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Dont you hate previous owners?

RENO88

RENO88

1/2 ton status
Joined
Aug 1, 2007
Posts
260
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Location
San Diego
I know that my truck was neglected! Every time I do something, it's to fix crap the previous owner did. I replaced my fuel pump to find out the last owner swapped in a completely different sending unit! Always had leak from oil plug due to over torque. Jerry rigged a CB radio setup. Stupid stickers in odd places.. The list goes on, and on!
What are your experiences with this BS? Some people just do not care about what they drive.
 
Funny you mention this. When i purchased my blazer i was told it had 20k on a motor rebuild and 15 on the trans. When i bought the rig i knew i was going to have to replace the flywheel no big deal since i beat him up on the price. during the installation of the new fly wheel there were only 3 bolts holding the Tranny in and only 1 was tight. got that fixed and it ran great for about a month and then the harmonic balancer came off the crank. put in a doner 305 which provoked me to build a 383. during the install of the 305 i noticed the front u-bolts were loose. it has turned into a little bit of a nightmare up to this point but i just about got all the problems from the meat whistle who owned it before me. atleast i know what i got now.
 
Thats why you buy from the elderly gentlemen whom drove the K5 to tow their boat down the street for the past 5 years...:D

Now my buddies wagonneer. HOly sh*t the previous owner rigged up rnadom lights, a second gas tank with a electric pump that didnt work.
 
The way my Dad did some of the electrical compared to todays standards made me scratch my head.
 
Oh god where do I start...


My dad owned my '92 K1500 Blazer before I got it...his idea of maintenance is change the oil every 3k miles and rotate the tires once a year. Nothing else...he sells cars when they're about 3-5 years old as they're OOOOOOOLD to him by then.:rolleyes: Luckily I bought it at 5 years old and around 55k miles so nothing was horribly over on it's maintenance intervals or not working.

'93 Geo Tracker 4x4 my buddy had owned (and floated down a river - frame was FULL of sand) and he had gotten it from his fiance and her family. Apparently they liked to drive around with it in the summer with the top completely off and out of the vehicle...so when it rained everything got wet. The carpet STANK! I pitched the carpet and liner and suddenly that thing smelled like a new vehicle! There was mold growing on the passenger side floorboard!:haha: They're still my friends but I'll never buy a vehicle from them...well, unless he wants to sell his '73 Javelin.

'99 Dodge Ram 1500...mostly just POS Chrysler engineering but when I first got it there was a sort of bog when you pushed down on the gas at 40+mph. Computer showed no issues, ran and idled great...oh wait, somehow it had a baseball sized wad of blown in house insulation jammed into the air filter box.:rolleyes:

'96 Ranger 4x4...kid left it pretty much alone in the time he owned it from '99 to '03 when I bought it but the ONLY maintenance he did was regular oil changes and to have the front steering linkage completely replaced. Did I mention he put 110,000 miles on it and it had 140,000 miles when I got it? ORIGINAL SPARK PLUGS AND WIRES! Smallest gap was .1" and several were wider than my gapper could measure. Most of the plug wires were stuck to the boots. Wheel bearings, races, front u-joints, front shocks, front coil springs, tires so old and abused they had cracks in the tread, a whole host of sensors (went from like 8 CEL codes to 1 by the time I was done) ANNNNNNND...he loved the Silver Lake Sand Dunes so this thing had sand EVERYWHERE! I could vacuum the hell out of it every week and still come up with sand inside. You couldn't take a bolt off the thing without having sand filter down. I owned it for 3.5 years, wash my vehicles fanatically, and still couldn't get rid of all the sand.
Good truck though after I got it fixed up.

Lastly, my current '96 Tracker. Prior owner was just smart enough to be mechanically dangerous. His "mechanic" was even worse.
-Stereo "System" with like 10' of extra monster cable coiled up and taped to the bottom of the passenger side seat. Two 10" subs just rattling around in the back and an amp sitting on the tranny hump in front of the rear seat. Gee...for some reason the subs didn't work half the time. Blown front speakers because he decided little 4" speakers could thump. The wiring...amazed he and I didn't have a fire before I ripped it all out and rewired the stereo to a factoryish setup.
-Filled the transfer case with ATF instead of 90w...and then when a funny whine developed instead of CONSULTING THE OWNERS MANUAL WHICH LISTS WHICH FLUIDS TO USE they filled the transfer case about 8" higher with more ATF by putting it in through the speedo gear hole. Thought I was loosing fluid from the transmission until I realized it was full and the level in the t-case was even with the speedo gear.:doah: Drained, refilled with el cheapo 75w90 and whalla, no more whine.
-Welded the rear u-joint caps to the driveshaft's cups. Had to get a whole new rear driveshaft when the u-joint failed this fall.
-Over torqued quite a few things like the lug nuts, speedo sensor bolt, and all kinds of bolts and connectors under the hood.
-Admitted when I bought it that when they put the lift on it they installed the rear control arms upside down and side to side and he drove it like that for a while before they fixed it. This means the axle would have been pulled forwards and the the arms would have been arcing DOWN.:crazy:
-4.30 gears meant for stock 27" tires with 31's and he said it was slow and the speedo was "close to stock". Moron. Speedo was WAY off and the thing couldn't maintain 65mph with the windows down.
-These have screws in the air box that aren't meant to come out so you can't loose them. However someone had over torqued them and then replaced them with LARGE course thread screws and some LARGE bolts...that all managed to seize in place. Okay, so then he just runs the filter until it's battleship GREY. Well now what do you do to change a clogged filter in an air filter box that you managed to basically bodge shut?
Eliminate the problem entirely and just pull the air intake tube off the box! All the fresh air you could ever need!:eek1:
-Heater didn't blow out the floor vents.







Turned out when he did his fantabulous wiring job for the stereo he pulled the carpet back from the hump and when he put it back he didn't tuck it under the floor vent ducts. It was covering them.:laugh:


Oh there's more but I'd be typing for hours.





Oh yeah, if anyone is ever having a hard time choosing between a few used vehicles to buy just call me in to consult. I'll look over them, consider their issues and flaws along with their positives...and then pick the lemon/horribly owned one. Then you can get the good one.
 
How about the great shape and all original description that people list them as, then you drive several hours to always be dissappointed.
 
Oh yeah. Michigan is full of those. "NEW SHEET METAL" usually means all the exterior body work is new and/or full of bondo and if you crawl under the truck you can see the carpet everywhere.
 
I hate to admit it but the previous owner of my blazer took better care of my Blazer then i do. I have kindly neglected it.

As for the 77 truck my friend owned it before me. OH GOD!! He couldn't fix the hole in the gas tank (which was a small SMALL hole) so he rigged up a boat tank in the back and ran the fuel lines between the cab and bed. :doah:As for under the hood there was a piece of carpet under the A/C condenser (i think) bungee strapped on for what reason i have NO idea.

Then instead of just putting the radio where it should go he drilled holes in the bottom of the dash and plumber's taped it up there. So it's 6 inches lower than it should have been already...:haha:

I could go on and on but i'm sure if the guys that got some of my rigs over the years were here i'd probably be voted off this island.....:crazy:
 
when I bought my truck it had a junk lift on it, every leaf but in the rear main leaf was broken or cracked, the front springs set unlevel so they welded angle iron behind the shackle to hold the spring up to sit level with the other one! all because they wanted a cheap lift instead of buying new, I also found out the ac worked but hey removed it when they did an engine swap. receiver hitch was welded on and broke the first time I tried to pull someone out of a mudhole, thankfully I wasnt pulling a trailer when it came off. and the one that gets me the most is welding collector flanges on the headers so it wont leak which makes it impossible to put new gaskets in to fix it right and new headers had to be ordered.
 
Since I'm only 19 my list aint to bad and will grow as I get older.

85 k5(My daily drive)
I bought from a guy in atlanta. Well I live in houston. My dad and I flew up and drove it back home. I will never do that again. The guy had the truck idealed so high that it would not stop if you were going down an incline:eek1:. Fixed that in a parking lot and made it home fine. Got to looking everything over. You could turn the distrubuor with your hand, all the bolts on the transmision you could turn them with your finger tips. Lots of bolts on the engine were lose or missing.

Now the big proble
82 k5(Project truck)
I am the 5 owner of this truck and there is only 2 other names on the title. I think this truck is half bondo and the other half is rust. It looks like the pos just put bondo right over the rust and didnt even bother to nock the rust off either. There is a piece buy the door where they cut out and stuck a new piece in, but they didnt weld it together. They joined the with duck tape then put bonod over it.:haha: Where the floor meets the rocker pannels, it looks like that had completly rusted out. So the screwed sheet metal to join the two and slaped bondo over it and even made it to where the bondo had the little lip for the door weather stripping.
Image032-1.jpg

Ok there was 3 horn buttons, one on the steering wheel and two on the dash. Then there was 3 switchs for high beams, steering wheel, dash, and floor. They had some other switch's that went to nothing. They was tons of wires going no where under the dash. The top is held on by two sheet metal screws(luckly it didnt blow off when I was bringing it home). The rear window weather striping is missing on the tailgate for the window, they put silicon cox down it as the weather stripping(but there is no window in it). The drop down hitch is barley held on by 2 bolts that are about to rust through. They took the ac compressor off and the bracket, so there is only one bolt holding the power steering pump on and no way to tighten it. The speakers on the dash went out, so they put new holes in the dash and put the speakers there. There is much more but I just havent found them yet. O I almost forgot the huge front bumper that was on the truck, it even covered up the low beams. I could hit a brick wall with it and be fine.
Image020-1.jpg
 
Dumbass things the PO did to my truck:

1) Put a friggin Edelbrock 1407(750CFM) on a 5.0 :doah:

2) Redneck exhaust.. the planning was very poor(the rear spring hits the tail pipes when the rear is flexxed) and it all leaks.. looks like a cheapy kit that someone slapped in. Sounds like crap and leaks.

3) Miss matched wheels and tires front and rear.. rears are 33's and fronts are 32's.. and the wheels don't match, another expense for me :doah:

So far thats really it.. all the other stuff is just something I'd expect from a 25 year old truck.
 
the PO ripped all the emmisions stuff off the engine so im not passing emmsions. Im not going through all that to get it up to spec, but i dont mind, she runs better without it i guess. I have yet to ID the motor, and after seeing a what i thought was a gm motor in the junkyard with no numbers in the usual spot im wondering if mine has them. i saw them on a v6 block and theyre hard to miss
 
I should have known better

I've been driving for 45 years, so I should have looked closer. The 76 Jimmy we bought was missing a front driveshaft (got one), 4 mismatched tires (at least the same size), and some dumb a** put the left front wheel on with capped lug nuts that didn't pull the wheel up to the hub. By the time I noticed it, the wheel was ruined and it had ground a groove into the hub (ended up replacing both front hubs/rotors). Rather than remove the emissions stuff, some PO put not one but TWO cats on it. Unfortunately, according to my exhaust guy, this is illegal in CA and it won't pass inspection.
Nice. Someday, maybe I'll look the last PO up and show him my new driveshaft.
 
I haven't even seen everything that PO's did to my poor K5. Just a few that I have found so far:

1. Wire running from the battery + terminal through the firewall (without a grommet), and then hanging bare under the dash.
2. Unknown wire taps in nearly every wire I can find under the dash, and most don't go anywhere.
3. Four matched 33" tires, with an ancient 31" spare.
4. There is a whole bundle of wires below the stereo, that don't appear to go anywhere.
5. There is a solenoid on the drivers side fender well, with a 14 gauge wire running to some unknown point underneath.
6. The truck was painted about a year and a half ago, and the PO promptly dropped the shell down the driver's side rear fender.
7. Paint was put on directly over the rust. No wonder all the rust is starting to show already.
8. The exhaust is run under the doors, and most of the hangers are in to rusted out floor supports. The passenger side is now wired up, because I haven't had the cash to get the new duals put in, and the support broke within two weeks of buying the truck.
9. There are currently two sets of seat covers, because the first set of saddle blankets wore through. Apparently it was easier to add another set of seat covers over the saddle blankets.
10. The rear springs had steel wedges pounded between the leafs, to try and relieve the saggy butt syndrome. I really should get new springs soon.

I know that there is a lot more, but this post would be four pages long, and that is just my K5.
 
Bought my second 89 Blazer awhile ago needing a DD for the winter. Only needed one winter out of it before I could spend some time and $$ on it. Didn't make it.

The second day after I got it, parked it in the lot at work. Happened to look out the window and it had rolled down the parking lot into two other cars. Once I got home, tore it apart and found the jackass who owned it before put the linkage to the tranny in backwards. Held in with duct tape since it didn't fit right. :eek1::eek1:

Wiring is all kinds of screwed up. I keep finding new wires all the time that just goto random places and end. One was the power to the alarm they just cut out... constant hot. That was fun to track down when my battery went dead.
The wiring for the horn/radio is screwed up as well. Their solution: remove the fuse. If its in the radio/horn work but the truck won't start. :confused:

Was told the floorpans were replaced. Seemed ok until I got all the carpet out (after almost going through). They were replaced.. with something that was not for a blazer. Whoever did that spent more time getting the carpet to fit right when they put it back then they did on the pans. From the underside it doesn't look bad.. take out the carpet and its held in with strapping welded to the floor.

Then there was the oil pan. Not so much a problem as an embarrassment. The oil pan was shot when I got it and the previous owner had bought one and tossed it in the back when I bought the truck. I put it on since it was there and was free. Took the truck for an exhaust. The crap I got for bringing in this beat up truck with a shiny new chrome oil pan...

If nothing else, all the problems gave me a good reason to park it and start stripping for a complete rebuild. Demolition thread to come this spring. :laugh:
 
When I bought my 1985 blazer, i guess i was very lucky to a point.
all the wiring was good. the engine had been replaced with another and all was good there. No Complaints.

Now when it comes to the 1978 stepside I just got, thats a different story.
all in all it was worth the money I paid , but the list of cheap work and jury rigging goes on and on.
1. For 2" lift they used helper springs in the front and pieces of 2x2" square.
2. one door had a 6x6 speaker cut into it, the other door has a 6" speaker.
3. The wiring looked lieka bowl of spagetti.
4. the front clip was replaced but the radiator was left hanging there along
with the shroud.
5. the choke was wired up wrong so the battery was going dead every nite.
6. the exhaust is junk, bunch of pieces hooked together.
7. the brake cable on the driverside had the clip missing that hooks the
cables together, so they tied it to the frame.
8. they put the valve covers on backwards so you can barely get to the
fill cap.
plus and bunch of repairs I am doing, but having fun.
 
I'll have to post up some pics of the floor of my '89 Blazer for an education on real red-neck hackery. In the mean time I'll give you this little jewel:

One day at work it won't crank. Turns out some PO thought the wire running to the starter solenoid was too short, so they thought it would be a good idea to wire nut splice a little 4" section in to make it longer, and dangle said extension right next to the exhaust manifold. Wire nut melts through, wire comes apart and shorts - no crank.
 
Hmm lets see where to start. Im 19 and on my 5th k5 and 7th truck..

My 1st k5 was bought when i didnt know any better and just wanted a lifted k5 like my dad had. I started lookin and found a 76 k5 with a 79 body on hmm, that should of been the first red flag. It had 8" of lift ,4 sup. and 4 body:confused: on 37 boggers rear and bald 36" tsls and was missing a front drive shaft due to tire size supposedly. d44,sb350 bored .30 over, sm465, np203 w/part time kit, and a 12bolt rear. Truck was originaly an auto so there was huge hole rite in the middle of the floor Was told gears were 3.73's. Nope had 2.88 up front and 3.08's in the rear. Found that out the had way, no wonder I was breaking shafts everytime I went and played.
It also had zero interior, cheap roll on bedliner on the floor and jerry rigged pop locks with no door handles, that didnt work half the time. But it had a beautiful black gloss paint job and was incedibly staight( i got my hands on it) and it had a billet grille. It had horrible axle wrap so I looked into a t case drop kit when i noticed these block in place already.. They were 2x4's painted black! Fixed that and then i noticed the exhaust. It was routed between the frame and body and dumped b4 the rear tires. The trucks wiring was a total joke. I found all kinds of wires leading no where or other constant hot wires just hangin out under the hood and dash. How that truck never burnt down is a mystery to me.. The radio was just stuck in a hole no real support or surround just a bare radio in the hole. The brake lines were to short so they just pulled the factory mounts down 6"s and welded them inplace. Within a year and an empty bank acount I had most of this fixed when one day the entire wiring system decided to become non fuctioning.. everything seemed fine and then it would just randomly quit working. It also claimed 3 red tops b4 i finally put her down.. She was scarped the day after i was kicked out..but yet my drug head brother still lives there to this day...
And to think I payed 3500 for it...
theres more but im sick of typing..
 
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