CK5
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1989 K5 - Gradual Learning
- Thread starter shima
- Start date
First 4x4 - learning basic maintenance / upkeep and maybe some small mods.
That's a great story. Makes me sad for the grandpa but I guess there must have been some lack of communication between him and the parents. I hope it pays off for the grandpa in and the long run. Maybe his grandson will find a new project when he's out from under his parents' thumb and they can work on it together.
Prior to making this build thread, I took off the camper shell and put on fresh seals from LMC. While the camper was off I sanded down the bed rails and painted them. I put down a layer of primer first and then a couple of layers of basic rusto spray paint. Unfortunately, I didn't get many pics of the process. Looking through my phone I could find only four...
Got out there a little bit tonight, and boy did I make a mess of things. Started off by trying to clean up my EGR valve. I hit it with some carb / choke cleaner that I had sitting in the garage. Only after spraying it did I see on the label "NOT RECOMMENDED FOR FUEL INJECTED VEHICLES". Oops. I used it on my Mitsubishi, wish is also EFI... so hopefully that's not too big a deal.
Next, I tried cleaning up the plates that sit between the block and the EGR valve. Man, that was a bad idea. Pieces of the plate flaked off all over the place when I went at it with a wire brush. Probably not my brightest idea.
Then, I thought I would try and get the rest of that air cleaner gasket off. It stuck on like glue, so I had to pick at it piece by piece with my fingernails. Wasn't working too well. I started on it with the wire brush - tried my best to keep dust out of the intake.
After that was the real mess. Some of you might recall that I mentioned having some coolant sitting in my engine grooves in this thread. Well, I tried "reseating" my radiator hose to stop the leak. Of course, coolant came rushing out of the hose once I got it off. And of course, I had forgotten that my air cleaner housing was off. So I got coolant in the intake. Cursed myself for the next hour - such a dumb mistake.
Anyhow, after that I got everything reattached and hosed down the engine bay. My Haynes manual said that coolant should be washed off immediately, so I got after it as soon as I could. Once everything is dry, I'm going to clear the ECM codes by unhooking my battery. Then I'll get behind the wheel and see if the codes come back.
Regarding that coolant in my intake... how screwed am I?
Next, I tried cleaning up the plates that sit between the block and the EGR valve. Man, that was a bad idea. Pieces of the plate flaked off all over the place when I went at it with a wire brush. Probably not my brightest idea.
Then, I thought I would try and get the rest of that air cleaner gasket off. It stuck on like glue, so I had to pick at it piece by piece with my fingernails. Wasn't working too well. I started on it with the wire brush - tried my best to keep dust out of the intake.
After that was the real mess. Some of you might recall that I mentioned having some coolant sitting in my engine grooves in this thread. Well, I tried "reseating" my radiator hose to stop the leak. Of course, coolant came rushing out of the hose once I got it off. And of course, I had forgotten that my air cleaner housing was off. So I got coolant in the intake. Cursed myself for the next hour - such a dumb mistake.
Anyhow, after that I got everything reattached and hosed down the engine bay. My Haynes manual said that coolant should be washed off immediately, so I got after it as soon as I could. Once everything is dry, I'm going to clear the ECM codes by unhooking my battery. Then I'll get behind the wheel and see if the codes come back.
Regarding that coolant in my intake... how screwed am I?
So coming to Chinamans?
I doubt it, but you can count on me getting out there on some more entry-level runs. Our run to Pole Hill was awesome.
Not a lot, thankfully. The circle shield was on.
Its ok, we laughed with youLOL man... I was just brushing on the gasket then. No wonder.
We all start somewhere.
And don't fuss over the carb cleaner, just watch as some of it can eat rubber or paint
The generic stuff from Wally world actually works better. It will strip paint, like the old carb cleaner use to
Got back out there tonight and replaced the EGR gasket and the air filter housing gasket too. Took the truck for a drive and everything sounded / felt great. Happy to move on to checking out my u-joints for wear.
Wanted to check-in despite not much progress. Figured I'd let you all know I was still alive...
- Still need to check out my u-joints. Gonna get to that this week hopefully.
- Got some old shocks from @Justin V. Gonna swap out my old shocks with those.
- Gotta figure out a solution for my seatbelt. I'm one of those guys that likes to feel it tugging on me at all times. Mine retracts... sometimes.
That's a nice looking blazer. You will have a ton of fun with it. I wanted one really bad when I first got my license but things didn't work out and it took ten years before I bought one then another almost ten years before it was a driveable rig.
I've been pretty lucky with mine. It hasn't given me much trouble at all. There are a couple of trouble codes that are active, but the truck drives just fine. I love it and I love driving it.
...Speaking of driving it, I brought it into work today. I've actually been behind the wheel of the Blazer a lot lately. I can't wait to get some time to do the work that I've been promising, lol... work has been brutal lately.
Anyhow, I shot a couple of photos of it in the garage before walking in:
Anyhow, I shot a couple of photos of it in the garage before walking in:
My seatbelt was not quite behaving correctly, I think it was not fully retracting or something. I unbolted the big hex head bolt at the seatbelt retractor housing (lower part) and put in two thick washers between housing and body side. Something to do with the white door button plunger not sitting at the right depth when the door was closed.
Holy cow, thanks for that post. It's worth a shot, especially because my door hinges need to be replaced. The doors don't sit flush as they should.
