a short rant about Previous owners!
 

Bought a 78 blazer a month ago or so and saw some cobbled stuff on it. A 86 steering column, lots of home style wiring hanging from under the dash, a bunch of other stuff too.

Bought two tilt columns, one had a splined connector going from the column to the rag joint, the other looked great in the pictures but had a piece chipped off the column collar. so..........

Craigs list to the rescue! Ended up buying a complete 79 truck with power everything, woooooooo hooooooooooo.

So I pulled that tilt column, a pain. Then started to fix the under dash wiring. Why would you cut, splice and tear up everything because the ignition switch went bad. It took more parts and time to do the push button under the dash then it would have to just replace the switch. It took me the better part of the day and a parts wiring harness to fix what would have been an easy Fix.


WHY? lol
thanks for reading,

Steve

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

Yeah agree with you there.....and I have a theory to....

Decades ago people fixed more things on their own and didn't pay someone else to do things.....problem is...some of their home fixes sucked......

Don't know if that's the case....but makes sense to me

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

Why? Because not everyone who knows how to work on a vehicle knows how to do it right. :)

I had some messy wiring when I got my 74 but it was nothing horrible.

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

I know what you mean, the 1st truck i had i think i pulled about a mile of unnecessary wire out of it.

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

The guy I bought mine from loved Rhino Lining. He had the front bumper, dash pad, door panels, lower rear wall of the cab and the bed rhino lined. I swapped the front bumper, dash pad and door panels almost right away.

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

The 1st stepside we had instead of getting the right battery tray support they used a threaded rod to hold up the battery tray, they put a aftermarket windshield pump motor instead of replacing the correct wiper motor.Not to mention they brush painted the door panels and kick panels a light blue instead of doing things right.I HATE HACKS!!!!

Thanks
pat

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

Haha! The PO of my truck did a push button start too cause the "ignition was bad". Apparently he never heard of a "clutch safety switch".

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

80stepsideguy, sounds like some of my "fixes" years ago. Hey if it kept it running....

I hate some of the "fixes" I've found over the years, but considering some were done pre-internet, heck some were pretty clever. I remember having to go to the library to check out Chilton's manuals more than once.

Windshield pump, if you mean washer pump, I used an aftermarket on the '73 within the past couple of years. Blew 2 in 2 mos of the OEM style.

Besides if they were all done right, what fun would that be?

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

What the hell? I can understand the lower read of the cab since putting things behind the seat normally fly all over the place and scratch. I would know, It has happened to me plenty... But everything else makes no sense! lol

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

call me a hack i don't care
beats walkin
we didn't have the"net" or the manuals either growing up
rigged quite a things and was proud of it
and still here lmao

why replace a wiper motor if it's the washer pump not working(and a ez cheaper fix)

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

I dunno, the PO of my truck lowered it, replaced the stereo, and lots of other stuff. Everything he touched was top notch.

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

You guys don't have anything on the PO of my brother's truck (1970 C10)...

Completely removed all parking brake components, including the inside of the drum brakes.

Passenger fender welded to the core support at the top.

Inner wheel tubs bolted AND welded to the fenders, but only 2" welds. All have cracked and broken.

40 feet of loose/bare wiring that goes to nothing.

Engine had a stick in the lifter valley.

400SBC with 3 different kinds of pistons. 882 casting 350 heads with no steam holes.

Heated rear springs to lower the truck, coils are collapsed on each other.

Intake manifold was installed with 3 different length/head size of bolts. Includes hex and allen head bolts.

Flywheel had 3 different hex head sized bolts.

Trans cooler was installed BEHIND the radiator.

Engine accesories are a mix-mash of different generation truck parts. Has a squarebody alternator bracket, bent out to align with v-belt short water pump, unknown brackets for power steering pump. Power steering pulley is bent like crazy.

Cab drip rail is filled with household silicon, which they painted directly over.

Painted directly over lots of rust.

Sprayed the interior with basecoat, but no clear coat.

Didn't mask then they painted (much). Front glass is painted white on the tops.


There is a lot more that I can't think of at the moment. We've corrected quite a few of the issues, but the truck was just utter crap for the most part.

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

what got me was that it was harder and more money than to just replace the switch. He soldered all the connections, after cutting apart the wiring harness, used like almost phone wiring on a 10 gauge splice, ran all the wires over the ac ducts. Plus had four hot wires scotch blocked on to the wiper motor power feed.

I can see using some aftermarket stuff like washer pumps etc and i have used cheaper stuff. I have also done quick fixes and seen the results. Nothing has burned to the ground but have gotten close.

The over all condition of the truck is good, so it was a surprise when I got under the dash. My parts truck I bought, the owner of that told me he was having problems with his camaro. He talked a while and I told him it was probably ground problems.

Then he showed me what he did to try to fix it.................he mounted another fuse panel to the bottom of the dash, then cut the wire from the original fuse panel and then wire nutted the wires to the dash mounted fuse block. I kept my mouth shut.......he also wondered why it didn't fix the problem. The best part is he is using the money I paid him to take it to a guy who wires race cars to have it custom wired.......an 86 camaro with a "Corvette" motor


I guess I am getting old, hard for me to understand some things. I agree the internet is a great tool, but 20 bucks for a decent manual and maybe talking to somebody who knows worked for me as a kid. I started at a dealership and ended up fully certified.

So, my rant is over, the truck is fixed almost right, a couple of high end splices with most of the butchered stuff replaced by pulling the wiring ends out of the fuse panel and what ever connector. For me it was easier than pulling out the whole old wiring harness and replacing with my good used one.


There are many ways to fix things. I remember being told there is never a good time to break down only good places!

Steve

Re: a short rant about Previous owners!
 

Because the p/o wired in the washer pump cause they were to cheap to replace the wiper motor .I personally dont HACK things together, every used vehicle i bought had somehing hacked i repaired the PROPER way.

thanks
pat