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The Equinox "baby black"

Parking brake deleted to facilitate test drive. Needed a little ATF, but drives good. There is an occasional misfire, so I'm going to look at the plugs. I remember having 12 on the bench and just grabbing 6 that looked good :dunno: . If I can get it to eventually incriminate a cylinder I can swap coils, too, since I have a lot of spares.

More importantly, I can sweep the floor. :waytogo:
 
It starting pointing to #1 for the misfire, so I swapped that plug and coil. You have to pull the intake manifold. I think the real cause was fuel related, as it turned out the bank 1 O2 sensors were swapped just like I did the last time :doah:. Once I got the scanner working right, it was obvious that sensor 2 was cycling faster than sensor 1. Oops.

I also have readings from all 4 tires now.
 
Replacing parking brakes and the friction material broke off one of the disc brake pads. Oh well, it probably needed those anyway. It doesn't look like the rear brakes were doing very much, but the culprit seems to be the pads rusted in place. I get the impression this vehicle did a lot of short trips and sat around salty. At least the caliper pistons and pins move freely, so maybe this snowball stops here. Pads were $66 at Autozone, so I'm waiting for the Bendix from Amazon for $18. It's hard to believe some of these stores still have lines.
 
Haven't been getting much done, except for some paint touch-up. The only big problem was liftgate rust. I did a bad job on this with 15+ year old clear coat and the resulting orange peel, but the rust is eliminated, color match is good and now it's sealed up for years to come.

I had multiple rounds of the color lifting the primer and crazing, so we're at a point above and beyond the price point of this vehicle, so I'm done.

20250325_181806.jpg


20250418_201825.jpg

It won't get the Equinox LT badge back, but I plan to put the "AWD" back on because some doof will claim otherwise. Plus, isn't that bragging rights in snow country?
 
I've had a few people come by to look at this car. The 2nd guy was kind enough to shove it into "M" and hold it to the floor. I was telling him to lift, but he was busy trying to tell me "there's something wrong with the shifting" :angry1: . I was surprised it held the rev limiter and didn't force shift into 2nd, but at least it didn't blow up. I don't like that part - putting work into a vehicle and knowing it will be owned by an idiot. One guy literally asked "can you tell me straight up this car won't need anything for 5 years?" I replied "nobody can." Another asked "which garage did the engine swap?" and I pointed to the one it was sitting in front of. "Well how do I know it really got an engine?" It's a strange story to make up, but if taking my word isn't an option, just focus on the fact that 1) there's an engine in it right now and 2) it runs fine. That's about all you get for a used car. This is the budget market, people, not GM certified 1-year old prices. :surepal:

It also ticks me off the number of people doing zero research. The reasoning is that if you negotiate down on the price, it's a good deal, with no frame of reference to market price. I was joking about raising the price $1k, then lowering it $800 for somebody and they'd be happier than paying the current price.

Supposedly it's sold and the lady will bring the money tomorrow.
 
Blue85 said:
There is an occasional misfire, so I'm going to look at the plugs. I remember having 12 on the bench and just grabbing 6 that looked good :dunno: . If I can get it to eventually incriminate a cylinder I can swap coils, too, since I have a lot of spares.
Click to expand...
FYI, the porcelain was cracked on one of the plugs. The weird thing was it ran rough for like 10 seconds, then smoothed out. Swapped in a different used one and all was good.
 
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