Chevy & GMC Vans

I have no idea why it stalled on the way to get aligned other than the alignment being way out, but after going home calling CAA and coming back, it started fine. If it stalls again, I will have to figure it out.

Was looking for the mouse under my van and decided to check the diff fluid level. opened the fill hole stuck finger in couldn't feel any... "ok better add some" i though. 2 whole liters later came up to what i believe to be full..... went for test drive in hopes that was the problem nope mouse is still there looks like driver side CV axle is shot. I also suddently realized i should REAL stop putting stuff like that off or it'll cost me big.

I replaced a defective grease nipple.

Technically, it's my wifes van, but...

I drove it to take my 4 kids to a community yard sale/craft bazaar at the Knox county fairgrounds. I'm keeping the rug rats busy so my wife can prepare for the Utica Ice Cream festival, at which she is the only vendor selling hair accessories. It was mild this morning, and I wanted some vent action instead of having the windows down. I only had air from the defrost vent.

Rats.

I knew what this meant.

I had ran a new rubber line MOST of the way about 2 years ago, with intent of finishing it when I had the doghouse off. Well guess what: I forgot. So I had a splice right at the EGR valve, my new rubber line to the old hard plastic line. After the event this morning and feeding the kiddies at a picnic area, I decided to try to fix that line. I pulled the air cleaner top and the flex hose, had to use a dime for a screwdriver since there are no tools in my wifes van, and tried to re-splice. No go. The old line just kept snapping off when I tried to insert it. Even after sitting a while, the engine was really hot. After a while of trying, I pulled the old line off of where it was connected, and try as I would, I couldn't find the connection with my hand convoluted through the narrow opening behind the A/C compressor. ](*,)

So I reinstalled the air cleaner lid, and drove the van to a buddy's house to let the kids run. Pulling the dash extension and the doghouse to connect one lousy vacuum line is just wrong. The TV and console (it's a conversion) also have to come out, along with a bunch of wires.

I know, waa, waa. I begrudgingly reinstalled the doghouse 10 seconds after removing it.

At least that fixed it. I rerouted the line to what I felt is a cooler area, away from the egr valve.

Well, it wasn't today but I did help my son move once again to a 3rd floor apartment on Saturday...I guess they don't understand that I am getting older... The good thing is that his wife has 5 brothers and they all showed up! PTL! We had it done before noon =D>

Today I'm getting some new tires for the wife's van...

Replaced the broken 4x4 switch (from the donor S10 Blazer). It had no action on the 2 high, so I forced it into action and it gave way. Huh. Imagine that.

$75 at the Dealer vs $24.50 online, free shipping, arrived in two days. Did it during the 2nd period of the Wings game so I put the laptop in the van during the install to watch the live stream of the game. Install took 5 times longer than it should have. Go Wings!

painted new larger calipers
stood and stared at van while debating if i could install new gears and a diff my self.... (still unsure)

I put in the window motor, checked the cap and rotor (both look good) wires at least visually, and the fuel pressure. Pressure is good, but bleeds down once the van is off. I was going to change the fuel filter, but I am out of energy, have a sore back, don't have the proper size wrench and looked at all the rust and figured I may just pay someone to do it.

As I didn't have time when I changed the oil a week or two ago, i finally lubed all the joints (still original). There are so many compared to my other two cars. I think I got them all.
While under there I checked my oil cooler lines from my recent replacement ($12), still looking good.

Don't forget the upper ball joints. The nipple is up on top of the upper control arm behind the front wheels. Mine looked like they had never been done before I did them. So much so that the nipples had to be replaced. Eventually I just replaced the b-joints, but my guess is they would have been ok if they had been lubed regularly.

Put the dog house back on.

Grocery run is all i did. getting the van ready for the weekend.

going to my brother-in-law's for the weekend.

hopefully going to drink some beer this weekend. it's been a long couple of months.

Mr. Jim's Wild Ride!!

I went on a WILD ride with my van yesterday and didn't make it home until around 1230am this morning so technically it is still "today"...

Around 6:45pm I was on the way to teach a young adult bible study with my daughter sitting in the pax seat. We were about 2mi from our destination when I went over a little rise on a small bridge that we had to cross. All of a sudden the front left side of the van smacked the ground and we went skidding to the right off the road at around 45mph. We were heading straight for a "Welcome to Oldsmar" sign that was about 6'X12'. Did I mention is was raining?? My first thought was that the front wheel had come off. I turned the wheel to the left as gently and as best I could to avoid the sign and applied the brakes. We finally came to a stop about 60yds or so from our start. Whew!!!!

I called the tow service and told them my situation and after about 1.5hrs they finally arrived with a flatbed. I told the driver that's not what I asked for because I didn't want to cause more damage than was already done. He called another wrecker with a tire lifting dolley. The guy showed up about an hour later. By that time it had been raining all afternoon and into the evening. It was now about 10pm. After careful inspection of the mess he decided all he had to do was hook it up and drive away. Well we were sitting about 20ft off the road in a small ditch. Did I mention it was raining?? He backed his rig up and promptly got stuck. He "walked" the truck back with the stinger and worked at it for about 45 minutes before deciding to back down the sidewalk to keep from sinking in the goo. Finally after jockying around he managed to hook it up and off we went...for about 50yrds until he got off the sidewalk and the truck sank in the mud. He called another wrecker to winch us out of the mud...we waited for another hour until we were finally pulled free. After a lot of careful slow driving we arrived in my driveway. He skillfully backed the van up into a position right next to my garage. It was over for the night...

This morning I got up and went out to survey the damage. Surprisingly there was little damage to the frame, fenders, nothing on the tire. The only things I see is that the lower ball joint popped out of the socket and the tie rod is bent. This allowed the lower control arm to drop sending the tire up into the wheel well and locking it up in the process. Why we skidded to the right instead of the left I don't know other than we had a relatively smooth landing what with the wet pavement and grass to grease the skids. I attribute it to God's hand was in there bringing us safely to a stop.

My question is, has this ever happened to anyone on this site with a 2wd lifted or not lifted? Bare in mind that I do not do any heavy off-roading. My van is mainly used as a daily driver with the occassional trip to the woods for camping and hunting.


Flight Path


Safe Landing...


Bowing to the King...


Battle Damage

I'll get better pictures of it this morning and post them after I remove the tire. Unless it's raining again...

Okay, here are the pics from the inspection this morning.


Lower Control Arm showing ball joint socket


Fender damage...not much


Upper Control Arm showing bump stop damage


Lower ball joint (sorry the pic is a bit blurry)


Bent Tie-rod

That's about all for today, any thoughts would be appreciated as to what caused this or if it is a common, known ailment with these vehicles.

I personally have never seen that happen on a stro i have seen one car brought to my mechanic with that problem and he had warned the driver that if they didn't replace them it would eventually give up the ghost. It just happened to pop on her when she tried to go from a stop light. He told me the same thing when i first got my van, i promply brought him the part.

I have to give it to you, you are pretty lucky looks like the damage is pretty minor and no one got hurt