will pay me cash nowā€
 
Dealer 99% of time means ā€œyou will pay me cash nowā€
I mean.. the hose IS holding but it already pinhole punctured once so I am not sure I trust it. ATF cooler hose. Thankfully OE pre-molded exact hoses of the appropriate grade don't seem hellaciously expensive...

Due to my close call, I am not sure I can trust my senses on if I'm smelling a little bit of a coolant leak somewheres or if that's just my mind playing tricks on me. Car runs great but now we are thinking about preventative maintenance. Bullet dodged it seems but wow entirely too close a call of a weekend.
 
Summary of the last few days of working on the Jeep. Trying to get ready for a trail ride.

  1. Re-re-re-re welded the tracbar mount on the axle. I need to replace the whole bracket
  2. Replaced both front wheel bearings. I went from 10 degrees of negative camber on each side to about 2. I know the front axle is bent. That's ok.
  3. Pulled out the seats and remaining carpet. Floor is rusty.
  4. Did the world's worst prep job, dumped on some tractor supply tractor primer --- will paint later
  5. Fixed the back hatch* -- this is a long one
  6. retapped a hole for the differential cover in the back. Finally bought a beefy cover since i'm always peeling the rear cover.

Back in April I slid down an embankment / hill side on a trail ride and landed against a tree. The force was enough that it popped the hatch open. After that, it wouldn't close. In fact, it was a few inches off from the striker. After doing some measurements, I found that I had kinked the body over. I briefly thought about trying to straighten out the body but figured since I got this far without popping any rear windows or the windshield out, I better leave it alone.

So I went to unbolt the hinges to adjust. The bolts all broke. Had to grind down the weld nuts and drill out the hinges. The factory bolts were M10. I bought 5/16 bolts (smaller) and drilled out the holes larger.

With bigger holes, smaller bolts, I was able to get the hatch moved ALL the way to the left, and the striker moved ALL the way to the right and now the hatch actually opens and closes. It's pretty obvious that the body has seen some trauma. The hatch shape is different than the body shape.

I might have enough space that I can put a tail light back on. Maybe.
 
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This crusty side object sensor module is out of a 2016 Chevy Traverse that has spent a lot of itā€™s life in Illinois. Unbelievable. Iā€™m so glad that I donā€™t have to deal with a lot of the crusty, rusty cars that you guys up north do.
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This crusty side object sensor module is out of a 2016 Chevy Traverse that has spent a lot of itā€™s life in Illinois. Unbelievable. Iā€™m so glad that I donā€™t have to deal with a lot of the crusty, rusty cars that you guys up north do.
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I can't tell you many of these I've run into... in various GM products of that era. Impala's... Traverse... Acadia... the list goes on. How GM's engineering team allowed a half-baked "sealed" module like that be installed where it is is a mystery to me. Not to mention the inconvenience they cause when they take the CANBUS down and wreak havoc on completely unrelated systems!
 
Did our 2014 Toyota Camry 4 cyl LE with 66k -rear rotor/pads changed,oil changed,coolant drain and fill toyota coolant.Front pads/rotor next week.Check battery,filters,belt. Started early for winter prep.
 
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Fairly easy start to the week:

Radiator, thermostat, and coolant elbows on an '05 LeSabre

VVT solenoids on a 2.4 Ecotec Malibu

Repair of G102 on an Aveo to cure multiple lighting issues on the LF

Diagnosed a leaking vacuum modulator in a '90 Ranger with the 2.9/A4LD combo... the modulator is almost completely blocked by the exhaust so that should be a fun one...

Finally received a rear knuckle for an '05ish Highlander from the salvage yard... only to find it looking like it was recovered from the wreckage of the Titanic.... I gave up and have an OE knuckle en route from the dealer.

A very good customer dropped off his Acadia Denali for a transmission replacement to rectify a severe TCC shudder. I have a crate trans from GM waiting for it's time to shine. This customer takes METICULOUS care of his truck: trans has had D&F's every 30-40k since new. I believe he just hit 120k... very poor (albeit common) showing from GM when it came to the 6Txx line of transmissions.

Outside that, my only other project on deck is running a new section of brake line to the rear of an E-150. I'm not even going to bother trying to save the frame to axle hose or the hose to wheel cylinder lines. There's a factory union under the drivers side, I'm going to tie into that and replace everything else. Hard lines, hose, wheel cylinders, and the drums/shoes should they be necessary
 
I can't tell you many of these I've run into... in various GM products of that era. Impala's... Traverse... Acadia... the list goes on. How GM's engineering team allowed a half-baked "sealed" module like that be installed where it is is a mystery to me. Not to mention the inconvenience they cause when they take the CANBUS down and wreak havoc on completely unrelated systems!
Yeah, these things are in a terrible location for sure. Like you, I canā€™t understand their reasoning for having these things so exposed to the elements. Itā€™s amazing how many times I mumble the words, ā€œwhat were they thinking?ā€ to myself during any given day. šŸ™„
 
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