BNielsen's 2000 Chevy K3500

Crazy set up.

Stumpy said:

Crazy set up.

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Luckily it didn't trash the bed, left behind a few holes but I'll cut some patch panels off the other bed when the time comes

Little bit of excitement today.
Truck started fine all day, got in it to go home at the end of my shift and noticed the starter sounded...weird...sort of a tinny sound?
Thought, eh, it's cold. Probably nothing major.

Got home and my judgement got the better of me, climbed under the truck and checked out the starter.
The all important starter brace? The one that keeps the starter from torquing right off the block and busting the ears off? Gone.
The fancy new ARP starter bolts I got from Quadstar Tuning? Loose.
My pants? ****.
Narrowly avoided disaster, I ordered a new bracket from QS, and went to tighten the bolts up hoping I wouldn't break anything in the next two days while I wait for the new brace.

I found the original one wedged on the arm for the diff, and all the hardware was stuck with it. Praise Jesus. A simple 20 minute job turned into an hour job because I wound up having to chase the threads on the bolt and the block, got it all cleaned up and reinstalled everything with a healthy coat of loctite. Going to keep an eye on it for a few days just to be safe.

So my other 6.5 people, check those starters every once in a while.

BNielsen said:

Little bit of excitement today.
Truck started fine all day, got in it to go home at the end of my shift and noticed the starter sounded...weird...sort of a tinny sound?
Thought, eh, it's cold. Probably nothing major.

Got home and my judgement got the better of me, climbed under the truck and checked out the starter.
The all important starter brace? The one that keeps the starter from torquing right off the block and busting the ears off? Gone.
The fancy new ARP starter bolts I got from Quadstar Tuning? Loose.
My pants? ****.
Narrowly avoided disaster, I ordered a new bracket from QS, and went to tighten the bolts up hoping I wouldn't break anything in the next two days while I wait for the new brace.

I found the original one wedged on the arm for the diff, and all the hardware was stuck with it. Praise Jesus. A simple 20 minute job turned into an hour job because I wound up having to chase the threads on the bolt and the block, got it all cleaned up and reinstalled everything with a healthy coat of loctite. Going to keep an eye on it for a few days just to be safe.

So my other 6.5 people, check those starters every once in a while.

Click to expand...

I broke a starter bolt coming back from California. Of course the support bracket was long gone. My road side fix was to grab a 2x4 that had been cut with a taper on the end and hammer it up as hard as I could between the starter and the side of the block. It got us home to Oregon.

skylark said:

I broke a starter bolt coming back from California. Of course the support bracket was long gone. My road side fix was to grab a 2x4 that had been cut with a taper on the end and hammer it up as hard as I could between the starter and the side of the block. It got us home to Oregon.

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It took me a little bit to find that picture.

skylark said:

It took me a little bit to find that picture.

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The things we come up with to get home.

skylark said:

It took me a little bit to find that picture.

You must be registered for see images attach

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Emergency roadside repairs during a road trip can become exercises in mechanical creativity.
Here I see some nice Macgyvering with a decided Paul Bunyan influence. Well played. :0)

GrimsterGMC said:

The things we come up with to get home.

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Especially if "home" is some distance from where you're at.....

HotWheelsBurban said:

Especially if "home" is some distance from where you're at.....

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That was the same trip that we wrapped the PMD in a rag to keep it wet and dump ice on it to keep it cool. That started in Northern California on our way to Southern California. We got a new one in Sacramento that started failing 150 miles later.

The starter bracket came off again; damn thing clunked out after swapping trucks with my wife on Thursday, hit the ground out of no were.
Bolt was gone. No idea how but I don't care, I checked the threads and they're okay. Dug out my new hardware and slathered it with blue loctite, new ARP hardware and the QS bracket, everything set down to German torque spec. Gonna keep an eye on it for the next few days.

Took some time this evening and did the 3rd brake light mod, combined the grounds so I can control the light via the switch, and tied my mirror spotlights into the cargo switch as well. They're not as bright as the red truck, but I'm sure if I ever get a wild hair I'll order the high output lights from Boost Auto and swap them in, for now I'm content.
Going to start running wires for the brake controller, and since I'm wanting to copy the light combo on the red truck I'm running a few extra wires so I can throw some pods on the bumper out back.