Our "new" 2016 Chevy Tahoe

In early 2004, we bought a 2001 Chevy Tahoe to use as our family truckster.  It served us well for 15 years, and had 277K miles on the ticker when the transmission died.  We had hoped to use it past 300K, but decided this was as good a time as any to upgrade to a newer vehicle.  We loved the Tahoe's combination of maneuverability, cargo space, and towing capacity, so we replaced our 2001 with a 2016 Tahoe of the same color (Victory Red).  Victory Red is a hard color to find, and we were forced into a rather quick purchase, so I didn't get to do as much up-front research as I would have liked before the purchase.  Here, I'd like to share a few things that I've learned about our 2016 that I wish I'd known before hand.

Bump

Still not dead yet

Bump

Still not dead yet.

I'm still here

I'm still not dead yet--just too busy to write.

Still not dead

Not dead yet.  Just busy with the new house.

I'm not dead yet

I've just been kinda busy getting moved & settled at our new acreage.  On a good note, we now own a go-kart that's required some work, so I'll be writing about that in these pages before long.

Relacing the Wrangler's clutch master cylinder

On Thursday--in the middle of our first really cold spell of the winter--I noticed that the clutch in my 1995 Jeep Wrangler was engaging with the pedal unusually close to the floor.  I made a mental note to investigate it over the weekend.  Unfortunately, when I tried to leave work on the next day, I found that the pedal went all the way to the floor and the clutch wouldn't even disengage at all, making shifting impossible.  We towed it home, and I got to spend a couple hours on Sunday fixing the problem.

Replacing tired shock bushings

When I installed the spring-over-axle lift on my '95 Jeep Wrangler 15 years ago, I installed a new set of Rancho RS9000 shocks with polyurethane bushings.  They worked well, but in recent years, the suspension on my YJ has gotten noticeably noisy.  While underneath my Jeep last week, I noticed that the cause of that noise was worn out shock bushings that were past their prime. In many cases, the center hole was hogged out so that the bushing flopped around on the bolt.  In one case, the bushing was completely gone, leaving the bare shock eye to bang around on the bolt.  Obviously, it was time for a new set of bushings.

And then there was one

Today marks a bittersweet day for me.  My 1977 Jeep Wagoneer -- which has been in our family longer than any of my children -- left my driveway for a new home in Chicago, 500 miles away.  Selling her was voluntary, of course, but I still feel like I've just given one of my children up for adoption.  (That would be the child that has a great personality, but eats non-stop, has frequent medical bills, and never helps out around the house.)  I'm feeling the pain of losing a loved one right now, so I'm going to take this opportunity to share our story with you all.

Lubing a stubborn car door

The rear side doors--especially the driver side--in our 2001 Chevy Tahoe had gotten rather stiff, to the point where our 5-year-old son had trouble opening his car door. It turned out that there's a spring-loaded arm called the "door check link" that rides on two bars to provide the half- and full-open detents. That bar was scraping against its two mating bars rather than riding smoothly, and that resistance made the door hard to open and close. Fixing it was as simple as greasing the edges of that bar.

Replacing the cabin air filter in a Chevy truck

We've noticed recently that the interior of our 2001 Chevy Tahoe has been smelling pretty musty.  We cleaned all the carpets, but to no avail.  I was then reminded that the last time this smell appeared, it was time to change the air filter that protects the HVAC system in the cabin.  It's a pretty simple job, and one that should be identical on all 1999-2006 GMC/Chevy Sierra pickups and all 2000-2006 Tahoes, Suburbans, Yukons, and Denalies.

Biking through the brier patch

Fourteen of us--four adults and ten kids--recently cycled ten miles from Lincoln to Eagle, Nebraska, along the MoPac Trail for the weekly Nacho Ride.  It sounded like a fun ride.  It turned out to be quite memorable, though perhaps not quite as fun as we expected.  Aside from the younger kids getting worn out biking 20 miles in one evening, we also picked up lots of sand burrs along the way, resulting in eight tire punctures.  I was pretty well equipped for the hassle, but still not quite as much as I ought to have been.  This resulted in some upgrades to our cycling setups in the week that followed.

Smartphone input to an Alpine stereo

More than 10 years ago, I bought an Alpine CDA-7894 stereo for the 1977 Jeep Wagoneer I was rebuilding.  That rebuild stagnated, so when the factory stereo in our 2001 Chevy Tahoe died, I moved the Alpine head unit over to the Tahoe.  The CDA-7894 will read data CD's full of MP3 files (a very progressive feature in 2002), but standalone MP3 players were not yet common devices, and smartphones didn't yet exist.  Fast forward to 2013, when I really wanted to be able to plug my smartphone into the truck's stereo so I could enjoy Pandora or my MP3 collection on long road trips rather than lugging along boxes of CD's.  The default configuration for that stereo didn't have a convenient audio input jack, but that can be remedied with just a couple aftermarket parts.

New Michelin LTX M/S2 tires for the Tahoe

Back in 2008, we bought a set of Goodyear Fortera TripleTred tires (pictured at right) for our 2001 Chevy Tahoe.  We absolutely loved those tires.  They were quiet, we never got stuck in the Nebraska snow, and you couldn't hydroplane them even if you tried (and I did).  Unfortunately, they wore out after just 4.5 years and 48,000 miles, which was far less than we'd hoped to get from such a pricey tire.  I spent more time researching their replacement that I probably needed to.

Tracking the elusive 1977 Wagoneer starter

The same day that we hauled our Tahoe to the mechanic to have its fuel pump replaced, the starter on my 1977 Jeep Wagoneer started making a horrible screeching / grinding sound when I started the engine.  I immediately assumed that the nose gear from the starter wasn't retracting back into the starter after the engine started running.  I had replaced this starter 12 years (8000 miles) earlier, and the new one had a lifetime warranty, so I expected this would be a free, one-hour fix.  I should know better by now.

Repairing a split fiberglass hard top

For the second time in the 17 years I've owned my Wrangler, the inner and outer shells of my fiberglass hard top separated due to the force of a failed window strut.  This can be fixed--or at least patched--with a little bit of 2-part fiberglass repair epoxy and some clamps.

Broken soft top zipper pull

My '95 Jeep Wrangler came with a factory hard top.  After a couple years of lifting it on & off with every weather change, I bought an old, used Bestop Supertop that was designed for a CJ-7.  It works on my YJ, and the price was right, but it's showing its age.  Some of the zippers that hold the vinyl windows in place are getting a little stubborn & probably need to be lubed.  Recently, the metal zipper pull tab on one of the side windows broke off the zipper body (it had been bending for a while, and it's only made of pot metal).  The solution was easy & nearly free.

The death of a fuel pump

Back in April, I wrote about our 2001 Chevy Tahoe chugging, as if it wasn't getting quite enough fuel.  I suspected the fuel pump might be at fault, but replacing it is neither easy nor inexpensive.  Instead, I replaced the fuel filter (which was long overdue), and the problem went away... for four months.  Last Friday, my suspicions were confirmed when the fuel pump died quite suddenly and completely, leaving my wife & five kids stranded on the side of the highway.

Repairing a pop-up camper shell seal

When we bought our 1997 Coleman Santa Fe pop-up camper a few years ago, I knew there would be a few things that needed fixing.  One of the items on that list was the rubber weather seal along the bottom edge of the top shell.  It keeps the innards dry when the camper is packed up for travelling.  It's a two-part seal, with one half that adheres to the shell and another half that does the actual sealing.  Both halves occasionally have trouble staying attached -- a problem when I remedied recently.

New cat-back exhaust for the YJ

Over the last few months, my 1995 Jeep Wrangler started to develop an annoying rattle from the exhaust whenever the engine was running. Crawling underneath to do a little shaking and beating indicated that something was rattling around inside the original, 17-year-old muffler.  Time for a replacement.  I wanted to get a full stainless steel replacement cat-back system, but it just wasn't in the budget.  I opted instead for Pacesetter TFX Kat-Back system made of aluminized steel.  It probably won't last as long as a stainless system would, but it cost only 1/3 as much.