well I wanted to have another truck done by now, and its close, but life is full of surprises.
first, we bought that new property and my wife who said were werent going to do any remodeling whatsoever took her jekyll/hyde potion and immediately bought f o u r t e e n h u n d r e d s q f t of flooring because "we" could lay it ourselves (got a $4100 labor quote). "we" turned out to be me and my daughters cat, it took about a week and only cost 250 for a table saw. I was a never-done-it to expert in about 55 hours, no transition strips.
then it took forever (about a month and a half) to find a nice enough s10 donor, lots of 2.2 trucks out there but notta lotta 4.3. I ended up buying a reasonably priced 97 4.3 shortbed. it needed a water pump and the front suspension was shot but it ran really great (for short runs).
the tranny had a... hummmmm. I looked at the fluid and it looked bad and smelled worse. I did a fluid replacement using the cooling lines in about an hour, bought a five gallon drum of new fluid and just pumped it out 3 qts at a time into a bucket with qt marks, turned the engine off and poured 3 qts in the dipstick tube, until the fluid was nice and red. took about 18 qts.
streeeped.
with the help of forky. i saw an ad for a forklift, looked like a nice small rough terrain forklift but the ad was doom and gloom, barely moves, barely lifts. I waited till the price halved then halved again before I called, maybe I could fix it. got there, does it run? oh sure, extra tank too!. you said it doesnt move? well it moves fine until you press the "left" brake (inching brake, disengages the clutch). ah. you said it doesnt lift? oh sure, its just slow (proceeds to lift at idle). huh, ya dont say?
$900 later I had forky. my friend with a big trailer picked up, it was about an hour away.
I greased the mast and bled the inching brake and ordered a master cylinder for the real brakes besides. he seems to like the attention, a couple whacks on the thermostat housing and the temp gauge settled at 225 degrees (previously 250+). climbs my back yard slope like a billy goat.
my friend gave up on his 98 2dr blazer convertible project, gave me the 4.3 and the brand new trans! but that meant my motor cart was full. picked up another at the yard store!
I had a nice (relatively speaking) 5w cab but this one popped up on marketplace the day of a snowstorm, I wasted no time driving an hour like an idiot in the ice and snow. when I got there he said man a lot of people have been calling but your here so lets do this.
he was selling because he didnt want to fix the rust. the only rust was over the windshield, my 5w looked like 60% rust compared to this.
a fiddly repair to be sure, but hey lets get after it.
first, we bought that new property and my wife who said were werent going to do any remodeling whatsoever took her jekyll/hyde potion and immediately bought f o u r t e e n h u n d r e d s q f t of flooring because "we" could lay it ourselves (got a $4100 labor quote). "we" turned out to be me and my daughters cat, it took about a week and only cost 250 for a table saw. I was a never-done-it to expert in about 55 hours, no transition strips.
then it took forever (about a month and a half) to find a nice enough s10 donor, lots of 2.2 trucks out there but notta lotta 4.3. I ended up buying a reasonably priced 97 4.3 shortbed. it needed a water pump and the front suspension was shot but it ran really great (for short runs).
the tranny had a... hummmmm. I looked at the fluid and it looked bad and smelled worse. I did a fluid replacement using the cooling lines in about an hour, bought a five gallon drum of new fluid and just pumped it out 3 qts at a time into a bucket with qt marks, turned the engine off and poured 3 qts in the dipstick tube, until the fluid was nice and red. took about 18 qts.
streeeped.
with the help of forky. i saw an ad for a forklift, looked like a nice small rough terrain forklift but the ad was doom and gloom, barely moves, barely lifts. I waited till the price halved then halved again before I called, maybe I could fix it. got there, does it run? oh sure, extra tank too!. you said it doesnt move? well it moves fine until you press the "left" brake (inching brake, disengages the clutch). ah. you said it doesnt lift? oh sure, its just slow (proceeds to lift at idle). huh, ya dont say?
$900 later I had forky. my friend with a big trailer picked up, it was about an hour away.
I greased the mast and bled the inching brake and ordered a master cylinder for the real brakes besides. he seems to like the attention, a couple whacks on the thermostat housing and the temp gauge settled at 225 degrees (previously 250+). climbs my back yard slope like a billy goat.
my friend gave up on his 98 2dr blazer convertible project, gave me the 4.3 and the brand new trans! but that meant my motor cart was full. picked up another at the yard store!
I had a nice (relatively speaking) 5w cab but this one popped up on marketplace the day of a snowstorm, I wasted no time driving an hour like an idiot in the ice and snow. when I got there he said man a lot of people have been calling but your here so lets do this.
he was selling because he didnt want to fix the rust. the only rust was over the windshield, my 5w looked like 60% rust compared to this.
a fiddly repair to be sure, but hey lets get after it.
