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Rebuild of Blue85 post fire

Rebuild of Blue85
Poor quadra burb. Is it broken or do you just not have a use for it so it sits?
 
Quadraburb runs great. Took it down my road tonight to warm everything up. Haven't had registration in a couple years. Nothing for the 8.1L to pull, don't want to send the kids to work in it and there's other cars here to drive. I probably should sell it, but that's a good truck and I won't find another.
 
Dash is mostly working. I was able to get my power-down circuit to 2 components.

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Still no inputs for any discrete signals except IGN. What I hadn't realized is that a lot of features can't be configured from the device. You have to use "Echo Dash" through a web browser for a lot of things, using the Pi as a web host. Fine, I'll pay another $20, but please just state the limitations upfront and not make me waste half my Saturday on features that don't work.

On the bright side, someday when I make cooler dashes I can just do it from my desktop and upload to the truck over wifi. It would be cool to have multiple dashes set up and flip through them with buttons.
 
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When you're crunched for time, do hack solutions count against you? Or if it works, it's a win?
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I can't rely on myself to always keep count of the shift position. I'd love a transmission mounted position sender into the computer, but for now this should work at least as well as the factory string/spring indicator.
 
I did a real "hail Mary" on this cowl. My can of paint was almost empty and must not have been sealed, as it was a thick gel. I poured urethane reducer in it and covered it with plastic for 2 days. I think it ended up being too thin. The only activator I had was chunky, so I ran it through a filter. Pouring everything into the cup seemed to be sort of the right ratio, so I let it fly, working on the top and sides since I didn't have much paint. The whole top got covered, but a few spots of primer show under the hood. It's covered with little bumps that are probably the excess reducer popping. Basically it's @ryoken 's nightmare, but at least the color matches and it won't need much prep when I repaint the whole truck some other time. If you ignore the thick layer of dust you can see there is almost no clear coat left on the hood, which matches the roof.

You can see the new plastic screen under there, but it's also hiding working wiper linkages thanks to @kennyw. I'm pretty sure once I slap the wipers back on it's street legal.

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Below are the additional pictures I sent to the insurance company to show that the heat, A/C, seats, etc. are all fixed. They've asked for a safety inspection from either a state facility or a licensed mechanic. They won't respond to the disparity of needing insurance to take it somewhere to do that. I'm going to ask around because I probably know someone at least 2nd-hand who has some kind of certification and would be willing to come here to do that.

There are still some cosmetics to deal with. Mainly it's replacing the headliner and repainting some trim pieces. I have a new sun visor for it, but need to source the headliner fabric. The insurance agent is saying those things shouldn't be a concern for getting the coverage in place.

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My overland trip was last week. I had scheduled to take Wed-Fri off, but ended up working long days wasn't done until Thursday. With the insurance thing open and several loose ends with this truck, I gave up and took the old XL to catch part of the trip. Honestly, it did me good to walk away for a bit and do something for fun.

https://ck5.com/forums/threads/upo-2024.350303
 
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Trailer it to a mechanic/inspector.
Probably isn't hard to find a trailer to rent or borrow.:dunno:
 
It's interesting how the list always grows, and sometimes faster than the check-marks.
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It was fun to drive it down the road the other night, though. I hardly went past the driveway , but it helps the mind see it as an asset rather than a time-sink.
 
This looks like time well spent digging through the supplies tonight, as this headliner material is the same as what's up there, and enough to replace the whole passenger side (the cut down Suburban overhead console divides the fabric in 2). But how do I get the wrinkles out? Steam? Wash it? Stretch it?20240822_202658.jpg
 
If it's actual foam backed head liner material, will steam still be ok?
 
Don’t go to crazy and you shouldn’t have an issue. I used to steam clean my headliners when I worked for a carpet cleaning company. Never had an issue with the headliner sagging.
 

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