Honch's Projects

[Honch]

I'm starting this thread versus posting to the "Garage Gallery" I have more going on in the garage than to the garage.

Over the 11 years I have owned my Corvette I have changed or modified multiple things on it. It has been a very dependable vehicle with only a few things actually breaking over the years. One of the very first items that broke right after it came off warranty was the lower radiator support. This is a common failure item that in some cases fails due to abuse but is mostly just poorly constructed. Its made entirely of aluminum and generally fails because the welds have no penetration and literally break apart.

That's what happened with mine and at the time I had no way to repair it so I ended up spending over 250 dollars on a replacement unit.



Now eight years later, the replacement unit broke in at least three different areas, one of which is circled above. This is one of the reasons I wanted to be able to weld aluminum, unfortunately it isn't how I wanted to learn to weld aluminum. To date I have maybe two hours total time tig welding and a third of that tig welding aluminum.

Here is the same bracket on the other side.



These are a few of the welds I did to reinforce the structure of the radiator support.






I still have some work to do on keeping the weld area clean, these aren't as contaminated as they look, the black flakes are from the wire brush flaking the paint.

Not the prettiest welds but like a professional welder told me, "Welds are like your children, even if their ugly you still love them".

 

[zmotorsports]

Nice job on repairing the radiator support.

 

[Honch]

Nice job on repairing the radiator support.

Thank you Mike, I always appreciate your feedback.

In March of 2016 I bought a new Sierra SLT, it wasn't exactly what I wanted but it was a good deal at the time. Here it is at the dealership in all its chrome glory just waiting for a retired guy to install a nice big topper shell.



Within the first week of ownership I removed the running boards and deleted the muffler.
Within the first year I added foot well lighting, I have no idea why this isn't even an option.



The last upgrade I made in the first year, was a color match bumpers and hard cover.



That brings me now, since 2017 I have made no changes to the truck, over the past few weeks I have been busy.

The first recent upgrade was Amp Research power steps, this is something I should have done the day I bought the truck. The installation was very easy and short of putting a #11 hole in a body grommet everything was bolt on and reversible even the wiring is non invasive. If you are even on the line about buying a set of these I know they are stupid expensive, do it, you wont regret the decision.

The only issue I had with them is they came with two small led lights to light the top of the running boards. The lights they sent were in the 6 to 7K range and basically purple, that wasn't going to work for me. I bought a bed light kit online and used the side rail lights, they may be a little overkill . They are only on with the steps extended and you cant even tell the truck has puddle lights, they completely wash them out.



The kit came with an additional light strip that would have installed along the front of the bed, this one I used along the back of the tonneau cover to light the tailgate area. I wired this light and the bed lights into the backup lights, pressing the unlock button on the key fob unlocks the tailgate and turns all the bed lights on.



The next upgrade was wheels and tires, the factory wheels were "clad" wheels, basically a non replaceable hub cap bonded to an aluminum wheel. This vehicle was my first experience with these type of wheels, I had no idea they were clad for the first year I owned the truck, it wasn't until I did its second wheel rotation that I realized they were clad. The tires were the original Goodyears, the truck only has 37K on it but after 5.5 years they were hard as hockey pucks, I wasn't going try to go through the coming winter driving on them.

I literally spent 3-4 months looking at the hundreds of wheels available for the truck. I wasn't going to use anything with less than a -12 offset, I cant stand the look of wheels sticking out on a full size truck. This size limitation along with not wanting anything with a fake bead lock look vastly narrowed down my choices. Even so, my first two choices were eliminated by not actually being available, with an unknown future availability, thanks COVID. I ended up going with Fuel Ignite D662's 20x9x-1.

The tires were a much easier decision, I ended up getting the BFG K02's basically 32" it wasn't worth the tradeoff of trimming and tire rub to go with anything taller, this is basically the factory size tire for the truck.

I decided to level lift the truck using a strut kit, the factory Z71 suspension consisted of struts and shocks from Rancho that were completely worn out. I was less than impressed by these components and after 37k miles they looked like they had been on the truck 100K. Here is a picture of the "best" looking strut, nothing under the truck remotely has this level of corrosion on it. For some reason I didn't take any pictures of the back shocks, they made this strut look good.



I chose Eibach for the level strut kit, it got a lot of good feedback and has an excellent warranty. The components are levels above the factory Rancho shocks, from the brushed steel finish on the struts and shocks to the powder coating on the spring.



The Eibach suspension transmits the small bumps more than the Rancho suspension did. On the big stuff it eats the bumps, the Ranchos would let the truck continue to wallow and the bump would live on forever.



The changes to the truck from the day I first parked it in the driveway to the picture I took today are fairly dramatic.





Future plans are for color match door cladding, black mirror caps and I am deciding if the door handles will be black or body color.

 

[Honch]

Two weeks ago I finished a project I started in May, I call it my pirates chest. In reality its a big box I hope to use to discourage porch pirates.

It started out as a paint drying table I bought at auction 2 years ago, I bought two of these tables to get the heaters they had on them.



Cleaning off the old paint was much more difficult than I thought it would be I had no idea it would be this thick. I literally had to chisel it all off. it was 3/8" thick in some areas.



Once it was cleaned and painted I skinned it with 0.071 7075 on the sides and 0.100 on the bottom. I saved a sheet of 0.100 for the lid.



After I got it skinned and painted it languished in my garage for 2 months, mostly while I decided how I wanted to attach the lid and the wood to it. Two weeks ago I got some energy towards finishing it and attached the lid along with a seal in an effort to keep critters out.



On top of the lid I attached some decking boards in an effort to make it look more like a bench than a big brown box on my porch.



After having it in use for two weeks this picture pretty much indicates the success of the overall project we have gotten six deliveries all setting on top of the box.



I could have sworn I had seen a place on amazon delivery options that allowed me to indicate where to place the package specifically. Or at least more detail than porch, driveway, garage etc. I cant find anything even though they sell a hundred different boxes like this on their site for the same use. Tonight I ordered the following sticker its approximately 8x10", I am not totally sure where I will put it yet but hopefully it helps with the use.

 

[PugetDude]

Nice looking porch box- and a good idea on the sticker. Hopefully they can read, comprehend, and execute instructions in English.
I bet half of the Amazon drivers that deliver here don't.

 

[stinkity stoink]

Nice job on the box. Very nice of you to not make them bend down anymore to set it on your porch.

 

[Honch]

Nice looking porch box- and a good idea on the sticker. Hopefully they can read, comprehend, and execute instructions in English.
I bet half of the Amazon drivers that deliver here don't.

Nice job on the box. Very nice of you to not make them bend down anymore to set it on your porch.

Thanks for the feedback. A few weeks ago FedEx delivered my new truck wheels, they missed their initial delivery slot when I was home. I spoke to customer support and set up a new time slot the following day which they missed again. Later in the day they dropped them off in my driveway for all the world to see with the "Wheel Pros" logos facing the street and sent me a text notification over an hour later.

 

[Honch]

I finished up modifying my metal rack so I could put sheets across the back, I unloaded it and moved it over to a buddies house for the winter. He has 40 or so sheets of aluminum that he was storing for me outside, even tarped up they were getting wet from condensation.



Now we have them stacked across the back, indoors and they take up way less room. A lot of these sheets are 12' long that is a big foot print on a pallet.



I also had some time to screw around with some brooms I bought to make a poor man striper for the mower.





I'm going to try it like this but I think Ill need to mount it to the back of the deck for it to work best



Today was a rainy cold day best suited for staying indoors. I purchased a hard case for my shotgun a few weeks ago and last weekend I made a trip to wally world to get some poster board. I really didn't have the foam thickness I wanted but I made it work. The case bottom came with 2" pluck foam and a 1" sheet underneath. I would have liked to use a 2" to cut out but all I had was 3", the 2" cuts a lot nicer, there is less deflection on the wire.

The hardest part is tracing out the items for the case. Placing a bright light over the top pointing straight down helps a lot. I also decided to try cutting it from one template inside out instead of making individual templates for each item. This should make for cutouts that fit the items better.



I used the metal piece out of a wiper blade to pull the wire through the foam it has a small hook that keeps the rubber blades in place which makes it perfect for the task of pulling the wire through the foam.



I am very happy with the inside cut the fit against the the gun is very good.

 

[Bears Fan]

Great idea

You have to let us know how well it worked

 

[Honch]

Great idea

You have to let us know how well it worked

It works and leaves stripes but has a problem. The distance between the brooms and the rear tires act as a lever. Basically if you drive straight off the lawn into the street when the rear tires go over the curb and down into the drain the brooms lift them off the ground. They are actually stiff enough to support the weight of the back of the mower, and the mower gets stuck. This happens on a couple areas in the lawn as well.

I either need to move them closer to the back of the tires or on the rear of the deck.

 

[cpttuna]

Nice looking porch box- and a good idea on the sticker. Hopefully they can read, comprehend, and execute instructions in English.
I bet half of the Amazon drivers that deliver here don't.

If you get the chance, talk to your USPS carrier and UPS person. They are probably regulars.

 

[PugetDude]

If you get the chance, talk to your USPS carrier and UPS person. They are probably regulars.

USPS, yes- a new gal just took over the route after the old carrier retired. He was great, knew everyone by name, where to leave packages, etc. She's still learning the neighborhood.

UPS is a revolving door, don't think I've seen the same delivery person more than twice.

 

[Ohmthis]

Honch, the brushes are a very cool mod. A guy at work was asking me if I had a “stripe kit” on my zero turn. I had to admit I had never even heard of such a thing. He says essentially they are just small brushes that mount to the front or rear of the deck and help brush the grass over. My luck, I’d break the brush off and **** it up into the blades.

 

[Honch]

If you get the chance, talk to your USPS carrier and UPS person. They are probably regulars.

USPS, yes- a new gal just took over the route after the old carrier retired. He was great, knew everyone by name, where to leave packages, etc. She's still learning the neighborhood.

UPS is a revolving door, don't think I've seen the same delivery person more than twice.

UPS actually put a box in it today with no instruction to do so.

My sticker(s) arrived last week, I still haven't decided whither to use it yet or not.

 

[Honch]

Honch, the brushes are a very cool mod. A guy at work was asking me if I had a “stripe kit” on my zero turn. I had to admit I had never even heard of such a thing. He says essentially they are just small brushes that mount to the front or rear of the deck and help brush the grass over. My luck, I’d break the brush off and **** it up into the blades.

I have no experience with using brooms to make stripes. My previous mower used basically wobble rollers mounted to the back of the deck which worked very well. I'm only trying this because one its strangely satisfying to make things cheaply that cost stupid amounts of money to buy.

 

[Ohmthis]

My mower is 22 years old. It does a great job of laying down stripes. It doesn’t have any wide rollers attached to the deck, just anti gouging wheels. When I cut with the deck fully raised (mulching grass or leaves) it throws a ton of **** out the front and up into me. I’ve thought of adding the brush type of door sweep or uhmw to the front (like an air splitter on a car) to see if it will help or not.

 

[Honch]

Since my truck was new, I have had a minor rattle in the dash. It was always random, sounded like metal on plastic and directly related to road surface conditions.

When I added the leveling kit the stiffness of the new struts made the rattle more common and louder.

Last week I tore into the column looking for the rattle, I found the shift lever connection to the shift cable is made up of some overly complex looking plastic item that made a rattling noise but not the one I was trying to isolate. I was able to insulate it some with foam but the test drive indicated the rattle was still there.

This morning I went a bit different path and instead of tearing into the steering column area I started in on the center console. I wanted first to eliminate anything loose in the console and secondly its much easier to take apart than the column, gauge pack or infotainment / climate controls.

Within about 15 minutes of banging, poking and prodding, I found the culprit,

This panel on the drives side of the center console has a big huge plastic hook (X marks the spot).



The hook on the inside of the panel captures a metal plate that runs from the dash to the floor. The opening in the hook is much wider than the plate it is hooking around and this gap allows the panel to rattle.



The fix is fairly simple, I had some hook side velcro and used some 3m 468MP which is basically double sided stick tape without the tape, its just the glue. I put it on the velcro and lined the inside of the hook with it. Foam tape would have worked but velcro for me has much more longevity, it doesn't deteriorate like foam over time.



The velcro fills in the gap and even if the panel still moves it totally mutes the metal to plastic contact eliminating the rattle.

 

[Ohmthis]

That ***** you had to go through all of that on (to me anyways) a new truck.

 

[zmotorsports]

Nice find. I HATE rattles and after locating one and resolving, it gives a huge sense of accomplishment, no matter how small the rattle or noise may be.

 

[Honch]

Its been a few weeks since I posted, I have been out of town for work the last two out of three weeks. Because of that my weekends have been more about catching up and spending time with the wife unit.

Even with that said I have been gathering some items for future projects I am planning. My first one is another shop stool, I have enough bolts for the adjuster and legs just like I did on the first one. The difference with this one is going to be the use of aluminum for the legs. I found some really nice vinyl that looks like carbon fiber for the seat and have already gotten the acme screw and nuts.




This one might be a while out as I am trying to decide whither I want to make some dimple dies for lighting holes in the legs or buy them. The thing that is keeping me from just buying them right now is the likelihood of me ever actually using them again.

My second planned project involves this rear wheel hub for a 2001 FWD Dodge pickup, which I plan on using for the basis of a turntable I can either use in my sand blast cabinet, welding or painting.



All of the turntables I found online were based on two pieces of tubing nested with no bearing surface, the cheapest of which was over fifty dollars. Originally I was looking for a mower deck spindle to use but I found this new / returned wheel hub for only $7.95 on Amazon. The hub is around 12lbs and 8" in diameter both of which lend to it not needing any larger of a base, basically I think I will be able to just attach a top and it will be good to go. I have some .130 thick 2024 that I am planning to use for the turntable / top.

My last planned project is a brake job on my wife's 2014 ATS, it has the original brake pads/rotors with 78k miles on them. This one took a bit of planning because there were at least three different brake packages (by RPO code) available that year. The package on my wife's car is RPO J55 according to the RPO code sticker in the trunk under the carpet, it also uses fixed calipers mounted with TTY bolts.




Lastly I acquired an unplanned project on the way home from the airport late Friday night. I hit the edge of a small pot hole with the passenger side front tire and immediately my truck started pulling to the right, to maintain driving straight the steering wheel needed to be 10 to 12° to the left. I pulled off the road and crawled under the truck looking at everything for a good 20 minutes before I found the caster/camber plates had rotated.



Yesterday when I took the wheel off I found that both of the eccentrics on the upper a-arm were loose allowing them to turn, one actually rotated when the weight came off the wheel. I had the truck aligned less than two months ago, and from photos I had of this area (one is posted earlier in this thread) they still had the plastic alignment guides inside these cams. I believe the alignment shop adjusted these and never fully tightened them again.

I was able to get the caster back to a point that the truck drives straight hands free but the wheel is still about 2° off, I will be visiting this shop tomorrow.

 

[Honch]

I was waiting at the alignment shop this morning when they opened. Told the manager what happened and he immediately took ownership of the problem. They had my truck fixed by midafternoon.

I'm glad nothing else was damaged and it just wasted a small amount of my time.

 

[Honch]

I had plans that I laid out a few weeks ago, but last weekend I went down a completely different path.

It started with my wife telling me her car was making "some noise" so before I started the brake job I drove the car, and yes it was making some noise, a bit of a deep grinding noise during acceleration. When I got back home with it I pulled the drain plug on the rear differential and found this. or well this is approximately a third of what I found.



It's at the dealership now, we are squeaking in at the end of its warranty and the dealership is estimating 4k cost, unbelievable.

The stool is on hold until I decide on some design things so I started on something different that began with me convincing myself I needed a porta band.

I have seen plenty of stands and holders on the net for these and decided to go the latter route with mine. My holder was built to fit into the 2" receiver under my bench, hold the saw securely and be removable from the holder with no tools. its height adjustable and I can index it 90° to hold the saw in different directions.



The handle hooks in the round pipe at the top, this leverages some cap screws on the back of the saw against the hodler.



The detent pin locks the saw in place while holding the trigger depressed. I welded a 1" section of black pipe where the detent pin is located, this keeps the pin straight and also acts as a place to store the pin.



This also allowed me to keep the other side of the trigger open so I can depress the trigger while sliding in the detent pin.



To operate the saw I purchased an inexpensive foot switch off Amazon.



The saw has a very solid feel and will get used a lot as a cheap and quick way to cut metal.

 

[PugetDude]

Hard to beat a portaband (clone) for versatilty. I added a table to mine, but it was the older MIlwaukee 6320 that had a really narrow work support. Yours looks like the DeWalt support, quite a bit wider.

 

[Honch]

Hard to beat a portaband (clone) for versatilty. I added a table to mine, but it was the older MIlwaukee 6320 that had a really narrow work support. Yours looks like the DeWalt support, quite a bit wider.

It is still a lot smaller than I am comfortable with, it forces me to have my hands much closer to the blade than is necessary or safe. I have some ideas for a toolless table that I will be trying. This saw will likely spend 99.9% of its life in the holder, so making a screw on table isn't that big of a deal. I'm mostly pursuing the toolless table for the challenge of making it.

Today I spent a little time working on my turntable. It never got over 18° outside so I didn't spend a lot of time freezing in the garage.

I used a 4.5" grinder with a cut off wheel to remove the hub flange, I wanted a flat surface to mount the table to.





Tomorrow the forecast is over 20° warmer than today, I'll take advantage of that and possibly finish this up.

 

[Honch]

Today I attached legs to the hub bearing, their dimensions, just under 7" were determined by cutting a piece of scrap metal into three equal lengths. The feet were something I took off an old VCR if I remember correctly.



The disk or table is 18" diameter from some scrap aluminum I had. For now it is just attached to the hub with aircraft double sided carpet tape. I may drill some 2.5" holes around the perimeter to allow me to turn it easier.



This is where it will likely spend most of its life, it looks tiny in here.

 

[Honch]

I have not posted in a while, work and the 18° average temperatures have not been conducive to my productivity. That means it has been easy to make excuses for being a bit lazy

I posted on December 6th about taking my wife's ATS to the dealership, unfortunately it's still there, maybe for a few more weeks, the parts for the carrier are apparently unavailable. Because of that my wife and I have started carpooling to work. Last week my wife noticed there was a few drops of water on the back seat in my truck, which led to me identifying the third brake light leaking. I ordered a new gasket and replaced it last Sunday. The factory gasket was about .175 thick and made out of open cell foam, it was completely saturated with water. The new gasket is closed cell foam and is .225 thick.



Unfortunately, the damage was done, and the headliner was stained. Discussing it with one of my employees, he indicated that in a past life he had used Lysol professionally to remove water stains from fabric. I was a bit skeptical but after trying it I am a believer, this is it still wet after just spraying it with Lysol and a light wipe with a microfiber.



This was the following day after it had time to dry. I only did a partial area to see if it worked and it was freezing out, Ill finish it and possible use a bit of scrubbing but even with what it removed by just wiping it I'm satisfied.



All that being said though the main thing that has been keeping me busy is trying to buy a new house with an existing shop.



The garage is very large, it has a single bay that's approximately 20x15 and the other two bays are 30x28,



The current owner sent me a picture of his Tacoma, 18' bass boat and four door Camry all in the larger two bays with plenty of room to walk around them.



The shop itself is 30'x60' with a small loft, its unfinished as was really only used to store their trailer. It only has 20amp service but is overall in good condition and should make a great starting point for me. Move in time is currently set for late this summer.

 

[jhn9840]

Very nice looking property. Sweet metal shop pretty much ready to go. Can’t beat it.

jhn9840
John

 

[Honch]

A few updates from last weekend.

The Cadillac dealership called my wife on the last day of February to tell us we would have our car back the first week of March, they still have it, and the parts are still "delayed". I'm really not sure what to do at this point, they have had the car 97 days.

It was warm enough last weekend to do some further stain removal from the truck's headliner. The Lysol with no scrubbing removed 99% of the stain, and really only visible with the flash from the camera. I am going to let it fully dry then move up to trying some Cee-Bee on a spot.



I also had time last weekend to replace the running board lighting on my truck that was advertised as being waterproof but failed from water damage. I replaced the light strips that were inside a plastic "waterproof" sleeve with LEDs molded into a plastic pod and are IP67 rated. Each pod has 3 LEDs and there are 4 pods on each side.



The LEDs are overwhelming the camera in the dark, the brightness is not quite that drastic and looks much different when your next to the truck getting in.

 

[Honch]

Last summer I noticed leather on the driver's seat headrest in the Corvette was starting to crack. Three years ago I replaced this piece with a new GM section because the side bolster was starting to wear through. While I had the seat out I put a reinforcement kit on the seat bottom, bump stops on the tracks and a reinforcement to the bolster. What I didn't understand at the time, is why this leather failed, it really has nothing coming in contact with the area that started cracking.

This picture makes it look much worse than it was because I just cleaned the area making the exposed leather very dark.



With some silicon and leather dye I was able to make it look better but far from perfect.



Now its starting to crack again along with the coating wearing though along the bolster seams. This piece along is over $300 for a OEM one and after looking over the center panels and seat bottom cushion, I could easily spend $700 on just this seat. Because of that I had been watching the net for some seats out of a newer C6. In 2012 they did a makeover of the seats that increased their support along with some cosmetic changes. Last week I found what I was looking for and after some price negations they were shipped from Mississippi.

The titanium grey is the same color on both its just they way the light is hitting them.






I do like the new look, which is obviously subjective for everyone. its a fairly dramatic change for 30 minutes of work. The leather on these looks and feels to be much higher quality. The car they came out of had much less milage than mine does so at this point only time will tell how they wear and if they are as advertised improved and more comfortable.

 

[zmotorsports]

Very impressive looking property. Hope it all works out for you. Just out of curiosity, you mentioned move-in date of late summer, why so far out? Is there remodeling or upgrades you want to do before moving in?

 

[Honch]

Very impressive looking property. Hope it all works out for you. Just out of curiosity, you mentioned move-in date of late summer, why so far out? Is there remodeling or upgrades you want to do before moving in?

The seller committed to a sales price over a year ago, contingent on the house he is moving into being complete.

Basically by waiting a few months, I get a good deal and he doesn't need to move, store, rent and move again.

I'm really excited about having a building I can use as a shop and not needing to spend half my time moving things out of the way to do what I want/need to. The house is a lot larger than I wanted but trying to find a nice 1700-2000 sqft home not over 30 years old, on a couple of acres with or without a shop was not happening for me here. When they did come up they were sold in less than 24 hours or went into a frantic bidding war, the market here is crazy right now and probably that way in a lot of areas.

 

[zmotorsports]

The seller committed to a sales price over a year ago, contingent on the house he is moving into being complete.

Basically by waiting a few months, I get a good deal and he doesn't need to move, store, rent and move again.

I'm really excited about having a building I can use as a shop and not needing to spend half my time moving things out of the way to do what I want/need to. The house is a lot larger than I wanted but trying to find a nice 1700-2000 sqft home not over 30 years old, on a couple of acres with or without a shop was not happening for me here. When they did come up they were sold in less than 24 hours or went into a frantic bidding war, the market here is crazy right now and probably that way in a lot of areas.

Awesome. Thanks for the reply. Sorry if I sounded nosey, just curious as to the date.

As for the home being larger than needed, my wife and I were in the same boat. In order to get the property we wanted and in the kind of neighborhood that we wanted we had to purchase a bit larger house than we needed. Oh well, I'd rather have a bit more than needed than too little space.

Congratulations on the purchase and looking forward to seeing how you set it up for use. I also agree about how nice it is not having to move things out to work on other things in the shop.

 

[Honch]

Awesome. Thanks for the reply. Sorry if I sounded nosey, just curious as to the date.

As for the home being larger than needed, my wife and I were in the same boat. In order to get the property we wanted and in the kind of neighborhood that we wanted we had to purchase a bit larger house than we needed. Oh well, I'd rather have a bit more than needed than too little space.

Congratulations on the purchase and looking forward to seeing how you set it up for use. I also agree about how nice it is not having to move things out to work on other things in the shop.

You didn't sound nosey, I appreciate the interest and feedback.

 

[Honch]

I haven't posted to this thread because my time for the last six months has been dedicated to moving and setting up my new shop. However, over the holidays I came across a good price on an assist handle that I had been looking at for years. I decided to go ahead and install it because it should only take a few minutes.

The old one just popped off, it's basically designed to do so as it covers part of the curtain air bag.


This is a common upgrade for trucks like mine and it comes standard on 3/4 ton and larger GM trucks. Here you can see the unused attach points and how far down the airbag goes.


Surprisingly the attach points had no threads.


GM has it covered though they even let you choose what hardware you need for your application....



Since I installed the power steps I really had less of a need for a drivers assist handle but because it was such a good price I decided to go ahead and get one while they were still available.


Not that tapping a couple holes took a lot of time, it just shows how something that would seemingly be simple to accomplish can easily turn it to a more time-consuming task.

 

[zmotorsports]

How has the move in gone? Love to see some pics of the new place, especially the shop and how you have it laid out.

 

[Honch]

How has the move in gone? Love to see some pics of the new place, especially the shop and how you have it laid out.

The move went well, I went through a bit of buyer's remorse in the beginning when I started coming across things I didn't like or knew I would need to fix. My last three houses were either brand new or less than a year old at purchase, this home was built in 1996 and has had some obvious former owner work accomplished. Nothing at all serious, just things I will need to fix or change at some point. For example, the pool pump is located 80' from the breaker box, it is a 110-220 pump and they wired it 110 because they shared the wiring for it with the timer circuit which needs 110. There is probably at least three other ways that could have been accomplished and still allowed the pump to be wired 220, not a difficult fix just one more thing to correct. This doesn't even get into the area the pump is located or "pump house" is nothing more than some fencing with no roof, so all of the expensive mechanicals for the pool are exposed to the elements. I would like to build a brick wall around the heater/filter/pump with a steel roof. To start that process though I need to figure out where to buy brick that matches the house something I have never done before.

I have another thread in the "Garage Gallery" about the move and changes to the shop, but to your point I have a lot of isolated pictures that probably don't give an overall view of the shop. Based on how my weekend goes I may try to take some pictures of larger areas to show some of the layout, and of course how much still needs organized .

 

[zmotorsports]

Glad to hear the move went relatively well.

I too had buyer's remorse when we moved 6 years ago. Mine was due to having to go back to having a mortgage as we had been debt free for about 11 years and figured we'd die in our home. The Sanford & Sons neighbor changed our minds for us, but now looking back it was the best thing that could have happened.

That being said, our home was only 3 years old and the house itself was a high quality home from components to craftsmanship, however, everything (and I do mean everything) that the original owners had touched needed to be redone. I told the wife when we were looking that I didn't want a project home and that our home was turn key to sell, move in and start mowing the carpet like lawn and I expected to purchase something similar other than having to build my shop. That wasn't the case and we quickly found we were not the normal home owner because everything we seemed to look at in that 9~ish month period needed serious attention to rescue them from the previous owners.

I'm sure you will find yourself happy with it after you get it to where you want it. For me it was hard to see the silver lining at the time but looking back it was all worth it. Best of luck in making your new home your own and hope it goes more smoothly as you correct the wrongs with it.

 

[Honch]

A month ago, the transmission in my Sierra threw a P0706 code, one of the simple symptoms of which is dirty transmission fluid. In its 51k miles it has been flushed three times for shudder issues, the last being about 18k miles ago. I decided to clear the faut and drive it some more.

While I was messing around with it, I installed some Air Lift bags I had bought last year, I was waiting for it to warm up a bit before I installed them. The installation was fairly easy with just a few weird things.

The air lines were a combination of metric and SAE fittings which was a bit annoying.



The kit came with a wire to fish the mount bolts through the frame, this is a trick I have used numerous times working on aircraft, I thought it was pretty cool they had included it as an actual tool with the kit.


I spent about three hours installing the bags and am happy with the kit, it makes a noticeable difference when towing. I had a set of these on my OBS so I knew what they would generally be like. The thing I was most happy about was the condition of the underside of my seven year old truck.


Fast forward to two weeks ago, the truck faulted to PO700 and PO711 which Google showed to be an issue with the temp sensor in the transmission. The dealership quoted me $575.00 to replace the $25.00 harness, I really didn't want to deal with flushing the fluid but wasn't going to pay that. Other than an ABS sensor that was replaced under warranty the transmission is the only thing I have had issues with.

I looked up the parts I needed and after checking my supply of fluid, one bottle wasn't going to do it.


I ordered the latest, greatest recommended ****** fluid that has friction modifiers that are supposed to help with TCC shudder. This stuff is stupid expensive a quart and probably a lot of the cost the dealership was quoting.


The fluid, harness, filter and pan gasket were around $150.00.


Changing it out was pretty straightforward, all the connectors are idiot proof and the entire job took less than four hours with me putzing around on other things while I was letting the fluid stop dripping.

40 miles later its working great and no codes.

After I finished I had more time to look around under the truck, its not often I have it raised as high as I can at all four corners. I'm still very happy with the condition of the underside, there are a few areas that have some minor surface rust and while it was up I sprayed some Ospho 605 on the areas where the factory wax coating has come off.


24 hours later and driving through a lot of rain, the white is from the acid. Nothing magical here just some phosphoric acid that I'm hoping will create mostly black oxide. I'll probably give the areas a few more coats and then cover it with some black fluid film.

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Definitely looks good underneath! I see GM still puts the crossover pipe under the pan. I like that your AirLift kit came with braided SS lines, those should hold up much better than nylon tubing.

You had some Seagrams on standbye in the door(would do the job in a pinch)...keep some hard stuff in the freezer up top for emergencies .

 

[Honch]

Definitely looks good underneath! I see GM still puts the crossover pipe under the pan. I like that your AirLift kit came with braided SS lines, those should hold up much better than nylon tubing.

You had some Seagrams on standbye in the door(would do the job in a pinch)...keep some hard stuff in the freezer up top for emergencies .

I rarely drink and while the picture was very real, it was my poor attempt at bud light humor. :}