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1989 K5 - Gradual Learning

First 4x4 - learning basic maintenance / upkeep and maybe some small mods.
Overview Gallery Discussion
shima said:
Amigos!

Wanted to do a quick little K5 check-in...

Three questions for you all:

1. Can anyone tell what size gas tank I have from this picture? From reading the forums I am guessing 31 gallon. Just wanted to double-check.
What size tank?

What size tank?


2. When I turn my steering wheel to the right or to the left, it looks like my front wheels bow outward. Here is a picture of what I am talking about. This is with the steering wheel just gently turned to get into the parking space. Is this normal, or do I need to make an adjustment?
Normal?

Normal?


3. I changed my transfer case fluid recently. All I had on-hand was ATF+4, which to my understanding is Chrysler's proprietary ATF blend. I figured it was fine to put into my NP241 but thought I'd double-check with you guys.
Here is what I put in:
https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/0e...a0383_1.693a7461e8d7cf44d772486ec85f190d.jpeg

Thanks for any and all input, as always!!
Click to expand...
#2 The tilt on the wheel is normal. Everything is straight and plumb with the steering straight. When you turn the wheel things tilt to help the truck turn. All sorts of cool terms like caster, camber, toe, ackerman angle, etc, going on here. As long as nothing is loose then it is working properly.
 
Shima if you are still having egr issues.
The egr opens at higher speeds, normally over 40 mph. This to dilute the air fuel charge in the cylinders to reduce Nox emissions.
When your symptoms and cel showed it seemed to happen on longer drives. What I believe is happening is the egr is hanging open, this is why your engine runs bad, vacuum leak at lower rpms. The computer sets a code when the egr is open at low rpms.
The egr solenoid does have a filter, I see it in the picture. The solenoid is just a switch. It should normally be open, vent egr side thru filter. When powered on the vent should close and route vacuum to egr. Powered off should open vent and bleed off vacuum at egr.
So if you have a vacuum guage with engine warm guage on egr vacuum signal port of solenoid, long hose up under hood and wiper blade, go for a drive. Watch guage above 40 mph maybe faster, 35" tires, guage should show vacuum. Slow down like coming to a stop guage should 0 vacuum.
If that is your results your egr system is not at fault.
It could be your cat. If you have excessive back pressure the egr can be held open. That pancake cat is original and TBI motors aren't designed well enough to keep the cat alive, not like modern engines.
Get an o2 sensor bung plug, drill and tap for ⅛" pipe thread. Thread a brass nipple with ¼" hose nipple. Put a ¼" fuel hose with a pressure guage 0 to 10 or 15 psi. On a hot engine rpms to 2500, you want to see no more than 2.5 psi on guage, I like 1.5 to 2.
If you see higher you have a restriction somewhere in exhaust system. My money would be on that cat.
2nd possiblity is carbon bits from the exhaust passage in the intake getting in the egr pintle and seat.
Hope this helps and if I confused you please ask for clarification
 
Wes Harden said:
Shima if you are still having egr issues.
The egr opens at higher speeds, normally over 40 mph. This to dilute the air fuel charge in the cylinders to reduce Nox emissions.
When your symptoms and cel showed it seemed to happen on longer drives. What I believe is happening is the egr is hanging open, this is why your engine runs bad, vacuum leak at lower rpms. The computer sets a code when the egr is open at low rpms.
The egr solenoid does have a filter, I see it in the picture. The solenoid is just a switch. It should normally be open, vent egr side thru filter. When powered on the vent should close and route vacuum to egr. Powered off should open vent and bleed off vacuum at egr.
So if you have a vacuum guage with engine warm guage on egr vacuum signal port of solenoid, long hose up under hood and wiper blade, go for a drive. Watch guage above 40 mph maybe faster, 35" tires, guage should show vacuum. Slow down like coming to a stop guage should 0 vacuum.
If that is your results your egr system is not at fault.
It could be your cat. If you have excessive back pressure the egr can be held open. That pancake cat is original and TBI motors aren't designed well enough to keep the cat alive, not like modern engines.
Get an o2 sensor bung plug, drill and tap for ⅛" pipe thread. Thread a brass nipple with ¼" hose nipple. Put a ¼" fuel hose with a pressure guage 0 to 10 or 15 psi. On a hot engine rpms to 2500, you want to see no more than 2.5 psi on guage, I like 1.5 to 2.
If you see higher you have a restriction somewhere in exhaust system. My money would be on that cat.
2nd possiblity is carbon bits from the exhaust passage in the intake getting in the egr pintle and seat.
Hope this helps and if I confused you please ask for clarification
Click to expand...

Thank you so much @Wes Harden!!
  • Bolded Text
    • I will give this a try on a warm day soon. I do have a vacuum gauge and I THINK it has a long enough hose.
  • Underlined Text
    • This will be fun to try out as well, thank you for the suggestion.
What's the best way to replace my pancake style cat? Keep the exhaust system on the truck, or remove it and then try to separate the cat from the piping?
 
I forgot to mention, remove your o2 sensor to install test bung and pressure gauge. this will set a code but you can clear it after test.

The best way would be to remove cat from the pipe, easier said than done might be best for muffler shop. Cut off wheel and a lot of patience, torch, air hammer with an assortment of bits, to remove cat
The new aftermarket cat would need some adaption to install. Another option for exhaust would be a complete after market kit, collector pipe cat intermediate pipes muffler tail pipe hangers and clamps.
 
It should be a 31 gallon tank. My old K5 was the smaller 26 gallon tank. It used the same factory skid plate but since it was a shallower tank there was like a 1"+ gap between the tank and the skid plate. I don't know if that's a sure thing, but at least that's my experience.
 
shima said:
Amigos!

Wanted to do a quick little K5 check-in...

Three questions for you all:

1. Can anyone tell what size gas tank I have from this picture? From reading the forums I am guessing 31 gallon. Just wanted to double-check.
What size tank?

What size tank?


2. When I turn my steering wheel to the right or to the left, it looks like my front wheels bow outward. Here is a picture of what I am talking about. This is with the steering wheel just gently turned to get into the parking space. Is this normal, or do I need to make an adjustment?
Normal?

Normal?


3. I changed my transfer case fluid recently. All I had on-hand was ATF+4, which to my understanding is Chrysler's proprietary ATF blend. I figured it was fine to put into my NP241 but thought I'd double-check with you guys.
Here is what I put in:
https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/0e...a0383_1.693a7461e8d7cf44d772486ec85f190d.jpeg

Thanks for any and all input, as always!!
Click to expand...
The taper in the back means the 31 gallon.
The 26 gallon is flat
 
This morning I had to move the Blazer. With the pickup in the garage, the Blazer has to sit out on the street. It is street sweeping day and if I don't move it I get a nice $50 fine. So, I went out at about 7:30 this morning to move it. 22 degrees outside and it is covered in snow and ice.

The blazer would crank and turn over, but then it would immediately die. I figured that I used too thick of an oil weight when I last changed it. The oil was too cold and viscous to let the engine run. So, I got the bright idea to hit the gas pedal a little bit as I cranked the engine. It started and ran... and at first I had my foot down a bit heavy. The RPMs were a little high. I realized quickly that I might be harming my engine forcing it to run like this while the oil was so thick, so I backed off on the gas pedal slowly. Eventually I took my foot off completely and it would idle. I moved it off of that block and parked it nearby... and then shut it off and walked back home.

Realistically, how much harm did I just do to my poor engine? I feel like s*** right now, it is really bumming me out. I was so focused on moving it I didn't think how much harm I might have done. I should have just left it and tried moving it this afternoon once it warms up a little bit. Screw the street sweeper!
 
You are just fine. Unless you had some extremely thick oil in it you didn't hurt anything and even then it most likely wouldn't hurt it either. Don't worry about.
 
It’s fine. 350’s can damn near run with wd40 as oil and be fine.
 
The internet has made people believe engines are delicate flowers that can be hurt if you don't follow the rules to a T. Truth is is that most engines are built like a brick out house to survive the average person who forgets to change their oil and just turns the key and drives away.
 
Since it's a TBI truck you have to have minimum oil pressure or it will kick off the fuel pump. So if your truck was running, you had sufficient oil flow.
 
Truckman4life said:
You are just fine. Unless you had some extremely thick oil in it you didn't hurt anything and even then it most likely wouldn't hurt it either. Don't worry about.
Click to expand...

Gibby56 said:
It’s fine. 350’s can damn near run with wd40 as oil and be fine.
Click to expand...

centexk5 said:
The internet has made people believe engines are delicate flowers that can be hurt if you don't follow the rules to a T. Truth is is that most engines are built like a brick out house to survive the average person who forgets to change their oil and just turns the key and drives away.
Click to expand...

mrk5 said:
Since it's a TBI truck you have to have minimum oil pressure or it will kick off the fuel pump. So if your truck was running, you had sufficient oil flow.
Click to expand...

Thank you guys, I really appreciate it.
 
Not much to report on the K5 recently, just been driving it as I work on the K30.

Here are some pics of it helping me haul a bunch of soil for my garden...

Got it filled up to the tailgate:
Filled to the Tailgate

Filled to the Tailgate


It was sagging just a little bit, but not too bad for that much dirt:
Sagging

Sagging


This was the (almost) full amount of dirt I picked up:
The Bounty

The Bounty


I love this thing so much. Really gotta get back to the K30, as that would have been a natural fit for this type of job.
 
How much for the load of dirt? I need to go that route soon

On the oil subject that's already been beat dead, what viscosity did you use?
 
Bent77 said:
How much for the load of dirt? I need to go that route soon

On the oil subject that's already been beat dead, what viscosity did you use?
Click to expand...

It was free off of Nextdoor. I don't know why so many people need to get rid of dirt, but I got two separate loads of it for free off of that website in the last couple weeks.

Regarding the oil viscosity, I don't remember being honest. I am guessing 10w-? It certainly wouldn't have been higher than 10w and if it was 5w it probably(?) wouldn't have had an issue starting.
 
GM used everything from 5w-20 to 15w-40 in these things. I tend to use lighter weight in the winter, and higher in the summer. That's if you change oil enough for that to apply.
My '77 is on 10w30 year round

Point being, as others said, you're fine
 
I had a tough night last night... skip to the bottom of this post to see my actual question if you don't wanna listen to me bitch.

Took the Blazer to go mountain biking. Went over the handlebars at one point and generally got beaten up pretty bad. Drove to Taco Bell to reward myself after such a brutal ride. Parked the Blazer in the parking lot and shut her off. When I tried firing it up to go home, it wouldn't start. It would crank but wouldn't turn over. I climb up onto one of the front tires to look into the engine bay just to see if anything was glaring. When I jumped down I tripped on a parking block and fell onto the pavement, got a little more scratched up. I thought maybe the engine wasn't getting enough air - that has always been my concern with this thing. We've talked about the cat clogging the system and whatnot in the past. So I tried hitting the gas pedal when cranking. No go. I removed the air filter housing and the freaking wing nut fell into my engine bay. Couldn't find it for the life of me, looked forever. Still couldn't get the Blazer to start. Finally took the loss and called AAA. The guy who came out was a boss - he has a '57 Chevy with the same 350 in it. It was fun to watch him diagnose it, but I was embarrassed that I didn't take some of the basic steps that he did. He watched the starter to verify that it was cranking the engine. Next he went into my TBI unit to make sure fuel was coming out of the injectors. He said it wasn't - the engine wasn't getting fuel. So he went back to my gas tank and traced the wiring. He found a ground wire that had become separated. He reconnected it and asked if I checked my fuses (nope, I had not... felt like a real idiot at that point). Sure enough blown fuel pump fuse. He had a spare in his truck. Fired right up. He helped me look for the missing wingnut forever, we both could not find the damn thing. So, he wrapped the post that the wingnut attaches to with electrical tape so that my air filter housing wouldn't knock around so much. I drove the Blazer across the parking lot, hoping that the wingnut would fall. Still couldn't find it. Drove home without a hitch, had a super painful shower, and went to bed. The only silver lining to this story is that the Blazer felt great running home (no shuddering/vibration at idle like before) and that I learned some things from watching Josh (AAA guy) diagnose the truck. If you read this far, thanks for reading.

So... does anyone know whether we can buy replacement wing nuts for the air filter housing? I'm searching through eBay right now and am coming up dry.

EDIT: Found some on eBay (https://www.ebay.com/itm/10pcs-1-4-...Blazer&hash=item216f44f5d2:g:CqcAAOSwO3pet0CC)
 
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Sucks you had a crappy day but awesome that you actually had a guy that was willing to help you out and not just hook it up and haul it to make some money. So many people now days don't want to go the extra mile for anyone if it takes more of their time.
 
Bummer night man. Happens to us all from time to time, at least you drove home in the end. A good hardware store should have a wing nut for you. The older ones were 1/4-20 I think, the newer ones (TBI like yours) are metric I think. I can check tonight if you need some confirmation.
 
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