October is upon us… and actually has been for about a week and a half now. “I should write a post” I say as I can’t think of anything to write about. Another half assed-quasi political-economic post? No, no one gives a shit about that and I know nothing on the subject. “Things Hoff Hates”? Tempting, but usually I get in the mood for that when something pisses me off. So most of the time. No, this time is mostly about Transportation. Namely my transportation.
But first it’s October. Fall is in the air. Overall I’ve always liked fall, not too hot/not too cold. As a kid Halloween was fun because candy. But now as an “adult” I can just buy candy. And I do. A lot. And donuts.
This year the only thing going on at Fujupz this fall is yet another weekend in Sandusky, Cedar Point’s Halloweekends. We’ve never gone for that, though last year we had it scheduled. In the end Plonker had to work and I.. did something I think. Remember kids, calories don’t count on vacation!
After the bike trip this year we managed to not ride bikes for a good 5 weeks. Plonker was shoveling up is backyard for his field of dreams. And I was working on my car. We finally did ride this past weekend, 34 miles. It felt good, but the weather will be changing soon, so it was probably the last time this season. I’m hoping for next year to upgrade the bikes. Suspension baby! Is it necessary? No. We’ve ridden enough without it. But god damn it if I’m going to do something I’m going to fucking overdo something.
Speaking of which, the topic of today’s post: My Transportation.
I have 2 vehicles:
A 1993 GMC Sierra 4.3L
A 1993 Mercedes 190E 2.3
Before the Mercedes I had a 2004 Suzuki Verona. That car was great at first but over the years it had issues that would pile up. Eventually I killed the transmission and when I had to have it towed home I stuck a fork in it. It was super in the snow that. It was like a tank. If it wasn’t so difficult to get parts for it I probably would have torn it apart and fixed it. But the Suzuki Verona was a rebadged GM Daewoo car. In America it was a Suzuki, Canada a Chevy, and the rest of the world a Daewoo. They don’t sell Daewoo in America anymore, the GM Dealers couldn’t get the parts, and I don’t have local Suzuki Dealers. And the dealer parts online were PRICEY! It was going to cost me like $750 for struts and shocks. Parts only. Fuck that noise.
I had my truck as a backup vehicle, but it wasn’t the most reliable. At the time I had just gotten it running again after my throttle body caught fire when I was leaving work. I believe one of the injector wires was bare enough to arc to the throttle body and catch fire. I rebuild the throttle body, installed new injector connectors, and got new injectors. It barely ran. Multiple tests, re-timing, replacing distributor parts (they tested bad, but it was a new distributor), I finally realized one of my new injectors wasn’t firing correctly. Reinstalled an old one and ran fine. That didn’t last long, however.
When I got the truck I was looking for a cheap ass truck, solely for the purpose of driving the 2 miles to Lowe’s or Home Depot for building supplies. I just needed something, anything, that would get me there. Cheap was the only concern. My dad found this truck, essentially at the junk yard. It wasn’t IN the yard.. though it probably should have been. I didn’t care. It was $600 and my dad actually got it and gave it to me for Christmas. I figured I’d just run it and replace things as necessary.
My dad, however, went on a shopping spree and bought all kind of new parts for it. brake system, bearings, suspension, drive shaft, body panels, bumpers. A lot of parts went on in the beginning. Some came later, and some are just being installed now, probably a good 5 years since acquiring.
So anyway, Late 2015/Early 2016, my Suzuki is running, but I KNOW it’s going to die sometime in the near future. I had decided I wasn’t going to put any more money into it and when it died, it died. That would be it. My truck at this point just got back on the road after the fire, but it would intermittently start. When I turned the key, sometimes it would start, sometimes it wouldn’t. I did eventually find my battery cable was shorting out, so it started to start correctly, but then I’d notice times of lack of power, sometimes shifting trouble. So I drove it only when necessary. I was tossing around the idea of rebuilding the transmission the next summer.
March, the Suzuki died. Transmission went. I had previously had a cooler line go and lost most of my transmission fluid. I managed to drive it home, and amazingly drove for a few more months after that, but admittedly it never felt the same. Actually, now that I type this and thinking back I had to have the car towed that final day because I couldn’t get it to start after it stalled. I would give it gas, and the engine would rev, but the car barely moved…. Yeah I’ll stick with transmission. Probably overheated the engine trying to get it to go.
In the months leading up to this point I was looking for a car. Preferably an older car. I was actually looking for a 93 Cavalier, my mom had one when I was growing up and worked on it a lot. And the the fucking Daewoo computer systems pissed me off enough I didn’t want a more modern vehicle. At this time my dad took his wife’s Honda in for an oil change, and walked out with a new car. He took her old car, and he gave me his Mercedes. Yay, free car!
It is a 93 though. The paint isn’t great, but there’s no rust. and everything seemed pretty good on it. I did a few minor repairs to the belt tensioner and changed a thermostat. Nothing major. Armed with a somewhat reliable vehicle I parked my truck under my car port for when I’d actually need it.
Remember those parts for the truck that have been hanging around for years? Most lived at my dad’s house for most of that time. Until I moved to my current house. Then he gave them to me. Most were in my basement, but the front and rear bumpers were in my one car garage that I use as a workshop. Best way to get them the hell out of my way: Install them.
While grinding off the rusted bolts that hold up the rear bumper, I see the bushing eye in my rear least spring is cracked and just barely holding together. So I order new springs. And shackles.. and hardware. I also cleaned up, rust prevented, and painted the frame where I could get to. I then moved on to the front bumper, which required my to take the grille off. Well while I’m already in there I might as well install the new radiator, radiator core support (and mounts), headlights, fenders, and inner fenders. Well, one I take the front bumper and radiator core support out, the engine and transmission are RIGHT there… might as well just take off a handful more items and rebuild my transmission as planned, and got over the engine a little.
I’ve rebuilt engines before… I don’t go all out with performance items, just stock, not trying to impress anyone. I figured all I’d really need on this one was a gasket kit. As I started taking things apart I noticed how dirty things were on the inside. I decided to go all out and replace bearings. And hey, since I’m already tearing shit apart, lets clean up the castings and give them a paint job.
In the end I:
- Tore apart the engine, cleaned and painted the block. I don’t have a bead blaster set up yet, so it’s all manual cleaning. No fun. The water jackets were full of a clay/rust substance.
- Replaced oil pan. Original was dented from someone with a jack.
- Replaced oil pump and screen. Dad bought those previously. The screen is pressed in then welded in place. I say it’s a stupid set up.
- Replaced cam bearings. Twice. I used a cam bearing installation tool, but fucked up the first set somehow. I don’t remember what I did, but I had to order a new set.
- Pistons had cracked skirts, so I replaced those. It was a first for me, and a little nerve wracking. I bought the cheapest pistons I could find. And since I have yet to start the truck I don’t know how they work.
- New water pump/timing chain.
- I had to get another new oil pan gasket because the one in my kit seemed stretched out.
- Whenever I take the heads off, for any reason, I always tear them down and clean up the valve train and replace the valve seals. This was no exception
- New exhaust valves. Mine were a little worse than I’d like. It was cheaper to buy new than have them reground.
- I fucked up one valve seal trying to cram it on more than it needed to go on. It didn’t look right and I destroyed it. That particular one I could only find in a 20 pack. Of course.
I intended to buy a $35 rebuild kit. I did all that. It took me like 6 months. mainly because every time I started working on it I needed to order more parts. Then I’d get pissed and not work on it for weeks.
Finally in December I started working on the 4L60E transmission. Apparently GM couldn’t get their shit together when they made this. Some parts are the same the the 700R that this was based on. But some parts for a 4L60E are different from other 4L60E transmissions depending on year or whatever upgrades/retrofits they did over the years. The manual I used would say “look at the casting number of this part. If it’s XXXXXXXXX good lord don’t use THAT ONE! IT’S KNOWN TO FAIL! Get the upgraded one.” So I would. Of course I didn’t see these at the beginning. Only as I was reassembling. So I had the rebuild kit with seals, frictions, and steels, and it would say to replace this piston and drum or whatever (I don’t know transmissions nearly as well as engines), so I’d order it, receive it, install it. Move on to the next section and “Look at the casting number on THIS part….” Fuck. Rinse. Repeat. A few parts I was like “well at least I don’t have to replace this one”, then when I do to install it see that it’s wore the fuck out. Order, receive, install.
It took another 4 months to get the transmission done with all the ordering and waiting (and getting pissed), and another 4 months to install in the truck, because fuck it at this point. I intended to try it before reassembling everything, but realized I had to hook up a lot so fluids wouldn’t pour everywhere. So.. yeah, it’s basically all back together and I have no idea if it’ll run. If not, I’m junking it. I’m not about to tear it apart again.
In the mean time, I’ve needed to work on my car. In Pennsylvania we have safety inspections yearly and in my county emission inspections. I’m exempt on that, but you still have to pay a partial fee for the exempt sticker… yay? Well anyway, my exhaust had fallen apart in March and I ordered a whole new system. Sadly most of the aftermarket parts were slightly different than the originals. Some, like my muffler fit, but we’re a little different. I had to lower it a tad so it would stop melting my bumper. The catalytic converter front pipes were totally different, apparently from an earlier year, and didn’t fit. I had to cut them from the original and reuse.
I had never driven in the snow with this car, and was a little nervous because my dad said it was horrible in the snow. In November, I bought winter tires for the rear and got studs just to be on the safe side. I also replaced the brakes. I had trouble getting the new rear rotor back on and realized the parking brake was stuck in engaged. I didn’t have parts available and I needed the car the next day, so I took off the parking brakes. I couldn’t get the actuating lever off of the cable, so I drove around with the parking brake lever up for 6 months so that the levers wouldn’t rub the drums.
In the mean time, that car was horrible in the snow. God fucking awful. It was either slide through the red lights or slam into a snow bank. Even with the new tires and studs. I did some research and people either agreed or said they had no issues in the snow. I was out of ideas.
One day pulling into work from picking up lunch I started sliding in the parking lot. Right toward the new guy’s car. Pumped the brakes, nothing. Tried turning, wasn’t working. Brace for impact and throw it in park… it stopped. Wait a minute.. if I’m sliding on snow, why did I stop when I put the transmission in park? Turns out the master cylinder didn’t work for the rear brakes. The car is rear wheel drive, so basically it was slowly just driving through the parking lots and red lights with no road friction to stop it. It was a lot better after replacing the master cylinder, though the tires were starting to wear.
So now spring is upon us, and I have my inspection coming up, and I get the exhaust installed and I need to fix my parking brakes for inspection. Pop off the rotor… and the little lever I couldn’t get off of the cable due to rust came apart at some point and was rattling around in the brake drum. It destroyed the backing plate and I couldn’t install new parking brake to it. Order new backing plates. Both sides, because I like to be symmetrical. To install the backing plate you have to remove the hub flange, which gets pressed out of the wheel bearing, which destroys it. Order cheap wheel bearing kits, again replace one, might as well do both. And you have to move the drive axles out of the way. I did both sides but on 2 different days. I ordered a bearing and flange remover/installer tool because I do my own work, I don’t trust anyone else, and yay packages in the mail!
Get my inspection done a couple weeks later. Bad wheel bearing in the back. Two weeks old. That’s what I get for cheaping out. Order a Timken bearing (which came in as an SKF bearing in a Timken box) and it sits around for weeks waiting to be installed. As my tires lose more and more tread in the fronts. I need tires and an alignment, bad. But I don’t want to pay to get the alignment done (wasn’t in the mood to do it myself) and have questionable 23 year old parts. I suspected weak struts and shocks (confirmed). Order them, and new wheel carrier bushings for the rear as they were bad. And new stabilizer bar struts, and rear tie rods and those are the only parts that get adjusted on a rear alignment. Install the read bearing (again), press in the bushings, and the stabilizer bar struts, and rear shocks. Couldn’t get the rear tie rods out. Had to cut them. Finally rear is done. I had previous installed front struts. I ordered the eccentric adjustment bolts for the front lower control arms because I figured they’d be rusty when doing the alignment. Then, thinking about it, I assumed the inner and outer tie rods would be rusty too. Order them. Then, thinking about having to cut out the rear tie rods at the bushing, I start to worry about the front eccentric bolts going through the control arm bushing… what if they’re seized in there? Inspect ball joints and bushings, order control arms and stabilizer bar bushings.
Good thing I thought it out because I literally had to cut the control arm away from the rubber bushings and then cut through the rubber bushing through the bolts to get it all disassembled. Asssembly was a breeze.
Finally. All new suspension and I can get my car aligned and get my new tires. Take it in and they start working on it. They come out and say they see my front right wheel bearing is loose and should be replaced… The one part I didn’t already replace.
Nothing is ever easy.
