SAmadei

Who will figure out what truck its based on?

Love Pepper Green. Underrated Pontiac Green if there ever was...

Cool color. I'll take a G8 GXP in it. Or a Trans Am. Oh.

You can put a dent in your gas tank or your frame and keep going. Putting a hole in a gas tank is something you can fix with a bar of soap. Denting or poking a battery pack and having it short out or overheat and catch fire is something different entirely. One of the hallmarks of 4x4ing is that you can't have your 4x4 destroy itself. You need to limp out. Being stuck out in the wilderness can be a matter of life and death. Though I suppose that the column of smoke coming from one's 4x4 EV burning might bring some attention. A wrecked 4x4 is something of an environmental mess. A burned out 4x4 EV is a bigger environmental mess. For these reasons, and many more, an EV 4x4 is going to be a hard sell to the hardcore 4x4 crowd.

How would it be mounted? On the roof? A heavy battery pack is going to be mounted fairly low in any vehicle, rock crawler, included. And who said anything needed to be going 65 mph? You can be barely rolling and have the body crash down on the battery pack, either shorting out a cell or causing the coolant and/or electrolyte to drain out. The Fiskers weren't moving at all when water infiltration destroyed them. Sure, regular 4x4s require special prep, and I'm sure an EV Jeep can be made, I just doubt its going to last.

Does anyone know of a GM lock cylinder interchange? Since I basically never sell any cars, I have found it convenient to rekey my cars to use the same lock codes. In some cases, this is quite easy... in other cases, its a little tricky. I currently rekey on a set of one sided E/J keys, which makes things easy for 30 years worth of GM cars. However, I'm not real fond of the double sided keys, especially the '90s ones. Unfortunately, I'm not clear if I can swap these out. Generally, will do things modular style, so some sort of interchange is possible... for example, the '97 Tahoe I just got has a shot set of keys and /or cylinders. To use E/J keys, I need cylinders from a '99/'95/'91 Tahoe/Blazer with the '97 door handle setup. Well, the '91 Blazer was the old body style... however, I should be able to use a '91 Silverado/Sierra lock cylinder. Once you have a cylinder that will fit the letters of the keys and application, swapping out the pins is easy. Now going forward, key lock interchange gets fuzzy. I can't imagine coming up with a solution to use a old key in a modern W-body. Does anyone know of some sort of lock cylinder interchange?

Knowing that battery packs don't like water or impacts with hard, pointy objects, I question how wise using a EV for rock climbing or river crossing is going to be.

Actually, it took me a week between other engagements and fighting with the flat tire, but I got it home Thurs night. Longest 10 minute drive in a long time. Actually, the truck ran fine. It has 264K, but the engine runs strong and the tranny shifts nice and firm. Good acceleration. Brakes a little soft, but they likely need to adjust a bit more. Problem I had was the front tire was flat and had come out of bead slightly. My air tank could only air the tire up about 75%... which would not seat the tire... and my electric pump could not keep up with the air leak at the bead. 20 minutes and the tire would basically be deflated again. Anyway, while trying to pointlessly fill it up, I ran the gas in the truck down dangerously low. Not having a decent gas can with me and fighting the cold and reduced hours at the local gas stations, I had a couple aborted take-homes. Worse, I really couldn't fit a spare 31" tire in the Sunfire. I finally just gathered all my little gas cans and put whatever old, weekwacker gas I had and I simply had to make two trips with my air tank to fill the tire and make a blitzkrieg run home. That worked pretty good, however, I failed to notice that I had a third tire that was low... and its was hot and pissed by the time I got home. Luckily, I didn't damage it too badly. Once I got home and the tires were warm and flexible, I was able to air everything up to 40 lbs and all the beads reseated. Last I checked, they all were still holding air. So now the long list on minor problems need to be addressed. Fix the heater blower... rear view mirror glass... side marker lense... rekey the locks (keys on this truck are severely trashed)... take it through inspection. Pick up interior parts... clean interior... I really enjoyed driving it the short distance I did... I guess I should have picked one of these up years ago. I feel like I am going to get a lot of work done with this truck.

Wish I could +1000 Balthy's last quote.

There are a couple different title companies that can do the deed. Its not crazy expensive. NJ complicates things, but if you left them "abandoned" in your yard a little while, you could get a mechanic's lien and apply for a title after a police officer inspects them. There are other things, likely involving the state of Alabama, that could get you a title. I'd be interested, but I just don't have the time, money, space or complete expertise to get titles.

They need titles... but that can be done. Both look sweet, in storage for 15 years. In Moorestown, NJ. I have no connection to this seller. http://southjersey.craigslist.org/cto/4254603099.html

I agree with Balthy. One note... are we sure the replacement straps the original mechanics used were the proper straps? I had to replace the strap on something (I forget what) years ago and was pretty impressed with the quality of the strap. OTOH, I had a friend return from a mechanic with a piece of that super cheap exhaust strap holding the tank up. "Luckily" he destroyed the car before it failed... but I swore I wouldn't stand for such a repair... only to discover later that my '68 Catalina had the same crappy repair, but I had never noticed until it failed!

Oops, actually, 'huge50' works with Advance, not Autozone. I'll have to check out TRT30, as I usually don't hit $175. Even though I live in a fairly rural area of NJ, I am lucky to have about 8 auto part chains within 10 minutes at the primary house and 5 within 20 minutes at secondary house.

Hope the Aussies like getting "Pontiac'd".

Sidebar: Was this Classic Chevrolet? A friend drove by recently and told me it was all closed up and the lot was empty. Almost bought a Torrent there. Seems like almost every car dealership I have come close to buying a car at is history now. Kerbeck is the only place I deal with (parts) that has thrived.

Ah. Of course, I order from amazon, but I prefer the instant gratification of picking up local. Hell, I've started ordering "online" at Autozone/Advance to pick up local (actually, the local Autozone will delivery to me) because I can use those awesome checkout promo coupons... like "huge50" at Autozone saved me $50 on a $175 order recently. In any case, I get online pricing AND instant gratification. ;-)

Is 303 best found at supermarket, hardware or auto parts places? I have a couple big car washes near me... I guess I should check out what they have going on. Edit: Only appears to be sold via marinas near me... going to be tough to track down.

After the Bissell SpotBot, I have various vacuum cleaners and the garden hose. I do have a industrial strength steam cleaner, but it hasn't been used in years and logistics prevent me using it (its the size of a Tata Nano convertible.) I think my supermarket still rents carpet cleaners. Do an fancy car washes have steam cleaning tools? I usually fix the cars and dirty them up, not clean them.

Well, I figure removing seats is 12 bolts... Center console, 4. A half dozen seat belt anchors and the door sills and I figure the carpet should be out.

I wonder it I should just rip out the carpet and Line-X the entire floor.

Interesting you bring that up. I originally thought this was a 2WD model.. which I would have likely gotten lowered spring for it. As its a 4WD, I probably won't be taking it offroad much more than my rural backyard (which is still pretty overgrown), so that might be a solution. In the meantime, I think I found a set of stock Suburban wheels/tires for the truck for cheap. The truck currently has some aftermarket wheels with LT265/75-r16s... but three of the tires are pretty bad... but I could see getting some maxed out tires later when I have a bit more cash. Thing is, I can't find a stock tire size for these trucks. TireRack seems to think it had 235/70-r15s on it... other sources say 245/75-R16 (which is what the Suburban set are).

Well, I don't think its terminal. I've seen worse stains that won't come out, like rust or oil. I think this will mostly clean up IF I could... well... put the rug in the washing machine. ;-)

This ends up being a shout out to the guy who impresses me the most with his detailing... DF... Help Me! ;-) So I have a handshake deal on a '97 Tahoe. Tan leather interior. Rug is a frigging disaster. Its not really ground in too much, but it looks like a series of spilled sugary drinks and lots of dirt stuck to that. I have a Spot Bot, but I'm not sure it can get into all the nooks and crannies with it. How would you handle it? It would not bother me to remove the carpet, but I would be a bit afraid that getting it to fit back in would be a PITA.

Well, I have a hand shake deal to buy it. Got it started today and it runs really smooth. As far as fixing it, I have to keep the budget low for now. Its going to be a lot of cleaning and I'll likely have to pick-a-part for the interior parts that are too far gone. Its weird, as its a LT, pretty much loaded on the inside... with 4WD and the Z71 option... but is SOOO plain on the outside. Nothing but white sheetmetal top to bottom, with a small chrome trim strip on the wheel wells. I expected lots of plastic add-ons, but they aren't there and appear like there never was. I'm thinking that after I fix the small spots where the paint has let a bit of rust form on the outside of the fenders, I might do some sort of two-tone... maybe paint it black or silver below the belt line. Or I'll scuff it all down and send it to MAACO. LOL.

Yeah, Vortec is written all over it. L31, I think. It looks like it specs out like the B-bod LT1. Hope it has the same power.