Recent content by cpapeter

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    Wandering down the road

    Nope. Sorry. Still on the to do list.
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    Fixing a bit of rust

    Brief follow up. I finally got a few minutes to work on this yesterday. I got a bit lucky and those hard lines came out pretty easily. Hit them with a pretty aggressive sandpaper (80 or 100 - didn't check) and they were smooth to the touch with just a few swipes. Hit it with a fresh coat of...
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    Fixing a bit of rust

    If I get to looking better than rust I'll consider the job a success!
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    Fixing a bit of rust

    A more serious question, if I may. Do you use power sanders between paint coats, or just for stripping? Or am I misunderstanding you here and you mean different types of hand sanders? Obviously, you'd need to hand sand around the various body creases (hood center line, roof bumps, and the like)...
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    Fixing a bit of rust

    Thanks for the heads up. I suspected I might have a problem with the failing paint. Perhaps I'll just live with it's edge and try to hold it down with the top coat. It's good to go into your bodge jobs prepared for what might go wrong. Heck, the hard edge on the primer might just blend in with...
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    Fixing a bit of rust

    I'm not going to paint the whole roof. I'm fixing the rust and covering up the chipping paint. Nothing more. Yes, this is a complete bodge job. But it's better than watching the whole truck rust away. My goal is to preserve the truck so that some future owner has a good starting point for a...
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    Fixing a bit of rust

    Yep. I'll avoid that in the future. And everything sands out with sufficient effort. Even if that means taking off all of the primer. ;) I'll do my best to minimize that line as I proceed. I am fighting scope creep tooth and nail. Again, my goal isn't to create a really nice paint job. It's to...
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    Fixing a bit of rust

    Day 1. Here's where things started. And here's where the day ended. That's a bunch of sanding to remove the rust and get down to bare metal, then a couple coats of self-etching primer followed by 3 coats of a filler primer. I'm actually surprised at how well this came out - at least to...
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    The Stupid Electronics Questions Thread

    I forgot to mention that you can test your grounds by running a jumper cable (that you would commonly use for jump starting) from the ground post on the battery to the engine. If the starter then operates normally, you can be pretty sure you have a problem with your grounds. If so, you can...
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    Rear AC line leak

    I will document the job, assuming I go for the fix. I didn't see anyone else giving it a shot, so that would be something I could do to give back to the community a bit. One kit I found is here...
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    Rear AC line leak

    I'm starting to answer my own question. From what I have been able to find, the aluminum line for the AC that run to the back of the truck are a common place for corrosion and holes. I'd hazard a guess that electrolysis is the main culprit, but that's kind of irrelevant. Because these lines are...
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    The Stupid Electronics Questions Thread

    Are the connections at the battery tight? Any corrosion on the battery terminals? How's the ground cable from the battery to the chassis? And the ground strap across the motor mount? Sounds to me like the power from the battery isn't getting into the rest of the truck. A relative trickle makes...
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    Rear AC line leak

    98 Suburban with rear air. Finally took the time to add a can of dye to the AC lines, and was able to locate a leak. Of course, it in the lines to rear AC, below the passenger side door. It looks to me like there's a pair of lines running from under the hood (under the air filter) to a junction...
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    Wandering down the road

    I’ve been looking around a bit and have seen a number of people switching to a u joint. I’m not quite sure why there’s a rubber joint there. Looks to me like GM has been using them for decades. My first thought was that it is designed to fail in a wreck to keep the steering column from impaling...
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    Wandering down the road

    The mechanic actually gave me a print out without my asking, which I thought was pretty customer-focused of them. I didn't look at it right away. Once I did a couple of hours later, it was clear that what he gave me was the specs for the alignment and not my actual figures. That may be what I...
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