K5 Jess
1/2 ton status
mine will see mostly road time. With weekend offraodin. So i want it to run really nice on the highway.CK5
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'90 K5 - The Nevada Blazer [Post 1437: School me on alternators)
- Thread starter colbystephens
- Start date
mine will see mostly road time. With weekend offraodin. So i want it to run really nice on the highway.
Mess around with this calculator:
http://www.grimmjeeper.com/gears.html
Mine does great on the highway at 65-70. I get best mileage at 65, as it has my RPMs in the sweet spot (2065 rpm). I'm getting about 14-15 MPG on the highway. I don't feel comfortable driving a lifted truck at 80, so I can't speak to that. However, don't forget that with bigger tires, you need more rpms to spin them. So spinning at a slightly higher than stock rpm will often garner you better mileage with a big tire than stock rpm would.
With 37's, 4.56's, and Overdrive, you can fly down the highway as fast your truck will go.
My rig has a stock 350 TBI, and can't pull any grades at 65mph without dropping to 3rd. And the handling is not perfect after the lift / tires / crossover, so 70-75 mph is max for me (but still rare to be able to go that fast), which is great with the 4.56's.
My rig has a stock 350 TBI, and can't pull any grades at 65mph without dropping to 3rd. And the handling is not perfect after the lift / tires / crossover, so 70-75 mph is max for me (but still rare to be able to go that fast), which is great with the 4.56's.
K5 Jess
1/2 ton status
Sounds like Im gunna be pretty close then. Ive got a brand new set of 4:56s in the garage. Gotta see if PORC will swap the rear set from 10 bolt to 14bff and Ill pick up the difference in cost.
I arrived back in Fort McMurray this afternoon and the truck never did blow up... I was kinda hoping it would just 10 minutes out of town, lol!
I'll be dropping my truck off at the dealership up here after I finish the steering on my Tahoe. It is nice to have it up here with me
Regardless, the problem with the Sierra is that the transmission is upshifting and downshifting with a bang in and out of each gear. I suspect the line pressures are too high, or there may be a problem with a shift accumulator somewhere. When the truck is empty, it shifts like it has a nice shift kit in it, but when it is loaded up with the tahoe and trailer behind it, the bang feels like the transmission is going to scatter itself across the highway every time it downshifts.
Hopefully the dealership up here is a bit more useful than the one in Reno. I doubt it, given previous experience there, but there is always hope.
Not much of an update, because I haven't done anything since the Rubicon, but....:
I ordered up a flat-back diff cover from DIY4x this morning, along with some "K35 Blazer" fender badges. The 89-91 trucks didn't have fender badges, and I think that's a shame. The fender badge really makes the look of a Blazer, IMO, so we had to remedy that... but with a little customization. At $20/pair, it's probably as cheap as buying cheapo plastic ones from LMC or something anyway.
I'll have a lot more peace of mind with a real diff cover too.
I ordered up a flat-back diff cover from DIY4x this morning, along with some "K35 Blazer" fender badges. The 89-91 trucks didn't have fender badges, and I think that's a shame. The fender badge really makes the look of a Blazer, IMO, so we had to remedy that... but with a little customization.
At $20/pair, it's probably as cheap as buying cheapo plastic ones from LMC or something anyway.I'll have a lot more peace of mind with a real diff cover too.
I ordered up a flat-back diff cover from DIY4x this morning, along with some "K35 Blazer" fender badges. The 89-91 trucks didn't have fender badges, and I think that's a shame. The fender badge really makes the look of a Blazer, IMO, so we had to remedy that... but with a little customization.
I never realized how much I missed the emblems until a year ago so I ordered some from LMC (not cheap$ but plastic), at least I'm really happy with the difference I see when I look at my truck
. I can't wait to see yours. Oh and my inlaws paid for mine as a Christmas present, so all is good.
andyblack
Registered Loser
I broke mine when I tried to take them off when I painted my truck. I was going to reuse them...
Oh well. I still have the holes in the fenders if I decide to get some more.
Oh well. I still have the holes in the fenders if I decide to get some more.
My holes were all welded up, so I cut the tabs and used 3m to hold them.
While I'm waiting for my diff cover and badges to arrive, I decided it was time to do the headlight relay modification since it's starting to get dark earlier and I'm finding myself driving at night again. So I studied up on it today, and went and bought almost all the stuff I need. It's getting a bit more expensive than I would've liked, mostly because I bought stuff at auto parts stores because it was convenient, though there certainly are cheaper options. The most expensive thing being the wiring itself.
Because I want to run 10 gauge wire directly to the light bulbs, I'm stuck for the rest of the weekend. I need to get some proper connectors to connect 10 gauge to the little 1/8" needle connector thingies that stick off the bulb. That won't happen till Monday when a real electrical store is open.
But, I'm really pleased with how this is all working out. I've been able to make it look really good, and I'll post some pictures once I have it complete. I think it shouldn't take me much more time to finish it up once I have the proper connectors. I'll be glad to have the 4 headlights on at once, because the other night when I was using my brights in the desert, I felt like I wanted to have the low beams fill in the space immediately infront of me.
I also picked up a turn signal switch wiring set up, as well as an oil pressure switch. I'm hoping that replacing those components on my truck will deal with the shorts in my Horn and ECMB circuits, respectively. I may dig in to that tomorrow, but there's a good chance we're going hiking instead.
Because I want to run 10 gauge wire directly to the light bulbs, I'm stuck for the rest of the weekend. I need to get some proper connectors to connect 10 gauge to the little 1/8" needle connector thingies that stick off the bulb. That won't happen till Monday when a real electrical store is open.
But, I'm really pleased with how this is all working out. I've been able to make it look really good, and I'll post some pictures once I have it complete. I think it shouldn't take me much more time to finish it up once I have the proper connectors. I'll be glad to have the 4 headlights on at once, because the other night when I was using my brights in the desert, I felt like I wanted to have the low beams fill in the space immediately infront of me.
I also picked up a turn signal switch wiring set up, as well as an oil pressure switch. I'm hoping that replacing those components on my truck will deal with the shorts in my Horn and ECMB circuits, respectively. I may dig in to that tomorrow, but there's a good chance we're going hiking instead.
Ooh , I have been wanting to do the same mod ever since I put the 89-91 clip on....take lots of pics colby.
I agree, when ever I get my truck back together I plan on this.
Curious what plugs you use on the back of the headlights.
I'm using female spade connectors, crimped down a bit. Yes, ghetto on something mission critical....but i've had 1 fall off in 4 yrs....so guess it works!
I'll do a little write up, and re-post the wiring diagram I'm using. It's from DPI's old thread. I'm not that good at wiring, but I'm learning a lot and doing this slow to make sure it's done right. It's actually quite straight forward, so that's good. I think mine is looking pretty professional, don't know if that's true, but I think it looks real good.
I'm going to do one of 2 things:
I'm going to a specialty electrical store tomorrow and will hopefully get some new inserts to put into the stock plug w/ the 10 gauge wire, or I'm going to get 1/8" spade connectors in a 10 gauge size. The first would be more desirable, the second would be acceptable. I'll let you know how it goes. I suspect these sorts of connectors are hard to come by, but this place I'm going to should probably have both styles. I could probably hook a guy up if needed.
I could probably hook a guy up if needed.
If you find something that works well, pickup another set. I'd be happy to send paypal!
Ok, here's my Headlight Relay Mod write up... it's not going to be much different than any of the other 1000 threads on the topic, but maybe it'll be helpful to someone. At the very least, I can document what I did here.
Here's the wiring diagram I used, thanks to DPI on his thread here: http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45681&highlight=relay+mod
It works great. My wiring was in good condition, and "young" by comparison to most of your trucks, being a '90 that's lived its whole life in the desert. You could probably count on one hand how many times this truck has seen rain.
(Kidding) So, I think the improvement in the amount of light put out for the low beams isn't a huge improvement. However, I'm very excited to have the low beams on with the high beams to fill in the space not covered by the high beams.
I decided keep the wiring colors (mostly) the same, to make it easy on myself in the future. That meant picking up some green, brown (tan), black, and red 10 Gauge wire.
Step 0: Disconnect your battery.
Step 1: Decide where you're going to put the relays. I put my relays on the driver's side fender in front of the windshield washer fluid reservoir. There was a big hole in the fender in front of that spot, so I decided I'd mount my relays/circuit breakers to something else and mount that over the hole. As I was looking around for something to use, I decided upon using a piece of plastic I was able to cut out of the stock tire jack mount, which was located on the driver's side inner fender.
P1070890 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
Step 2: Run a wire from the power lug on the back of the alternator through the corrugated loom over to that fender. Connect it to a 30A circuit breaker. I used 3, one for each relay. So, I connected them all in parallel as shown in the picture above. I chose to use circuit breakers instead of in-line fuses so that if ever something went wrong, the headlights would blink instead of going out altogether. That way I could at least pull over.
Step 3: Connect power from each circuit breaker to the appropriate relay. I decided to color code my circuit breaker/relays with the color of wire that goes to the headlight each one would power. So, red goes from the main power terminal to the relay that connects the headlights (Terminal 87). Green goes to the relay that powers the high beams (Terminal 30), and tan goes to the relay that powers the low beams (Terminal 30).
Step 4: Ground your relays according to the diagram above.
Step 5: Cut the wires that currently go to your headlights, and connect them to the relays. There's a jumper wire between terminals. For instance, you can see on the left relay that there's a terminal with 2 skinny green wires coming out, one going to the right-most terminal. In the diagram above, this is represented by the pink and purple wires coming out of the headlight dimmer switch. For me, those were green and tan wires. I cut them within several inches of the headlight plugs so that I'd have plenty of slack to make my connections to the relays. These skinny little wires now cause the relay to to close, sending power from the 10 Gauge hot wires to the terminal that will send power to your headlights.
Step 6: Make up new wires that go from your relays to your headlights. This was a bit of a challenge for me on my '90. The stock plugs are a hard-to-find 1/8" female spade type thing. I couldn't find a stock replacement, particularly one that would accept a 10 gauge wire. But I did find a female spade connector that was 1/8" wide, and it is referred to as a 120 female spade. It is not available in a 10 gauge, however, so I used 14 gauge to go from the relay to the light bulb. I don't believe this will be a problem at all, because it is still much larger than the stock wiring. In Addition, I'm now sending power from a 10 gauge wire into the relay, so the relay has 14.2 Volts, and there should be little to no real voltage drop over the distance between the relays and the light bulbs on the 14 gauge wires.
I decided to make my splices at the relay because they fit into the spade connectors better than splicing at the spade connectors on the light bulbs. For instance, on the right hand side of the photograph above, you can see 2 green wires coming out of the relay. Each one goes to a high beam.
I will add comparison pictures later. I will take them once it's dark.
Pretty straight forward. I enjoyed the task, as it's the first wiring task that I feel I've done a very good job on. I still need to finish putting the new wiring completely into the corrugated loom, though. Now to dig into my steering wheel column and get the short in there figured out.
Here's the wiring diagram I used, thanks to DPI on his thread here: http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45681&highlight=relay+mod
It works great. My wiring was in good condition, and "young" by comparison to most of your trucks, being a '90 that's lived its whole life in the desert. You could probably count on one hand how many times this truck has seen rain.
(Kidding) So, I think the improvement in the amount of light put out for the low beams isn't a huge improvement. However, I'm very excited to have the low beams on with the high beams to fill in the space not covered by the high beams. I decided keep the wiring colors (mostly) the same, to make it easy on myself in the future. That meant picking up some green, brown (tan), black, and red 10 Gauge wire.
Step 0: Disconnect your battery.
Step 1: Decide where you're going to put the relays. I put my relays on the driver's side fender in front of the windshield washer fluid reservoir. There was a big hole in the fender in front of that spot, so I decided I'd mount my relays/circuit breakers to something else and mount that over the hole. As I was looking around for something to use, I decided upon using a piece of plastic I was able to cut out of the stock tire jack mount, which was located on the driver's side inner fender.
P1070890 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
Step 2: Run a wire from the power lug on the back of the alternator through the corrugated loom over to that fender. Connect it to a 30A circuit breaker. I used 3, one for each relay. So, I connected them all in parallel as shown in the picture above. I chose to use circuit breakers instead of in-line fuses so that if ever something went wrong, the headlights would blink instead of going out altogether. That way I could at least pull over.
Step 3: Connect power from each circuit breaker to the appropriate relay. I decided to color code my circuit breaker/relays with the color of wire that goes to the headlight each one would power. So, red goes from the main power terminal to the relay that connects the headlights (Terminal 87). Green goes to the relay that powers the high beams (Terminal 30), and tan goes to the relay that powers the low beams (Terminal 30).
Step 4: Ground your relays according to the diagram above.
Step 5: Cut the wires that currently go to your headlights, and connect them to the relays. There's a jumper wire between terminals. For instance, you can see on the left relay that there's a terminal with 2 skinny green wires coming out, one going to the right-most terminal. In the diagram above, this is represented by the pink and purple wires coming out of the headlight dimmer switch. For me, those were green and tan wires. I cut them within several inches of the headlight plugs so that I'd have plenty of slack to make my connections to the relays. These skinny little wires now cause the relay to to close, sending power from the 10 Gauge hot wires to the terminal that will send power to your headlights.
Step 6: Make up new wires that go from your relays to your headlights. This was a bit of a challenge for me on my '90. The stock plugs are a hard-to-find 1/8" female spade type thing. I couldn't find a stock replacement, particularly one that would accept a 10 gauge wire. But I did find a female spade connector that was 1/8" wide, and it is referred to as a 120 female spade. It is not available in a 10 gauge, however, so I used 14 gauge to go from the relay to the light bulb. I don't believe this will be a problem at all, because it is still much larger than the stock wiring. In Addition, I'm now sending power from a 10 gauge wire into the relay, so the relay has 14.2 Volts, and there should be little to no real voltage drop over the distance between the relays and the light bulbs on the 14 gauge wires.
I decided to make my splices at the relay because they fit into the spade connectors better than splicing at the spade connectors on the light bulbs. For instance, on the right hand side of the photograph above, you can see 2 green wires coming out of the relay. Each one goes to a high beam.
I will add comparison pictures later. I will take them once it's dark.
Pretty straight forward. I enjoyed the task, as it's the first wiring task that I feel I've done a very good job on. I still need to finish putting the new wiring completely into the corrugated loom, though. Now to dig into my steering wheel column and get the short in there figured out.
Good write up colby it should come in handy soon.
it should come in handy soon.
Ok, here's the light comparison. The camera settings are the same (3.5 aperture and 1/5 of a second exposure - fairly close to reality, though a touch darker), and the time of evening is the same. As such, it's a very fair comparison.
You can see that there's not a significant difference between the two low-beam photos:
Before:
IMG_5320 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
After:
IMG_5321 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
The quality of light is a touch whiter now, and just a hair brighter. Not too significant though. You'll notice a 5' shift to the left in where the lights are aimed from last night, so take that into account when reading these photos.
The brights, however, are AWESOME! Mostly because they now fill in the foreground with the low beams too.
IMG_5322 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
This is at about 75 to 100 feet from my house.
You can see that there's not a significant difference between the two low-beam photos:
Before:
IMG_5320 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
After:
IMG_5321 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
The quality of light is a touch whiter now, and just a hair brighter. Not too significant though. You'll notice a 5' shift to the left in where the lights are aimed from last night, so take that into account when reading these photos.
The brights, however, are AWESOME! Mostly because they now fill in the foreground with the low beams too.
IMG_5322 by colbyjstephens, on Flickr
This is at about 75 to 100 feet from my house.
I'm picky about lights, and run 5000k 35w HID's in my BMW.
I have ZERO complaints about my burb lights, other than the fact that they burn out bulbs pretty quick. Get some spare lowbeams to carry.
I have ZERO complaints about my burb lights, other than the fact that they burn out bulbs pretty quick. Get some spare lowbeams to carry.
