Post by rewind on Jan 7, 2014 5:43:07 GMT -10
Hey folks!!! Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Years!!!!! I've been scarce around here lately mainly cause up until Christmas I was working almost 60 hrs a week!! While the OT has been nice I haven't been able to spend it on much other than keeping vehicles on the road. Both the Jeep and my wife's Avalanche have been in and out of the shop since November.
As for the Jeep:
It started out with some small leaks that turned out to be all kinds of seals in the engine, trans and diff. Got those fixed then noticed the heater wasn't working to good. Had the radiator flushed only to find out I needed a new water pump. After having the water pump replaced still had coolant leaking, finally tracked it down to the replaced water pump was bad, so water pump #2 went in.
The good news is that during all of this I now have new gears in front and rear!!!! Dumped the 3.07's and put in 4.11's!!! That was an ordeal in itself. I ordered a complete kit from Rusty's off road. After getting the kit my mechanic could not get the rear to fit. Called Rusty's and they had another carrier sent from the manufacturer only to find it wouldn't fit either. Rusty's sent a 3rd carrier and it wouldn't fit either. Rusty kept trying to tell me my mechanic was doing something wrong. He even told me they assembled the same kit in the same rear end (Dana 35) in their shop and it worked fine. Never got mine to work. Finally I asked for a full refund and Rusty was fine with that. Because I was traveling almost right by Rusty's on a trip (that's another story) I returned the kit in person. I will say Rusty is a nice person and was always willing to work with me.
Now here's the WTF.......after deciding to return the Rusty's parts my mechanic got parts from his supplier and low and behold they fit perfectly!!! I don't believe that Rusty actually assembled a rear end using the same parts, he couldn't have and had it work. But after all is said and done the gears that were put in seem to be working great!
But now.............the heater isn't working again.......AAARRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Now during all this my wife's 2005 Avalanche caught the bad water pump disease and had to have it replaced. We've had a check engine light that will come on from time to time which we found out is s sensor (of course) that is on the fritz and will have to be replaced eventually. This along with a constant knock in the suspension and the miles on it (153K), Lisa had lost confidence in the reliability of the truck. So the day after Christmas we traded the '05 Avalanche in on an "07 Avalanche we found at a small used car dealer in Killin Alabama with low mileage. Got a great deal on it and the dealer gave us top dollar for our '05. It is one SWEEET ride. It's the LTZ 4WD model and so far so good!! And you can't miss it coming, it's the Sunburst Orange Metallic color.
Dec 16th was my 50th birthday so for a surprise Lisa "kidnapped" me and we went to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg for 5 days. That was a blast!!!!
So there ya have it!!!
Now to get the heater fixed in the Jeep.