Riggs - My 2000 Chevy 3500 4x4 CCLB work truck and family play machine

I’m still on Dex cool… in fact it’s very fresh and completely flushed at this point due to my water pump saga…. Is it really that bad and should I go through the headache to swap it out?

Mangonesailor said:

You doing your intake gaskets soon? You may kick up a bunch of crud when you drain/refill the cooling system if you're still on dexcool. I put a strainer on-line with my heater core to keep it from clogging afterwards (because it did and I back flushed it).

A tip when putting the lower intake on, make sure you look at the cam while you have the intake off as lifter rollers/lobes have been known to go out in these engines. And when installing the intake consider the oil pressure sending unit to be made of glass. I bumped mine and oil spewed everywhere on startup. The intake bolts, some of them go into the water jacket. Some good silicone on the threads is a good idea in those spots (you'll see).

Mine are leaking again on both sides. I'm not looking forward to doing the job, but it'd be an excuse for me to do some upgrades while I'm in there.

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Good stuff in here, thanks-

Reluctanse said:

I’m still on Dex cool… in fact it’s very fresh and completely flushed at this point due to my water pump saga…. Is it really that bad and should I go through the headache to swap it out?


Good stuff in here, thanks-

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If you don't have any leaks you should be just fine with fresh Dexcool.

Got home from work today and it wasn't dumping rain, so I got a little work started.

First off let's drain the gear oil. Wanted to warm it up a little so I went to get gas first. I got 10.5 mpg on this tank, 330 miles. The classic "it's a big block, it gets 10.5 mpg" tank, haha. But that's actually pretty good, about 280 of those miles were highway, the other 50ish were trails going pretty slow. So that's pretty good. I still have a lot of improvement I think to be made, but really, not at all unhappy with that.

Got back and pulled the drain plug. Fluid that was in there actually looked great. The drain plug magnet was absolutely spotless. I was planning to pull the diff cover for a deeper clean and inspection, but after seeing the fluid, I decided I'm not going to mess with it. Isn't broken, don't fix.

Found this interesting tag.... OEM? Or a dealer add at a service?


Yep it's a 14 bolt.


Drain plug as I pulled it out


My intent was to pull the cover and paint it while it was off... but I just can't bring myself to mess with it at this point.



While we let that drain, let's check out the brakes.
Awesome, lots of pad material, things look pretty good. That is some good news, money I don't need to spend right now.
Oh and slide off drums for the win. Driver's side came right off no issues.

They were pretty grimy so I cleaned things up best I could with some brake clean and threw it back together. Can't see any reason to mess with the rear brakes right now. I'll do the passenger side tomorrow.

Drum



Plenty of meat left on the bones



FF grade pads? I assume these are not OEM


Clean ish



Maybe a slight leak on the wheel cylinder? If so it's almost imperceptible. I'm inclined to leave it alone for now.

Now for new brake hoses. Did the rear today, hopefully tomorrow I'll get the fronts done and I can get things bled with some fresh fluid, get any air out stuck in the ABS, and tighten up these brakes.

New rear line in. Pretty straight forward, other than getting brake fluid absolutely all over my arm while I did it. Oh the new AC Delco lines I bought say Sunsong stamped right on them.... hecho en China ofc.



Old line.



Ooops made a huge f-ing mess where I cleaned up the brake rotor... oh well my wife never comes out to the RV pad......shhhhhhhhhh....



Hopefully more progress tomorrow. If the pass side drum looks similar I think I'll feel pretty good leaving these rear brakes alone for quite a while.

Feel free to come by and work on mine anytime. The shots of the assembly will help someone some day too.

I bet FF is short for Full Floater… could be assembly line writing but likely used take offs from some other axle and thus marked that way to indicate provenance.

Reluctanse said:

I’m still on Dex cool… in fact it’s very fresh and completely flushed at this point due to my water pump saga…. Is it really that bad and should I go through the headache to swap it out?


Good stuff in here, thanks-

Click to expand...

You'll see how nasty Dex cool can get as it oxidizes when you see the rear coolant ports in the heads.

Onizukachan said:

Feel free to come by and work on mine anytime. The shots of the assembly will help someone some day too.

I bet FF is short for Full Floater… could be assembly line writing but likely used take offs from some other axle and thus marked that way to indicate provenance.

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FF speaks to the coefficient of friction at high and low temps. E sucks, F is decent, G is more better/downright aggressive.

What is that synthetic oil tag mounted on? I don't have that on my truck. I think the build date to get synthetic was May 99, possibly. My truck was built in April 99, so just before the switch.

Good to know on the ACD brake hoses. I bought Raybestos (for my Saturn) to find that they were made by Sunsong, but double the price. After that, I just just ordered Sunsong.

454cid said:

What is that synthetic oil tag mounted on? I don't have that on my truck. I think the build date to get synthetic was May 99, possibly. My truck was built in April 99, so just before the switch.

Good to know on the ACD brake hoses. I bought Raybestos (for my Saturn) to find that they were made by Sunsong, but double the price. After that, I just just ordered Sunsong.

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Yeah the GD AC Delco's are literally twice the price of the sunsong's on Rock Auto. Fool me once I guess.

That tag is on the parking brake cable of all things.