BrandonHall10

Yep. Exactly. You get it.

Certainly less stressed, that's for sure.

Got the oil pressure sensor today. This "APDTY" sensor with harness was cheaper than the sensor alone from Amazon or Rock. I may regret buying the cheapest thing on the market, but it's in and works for now. I did notice that the old one had oil in the back side of the plug. I remember my mentor telling me once, if there's fluid (oil/coolant...) on the plug side of a sensor, that's a pretty good indicator that it's junk. That was the case here. All good now!



I pulled the owners manual out of the glovebox to see what the recommended diff fluid is. To my surprise, it was in great condition. Most of the junk I buy is missing the manual. This one looked like it had never even been opened. PO even had the original window sticker in the bag. I really geek out on that kind of stuff. It's hard to seen in that picture, but original sticker price in 2006 was $29,232. I bought it for 2.5% of the original purchase price! (Assuming my math is right...?)



$1162 - Previous
$17 - Oil pressure sensor

$1179 - Total

BrandonHall10

Heater core flows again! I used a bucket to catch what came out. There were some pretty good sized rust flakes in there, but it didn't take much water for it to flow clean. Once again filled the system with water and radiator flush, this time with the Tstat in. Fired it up and let it run. Started blowing good heat out of the vents pretty quickly. Eventually got up to 210° and heald steady. Turns out the temp gauge is one of the few that actually still work. I feel pretty good about the cooling system now. The lower hose was nearly cool to the touch while the engine was up to temp.

With that issue all but settled, I moved on to the fuel level sender. Pulled the 4 left side bed bolts and loosened the 4 on the right. Some He-Man action, a couple blocks of wood and I was in. Washed of the top of the tank to keep the bigger chunks out then dried with an air blast. Not fully trusting the gauge, I verified the faulty sender with my DVOM. Sure enough, open loop. Knocked the lock ring off and after a pretty good battle, it was out. I wouldn't mind if that hole was just 1/16" bigger! Got visual confirmation of the issue. The wire was broke off the lever sender at the solder joint. Again, I may regret going cheap here, but I ordered a $22 level sender. The bed wasn't that hard to pull. If the pump takes a dump in a couple months I won't be that upset. I just want to get this truck tested, registered and rolling for now. Doing this on a shoestring budget.

BrandonHall10

Waiting on the level sensor and stepper motor kit. Figured I'd get a jump on the cluster. I love how easy that thing comes out. It's a cakewalk compared to the '84 K10 and the '97 S10.

BrandonHall10

Got the level sensor today. Popped it on the bucked and dropped the bucket in the tank. Cycled the key a couple times to check for leaks and all was well. Truck fired right up. Won't be able to see the gauge work until the cluster is rebuilt, but I can say with 100% certainty that the code is gone. One step at a time...



$1179 - Previous
$22 - Level sensor

$1201 - Total

BrandonHall10

Stepper motors and electronics solder kit arrived a couple days ago. Didn't do anything with them, as I spent the weekend at the grand canyon. They're still going to have to sit a couple more days. Neet to put a harmonic balancer/crank pulley on the Silhouette and the boy has soccer practice. Hoping to have the dash back together before the weekend.





$1201 - Previous
$32 - Stepper motor kit

$1233 - Total

thunderwagen

iTrader: (3)

Making good progress!

BrandonHall10

Thanks!

Update time. I attempted to fix the cluster. Seems I've made it worse. Now none of the gauges worked. I'm probably going to bite the bullet and send it out for rebuild. Apparently fine soldering is beyond my abilities. That's the bad news. Good news is it passed emissions! Put fresh oil, coolant, and a couple gallons of gas in it and drove into town. Monitoring things along the way with the laptop as my gauges. Passed all the self tests about half way there. Good to go. Then waiting in line I get a pending P0327 code. As I pull up to the line, the light comes on. Instant FAIL, I think to myself. However, I just found out anything over 8500lb goes on the roller and gets sniffed. All good there!

So I still have some work to do. Needs knock sensors/harness, and there's a small coolant leak at the TB crossover, but now that it's through emissions I can transfer the title and register it anytime. Which will probably still be a couple weeks, maybe after the new year. Can't really take the hit to insure another vehicle just yet.

$1233 - Previous
$20 - Coolant
$15 - Oil
$12 - Emissions test

$1280 - Total

silentbravo

iTrader: (1)

Is that 8500 LB number the GVWR then?

BrandonHall10

Correct sir. FWIW, the GVWR on this truck is 9200lb. Being that this is a 2wd stripper model with ZERO extras, it has a pretty sizable hauling capacity. I'd like to take it through the scales with a full tank of fuel just for reference.

Coolant leak fixed (I think). Just bypassed the throttle body. Shouldn't be a problem in southern Arizona. I sent the cluster off today. Should have it back before next weekend. Tomorrow I'm going to transfer the title and depending on cost, register it as well. I'm strongly considering stealing the knock sensors and harness out of the LM7 for the time being. There's $100 I won't have to spend right away, plus it already gave up it's starter...

$1280 - Previous
$64 - Cluster repair
$17 - Cluster shipping

$1361 - Total

FFDP

iTrader: (2)

Good thing anything older than 7-8 years is a flat fee for new tabs and registration up here.

The key is saying you payed like $2,500 or less because it's clapped out or broken in some way. Mileage on the title has got me by before like with my 2006 that had 250k miles on it. I said I paid a lesser value and they questioned it at first, then they looked at the title, seen the mileage and changed their mind lol. Payed hardly any sales tax and walked out the door.