Final Posting

Well, its been a good run, but my class is now over for which we had to do these blogs.

For those of you that have read all my blogs, thanks for following and pushing through all my really long postings.

To wrap up my previous exhaust postings, I now have 2 mufflers, 2 catalytic converters, 2 exhaust tips, 2 oxygen sensor bungs, 2 header flanges, and 2 header flange gaskets. Still coming are 2 tailpipes and a 14 foot section of 16 gauge 2.5 inch T304 stainless steel pipe. I have an appointment at Race Fab, a shop across the street from Nutbush City Limits, on January 12, 2010. Once it is all said and done, I will be close to $1,200 ($400 for installation alone).

Once again, thanks for reading.

End of this blog at this time.

SNOW!!!!!

Finally, we have snow.

It's about time. We went all through November and the first week of December without it. I really would have liked it for deer hunting, but oh well.

I love the snow. I specially love driving in it. My truck is 4wd, but I still like 2wd because you can slide around corners and I have 4wd available if I can't get enough traction. The hardest part is starting from a stop. Historically though rear-wheel drive vehicles are more accident prone and less safe in snow than front-wheel drive. You definitely have to know what you are doing and know your vehicle. I've driven through snow that was over a foot deep before. It is a lot of fun, but the snow gets packed up under the cab and in the wheel wells.

Big storms like this are perfect for having fun in the snow because the plows don't salt or sand anywhere except for the major intersections. This way, you can play around all day and never get dirty. You just get snow everywhere on and under your vehicle.

I'm glad we finally had a storm. I like having a white Christmas.

The only time I don't like driving in snow is when it is near freezing because the plows dump literally tons of salt on the roads. I HATE SALT!!! Salt rusts out our vehicles. I'd rather they never salted; just use sand. Our roads would last longer and so would our cars. My other pet peeve is when the plows don't even plow. They just sand or salt. I mean, come on! Sanding/salting doesn't do any good if it can't get down to the bottom of the snow.

I recently bought a snowblower too. I got it from an old lady in Eau Claire that has had it for 13 years. It looks and runs really good. It is 8hp with a 26in cut, 6 speeds forward and 2 reverse (but it is faster and easier just to pull it backwards), a headlight (which actually helps more than you think in the dark), and electric start. I'm not a big fan of the electric start, but this one had it on it and I thought it would make it so my mom could use it. I just use the pull-start.

Tuesday night I went out and snowblowed twice. On Wednesday I was up a 6:10. It took me almost an hour to get the driveway (one car) clear and my truck out (parked along side the one-car garage). I told my mom I would take her to work. It was a good thing I did. The plow had been by, but it only made one pass down the middle of the street. My truck got out with no problem, but my mom's car would never have made it. The roads were fairly good on the way (to Gundersen Lutheran in La Crosse). They were snow covered and packed down, but it was plowed at least once and there was no slop around. Traffic moved along at 25mph. I took 7th St versus 3rd or 2nd because I wanted to avoid traffic rather than having better roads. I wasn't worried at all about making it to the hospital. I dropped my mom off and headed back home.

When I got home, I spent another hour clearing the rest of the driveway. Tonight (Thursday), I am going to finish cleaning things up. I like to plan ahead and keep space clear for the snow to come otherwise it will just be in one great big pile 6 feet tall. The only problem I have at home is my mom doesn't shovel in the morning so the snow gets packed down on the driveway and then I can't get it cleared. Luckily (I guess), it is going to be really cold. The cold helps to get the snow off easier. Also, I run out of room for the snow really quickly because I have to shovel everything in one direction due to wind.

Hope everyone has fun in the snow and stays safe. Oh, and watch out for idiot drivers!

Exhaust Work

Well I talked to Exhaust Plus in West Salem and they said that they won't be able to make the 90 degree bend that comes off my headers. My headers end and then a second piece of pipe makes a 90 degree instantly. They said they can't bend anything like that and that they can only do 2.25 inch pipe, not 2.5 inch.

I talked to a good friend of mine that works at a place called Race Fab. It is right next to Nutbush City Limits (about a mile away from Dairy Queen). He said a guy there does extreme custom work. Apparently he does hot rods that will become show vehicles. This means that everything is a really tight fit and has to look seamless. He also said that the guy buys pre-bent sections and cuts them to whatever angle is needed. It also turns out that a guy my dad works with, who currently has a show car at this guys shop for the exhaust, recommended him also. He too said to buy pre-bent sections of pipe.

I measure last night and I think I'm going to need 2 90 degree bends and 1 45 degree bend. Along with that, I'll need roughly 14ft of additional straight stainless steel tubing. A 14ft piece will cost me $140. Basically I'll need 3 sections that are 2ft long and 2 sections that are 4ft long with 2 slight bends in them. They need to step up about 1.5 inches. The pipes will look like a Z that is extremely stretched out. Hopefully the guy can make these simple bends.

As for the tailpipes, I can buy both of them pre-bent. The only thing is that they come straight out the back underneath the bumper. I want them to come out behind the rear wheels in the corners of the bumper at a 45 degree. Hopefully the guy can bend these to the desired angle. I'm also worried about the pipes clearing my spare tire, shocks, and hitch. The company says they should clear the spare tire as long as it is the stock size, which it is.

I just ordered a few parts of the system last night

Here are my costs so far:

MagnaFlow 99006HM 2.5inch inlet/outlet StainlessSteel Catalytic converter - $82.25 x2
MagnaFlow 11226 2.5inch inlet/outlet StainlessSteel Muffler - $68.03 x2
MagnaFlow 35143 2.5inch inlet/3.5inch outlet StainlessSteel Exhaust Tip - $34.06 x2

All from Amazon.com. Total so far: $368.68.

Holidays + More Working on Vehicles

Well, Black Friday has come once again. I've gone to Best Buy for 3 years. This year I'm not going there. I don't really need anything there. Instead, I'm going to Sears. I'm looking to get some shelving units for $40 each and a 4 1/2 inch angle grinder for $25. I use the grinder when I'm working on my truck. It works great when you put a sanding disc on it to get the paint and rust off. Sears opens at 4am so I'll be up by 3am and hopefully in line by 3:15am. After Sears, I'm getting my butt home. I don't feel like dealing with all the traffic and crowded stores. Also, I want to go back to bed.

This time of year, everyone starts picking out their Christmas presents. Last year, and the first Christmas I had my truck, my mom and dad helped pay for my toneau cover. What they didn't pay for, I did. I got it early because I wanted it before snow fall to keep the snow out of the bed of my truck. Boy am I glad I got it.

This year I want to put a new exhaust system on my truck. When I bought it, the owners had put aftermarket headers and exhaust on it. Unfortunately after only somewhere around 45,000 miles (pretty pathetic if you ask me), it is falling apart. Last Saturday I towed a 6,000 pound car/trailer combo back from Milwaukee. That made me realize how badly I need a new exhaust.

I want a fully stainless steel exhaust system basically because I do quite a bit of short trips and I never want to have to redo it again (hopefully). Going stainless also means more money. A typical system is made out of aluminized steel. Aluminized steel is made out of normal steel and is then coated with aluminum. This is supposed to resist rusting, but as soon as any of the aluminum gets scratched off or dinged, it starts to rust there. The only advantage that I see to this route is that it is cheaper and every part needed for a system is readily available.

I'm running into problems because of my headers. There are 3 different types that I know of. There are stock, which come on the vehicle, shorty, which have the outlet in the same location as the stock ones but have individual pipes for each cylinder, and then there are long, which have individual pipes for each cylinder and are a lot longer than the others. ((If this is confusing just Google 'shorty headers' and 'long tube headers' to see a picture of them)) Well, it turns out mine are considered either mid-length or long tube. This means that I cannot use a direct-fit part. This part goes from the headers and includes the catalytic converters and then stops. Some guys are saying I can't use it and that I should just have a custom set made. However, this means more money.

I already have mufflers, tailpipes, and tips picked out. All I need to do is figure out this problem and find somewhere that sells stainless steel 2.5 inch tubing for custom making the other parts I need.

I know of a shop in Coon Valley and in West Salem that people have told me do custom work and do a good job. I'm taking my truck to West Salem Monday after school to get a price quote and ask a few questions.

We'll see what they say. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Working on Vehicles (continued)

I haven't done that much work on vehicles, it's just that when I do it is usually something big or important.

On my previous truck, a 1994 Chevy S10 2.2L 4cyl 5spd that I had for 15 months, I replaced the clutch. Now, this wasn't the easiest thing in the world to do, but luckily it was rear-wheel drive so the engine and transmission weren't crammed in. I drove the truck to Melrose, WI (about 20 minutes away from West Salem) on a cold, rainy night. My friend followed me in his truck. I normally take a route that has a steep hill with a lot of twists on it. I didn't want to go this way because my clutch was slipping fairly good and I didn't want to loose my momentum. I chose an alternate route that I had taken only once before. It still had a hill, but it was more gradual and the corners where not sharp at all. I kept the engine revving pretty good up the hill. I stayed in 3rd gear and kept it at over 3,000 rpm. When I reached the top, a sudden turn came out of no where. I didn't lift off the gas too much. Since the road was wet, the back end slid out from behind me a little bit. Finally I reach the guys garage.

I drove the front of the truck up on ramps that you usually use for changing oil and put the back end up on jack stands (we only had 2 jack stands). In order to remove the transmission, the drive shaft had to come out first. That was easy. Then a cross member supporting the back end of the transmission had to come out. The nut that held the transmission to the cross member was rusted in place (after 12 years of MN and WI winter roads). I had to take a grinder and grind it off being careful not to grind away the threads on the bolt. Finally I got that done. Next we had to unbolt the tranny from the engine. There were about 10 bolts holding it on. The real hard ones were the ones on top of the tranny because we had a hard time getting to them. We also had to take the shifter off to get it to drop through the hole in the floor. We finally go the tranny out. Getting the clutch out was easy. All we had to do was unbolt the pressure plate (a bunch of really strong springs that keep the clutch engaged) and remove it and the clutch.

The clutch I had bought came with the clutch disc and a new pressure plate. We could see that the old pressure plate had gotten fairly hot because there were blue spots on it. So we bolted up the new pressure plate and clutch. Now we only had to lift the tranny back up, bolt it back in, put the cross member back in, and finally reconnect the drive shaft. All this sounds simple and straight forward, but the entire project took two nights of work (probably 8 to 9 hours maybe).

So after 180,000 miles, I guess I got my money's worth out of the original clutch.

Here's a video that shows how a clutch works and some of the parts I replaced.

Working on Vehicles

Everyone hates it when something breaks or wears out on their car. The most common things are brakes and bearings. Well, I've never had to replace brakes because they are worn out, but I did replace them because I could.

This weekend, I replaced the rear axle on my truck. There was nothing wrong with the original one that came from the factory. It only had 109,000 miles and was 11 years old. The reason I replaced it was because it was what is known as an "open differential". What this means is that if one wheel is on ice and the other is on dry pavement, the wheel on the ice will get all the power because it has the least amount of resistance to it. This is the downfall of most differentials. The one I put in the truck came out of a stock 1995 Chevrolet K1500 truck (just so you know, it was the exact same truck as mine, just 3 years older). The difference is that this one is what is called a "locking differential". What this means is that when one wheel spins 100rpm (revolutions per minute) faster than the other, it causes a mechanism inside to engage and lock the two wheels together; giving the wheel with traction power. Had my truck been a 2-wheel-drive, this would have been more important since I wouldn't have had the extra help of 4-wheel-drive to help me. So basically now instead of having 1 wheel spinning in 2wd, I will have 2 spinning. In 4wd, instead of having 1 wheel in front and 1 wheel in back spinning, at least 3 wheels will spin at the same speed giving power to 1 or 2 wheels that actually have traction. What would have happened before the swap was all the power would have been sent to 1 front wheel and 1 back wheel that had no traction. Making me go nowhere.

After unbolting the shocks, leaf springs, brake lines, drive shaft, and disconnecting the parking brake, it was time to put in the "new" axle. It went in just fine. The only problem was that in order to hook the parking brake back up, we had to completely disassemble the drum brakes. [For future reference, drum brakes are a pain in the butt. Stick with disc brakes.] Since we had to completely disassemble them, I decided to replace all the springs (there's like 8 per drum), the wheel cylinders (when you push on the brake peddle, hydraulic fluid is pushed to the wheel cylinders which convert the fluid pressure into physical force that pushes the shoes (what brake pads are called for drum brakes) out and into contact with the drum (instead of a disc)), and the pads even though the old ones looked OK; they just need to be cleaned up. The most difficult part was connecting the parking brake back up again and getting all the springs (they may be small, but they sure are strong) hooked back to where they need to be. There are 2 pins that hold 2 of the springs to keep tension on them. Apparently the kit I bought was for multiple vehicles. It had two different length pins. We realized this quickly after the one spcing didn't come close to fitting right.

So $150 for the axle, $75 in parts, waiting 8 months, and about 10 hours of work later, it is finally in. I was so happy and excited.

I originally intended to do this earlier in the year, but I was too busy between my senior year in high school and work. A buddy and I had planned to do burnouts the last day of school. His car had a posi rear end (basically the same thing, just can't handle as much power as a locking rear end) and I was going to have the locking rear end, but I never swapped it out. So he had both wheels spinning and I was a one-wheel-wonder. Not any more suckers!

Here's a video that better explains what happens in the rear differential.

Changing Mind

Don't you just hate people that can't make up their minds on whether or not to do something or what they are going to do or what to buy? Well, sometimes that's the way my dad is.

There's the time that I was about to buy my first truck that would be registered in my name. I found one in Rochester on a Sunday. I called the dealer on Monday and asked about the truck. It was a few hundred bucks more than what I was intending to spend, but for the extra money, it had what I wanted (the only thing that was bad about the truck is that the sides of the bed were scratched up from lifting things over the sides). I talked with my dad on the phone and explained to him the details about the truck. He told me to call the dealer back and make an offer and that getting the money wouldn't be a problem. So the next day, Tuesday, I called back the dealer and made an offer. He didn't like it and countered it (split the difference). I told my dad. For some ungodly reason, my dad had the completely opposite opinion he had the day before. He said I was rushing into it and that I needed to think about it more. So, he basically broke my heart, slammed on the brakes, and told me to call back the dealer and stop the whole deal. I WANTED TO KILL HIM! It was the most agonizing thing I have ever gone through. I had money saved up, was paying for EVERYTHING myself, and new what I was getting into. I had been looking for a truck for 8 months by this time. I even made a binder of all the trucks I had found. Almost all were too much, too far away, or had too high of miles. Well, finally 2 months later (10 months of looking), I found the perfect truck. Ironically, it was in Rochester too. Luckily by now my dad knew I was serious and didn't try too hard to stop me. I think the reason he went with it was because it only had 98,000 miles on it (which was really, really low considering it was 10 years old and in my price range; and no, there wasn't anything majorly wrong with it). The buying process of this truck took 3 hours of phone calls and then waiting 5 days until the weekend to go test drive it. I was just in time. As I was finishing the deal, another guy called the seller. God was I happy. (Just so you know, this is the truck that is pictured in my first posting)

Sorry, but you need a little more background on this one. When my mom bought me my first truck [in her name] (only because I was living with her, needed money for what I wanted because she didn't have extra money, and 3 weeks after buying the truck, I got a job), I didn't tell my dad that I was even looking. I didn't want him to say "why do you need a truck?" or some stupid question like that and try to stop me. So, I drove the truck home for 3.5 hours with not cruise, CD player, or A/C (which I didn't care about). I think it was 2 or 3 days later that I showed up to my dad's house after work (it was dark out) and told him I needed to show him something. He came out and saw the truck. He asked me why I didn't tell him before hand. I said "because I didn't know what you'd say and I didn't want you to say no." (When my dad bought a new van, he spent 3 or 4 months comparing options, prices, and deals. He believes in thoroughly researching, as do I, but when I make up my mind on something, I mean it.)

So basically I did a big thing without telling him. I also never told him about building my first computer until I got parts for Christmas, or about going to West Virginia to get a motorcycle with my mom's boy fried, or about getting my motorcycle license (the only reason I told him before actually getting it was because my safety course fell on a weekend that I was with him), or about my first motorcycle. So after all this, I thought it was best to tell him that I wanted a nicer truck.