No CA/AZ truck. Probably only spent a little time in Orange County's ocean dampness
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.
It was the dumbest thing. We heated the stud, juiced it and heated it again. With nothing more than the torque I put in a regular sized box wrench I manage to strip the threads on the stud with the doubled nuts. Ok. Break out the vice grips. Clamped that bitch on with as much force as my bear paws could muster into it. They were a smaller pair of vice grips too. With Drew standing on the manifold I started to feel the stud begin to move. And then the son twisted off like nothing. Literally twisted. Not a sharp break at all.
We went back to my place and I grabbed my extractor set. It’s icon from harbor freight which already my expectations were low. After successfully drilling a small pilot hole and stepping it up larger and larger we pulled and extractor out. Tapped it in and began to turn. Snap! Broke the extractor. Was able to knock it back out of the hole after hitting it from the other side. Stepped up in another bit size to use the next biggest extractor. Broke that sucker too.
Frustrated and hot we stopped for the day. I’m betting I had the hole big enough and just off center enough that the extractor was digging into the manifold and wouldn’t allow it to turn. So when I give it the beans turning by hand the bit locks in and can’t turn so it breaks.
We went back to my place and I grabbed my extractor set. It’s icon from harbor freight which already my expectations were low. After successfully drilling a small pilot hole and stepping it up larger and larger we pulled and extractor out. Tapped it in and began to turn. Snap! Broke the extractor. Was able to knock it back out of the hole after hitting it from the other side. Stepped up in another bit size to use the next biggest extractor. Broke that sucker too.
Frustrated and hot we stopped for the day. I’m betting I had the hole big enough and just off center enough that the extractor was digging into the manifold and wouldn’t allow it to turn. So when I give it the beans turning by hand the bit locks in and can’t turn so it breaks.
There's been many a time I've felt this way. Like obviously I'm a hack that doesn't know what the hell he's doing. You learn by making mistakes. I look back at the first 20 years of messing with cars/trucks and think damn I was dumb. But you gotta do dumb stuff to figure out what works sometimes. It's putting in the hard work of accepting the mistakes and moving on from them that pays off in the end.
There isn't a person that's walked this earth that looks forward to messing with old exhaust manifolds.
I think we have all been there. sometimes the smart thing to do is to walk away, take a breath, and come back and work on it with a clearer head and less frustration.
you will get it done in the end; just keep plugging away.
I got the manifold job "done". I think that there may be an exhaust leak at the driver's side donut, but other than that everything seems okay. It runs pretty well so far but I haven't had an opportunity to give it a thorough shakedown. I am still going to pursue fixing the EGR correctly when it's in for its next oil change (~900 miles from now).
Below are some pics and a video from the job. I am happy to get the Blazer back on the street. My girlfriend and I are making an effort to clean out the garage and donate a bunch of stuff. The K30 is back in the bay and we're loading up the bed with our donations (and my collection of scrap metal). If anyone has tips on scrapping metal (and an old catalytic converter) please let me know.
One comment I'll make is that the new Dorman manifolds came with new hardware for the downpipe side (studs, springs, washers, nuts). My K5 did not have the springs on it prior, but I wanted to install them this time. I guess they just apply added pressure to the downpipe ring so that the donut doesn't come loose. Those springs were incredibly stiff and I had the hardest time installing them. I ended up compressing them with channel locks and zip-tying them (pic below). I am thinking the zip ties will fail on their own pretty soon and I'll just keep checking that the nuts are tight at each oil change.
View attachment PXL_20240710_232042893.mp4
Below are some pics and a video from the job. I am happy to get the Blazer back on the street. My girlfriend and I are making an effort to clean out the garage and donate a bunch of stuff. The K30 is back in the bay and we're loading up the bed with our donations (and my collection of scrap metal). If anyone has tips on scrapping metal (and an old catalytic converter) please let me know.
One comment I'll make is that the new Dorman manifolds came with new hardware for the downpipe side (studs, springs, washers, nuts). My K5 did not have the springs on it prior, but I wanted to install them this time. I guess they just apply added pressure to the downpipe ring so that the donut doesn't come loose. Those springs were incredibly stiff and I had the hardest time installing them. I ended up compressing them with channel locks and zip-tying them (pic below). I am thinking the zip ties will fail on their own pretty soon and I'll just keep checking that the nuts are tight at each oil change.
View attachment PXL_20240710_232042893.mp4
Get it done!
Nice job persevering!
I think the idea is the springs keep the flange tight when it all expands with heat. I'll bet they were added with emissions stuff when higher exhaust temperatures became the norm. Purely speculation on my part.
Help seal with flex too
Yes I agree. That's why I liked to try and keep them in.
My Blazer woes continue... curious what you all think of this sequence of events...
What else would you guys check out?
- Girlfriend's '93 XJ won't start after she shuts it off to get gas in our neighborhood.
- I roll over with the Blazer and try to give her a jump. Her starter spins slowly and ultimately her Jeep does not start.
- The battery in her XJ has never been replaced under our ownership (3 yrs), we have been seeing low voltage readings on her alt gauge for a little while, and it was hot AF that day... I am thinking it was weak battery, weak alt, vapor lock, or a combination of those things.
- I drive her home in the Blazer. I shut off the Blazer when we get home.
- An hour later, I need to drive back to her Jeep in order to try getting it going again. The Blazer is dead!
- I leave the Blazer at home and use another car to rescue the Jeep. When I get home, I use the newly-resurrected Jeep to jump the Blazer (lol).
- I pull the Blazer around back because I am going to load it up with some things for an errand run. My dumb ass shuts it off. Guess what, it won't start again.
- I use a jump pack from Harbor Freight to get the Blazer started again. I drive it for 30+ minutes on the highway. I get home and shut it off.
- Today I go out there and try to start it. Starter is rolling real slow. Ultimately it fires off.
- I drive it to Harbor Freight tonight to buy some new tools. I bring the jump pack. Sure enough, it doesn't start up and I have to use the jump pack to get home.
- I take some voltmeter battery readings once it is back home:
- 13V with the motor on and headlights, radio, and AC on.
- 13.8V with the motor on and headlights, radio, and AC off.
- 12.5V with the motor off and everything else off.
- I have read that if you try jumping a car that has a bad alternator, you can actually damage the alternator (and other things) in the "good" car... have you all found that to be true?
- My Blazer's alt gauge is pegged at 13 while driving, and the voltmeter confirmed that it is 13V even with all of that crap on... so I'm hoping my alternator is okay. The readings do seem a little low though based on what I have read on other posts.
What else would you guys check out?
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What I do when I get a dead battery and I have to jump it, I charge the battery overnight.
Usually if the battery is not damaged then you're good for a while
I can tell you that I have experience with a battery failing to crank an engine over when the starter is hot, just like everything was at 0* and frozen.
Getting voltage readings, while you try to crank it over, is difficult.
Which often leads to the "parts cannon " approach.
But if you charge the battery and can confirm that it's at proper voltage, you should be able to check for excessive voltage drop when cranking it over. Unfortunately, without a voltage based load box, you will still need to decide if it's too many volts in demand from the battery , or not enough power available from the battery.
Getting voltage readings, while you try to crank it over, is difficult.
Which often leads to the "parts cannon " approach.
But if you charge the battery and can confirm that it's at proper voltage, you should be able to check for excessive voltage drop when cranking it over. Unfortunately, without a voltage based load box, you will still need to decide if it's too many volts in demand from the battery , or not enough power available from the battery.
Your voltage checks are valid, 12.5 is just a tad low for a fully charged batter 12.7 would be ideal. If the engine is idling when you took the loaded and unloaded charging voltage also exceptable. If taken at 1500-2000 rpm then maybe a tad low.
Yes do check your cable condition, and connections. My thinking is the starters armature, has an open in one winding and not as strong, needing the added boost from the jump box.
Yes do check your cable condition, and connections. My thinking is the starters armature, has an open in one winding and not as strong, needing the added boost from the jump box.
I’ve got couple of different load test devices in the garage. I’ll probably be dinking on the nomad the next couple of nights after work if you want to swing by and check it.
Thanks a ton @6872xtc! Once I charge up the battery, can I just watch the voltmeter while someone else cranks the key? If so, what voltage drop is acceptable?
Sorry, I don't know what you meant with your last sentence. Voltage-based load box?
There a battery load tester that you hook up to a full battery and you put a load on it that emulates starting, and you watch what it does as well as where it ends after you remove the load
circuit voltage drop test the lower the reading the better, anything over 1.5v is a problem, ideally you would like to see less than .5v. Less than .5v means you have nice clean tight connections and a properly sized, good conductor, between source and load.
For an easy preliminary test, yes. Watch a voltmeter, hooked to the battery, while someone else cranks it.
It could possibly drop below 10 volts initially when the starter first hits, but should come back up fairly quickly once the engine is spinning. It needs to have minimum of 10.5 volts while cranking to fire up decently.
I would try it cold first. This will give you a little information for comparison later.
Then do the same check with voltmeter when it's hot and doesn't want to crank.
After that, you may have some info that would help to decide if the starter or something in the starter circuit is pulling too much amperage if the battery is low on cranking power. (Volts and amperage)
Wear safety goggles or face shield. Do not stand over battery while doing these checks, or any time a battery is being loaded. Move the meter away from battery as best you can before test.
