Previous Owners and their Hackery

[cheavyk10]

You ever find a repair or something on your new used car that makes you scratch your head and wonder WTF they were thinking?

I picked up a 2004 Tahoe over the summer, and so far it's been pretty damn good. When I got it I knew the transfer case wasn't working but at least it's stuck in two-wheel drive.

I finally found some time to tinker on it over this weekend, starting with checking fuses which were of course higher amps than the correct ones. Next the encoder motor was unplugged. Lastly I located the transfer case control module (TCCM) and I was stunned at what I found.

If you look at this photo you can see that someone cut the orange wire that goes to the module and ran power to it with a fuse. Next there was another power wire that goes to a mini relay that runs to that same orange wire in the harness and of course has a scotch lock that goes into the gray wire in the module and pig-tailed together.

I have no idea what this is supposed to accomplish, and pulled all the fuses for now. Great.

Let's see some disasters that you guys have found!!

 

[fordsucks!]

They tried to add something ? Push splice on that white wire, lots of bare wire & connectors, wow

 

[Cucv_M1008]

I have the parts to make it awd lol

 

[joshuak]

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View attachment 429211

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Loose heat shrink on that red to black connection was a nice touch.

My contribution, PO using a nail to plug the fuel return line on the injector of a 6.2.

 

[Babaganoosh]

I thought maybe it was to late last night, but this morning I still dont understand what they were trying to do...

 

[cheavyk10]

They tried to add something ? Push splice on that white wire, lots of bare wire & connectors, wow

I thought maybe it was to late last night, but this morning I still dont understand what they were trying to do...

I'm pretty sure they were trying to hotwire the TCCM to get the four wheel drive to work. I have a new one of these in my future as well as an encoder motor just to be safe. Then of course the wiring diagram and try to figure out what the deal is.

 

[Bent77]

I’ve owned my truck since 96. I am my own PO

 

[Babaganoosh]

I’ve owned my truck since 96. I am my own PO

Do you ever run into your own hackery and think I could have done a lot better on that?

 

[K5Devil]

The truck I have now is one of the worst ones I’ve ever had for bad PO repair.

Who could forget the trailer hitch of despair? Haha
The cobbled mess of burn harness left in from an engine swap. The plumbing tape used for nerf bar mounts.

This weekend I had a brake light go out so I took the lights apart. The PO taped the sockets to the back because he couldn’t figure out how to plug them in. So the tape failed and the sockets fell out. I literally plugged them back in and they were fine. Wtf? Haha

 

[Bent77]

Do you ever run into your own hackery and think I could have done a lot better on that?

Well that is the premise of the thread

That said, it’s mostly wiring under the dash. Each time I am in there I clean it up some

 

[K5Devil]

Oh yeah I forgot to mention the missing bellhousing bolts. It’s getting there now though. I’ve pretty much had my hands on every part at this point.

 

[Babaganoosh]

Well that is the premise of the thread

That said, it’s mostly wiring under the dash. Each time I am in there I clean it up some

Fun stuff, I ran some hackery on my truck but it was trail fixes. Made a good conversation starter piece when people noticed it and laughed.