What did you do to your non g-body project today [2025 edition]

Given what is passing for weather in some states, you might want to drop that truck box and add a sander!! Was watching the regional and saw this state trooper in Missouri demonstrating how icy it was. Basically he was skating along quite nicely on his boots with nary a lick of friction to slow him down. Add a broom and a rock and lots of yelling drunks and you'd have an average curling tournament up here.

Apparently the I-70 Corridor states were getting as much as 5 Feet of the stuff all the way to the coast. Makes me glad that I am up here in the land of the Frozen Chosen. Frozen we might be, 20 below F. at 8 AM but at least I am not out in a snow bank taller than I am and trying to keep my blower from blowing its guts out.



Nick

CopperNick said:

Given what is passing for weather in some states, you might want to drop that truck box and add a sander!! Was watching the regional and saw this state trooper in Missouri demonstrating how icy it was. Basically he was skating along quite nicely on his boots with nary a lick of friction to slow him down. Add a broom and a rock and lots of yelling drunks and you'd have an average curling tournament up here.

Apparently the I-70 Corridor states were getting as much as 5 Feet of the stuff all the way to the coast. Makes me glad that I am up here in the land of the Frozen Chosen. Frozen we might be, 20 below F. at 8 AM but at least I am not out in a snow bank taller than I am and trying to keep my blower from blowing its guts out.



Nick

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Just don’t hang your knickers out to dry in the breeze Nick! Be like having them starched on the line… figure New England is almost due for a whopper storm. As long as we have the plow up and working it’s all good. You’ve just been sending that cold air at us now!

Uh-uh, pilgrim, that cold air isn't ours. We just get to watch it wander on by. Y'all need a culprit, here, think either Siberia or Colorado, or maybe both if they run into each other and overlap. What we have here and now is courtesy of that Puto-Putin wallah. It is supposed to warm up come next weekend but for us that usually means a dump of that white crud. Sometime this week I have to get back into the shop and sweeten up the gas in the blower tank and maybe do an oil change. That will be my non G-body project. Oil isn't overly nasty for color or smell but has been in there for a winter or two so just based on age and time in it might be useful to do the maintenance.



Nick


Nick

86LK said:

speaking of which, what IS the typical lifespan of rear diff oil? 20 yrs? 100k miles?

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My 2015 F150 maintenance manual says to do it at 150k. I changed the rear around 90k. I'm at 97k now and still haven't done the front. I have the fluid sitting here, just need to get around to it.

joesregalproject said:

My 2015 F150 maintenance manual says to do it at 150k. I changed the rear around 90k. I'm at 97k now and still haven't done the front. I have the fluid sitting here, just need to get around to it.

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That's a synthetic fill though. Not that it's irrelevant, just worth differentiating.

So today became consolidation day. How's that, y'say? Well, as my budget and circumstances have permitted, I have been ordering and stocking in parts for my S-10 for next spring/summer. This week, a part that I had actually forgotten about, the replacement booster for the brakes, finally put in an official appearance!.. Seems that it had come in before Christmas but with the staff on rotating sick leave due to Norovirus it got received and shelved and no one thought to match it with an outstanding order. Mark or Frank finally put the facts together just after New Year's and gimme a call on it. My first thought was to just have them put it on the holding shelf but then I rethought the whole thing and.................

Went and picked it up. But that put me in critical parts stash mode. The balance of what has been brought in has been peacefully sitting on the trunk of the M/Carlo but the booster is too heavy and big in its box to do that, so.......................Time to add to the inventory of tote boxes.

This pm, with the weather shifting back to normal/warm, I made a fast trip over to the big box franchise parts store with a tape measure and specs for a tote box size that would hold the booster and all the rest of the bits and pieces. Took forever to find one deep by wide enough that everything would fit in and the lid would close but actually managed to identify one that would work so got that accomplished.

Once I got back to the house, the tote and the booster went out to the shop and with one in the other there was still room for the new master cylinder, the evap canister and its new module, a couple of new rear wheel cylinders and some other bits and fasteners. Everything fit just nicely and the lid closed easily; total Bonus.

Moved a few other things around and then decided it was about time to put the Van battery back on the charger for a while. It has been off tether since before Christmas while I was wailing away on that quarter panel seam splitting job which only means that it is about due for some voltage love.

Once the Van battery is juiced up, I might give the AGM a few hours of time on the charger as well. The last time I checked it, it was still way over 80 percent charged and holding quite nicely. This is the same one that went flatter than paper last summer and which gave me so much grief trying to rehab it. Turns out that a trickle charger that feeds below the two amp input level can trick the battery into taking an initial charge and once a certain degree of charge is achieved, it finally starts to take the rest of charge like normal.

It is supposed to be and stay seasonally cold/warm for the next week or so meaning that I might step back into the shop for a couple of small projects. I have a resection job to do on a saddle bag lid to bring it back into correct proportion for its body and then there is the layout job for the patch on the lower M/C quarter. I can actually get the entire rear lower quarter panel from OPGI for a reasonable price, which would let me use that as a donor and go large with the repair rather than local. As always, it is not so much about the price as it is about the exchange and shipping and import taxes and all the other "Fees" that get slapped on.

Still there is at least six more weeks of winter left so who knows what can be accomplished?


Nick

Drained the pepto slushy out of the plow and replaced a blown hose. Atf got water in it and froze, plow hung low and hit a bump and blew the left cylinder line apart. They're at least 20 years old and all fhe rubber over the steel braiding rotted away so they were due for replacement.

Flushed the reservoir with diesel, drained the rams, and put that expensive *ss blue juice that's good for -50f in it. Even sitting outside all night in single digit temps in the truck, the low temp stable fluid still had the viscosity of warm 5w20. It also supposedly has water dispersion agents in it so hopefully water intrusion won't be an issue. Also it helps flow if you don't leave a blue paper towel in the tank. 😛

MrSony said:

Drained the pepto slushy out of the plow and replaced a blown hose. Atf got water in it and froze, plow hung low and hit a bump and blew the left cylinder line apart. They're at least 20 years old and all fhe rubber over the steel braiding rotted away so they were due for replacement.

Flushed the reservoir with diesel, drained the rams, and put that expensive *ss blue juice that's good for -50f in it. Even sitting outside all night in single digit temps in the truck, the low temp stable fluid still had the viscosity of warm 5w20. It also supposedly has water dispersion agents in it so hopefully water intrusion won't be an issue. Also it helps flow if you don't leave a blue paper towel in the tank. 😛
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What's that plow even hooked up for? Looks like a summer day outside!

Would it be worthwhile to add a filter on the return side of the pump to keep the onset of the galloping crud from polluting the oil?


Nick

CopperNick said:

Would it be worthwhile to add a filter on the return side of the pump to keep the onset of the galloping crud from polluting the oil?


Nick

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I don't think its possible to add an extra filter, or maybe my sleep deprived new dad brain can't wrap my head around how. The pump in the reservoir has a mesh filter sock.