What did you do to your Car today?

[Ringo64]

60k miles on an '07, nice find! Looks to be in decent shape too

[Frosty]

Yes, I was very impressed at how clean and low miles it was. It was out of New Jersey according the dealer. The dealer in Michigan said they got it at auction. I looked in the usual rust spot areas since I've looked at my share of Hummers over the last 4 years, between the kid's and hers.

[Last Indian]

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

I went with the wife last night to go to a used car dealership east of Derroit. It was an expensive evening. We came home with a 2007 Hummer H3 H3X with 60k miles, sunroof, I-5, leather seats. The red/orange hooks will be painted black come spring.

So if you are keeping score at home, that means we now have 2 Pontiacs (Lucy and Black Beauty), 2 Chevrolets (Traverse and Colorado), 2 Hummers (a 2006 base and a 2007 H3X), and 1 Buick (the Roadmonster) for 3 drivers in the house hold, and not enough garage space for all of them either. 

I now have "his and hers Hummers", and I am not the "his".  Dang it!

BTW - both Hummers are white with black interiors. The 2006 has aluminium wheels while the 2007 has the black wheels. The 2006 has a chrome grille, the 2007 is painted white (body color) and has the brush guard. I suspect we will have side-by-side photos by the weekend.

I wonder if I can find a rust free, low mileage H3 Alpha? Hmmm. 

So, is it fair to say you have a couple of hummers in your house and one person who whistles while he works? 😁 while you all have to traverse here and there to get to the right car?

Cougrats buddy or I guess I should say to your wife, you’re just the guy who gets to take care of it.

[Frosty]

You got that right. I am the guy who gets to take care of it. The battery went dead tonight. I have to put it on a trickle charger.

Which Hummer are you talking about? Mine or Barry Martin's? 😁

 

 

[Frosty]

I put a trickle charger on the battery and I haven't had a starting problem with it since. I figured out the reason the door that closes under the sunroof does not close all the way is because of the rubber trim molding is installed wrong on one side. I need to find my portable 12V air pump and find out which tire is giving the low tire pressure warning.

[notallthere]

Headliner install.  More fun than getting your toenails removed.

[Frosty]

18 hours ago, notallthere said:

Headliner install.  More fun than getting your toenails removed.

Pictures please. Pictures of the Summit Racing building doesn't count.

[Ringo64]

Replaced the cabin air filter on the Camaro. Put to good use the trim removal tool set I got for Xmas. Kind of an interesting spot to get to as had to remove some pieces under the hood just above the firewall and below windshield. Liked it better than having to lay on my back on the passenger floor like in my parent's Terrain.

[Stewy]

Seen this on a grand prix forum, thought it would be cool to start one here
Anything you did to you're car. even just washing it.

 

I'm a bit sad to say, nothing more than saying "hi" as I walked by Ren as she's been hibernating in the barn. However, on my truck, I have have been doing a LOT of work over the past few week ("B.T." - my F250) is in the bay next to Ren and I've been working on running wiring harnesses down the length of the truck to make my life easier when it comes to hooking B.T. up for battery charging, battery warming and block warming. Almost done - yay! 😊

 

Once I'm doing working on B.T., I have all the material needed to get back to wiring Ren's switch bank... maybe in the next week or two I can turn my attention back to her!

 

Although, just yesterday, I did take Bleen (my wife's daily) through the car wash... does that count? 😁

Edited February 4, 2020 by Stewy

[Ringo64]

1 hour ago, Stewy said:

I'm a bit sad to say, nothing more than saying "hi" as I walked by Ren as she's been hibernating in the barn

 

1 hour ago, Stewy said:

I have have been doing a LOT of work over the past few week ("B.T." - my F250) is in the bay next to Ren and I've been working on running wiring harnesses down the length of the truck to make my life easier when it comes to hooking B.T. up for battery charging, battery warming and block warming. Almost done - yay!

Nice! This whole warming thing is weird concept to me. That comes standard in all Florida homes  

[Frosty]

1 hour ago, Ringo64 said:

Nice! This whole warming thing is weird concept to me. That comes standard in all Florida homes  

Now you are rubbing it in Ringo! To quote the Professor.....bastich! 

[Last Indian]

Well finally ordered and received the tranny cooler to add to the Indian. When I can get the temp down in the hot weather on the Dextron 4 this trans is a whole different animal. So I think this should do the trick! The cooler produces 37,000 btu of heat extraction per hour. Now the next problem is finding fittings that will make this a clean flowing installation of an #6 fittings that mate the radiator & trans.

 

[Frosty]

There's been a lot going on in the Frosty vehicle household. I apologize for not getting this thread updated. First I will start off with the wife's 2007 Hummer. We already own a 2006 Hummer for the kid to take back and forth to college. He's had it since his junior year in high school. My wife fell in love with the Hummer so she decided she wanted one of her own. So we bought a low mileage 2007 one back last fall.

This winter we've had intermittent random no crank no start conditions. I took the battery out and took it to Auto Zone and they did a load test and it tested bad, so I replaced it. Well that didn't stop the problem. My wife let it sit for several weeks (we still have her Traverse as well), so we tried to start it in late March, no dice. Battery was dead since even the door locks would not open. I jumped the battery, got it running, and I decided to take it for a short test drive to charge up the battery. Bad idea. I got a couple of miles down the road and the vehicle when ape sh*t. I got to a stop sign, the SOS light came on, the traction control light came on, the engine went into limp mode and would not rev above 1,000 rpm. I had no forward gear. I had reverse. I was able to drive in reverse all the way home with the help of a good Samaritan who put his flashers on for me.

We had the vehicle towed to a local garage. $1200 later, we had a front end alignment, a new front wheel bearing, a working dome light, a working directional rear view mirror, a new air filter and they found this in the air box:

 

What ever they were, they were dead but they had managed to destroy the air filter and track debris all the way into the throttle body thus triggering the fault codes and causing the limp mode, so the mechanic tells me.

I'm still not convinced the no crank no start condition is resolved. Time will tell there.

[Frosty]

Okay so the next two projects were on my 2018 Chevy Colorado. The first involved installing a Gator soft tonneau cover on the back. I got it for Christmas and finally the weather here in Michigan was decent enough in late April to install it. The kid helped me install it - in fact he kind took charge. It was a real easy installation. The most time consuming thing was setting up the tension blocks. They can be set up 4 different ways so you have a little trial and error to get it right to close the cover tight enough.

Here is the 8' long box everything came in. All you need is 1/2" socket, 9/16" socket and a flat blade screwdriver.

The kid doing the hard work - installing the C-clamps that holds the mounting rails to the side of the bed.

The finished product

 

The second project was replacing the Chevy gold Bowtie emblems with retro style Chevy emblems that Chevy used on their Heritage edition 100th anniversary pickups. You can get these emblems over the counter at your Chevy dealership. The front emblem is held in by clips that you release from behind the front grille. Just release the six bolts at the top, scrape up your hand and wrist quite a bit while pushing the pins out and viola, out comes the front emblem and you can push in the new one and bind a band-aid or two and some Bactine.

The tailgate was a lot more fun. By fun, I mean hassle, tedious, time consuming, etc., etc., etc. The back emblem is adhesively mounted. I had heard that dental floss and fishing line would work to cut the adhesive while not scratching the paint. I had lots of free unused dental floss samples but no fishing line, so I used that. It works - barely. It gets behind the emblem and you can start sawing away for a few seconds and then breaks. Get another piece, saw, break, repeat. Fortunately last summer I also invested in a set of plastic interior/emblem removal tools from Summit Racing for $27. Money well spent for this job. Once the floss got an edge started I could use the tools to get in behind the emblem and eventually pry it off without damaging it, the paint or the truck.

With the emblem off, now comes more elbow grease, getting rid of the old stick 'em. Goo Gone, paper towel and you !!! Yeah baby! 

The tape marks all the points of the Bowtie so you can align the new one properly.

Success!

Edited May 4, 2020 by Frosty

[Frosty]

Third project was this past Saturday. I worked on the Roadmonster a bit. In the last 10 years my Dad owned the Roadmonster, he's had issues with the two front doors. The interior plastic would break. I've spent the last year hunting the internet looking for these parts. They are not easy to find. Even though the interior parts for a Roadmaster and Impala are interchangeable - for the most part, the door panels on a Roadmaster Limited are different than a base Roadmaster. Damn.

I had to purchase an entire door panel off eBay from a wrecking yard in Ohio for the two parts I needed. I know I paid way more than I wanted to but I simply can't find the parts I need any other way.

Here is what I started with - the passenger side front door.

Above the pull strap is suppose to be a matching piece of simulated wood trim. Below it, it is missing the plastic piece that holds the door handle, power door lock switch, door speaker, and manual door lock. That piece is completely busted into 4 pieces when I inherited the car. My dad tried to glue it back together but it wouldn't hold together.

The door panel I got from Ohio was out of a 96 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon. Bingo. It was the part I needed, just a different color. Nothing a little matching dye won't take care of.

Here is the finish product. She looks almost brand new. I couldn't be happier. I know my dad would be smiling too.

I have a damaged driver's side as well, nothing as severe as the passenger side. I will fix that side another day.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Frosty

[Frosty]

Okay, the final project is nine years in the making. I was at my buddy's house yesterday helping him take down some 351 Windsor engines that he is selling. My buddy stores my Trans Am for me.

Hard to believe that my Trans Am has been in storage for nearly a decade - ever since we bought our current house and I don't have a place to put it. My buddy generously stores it for me and I do favors and errands from time to time in exchange. 

Yesterday we had to drag out the Trans Am to get at the two 351 Windsor motors - which are on the shelf just above the nose of the Trans Am.

We took the cover off, swiped the battery from his '97 Blazer (since the original battery in the Trans Am sulfated several years ago) and hooked it up, and cautiously cranked the engine. We cranked it for close to a minute, letting it build up oil pressure and purposely not starting it. Finally we let it start and it did!!!! Sure it was rough at first - with nine year old stale gas in it. After awhile though it smooth out. Since she is on rollers, we didn't put it in drive. However we did put it in neutral to alllow the transmission to build up some pressure. We reved the engine to around 3000 RPM and we let it run for close to 20 minutes. She ran wonderfully after she cleared out some of the carbon.

I have some videos of the engine actually running but I am getting -200 errors this morning. I will chat with Ringo on that later and see about posting them. 

Bottom line is I am ecstatic to see that the Trans Am still runs after all these years of setting dormant. I also now know I need to buy new hood struts to hold the hood open.

Edited May 4, 2020 by Frosty

[JUSTA6]

Charged the battery and fired the GTO for the 1st time this year.  Pulled it out N dusted it off.  Yea NO DUSTOFF show this year. Installed the Pertronix ignition system and retimed the engine.  Was hoping this would solve the mid throttle bog...NOPE.  Cleaned the cap/rotor/contacts....still no. Ordered new cap/rotor.  Pulled N cleaned N regapped the plugs.  Better,but still there.  Guess it's back to the carbs.  Funny it fires right off, idles perfect, runs fine on the middle carb until ya jump on it.  BOG  then hold onto something, here we GO!!!!  Have a driveby party tomorrow.  So I get my 1st ride of the year.  Wish we had some dust control down on these darned dirt roads.

[Frosty]

DO you think that she's getting too much gas or perhaps leans out when the progressive linkage starts to kick in?

[Last Indian]

3 hours ago, JUSTA6 said:

Charged the battery and fired the GTO for the 1st time this year.  Pulled it out N dusted it off.  Yea NO DUSTOFF show this year. Installed the Pertronix ignition system and retimed the engine.  Was hoping this would solve the mid throttle bog...NOPE.  Cleaned the cap/rotor/contacts....still no. Ordered new cap/rotor.  Pulled N cleaned N regapped the plugs.  Better,but still there.  Guess it's back to the carbs.  Funny it fires right off, idles perfect, runs fine on the middle carb until ya jump on it.  BOG  then hold onto something, here we GO!!!!  Have a driveby party tomorrow.  So I get my 1st ride of the year.  Wish we had some dust control down on these darned dirt roads.

JustA thought, but two things come to mind. I know you run tripower, but what about an accelerator pump? Also, did you check the distributor advance? JustA thought!

[Last Indian]

6 hours ago, Frosty said:

Okay so the next two projects were on my 2018 Chevy Colorado. The first involved installing a Gator soft tonneau cover on the back. I got it for Christmas and finally the weather here in Michigan was decent enough in late April to install it. The kid helped me install it - in fact he kind took charge. It was a real easy installation. The most time consuming thing was setting up the tension blocks. They can be set up 4 different ways so you have a little trial and error to get it right to close the cover tight enough.

Here is the 8' long box everything came in. All you need is 1/2" socket, 9/16" socket and a flat blade screwdriver.

The kid doing the hard work - installing the C-clamps that holds the mounting rails to the side of the bed.

The finished product

 

The second project was replacing the Chevy gold Bowtie emblems with retro style Chevy emblems that Chevy used on their Heritage edition 100th anniversary pickups. You can get these emblems over the counter at your Chevy dealership. The front emblem is held in by clips that you release from behind the front grille. Just release the six bolts at the top, scrape up your hand and wrist quite a bit while pushing the pins out and viola, out comes the front emblem and you can push in the new one and bind a band-aid or two and some Bactine.

The tailgate was a lot more fun. By fun, I mean hassle, tedious, time consuming, etc., etc., etc. The back emblem is adhesively mounted. I had heard that dental floss and fishing line would work to cut the adhesive while not scratching the paint. I had lots of free unused dental floss samples but no fishing line, so I used that. It works - barely. It gets behind the emblem and you can start sawing away for a few seconds and then breaks. Get another piece, saw, break, repeat. Fortunately last summer I also invested in a set of plastic interior/emblem removal tools from Summit Racing for $27. Money well spent for this job. Once the floss got an edge started I could use the tools to get in behind the emblem and eventually pry it off without damaging it, the paint or the truck.

With the emblem off, now comes more elbow grease, getting rid of the old stick 'em. Goo Gone, paper towel and you !!! Yeah baby! 

The tape marks all the points of the Bowtie so you can align the new one properly.

Success!

I know it’s a little late, but best luck I’ve always had is a heat gun and a auto body plastic spreader with a very thin edge. This usually just slices most of the adhesive tape and emblem right. Than just some cleanup with lacquer thinner.

[Frosty]

Excellent suggestions. The heat gun is buried somewhere in the storage unit with Lucy. Ditto the plastic spreader, the airbrush, and pinstripe kit....and I was too cheap to go buy another one.

The Goo Gone did a fine job it just took several applications and some rubbing.

[Last Indian]

39 minutes ago, Frosty said:

Excellent suggestions. The heat gun is buried somewhere in the storage unit with Lucy. Ditto the plastic spreader, the airbrush, and pinstripe kit....and I was too cheap to go buy another one.

The Goo Gone did a fine job it just took several applications and some rubbing.

Sorry, I forgot to mention it all looks good though! Except whatever that mess was in the air box! Really like the emblems, big difference!

[Ringo64]

Really like those emblems. Might have to get some for my Camaro if they offer it! 

[JUSTA6]

7 hours ago, Frosty said:

DO you think that she's getting too much gas or perhaps leans out when the progressive linkage starts to kick in?

For years I've thought it was Leaning out.  But more times than not with more than 1 carb, it's gettin too much. Have moved the linkage from 1 extreme to the other (and everywhere in between) with no difference.  If I  slowly push it to the floor, I can work around it.  Slam it to the floor, it's gonna fall on it's face. Plugs always look good, but rarely raggin on it like at the track.  Mechanical fuel pump......wondering what kinda pressure I'm puttin out.  With no shows, will have more time to play with it this year.

[JUSTA6]

4 hours ago, Last Indian said:

JustA thought, but two things come to mind. I know you run tripower, but what about an accelerator pump? Also, did you check the distributor advance? JustA thought!

Most of the time, I'm runnin off the middle carb.  She runs great.  I rebuilt all 3 carbs a couple years after gettin the car on the road.  Rebuilt again, replacing throttle shaft bushings.  Helped the leak, but not the mid range bog. Accelerator pump is usually an off idle bog and dead give away.  Thought I figured it out with the distributor,  points or condenser and replaced with the Pertronix.  Have tried adjusting the dwell all over the map and back to where it runs best.  Condenser is workin or it's not. Never part time. Yea Gary... Re-adjusted the timing after installing.    OMG.  Young neighbor came over and asked what the chrome gun was for!!!!   That's a timing light son...