My Tahoe is starting to show its age or mileage. I’m somewhere around 220,000 miles now. The check engine light came on a little while ago and I’ve reset it several times. It keeps coming back. Using my OBD2 reader today has added a code.
codes read by Chevrosys through my VeePeak adapter
The P0175 is new today and gives me more to look at. One of my first steps will be to point this out to the tahoeyukon forum because there are a lot of great people there.
I forgot to update this post. After replacing the oxygen sensors (first using cheap Chinese sensors) I got this mostly fixed. Now the cheap set failed miserably and made things worse. Then I bought AC Delco units and they worked but the cheap Chinese ones appear to have damaged one of my catalytic converters. Did I save money? Yeah, no.
I got some surprise help from a neighbor while my father in law was also around. With all the help we dropped the front clip back on the Camaro. I’d been finished for a few weeks and just waiting for some help at this.
The car is finished and we drove it yesterday. Next I need to try to figure out what’s up with the carb. It just doesn’t feel right. There are several rattles still present from the exhaust being too close to the frame and possibly from the jack in the trunk. My goal is to make it quiet and solid.
The rear mount on the front subframe was as bad as the others. This one had clearly been repaired before but it rusted badly around it. I really had a job trying to cut this out with limited clearance. The torches were out of the question with the fuel line an inch away. Welding required my pipe sweating pad.
Pieces after the struggle to cut it out. I had to cut back farther than the length of the repair plate.
So I had to lengthen it with a piece of steel. I got it sized the way I wanted and then had to get funky with welding it. Reaching up inside the frame blocked my view so I had to figure out when I was welding the end of that extension plate. I got it but it ain’t pretty.
After all the struggle to get this side I was dreading the next side. I took the bushing out and found it was in pretty good shape! I sprayed it with rust stuff, painted it with Rustoleum, and put in the new bushing. Done with subframe mounts. The ones on the front at the radiator support were okay though the bushings were rusted out inside.
I decided that if I didn’t replace the water pump now I’d be doing it soon after getting the car back on the road. At least now it’s easy to get to. Corrosion in the heater core and radiator along with “mud” coming out of the cooling system convinced me that the coolant had failed in its anti corrosive properties. It would have been nice to flush the motor with the water pump off but there were no exhaust manifolds and no spark plugs then. Don’t want water inside the motor.
The water pump I took off was painted Chevy engine orange to match the engine so I did the same with this one. I looked into switching to a clutch type fan but wasn’t ready to spend the $270 or more it would take. If I decide to make a change in the future I’ll probably hide an electric fan in the fan shroud so it appears more stock.
I wish I’d had this view of things when I replaced the motor mounts. There had been some odd things with launching the car from a stop that I decided were because the motor was torquing on its mounts. The Camaro uses a mechanical belcrank setup between the frame and the block. While the motor mounts were in better shape than I thought they weren’t bolted down properly.
Unfortunately I’ve found another potential culprit in the subframe bushings and/or their mounting points.
Snowballs in April? How about a snowballing project.
First the motor mounts. Symptoms suggested they were tired and needed to be replaced. Removing them showed that the problem was they weren’t bolted in properly. Okay, one project done.
On the first drive afterwards I noticed antifreeze dripping on the passenger side floormat. Dangit. Heater core. Well, while the dash is apart I can fix the lights on the dash that have been burned out for so long Natalie didn’t even know they existed.
Putting the heater core back in properly took a bit more work that I anticipated. I needed to remove the right side inner fender. Counting bolts, shims, and other issues turned out to be more work than I wanted to tackle but I was kinda stuck.
Perfect. I can fix some of the air leaks coming through the firewall.
Hard to believe this was easier than taking one inner fender off.
Hm. Clutch fan, water pump, what else?
Finally
Amazing how easy it was to remove.
It’s a little tempting to crawl around under this cleaning and polishing.
At the end of it all the exhaust manifolds will have been ceramic coated, new bolts will hold the exhaust together, and there will be a new water pump keeping the cool. Also the radiator is going to have to be cleaned and resoldered because it shows a leak. The heater core will be new and well mounted. Lights in the dash will work and one of the heater controls has been disconnected for some time. Oh and a major vacuum leak will be fixed.
If I get lucky and a parts store employee comes through the car may also get power steering. That’ll help Nat drive her own car.
