I continue to have problems starting the truck when it’s cold outside… I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a cracked plate in the battery. Gonna pick up my dad’s battery load tester to see how the battery does. I might remove the positive battery cable to test it as well. When I installed the new starter, I cleaned the contact on the end of the cable, but didn’t really pay attention to the condition of the terminal to wire connection. Plus there’s a pretty severe kink in the cable where it runs down over the frame & through a bracket.

As I posted a few days ago, I had both of my trucks in the garage (separately) to catch up on routine maintenance. I looked over both with a fairly fine toothed comb while they were in there. Just 3 days later and I have a problem with both that was previously not found while in the garage. The Tahoe started leaking at the rear diff cover. After I noticed that, I started driving the K5 until I could get both of them looked at. While out and about I took note of a rather large puddle of gear lube under the front axle of the K5!

The Tahoe was a fairly easy fix (I think). I found two bolts that were loose at approximately the 3 o’clock position on the diff cover. Tightened them back down and cleaned everything really well with some brake clean & a wire brush to make it clear whether I still had a problem or not. Time will tell.  I’ll keep a close eye on it over the next few days/weeks to be sure that was it.  If not, I’ll pull the cover & install a new gasket.

I had the K5 back in the garage to check out what might be happening with it. The most likely source was the pinion seal, but I did find a blocked breather line (collapsed inside) between the axle and the hard line that then runs up to along the radiator. Cleared that and took it for a test drive. Now, I had just engaged the front hubs in preparation for winter (whenever it decides to get here) so I was driving around with the front end engaged which I rarely do for most of the driving I do with it, so it seems that was throwing around the diff lube, making the seal leak worse than when not engaged. So that’s on the docket for replacement this coming weekend. Here’s to hoping that the pinion bearings are ok (didn’t check that while I was under it today)!

The K5 needed new drag link ends which I had ordered & picked up earlier in the month. Half hour later and the drag link was in. Went to start it to back it out of the garage and… “RrrRRR, BANG!!!”… What the heck… Tried the starter again and it was grinding horribly… Crawled back under the truck to find the nose cone of the starter in pieces. After removing the starter, I found a 3/8″ by 3/4″ long course thread bolt in the nose cone..! Pull off the dust shield to find all three torque converter bolts installed, but 2 of them were loose enough that I removed them easily by hand… To make matters worse, all three were course thread bolts/nuts with regular nuts (i.e. not self-locking). $8 for the proper fine thread bolts with matching self-locking nuts, another $52 for a life-time warrantied NAPA reman starter, about another hour of work, and the K5 was back operational.

In a way, I’m glad the starter went as it could have been a lot worse if the flex plate broke due to missing/loose bolting. And you can’t complain too much about something breaking in the garage where it’s warm, dry, and easily fixed! I had been meaning to replace the starter for awhile now since it has been getting more & more difficult to start…

Also, just a quick update on the A/C leak previously fixed on my Tahoe. I ran my infrared flashlight over the repaired area again today and it still showed zero signs of leakage. The defrost setting has been doing a fine job clearing moisture out of the air with as rainy as it has been lately and I can hear the compressor engage on-demand. No short cycling!

The top has seen better days. There is a cracked out section on the inner rail that will need to be fixed and the joints are a bit loose. The plan is to recondition this top while still enjoying my K5! Then swap them out later on down the road.

As far as the transfer cases go, this was just too good of a deal to pass up. One of the NP205′s has a cracked case at the front output, but all of the gears & shafts inside are in good condition. The other NP205 was just rebuilt and is nice & tight. Both have slip yoke rear outputs so I’ll have to change that. With the 32 spline input shaft being almost as expensive in the aftermarket as what I picked up both cases for, I grabbed one heck of a deal.

Now to work on (or just buy) an adapter to mate the range box from my spare NP203 up to the front of the NP205!

Today I did the initial power washing of the compressor & tank. This thing has a heck of a layer of grime on it!

1 – Brand new, never installed, purchased 20 years ago Bestop swing arm style rear tire carrier – $35

2 – Used aftermarket fuel tank from a 1990 Blazer with TBI engine complete with sending unit & pump – $35

The tank is a little rusty, but it is exactly what I need for the conversion to the TBI motor from my ‘90 donor ‘burb.  The tank that is in the ‘burb is a 40 gallon tank and it will not fit without substantial modifications in the back of the truck.

I already have a swing arm style rear tire carrier, but it is bent up a bit and has a crease in one of the tubes.  This was too good of a deal to pass up!

The trip up to Webster went quite well.  It held 65mph just fine cruising down rte 104.  The oil pressure was fine while cruising down the road.  When I finally pulled off of 104, it dropped a bit low and I could hear a slight noise (I hesitate to call it a knock) from the motor that I did not recall hearing before.  This kind of troubled me… 

I stopped at my destination where I was for about an hour and then started on my return trip.  On the way back home, the temperature started to creep up.  It wasn’t getting too high, but still high enough to worry me.  Every other trip that I had taken never resulted in the temperature rising this high.  I turned on the heat (it was a bit chilly out anyway) and dropped the windows.  I used the heat to gauge whether I was loosing any coolant.  While driving down the highway, the heat stayed steady on the high side of the factory gauge.  Every time that I would drive through a small town, it would drop down…  I think I know what’s going on..!  I’ll elaborate when I get time to dig into it.

I flushed out the crank case with some fresh oil, installed the drain plug, installed a new filter, and filled it up. Started it up and the oil pressure rose up to around 45psi with a cold engine. Took my kids for a spin and it dropped to around 15 while cruising down the road at probably 2200RPM. Hot idle, stopped in gear is down around 7psi. Hot idle in park is about 10psi.

There are no noises (lifter tap, etc) to warn of the pressure being too low so I currently am going on the assumption that it is ok and that the factory gauge is just not that accurate. Heck, it only has 6 lines on it with only the last one being marked at 60psi. The other lines are 0, 15, 30, and 45… I have a 3 gauge cluster that I have been toying with installing. It came out of my Chevelle and has a mechanical oil pressure, mechanical temperature, and a volt gauge. I could steal the tachometer out of my Chevelle as well.

Since I have another motor, I am not too worried about it. If this one dies, it will just step up the time table on my 90 TBI motor swap which is currently scheduled to start in the spring.

So the future drivetrain will be a D44 / 14BFF combination with 4.10′s. Just need to get some of the parts broken down and cleaned up and then installed on my 2nd Dana 44 axle and my 14BFF!