PennSilverTaco's "Perfect 5-Lug Regular Cab" Build, Aspergers, and General BS MegaThread!

Tactical_Panda · Jan 13, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

@Salty_Dog

How's Scooter doing?
Click to expand...

He's fine. Why?

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

@Iamraiderpower

Here are some stories about the Blazer that show how awesome my dad is...

For starters, one time when I was 6 years old, my dad let me sit in his lap and steer the Blazer while he backed out of our driveway. I'm pretty sure he did this at least twice, and my mom wasn't too thrilled when she found out about this years later...

Salty_Dog said: ↑

He's fine. Why?
Click to expand...

Just curious. I'm a dog lover, and like I said, my mom says therapy dogs and their owners are heroes...

Tactical_Panda · Jan 13, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

@Iamraiderpower

Here are some stories about the Blazer that show how awesome my dad is...

For starters, one time when I was 6 years old, my dad let me sit in his lap and steer the Blazer while he backed out of our driveway. I'm pretty sure he did this at least twice, and my mom wasn't too thrilled when she found out about this years later...

Just curious. I'm a dog lover, and like I said, my mom says therapy dogs and their owners are heroes...
Click to expand...

Thanks. He was supposed to go under the knife yesterday to remove a lipoma under his left armpit but since wifey broke her ankle last Monday, that got put on hold. Fortunately, it's not a critical issue.

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

@Iamraiderpower

Here are some stories about the Blazer that show how awesome my dad is...

For starters, one time when I was 6 years old, my dad let me sit in his lap and steer the Blazer while he backed out of our driveway. I'm pretty sure he did this at least twice, and my mom wasn't too thrilled when she found out about this years later...

On a couple of occasions after large snowstorms, my dad would drive me to the parking lot of a Home Depot near our house...

He would then put the Blazer in 4-HI, floor the accelerator, and go blasting through the snow. He did donuts and powerslides, and in general drove the way you would expect a teenager to drive. I was 5-6 years old at the time, and riding in the shotgun seat. I was small for age when I was little, so I rode in a booster seat until at least 4th grade. This gave me a better view out the windshield, and also made the seatbelt more effective.

To a kindergartner in the shotgun seat during one of these impromptu parking lot 4-wheeling sessions, this was absolutely incredible. I was having the time of my life. My favorite tape to listen to in the car back then was the soundtrack to Disney's The

Salty_Dog said: ↑

Thanks. He was supposed to go under the knife yesterday to remove a lipoma under his left armpit but since wifey broke her ankle last Monday, that got put on hold. Fortunately, it's not a critical issue.
Click to expand...

Lipoma... Isn't that a type of cancer?!?!

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

@Iamraiderpower

I've talked about the S-10 Blazer my dad used to own before...

In June 1993, my dad bought a brand new '93 Chevy S-10 Blazer 4x4 from Lafferty Chevrolet in Warminster, Pennsylvania. It was a 2-door, midnight black with gray cloth interior, and mid-level Tahoe trim. It Preferred Equipment Group 2, which included almost every desired option; air-conditioning, cruise, tilt, power windows and locks, AM/FM cassette; My dad's Blazer did not have the following options:

Power mirrors
G80 locking rear differential (though it was still a beast in the snow)
Trailering Special package (My dad just had a UHAUL hitch installed to pull our 16-foot boat and it did fine)

In terms of general reliability the Blazer was good.

However, the air-conditioner broke only a week after my dad bought it! Actually, broke is understating it...

Blew a seal and completely purged itself of Freon right before my dad's eyes would be a much more accurate description!

The Blazer was only a week old with a mere 260 miles on the odometer. One warm June morning, my dad got in the Blazer to go to work, started the engine, and turned on the A/C. Right at that moment, a seal on the orifice tube blew and a good amount of the Freon came into the cabin through the defogger vents! Luckily, my dad did not get hurt (R-12 is some dangerous shit).

My dad immediately drove the Blazer to the Chevy dealer where he'd purchased it, and it was a one-week old vehicle with 260 miles, so of course all repairs were covered under warranty. My dad went to work, and the dealer replaced the seals and recharged the system for free. My dad somehow managed to save the receipt in his files, found it last year, and gave all of it to me. The receipt shows that he brought the Blazer in at 10am, and got it back before 4pm. The Blazer's A/C worked perfectly for the entire summer.

In May 1994, the same thing happened again! However, there wasn't the dramatic purging of Freon right before my dad's eyes this time. A seal in the same spot blew again, but all of the Freon slipped out of the system unnoticed. My dad discovered the problem when he turned on the A/C in spring, presumably after not using it for a while, and found that it was blowing warm. He brought the Blazer to Lafferty Chevrolet yet again, and it was fixed under warranty yet again. My dad kept the Blazer another two years after that, finally trading it for a new Nissan Pathfinder in 1996, and the A/C worked for the rest of that time...

The A/C was the least of the Blazer's problems...

The most notable issue the Blazer had was a noise in the tailgate that drove my dad nuts. The Blazer had this squeak almost from the day he drove it home. He brought it back to the dealer at least twice before they finally corrected it, and like the A/C it was fixed under warranty. So, it turns out that my dad's Blazer was probably built on a Friday...

The tailgate had actually been installed incorrectly at the factory! The dealership's service department completely removed the tailgate and reinstalled it. This took care of the annoying squeak...

Not long after my dad bought the Blazer, probably within the first year, the clearcoat started to peel off the alloy wheels. My dad got a complete new set of rims from the dealer under warranty, and the clearcoat didn't peel again...

The Blazer required a complete brake replacement at only 28K miles (which by my estimates and my dad's typical driving pattern would have been about August 1994-March 1995). We're not talking just the front brakes. The Blazer, like most vehicles of the time (and Tacomas today) had front disc/rear drum. It also had 4-wheel ABS (apparently 4-wheel ABS in these trucks was troublesome as they got older). By comparison, I did in fact have to replace the brake pads in my Tacoma at like 31K, and am now on my third set of pads and second set of rotors at almost 80K. However, my Tacoma still has the same rear brake shoes it left the factory with back in August 2009! Unfortunately, both the dealer and GM corporate deemed the brakes to be normal wear-and-tear, and did not not cover the brake job under warranty. My dad was not happy.

Other problems the Blazer had included the entire gauge cluster completely dying while we were driving home from Grammy's house at night, and at least one of the headlights burning out when the Blazer was only three years old.

Some people might call the Blazer a piece of shit, or even a lemon, but none of the problems it had made it unreliable or unsafe. It was actually very reliable and never left stranded. It almost did once, when we (meaning me and the parents) were on our way home from a family trip and had stopped at a gas station to refuel. After topping off the tank, my dad tried to start the Blazer, and it turned over but wouldn't actually start. The Blazer ended up starting on the second or third try...

My dad says that he was drawn to the Blazer largely because of its looks, especially the two-door models. He ended up regretting buying a 2-door because it was a pain in the ass for his growing son (me) to get in and out of. My dad says that if he'd bought a 4-door instead, he probably would have kept it at least long enough to pay it off.

Our Blazer had the Enhanced Powertrain Package, which gave you a 200 horsepower 4.3L CPI Vortec V6 (The "W Code" engine) and 4-speed automatic. Standard engine was 4.3L TBI V6 making 165 horsepower, with a 5-speed manual. The CPI was not available with a stick shift, and the TBI was not available with an automatic tranny. My dad's Blaz= was no slouch...

My dad also says that he remembers the Blazer being particularly agile and fun to drive for what it was (a midsize 4x4 SUV), and when my mom drove it, she was always impressed that it was small and agile enough to fit into some compact car parking spaces!

The window sticker showed an MSRP of about two grand north of $20K. My dad says he negotiated them down to $18K, and that didn't include the money he got for the 1992 Dodge Dakota LE he traded in. My dad says he got about $12K for the Blazer when he traded it for a 1996 Pathfinder...
Click to expand...

@Iamraiderpower

Here are some stories about the Blazer that show how awesome my dad is...

For starters, one time when I was 6 years old, my dad let me sit in his lap and steer the Blazer while he backed out of our driveway. I'm pretty sure he did this at least twice, and my mom wasn't too thrilled when she found out about this years later...

On a couple of occasions after large snowstorms, my dad would drive me to the parking lot of a Home Depot near our house...

He would then put the Blazer in 4-HI, floor the accelerator, and go blasting through the snow. He did donuts and powerslides, and in general drove the way you would expect a teenager to drive. I was 5-6 years old at the time, and riding in the shotgun seat. I was small for age when I was little, so I rode in a booster seat until at least 4th grade. This gave me a better view out the windshield, and also made the seatbelt more effective.

To a kindergartner in the shotgun seat during one of these impromptu parking lot 4-wheeling sessions, this was absolutely incredible. I was having the time of my life. My favorite tape to listen to in the car back then was the soundtrack to Disney's The Jungle Book. My favorite song was Bare Necessities. This particular cassette had a rock opera version of that song, and I can still vividly remember rocking out to Bare Necessities as my dad blasted the Blazer through foot-high snow and drifted around snowbanks like it was nothing...

I'm pretty sure that 4-wheeling in a Home Depot parking lot isn't exactly legal and may even qualify as reckless driving, but we never got caught. If the Home Depot was even open for business at the time, nobody came out to yell at my dad...

Like I said, my dad's Blazer had an open rear differential. According to the original window sticker my dad found, it had 3.42 gears (The S-10 Blazer was available with either 3.08s or 3.42s in 1993). As I said in the previous post, the Blazer was an absolute beast in the snow. When you have 4-wheel drive, the lack of a so-called "posi rear" doesn't really matter. The G80 locker was a $252 option on all Chevy and GMC trucks and SUVs (S-10s, CKs, Blazers, Suburbans, etc), even back in the 1980s. This was not cheap, and as such, very view S-series trucks and SUVs were ordered with the G80 locker. Plenty of full-size trucks and SUVs were ordered with it based on what I've seen, but I guess the typical S-10 buyer had better things to spend $250 on than a locking rear, or just didn't have the money at all. Even the 2WD S-10s typically did not have the G80 locker!

Tactical_Panda · Jan 13, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

@Iamraiderpower

Here are some stories about the Blazer that show how awesome my dad is...

For starters, one time when I was 6 years old, my dad let me sit in his lap and steer the Blazer while he backed out of our driveway. I'm pretty sure he did this at least twice, and my mom wasn't too thrilled when she found out about this years later...

On a couple of occasions after large snowstorms, my dad would drive me to the parking lot of a Home Depot near our house...

He would then put the Blazer in 4-HI, floor the accelerator, and go blasting through the snow. He did donuts and powerslides, and in general drove the way you would expect a teenager to drive. I was 5-6 years old at the time, and riding in the shotgun seat. I was small for age when I was little, so I rode in a booster seat until at least 4th grade. This gave me a better view out the windshield, and also made the seatbelt more effective.

To a kindergartner in the shotgun seat during one of these impromptu parking lot 4-wheeling sessions, this was absolutely incredible. I was having the time of my life. My favorite tape to listen to in the car back then was the soundtrack to Disney's The

Lipoma... Isn't that a type of cancer?!?!
Click to expand...

No, it's not cancerous and it's not deadly or anything. It's basically a benign tumor comprised of fat. Have you ever cooked a fresh chicken breast? You know those globs of yellow fat that are found on the edges? Now image a blob of that yellow fat the size of a golf ball. That's what he's got. It's not fatal but if it continues to grow it can impede his ability to move his leg which could be uncomfortable.

Here's an example.

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

Salty_Dog said: ↑

No, it's not cancerous and it's not deadly or anything. It's basically a benign tumor comprised of fat. Have you ever cooked a fresh chicken breast? You know those globs of yellow fat that are found on the edges? Now image a blob of that yellow fat the size of a golf ball. That's what he's got. It's not fatal but if it continues to grow it can impede his ability to move his leg which could be uncomfortable.

Here's an example.

Click to expand...

If I were drunk, I'd mistake that for a chicken breast and try to eat it...

Tactical_Panda · Jan 13, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

If I were drunk, I'd mistake that for a chicken breast and try to eat it...
Click to expand...

Please don't.

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

@Iamraiderpower

Here are some stories about the Blazer that show how awesome my dad is...

For starters, one time when I was 6 years old, my dad let me sit in his lap and steer the Blazer while he backed out of our driveway. I'm pretty sure he did this at least twice, and my mom wasn't too thrilled when she found out about this years later...

On a couple of occasions after large snowstorms, my dad would drive me to the parking lot of a Home Depot near our house...

He would then put the Blazer in 4-HI, floor the accelerator, and go blasting through the snow. He did donuts and powerslides, and in general drove the way you would expect a teenager to drive. I was 5-6 years old at the time, and riding in the shotgun seat. I was small for age when I was little, so I rode in a booster seat until at least 4th grade. This gave me a better view out the windshield, and also made the seatbelt more effective.

To a kindergartner in the shotgun seat during one of these impromptu parking lot 4-wheeling sessions, this was absolutely incredible. I was having the time of my life. My favorite tape to listen to in the car back then was the soundtrack to Disney's The Jungle Book. My favorite song was Bare Necessities. This particular cassette had a rock opera version of that song, and I can still vividly remember rocking out to Bare Necessities as my dad blasted the Blazer through foot-high snow and drifted around snowbanks like it was nothing...

I'm pretty sure that 4-wheeling in a Home Depot parking lot isn't exactly legal and may even qualify as reckless driving, but we never got caught. If the Home Depot was even open for business at the time, nobody came out to yell at my dad...

Like I said, my dad's Blazer had an open rear differential. According to the original window sticker my dad found, it had 3.42 gears (The S-10 Blazer was available with either 3.08s or 3.42s in 1993). As I said in the previous post, the Blazer was an absolute beast in the snow. When you have 4-wheel drive, the lack of a so-called "posi rear" doesn't really matter. The G80 locker was a $252 option on all Chevy and GMC trucks and SUVs (S-10s, CKs, Blazers, Suburbans, etc), even back in the 1980s. This was not cheap, and as such, very view S-series trucks and SUVs were ordered with the G80 locker. Plenty of full-size trucks and SUVs were ordered with it based on what I've seen, but I guess the typical S-10 buyer had better things to spend $250 on than a locking rear, or just didn't have the money at all. Even the 2WD S-10s typically did not have the G80 locker!
Click to expand...

Costs of various options and packages in the S-10 pickup and S-10 Blazer in about 1989-1994:

Air-conditioning ($900)
AM/FM cassette upcharge (like $150)
Driver convenience package (Tilt wheel, intermittent wipers; $200-300)
Operating convenience package (Power windows and locks; over $300)
Cruise control (Over $200)
Locking rear differential ($252)

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

Salty_Dog said: ↑

Please don't.
Click to expand...

I was joking, but seriously, that does kinda look like a fresh slab of chicken...

Iamraiderpower · Jan 13, 2018

Jamesboy2233 said: ↑

my dad is looking at one what was wrong with it
Click to expand...

Grenaded itself <1 year old <15k miles Ecofail. Along with leaking rear end, front CV, noisy Tcase, torque converter took a shit, leaking Trans pump blah blah then when I got the truck back the new motor didn’t have oil in it and it dropped some more metal.

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

Iamraiderpower said: ↑

Grenaded itself <1 year old <15k miles Ecofail. Along with leaking rear end, front CV, noisy Tcase, torque converter took a shit, leaking Trans pump blah blah then when I got the truck back the new motor didn’t have oil in it and it dropped some more metal.
Click to expand...

Ford=Found On Road Dead

PennSilverTaco · Jan 13, 2018

@Iamraiderpower

I am so well-liked that two separate bartenders at the same bar each bought me a drink tonight!

Iamraiderpower · Jan 14, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

@Iamraiderpower

I am so well-liked that two separate bartenders at the same bar each bought me a drink tonight!
Click to expand...

PennSilverTaco · Jan 14, 2018

PennSilverTaco · Jan 14, 2018

Iamraiderpower said: ↑

Click to expand...

Yeah, but now my goal is to go two months without drinking!

Iamraiderpower · Jan 14, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

Yeah, but now my goal is to go two months without drinking!
Click to expand...

Well, good luck, you will do fine im sure.

PennSilverTaco · Jan 14, 2018

Iamraiderpower said: ↑

Well, good luck, you will do fine im sure.
Click to expand...

Didn't you once tell me you drink enough alcohol to float the Titanic? Or maybe it was to sink the Titanic?

PennSilverTaco · Jan 14, 2018

Jamesboy2233 said: ↑

you have a drinking prob?
Click to expand...

Not quite a problem...

I just drink too much at times when I'm hanging out with friends...

Iamraiderpower · Jan 14, 2018

PennSilverTaco[OP] said: ↑

Didn't you once tell me you drink enough alcohol to float the Titanic? Or maybe it was to sink the Titanic?
Click to expand...

Its metaphorically speaking, kind of

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