Hello all.

[JohnnyPopper]

Nice work...

BFG's all the way

[Shifty]

Love me some Bee Eff Gees! 

[jeremy.farlow]

It's been a long time since I've run the KO2's. But I know they seem to always get good marks. That said, I've been really happy with the Wranglers I've now put 30k miles on that were originally on the suburban and got transferred to the brown Ford when I bought it. They've worn extraordinarily well, still have plenty of life in them and have given me no issues. I reckon it'll be a pure dollars and cents question... when I come up with the money. Which set of Load E 265/75/r16 tires can I get faster and cheaper.

I saw a red door:








I thought VHT "Wrinkle Plus" would give a nice accent and *maybe* mitigate some of the "black-hole effect"... but I forgot how spotty my success rate has been with said paint. It's so weird. Sometimes the stuff will wrinkle up beautifully and uniformly... this wasn't one of those times.

Ah well... it's aluminum. I'll probably be repainting it before long anyway.

Peak ostentatious:







Be safe



Jeremy

[JohnnyPopper]

Do you ever try heating up the rattle can? I use a blow dryer for up to ten minutes if weather is a challenge.

Smooth flow most of the time. Plus extra pressure.

Pop rivets are a nice touch!

What is the module in the tray?

[jeremy.farlow]

This little guy?!?:



That's the TCI trans controller unit. Works not at all in tandem with the Acer tablet controlling the Edelbrock ProFlo 4:

Funny you should ask about that thing. It may be the last hurdle I have.
I'm still running the same 4L80e the truck came with. It had obviously been opened up once before me, but the assumption is it is old and tired and not likely to last very long behind the motor I've put together.
The 4L80 is computer controlled. No vacuum kick-down, shifts controlled by solenoid as opposed to solely pressure.
That unit is the interface to the transmission controller. It prompts you for some values, tire size, axle gear ratio, max shift rpm, when to lock the torque converter, etc. Then the handheld unit flashes the actual TCU and *theoretically* you never need the handheld except to modify something.
It doesn't seem to be flashing the computer.
So I'm assuming that once I have tires on the truck and have taken a drive...

That I'll spend a day with the TCI tech support and there's a decent chance I'm sending the TCU unit back to them to check.

And then I plan on breaking the transmission... or trying to really hard.

Hopefully by that point the writers will have signed their contract and I'll be back to work.




Be Safe



Jeremy

[jeremy.farlow]

Two steps forward, one step back... so often it seems.

Join me in mourning the apparent death of the amplifier I had *hoped* to keep using in the suburban.

I bought that amplifier in like 1999-2000 and the suburban would've been the third vehicle I installed it in. Sherwood wasn't know for being the cleanest in its day, but what they sacrificed in clarity they more than made up for in raw power. It was probably overrated at 120 watts RMS/four channels, but when it last worked I don't remember it not being loud enough. It did work three years ago, but it isn't working now. The multimeter shows it's getting all the inputs it should, so my best guess is some bit of corrosion set in over the last three years and it's done. I still imagine I will hold onto it, if nothing more than for sentiments sake.

The new Pioneer head unit works as advertised:

It powered right up and interfaced with my iPhone. Looks pretty great too.

Anyhow, Crutchfield has a JL Audio 100 watt x 4-channel amp on the way to me.

In less-than-fortunate news, I made the call to TCI tech support that I've been putting off. I didn't read the fine print real good. They're *fairly* clear that the brainbox of the trans controller can be damaged if the unit isn't disconnected when using a battery charger... a fact I definitely did not pay proper attention to. It took a couple calls to isolate the issue being internal to the unit, but once I had "played the high notes" two different support techs immediately came to the same conclusion: "you had the car on a battery charger??" Yes. Yes I did. A number of times. Quite frankly the truck SAT on a charger at my old shop.

Well... now I know. Thankfully it seems like both a common and relatively easy fix for them. They said they can get it turned back around in 2-3 weeks, which gives me some time to hustle up some tire money. And finish going through the dash wiring. The only unfortunate part is that I don't want to put the dash back together until I'm certain of all the wiring, wiring from the trans controller to the Dakota Digital gauges being part of that wiring. Two steps forward, one step back.





Be safe




Jeremy

[jeremy.farlow]

I've been sitting on another gloat:

I can't *legally* install that stuff...

And it was expensive enough that I am not gonna waste it. I'll burn holes in the ozone layer directly above me all day... so long as it's cheap enough to do so. These 56 oz. of R12 cost considerably.

Hopefully there'll be enough left over to make it worth whoever I can find to take the remainder and not charge me as much to pressure-test and fill my system.

R12 just works better! Especially in systems that were designed for it. I have never had good luck with the retrofit systems and the fact will always remain that R12 takes ambient air colder than R134a ever possibly can. Like 10-15 Fahrenheit degrees colder if I'm not mistaken. And my 'burb has the rear ac blower, so I can get colder air coming from both directions.

The last time I played this game R12 wasn't nearly as hard to come by as it currently is. I remember my dad and other guys HOARDING it around the 2000's, but since then it's been still relatively available... if you knew the right people. I bought 32oz. of eBay two years ago for almost  nothing. But this time, those two pictures cans of refrigerant were about all I could afford for the job at hand. And there weren't any of the "top-off" cans I've found in the past to be had. When I bought my 3/4-ton OBS Ford the guy GAVE me two 12oz. cans of R12... "in case the ac stopped blowing so cold". 




Be safe




Jeremy

[ehjorten]

You can actually legally use R12. The use of R12 was never banned. It was the manufacture of new R12 that was banned.

[Shifty]

You can actually legally use R12. The use of R12 was never banned. It was the manufacture of new R12 that was banned.

What he said.  Nice score though, I miss the effectiveness of r12, and it was so much nicer to components like rattle-y old r4 compressors (that are less than great to start with, adding head pressure sure doesn't help).

[JohnnyPopper]

I think the world has moved on from the ozone layer being depleted.

It's still intact, as if God doesn't have the power to keep his planet alive.

Interesting factoid: what percentage of CO2 makes up the atmosphere?

Experts on 'climate change' will say that carbon emissions increase it by 49%. Probably true.

Answer: .04%

[Shifty]

Nay, Johnny...your gubmint wouldn't fib to ya...

[ehjorten]

Little factoid: All Commercial Buildings were still using R12 up until sometime in 2021! It hasn't been completely phased-out, but it is becoming harder and harder to find and more expensive.

[VileZambonie]

Little factoid: All Commercial Buildings were still using R12 up until sometime in 2021! It hasn't been completely phased-out, but it is becoming harder and harder to find and more expensive.

I think you mean R-22

[jeremy.farlow]

I plan on being a good boy, as I said, it's more about my pocketbook than being some great steward of the planet. I'm gonna pay a guy to pressure test the system and verify efficacy BEFORE putting my expensive R12 into the system. I KNOW I had the system totally open in 2020 to pull the engine. I don't remember whether or not anything came out, but I do know that I used the R12 condenser and pressure switch and didn't use any of the green O-rings when I put stuff back together.

I know I can legally USE it. You can legally buy it, licensed guys can legally evacuate and recharge R12, but no one can produce any more of it and it seems those stocks of small recharge cans are all but gone. I bought this round of refrigerant, but the guy did need me to go "on record" that it was purchased for "resale" before he would sell it to me. That's his "CYA" and I fully intend to protect my investment by making sure the system is working properly before I fill it.

Trans controller went off to TCI today, hopefully I'll have an amplifier to play with tomorrow. After that I'm just waiting for the controller to come back and finding some tire money.





Be safe




Jeremy

[Shifty]

Thanks for the update!  Looking for more....