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The Green Grendel

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The other two trucks, conversely, got thrown into long-haul trips before they were even finished. No test drives, no building confidence, we just went with it (and brought tools just in case). And they both had fine track records.

Life is funny sometimes.
 
campfire said:
The other two trucks, conversely, got thrown into long-haul trips before they were even finished. No test drives, no building confidence, we just went with it (and brought tools just in case). And they both had fine track records.

Life is funny sometimes.
Click to expand...
Story of my life.
That's why now I carry tools and buy vehicles far away and drive them home.
They end up more reliable than the ones I maintain at home. :dunno:
 
imiceman44 said:
Story of my life.
That's why now I carry tools and buy vehicles far away and drive them home.
They end up more reliable than the ones I maintain at home. :dunno:
Click to expand...

I've only owned 8 vehicles, not enough to set any statistically significant patterns.

You, on the other hand, may well have had a large enough fleet to start making generalizations. :haha: :rotfl:
 
As for my sub-par home maintenance, I spent another hour tonight driving the truck up and down the highway, stopping often to tweak the pump. It's still gutless, and it still smokes under heavy throttle. But it no longer falls on its face when easing into traffic.

On the last run I went to a spot with 1.5 miles of straight and mostly flat pavement. I entered the section at 50MPH in 5th gear and held the pedal to the floor. It wheezed its way to 65MPH, but it took a whole mile to do so. So it's still sick. Sigh.

After a mile the engine sound abruptly changed and got louder. I let off, thinking the pump had shifted positions (I'm leaving 2 bolts loose while I'm tweaking it). Or maybe another catastrophic internal failure (Deja Moo!). So I slowed down until I had verified that everything was proper. I think I loosened an exhaust gasket. At that point I called it a night and brought it home to park. I'll look at it when it's cool.
 
Speaking of which, my shiny new temperature gauge stayed right at 170 degrees the whole time. It's reading from the glow plug controller port, but that's still cold. But the thermostat is consistently holding that temp.
 
I do finally understand why people think these engines are gutless. When the timing is off, it is horrible. There are no ponies to spare, I can't afford to have them going on strike. It just doesn't work well.
 
[rant]


The front aluminum housing was just a bad design. It's a leaky water pump arrangement, and the loose fit means the timing mark isn't really correlated to anything. There aren't any dowel pins, and with the bolts loose it has at least 1/4" of play. 1/4" is a huge amount when looking at the timing marks.

Bottom line, they should have chucked that housing. Used the precisely-machined distributor spot for the IP, instead of wasting it on the vacuum pump. And used a normal SBC water pump.

Is that too much to ask? :sign3: :sign3:


[/rant]
 
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campfire said:
[rant]


The front aluminum housing was just a bad design. It's a leaky water pump arrangement, and the loose fit means the timing mark isn't really correlated to anything. There aren't any dowel pins, and with the bolts loose it has at least 1/4" of play. 1/4" is a huge amount when looking at the timing marks.

Bottom line, they should have chucked that housing. Used the precisely-machined distributor spot for the IP, instead of wasting it on the vacuum pump. And used a normal SBC water pump.

Is that too much to ask? :sign3: :sign3:


[/rant]
Click to expand...
Yes too much to ask.
Remember it was Detroit diesel that designed it not gm so why use any parts of the gm shelves.
Have you seen a Detroit diesel engine?
 
campfire said:
Although...the generalization that comes to mind is that your home maintenance is sub-par. :wink1:
Click to expand...
It is.
I don't care much when I have many disposable vehicles.
And yes I have owned enough to see a pattern and at one point I had 35 at the same time
 
I sorted through a couple of embarrassing idiot moments in the last few days. First off, the truck was falling on its face because the fuel line was kinked. I unkinked the line, and it no longer fell on its face. Today I decided to tweak the timing again to get rid of the gravel-munching pinging. The smoke is back to normal levels and it now runs better than it ever has. Turns out I was getting false readings because I was fighting two problems at once. It's hard to believe that both trucks faced fuel shortages this summer, and I didn't identify the problem either time. :doah: :doah: :rolleyes:


But speeding tickets are once again possible! :thumb: :burnout:
 
Then, on a whim, I swapped out the CUCV air cleaner housing for a stock one. Some previous owner had cut 2 extra holes in the outside of the housing, and it whistled terribly. Probably the biggest thing I've always hated about this truck. Magically, the whistle is gone. This morning it was a roaring gravel muncher, and now it purrs exactly like a 6.2 should. Somehow I never thought about fixing it, I had just gotten used to the howl. Sigh.

Anyways, it's at least 100% more desirable to me now. Pity I'm finding this out so late.
 
Over the weekend I listed it locally for sale. It's gotten 3 bites so far. The first one came from the kid who bought the blue truck. How is that even possible? :rolleyes: He was just trolling for stick shift swap info. Kinda weird that he's looking to rip out my newly-built 700R4 to do the swap I always wanted, but life is funny like that. Today I was offered a "1969 driving Chevelle" in trade.



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I can't even spell 'Chevelle,' nor do I know much about them. And I have no use for one. But it's probably the coolest trade I've been offered yet.


:popcorn:
 
That Chevelle has a “day 2” drag pack look to it. The way blazers are going, it would be a toss up as to which is more valuable with a bit of work.

David
 
AgDieseler said:
That Chevelle has a “day 2” drag pack look to it. The way blazers are going, it would be a toss up as to which is more valuable with a bit of work.

David
Click to expand...

My initial thought was along those lines. But when the guy sent some more pictures it became clear that it's hiding a bunch of rust, and it's generally worn down with lots of little repairs. I would only be interested in flipping the car, so I think the headaches outweigh the potential this time.



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If I can see this stuff in pictures, how much more am I not able to see?
 
Oh, it's also titled in Puerto Rico, and the sign in the background identifies its location as an hour North of here. I'm not surprised that the guy wants it gone, but he'll hafta find someone who actually wants a rusty Chevelle.
 
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