That Guy

May be able to source an oring from mcmaster or some such, but ill likely just get another pump. 190k of a farmer never changing or checking the fluid,im sure its a bit worn. As for compression, there is one cylinder that sounds audibly different as it runs in idle. Has done it since I've had the truck... so 2011? I'm not losing sleep over it anyway, but it would be nice to know. Maybe original owner glazed a cylinder? Said he used to idle it all day when doing work... 14 hours a day in the field. Side note, I was offered $8600 cash a few days ago for it. Turned him down.

I despise being blinded by those idiots. Phantom load I've heard it called. The more I look at this truck, the more I think nothing has been done to the back. https://photos.app.goo.gl/JaCzW7DJEwukDKZ97

Thats down by NoLa, I'm literally on the opposite end of the state along I-20. End of the week we are all going to Arizona for a wedding. After that, be working on the truck a bit more.

I have finally made it back to Louisiana, and by extension, my truck. I am greeted by no power steering or power brakes. Degreased and pressure washed the engine so I can look for leaks. Somehow, it appears as though my power steering tank is leaking at the big oring between the pump and tank. It leaks with the engine off and sitting. Also finally bit the bullet and ordered a fan shroud from summit. Waiting on it to get here through shipping delays. Final discovery, I have one cylinder that has considerably more blowby than the others. Opening the oil fill while running shows a noticeable chuffing that you can feel. Not sure what to do on that yet.

Friend just bought a 97 2wd and I've been helping him get it in order. Just completely rebuild the front end, found a boost leak, got dash straightened out... ect. The previous owner claims to have partially installed a leveling kit. said he installed it on the rear, but not the front. Friend wants to get rid of the leveling kit all together. I always thought a leveling kit only went on the front of a 2wd? Moral of the story, I just looked under the truck. I do not see any non factory parts, other than some worn out rancho shocks. Do you guys see anything non stock?

Alright guys, its been a bit since I've been logged in. Life got in the way. Anywho, I haven't fooled with fixing it yet, but I what I have ascertained is that the CAD works and locks in. I have heard something to the effect that there is an adjustment on the side of the transfer case. I still only have power to the front axle when in 4 lo. Works very well in 4 lo. Maybe I have a bent shift for somehow?

Somehow folks can feel a disturbance in the force around me or something. People I've never met come up to me and ask about vehicle issues. Has happened multiple times. Dropping off old oil at AZ about a week ago and as I'm getting in the chevy a guy asks if I can change the heater core in his 06ish ram 1500. I ended up walking him through the process and gave him my phone number if he had any more questions, had folks waiting for me afterall. He never called, but I really hope he didn't go at the air handler with a dremel like he was suggesting.

The time to actually worry, like, legitimately start stocking up for the wars is when people stop buying US bonds. The US bonds are quite literally the stabilizing force for the entire global economy. They are the benchmark, the gold standard, the last step. A US bond is still considered the safest asset on the planet. The first question one asks when working on an investment idea is "what is the risk free return rate", which is asking what is the return rate on a US bond. You do not want to see high bond yields. That is a BAD sign. Realistically, until you start seeing yields exceeding 10% on 30 year bonds, the US is considered safe (they are currently about 2% for a 30 year bond, 0.121% for 2 year). The last time 30y exceeded 10% was during the stagflation of the late 70's and early 80's. Even during "The Great Recession" bond yields remained low. Mind that was almost 40 years ago now. Give you an idea, a 10y China bond it about 3.2%. US is at 1.043%. 30y China is 4% Simply put, a the bond yield is a measure of the likelihood that the the US will be here tomorrow. The yields will be higher when the economy is doing well, low when its bad. If the economy is down and the yield is high, you better have something sturdy to hang on to. Now, is Biden destroying the country, in some ways arguably yes. However, bond holders globally are fairly certain we are going to be here in 30 years, and thriving.

Honestly, we expect the debt to be around 40T by the end on the decade, but there are numerous ways around it or to negate some of it. Not the most pressing issue currently. More immediate, as vaccines get distributed we expect the economy to pick up further, as one would expect, but in some places you may not expect. Just keep in mind, regardless of politics, somebody is always making money. Some current If-then items... If the recovery is not fast enough, you may see some public works stuff pop again. Being the democrats and green, we expect to switch from more oil (our current holdings) to more solar/wind in energies. Once we see truly lifted restrictions, voluntary and political, expect to see travel, realestate, and some retail recover. Expect airlines to slowly continue recovering from here on out. Biden has not shown a heavy desire to rein in military spending. Defence stocks are looking good for a buy, long position. Some are still down considerably from pre covid levels. Some more tech heavy defence is doing nicely already. If tensions continue to rise between China and us as they claim to want to be harder on China, expect more spending, even if it is more discrete. On the whole vaccine thing. The pharmaceuticals industry may be at a a bit of a peak once the vaccines are more regular. Companies are going to push their research towards the mRNA style of vaccines, expect some interesting developments in the next few years. This is a bit like discovering penicillin. There is speculation that a lot of the gains we are seeing will plateau in the coming months and either decrease slowly or stagnate for a while as people become more distracted with returning to a more normal routine and are not robin hood trading with lumps of stimulus money. Within about 2-3 years we expect a return to a more normal patterns. There is still the very real threat of anti trust actions being taken against the FAANG stocks. At the same time, tech has been experiencing huge gains. We are looking at changing where we are in tech to insulate us a bit from any potential backlash. If you have been paying attention to the markets, you have heard about GameStop and AMC being picked up drastically. We are undecided if this will cause a change in regulations or not. In politics, It is yet unclear what is going on within the republican party. Like it or not, Trump has definitely stirred things up. My personal position is that the party may see another faction form and spilt, but still reside under the republican umbrella. I'm unconvinced that Trump would win if he ran in 2024. I half expect the party to put up a different candidate then. Too soon to know.

Been fixing foundation issues and starting back at university (currently online unfortunately). Overall optimistic in general, but we'll see. My quiet mountain town has so far been just that. Till it starts coming a bit closer, not really an issue here. At least we can see the bottom.

Ive had a few of those.... "did anybody see me, no? okay hurry up and clean it up"

I believe one of the "shoes" was crumbled, the other was not. Its on the list but I didn't think that would affect operation. I'll put them on my next order.

I was told about the reverse trick a while back. Seems to help. If I have room I will turn the wheels back and forth and has the same effect of it working itself loose. Seems like you guys are leaning towards a vacuum issue. I will add, I even went from 4Lo once confirmed was in and spinning, to 4Hi and still no power to the fronts. 4x4 light stays on.

Pulling a trailer through the pasture the other day and hit a muddy spot. started slipping so I put it in 4Hi, 4x4 light came on after a foot or two. Rocked tried for a minute or 2, both directions and no luck. Moved back and forth about 10 feet, spinning. Put it in 4Lo and the truck pulled right through with no issue. Coming back around a bit later with the same trailer I experimented a bit. In 4Hi, the front wheels were not getting power. Played around a bit, nothing. Truck would come to a stop if I turned the wheel, rears spinning away, fronts doing nothing. 4Lo, same as before, pulled right out no issue. Fronts getting power and spinning even turned. Should I be looking at the transfer case, vacuum shift, or the axle? I did have the axle shafts out and had to reinstall the vacuum disconnector. Since it works fine in 4Lo, I'm leaning towards the transfer case, but I have no idea what to check.

Battery Management System Depending on how nice it is, it may just protect the battery from over charge/discharge or may handle the charging of the individual cells internally and monitor temps. Ideally, it keeps one from going into thermal runaway (fires) or damaging the battery in other ways.

I was amazed by how many issues a bad ground and poor wiring caused with my chevy. Opposite side flashing, or not at all, reverse lights lighting up when hitting the brakes, lights going dim when hitting the brake ect... Didn't have issues with the headlights though, but, different system in my case. I tend to agree with JAG1 in that case. I have fought the lighting electrical issues on an 06 jeep before. I feel for ya.

Those foam floor mats in kitchens and stores, no worrying about water, and if the truck breaks, you have a pad.

I like this idea. Not 100% sure how you would plumb it at the moment owing to the lack of real estate under the hood. I think you might be able to get away with some hotrod esque exhaust cutouts. They have air/vac and solenoid operated and in the sizes needed without being stupid expensive. Some Y's are easy enough to find.

AGM is true, Lithium strongly depends on the individual battery. Some do and some don't. It's not that expensive per battery for a company to add it in, but you may be right that many don't.

Im unsure about the Xantrax, but probably not. Lead acid and NiCd/NiMh can charge with constant current. They will just dissipate the overcharge as heat. That's why you can leave them on charge. Its not the most effective way, but it works. Lead acid can also be charged at constant voltage if they haven't been completely drained. Lithium likes to charge up to ~60% at a constant current and then constant voltage from 60-100. People are used to experiencing phones and laptops with lithium and that has sort of given it a bad rap. People dont charge them properly and they are being hammered when charging so as to decrease charge time and being pushed to the absolute limits so they can claim the longest life. And they still last at least 2 years under the worst possible conditions. Lithium likes to be stored at a mid charge state, not full and damn sure not empty. That's how fires start. Once the voltage starts to drop, the lithium will tear through the insulator and end up causing a short. Try to charge with that short and it can cause a meltdown. That said, lithium has a passive discharge rate of like 1% per year. NiCd/NiMh is like 5% per month, lead acid is closer to 10% per month. Lead acid likes to stay topped off, lest they fail prematurely. They actually cycle in almost inverse to the lithium. You could discharge an infinite number of times from 100-95% and it would last a very long time, or discharge to 50% and get about 1000-1500 cycles. They last a lot more than 2x if taken care of. They have almost exclusively swapped to lithium backup batteries for the signal and communication systems on the railroads. They started putting them in about 15 years ago and had only had very isolated failures so far. A lot of the original batch is still in service. Ideally, there is a C&S site about every 10 miles on the railroad with a signal block in the middle of that. Norfolk Southern has about 20k miles of track. It adds up quick. The lead acid they would have to replace about every 5 years on average, due only partially to cycles, mostly due to either super deep draws or vibration. Trains vibrate everything terribly within about 50 feet of the tracks. With lithium, vibration isn't as much of a killer. When doing accounting, lithium is about 1/3 the cost of lead acid when depreciated out over the life of the system. But I fully understand, 3k is a lot of up front cost to eat particularly for what amounts to a hobby. I don't have any lithium setups, and probably won't for the foreseeable future. I don't even typically use AGM unless its like my wave runner or something. I have worked on a few of those systems, and even have a small collection to play with. Lead acid is a lot more forgiving in so many aspects, but lithium is more energy dense and lasts longer. Below is some useful charts to illustrate, not necessarily to take as gospel, but to show an example. They have taken lithium to 10's of thousands of cycles to see how they behave at certain points and still maintained above 70% capacity. An impossible feat with lead acid. Lithium

Used to sell marine equipment. The lithium is the way to go if you find yourself running out of power or have the money to not worry about upfront costs and can afford to get the price/watthour/age benefit. A properly cycled and maintained lithium battery will last indefinitely. Keep them 20-75% SOC and it will likely outlast you. Do full 0-100% cycles and you will get 3000 cycles or so, or 8-9 years doing a full cycle daily. 80% of a "cycle" is between ~80-100% SOC, the other ~20% is from 0-20%. 20-80 effectively accounts for about 0.1% of a cycle. Guys with lithium on their boats for trolling would run for a weekend and still have charge left, the guys with 36v of lead acid were getting about 8-10 hours. They would also put out effectively full power (amperage) until they were discharged where lead acid is more of a decline in amps relative to the SOC. Just be sure to buy batteries with built in protection if you do. Don't trust the charging circuitry. Look for batteries with internal battery management circuitry. Oh, and don't let them get super cold. They like temperatures we like, should probably figure out a way to keep them warm if you plan to park the RV in freezing temps. They make heat blankets for them.

I have a tendency to keep things forever, my truck is the one thing I actually laughed at someone who wanted to buy it from me.

I'm curious of your mileage. When I opened the vgt all the way (zero boost effectively) I would get in the low/mid 20's on my 12v at low interstate speeds with no smoke. 18-20 was best before that.

Ditto. Made no sense to me either. Could have saved a penny or more per truck, surprising the difference that makes. I think 13 cents is what saved the LH platform. (intrepids and such) I don't see why you can't just undo all the top bolts/screws and just roll the dash back on its pivots. Is more room needed than that allows? Dash is honestly not hard to remove once the seats are out which takes all of 15 minutes, unbolting the center console helps significantly. I made all of my extra wiring so it will be disconnectable at near the factory collections for easy future service.

The thing I hate most about the ones sold in stores is that they supply them with vampire clamps and have no intention of keeping water out so after 5 years the whole thing is corroded to hell.