Today, I rewired the 12v connection for the brakes on the Suburban. For some reason, whoever installed the stereo tapped into the main 12v wire going to the brake light switch using t-taps...and over time the connection weakened until the wire broke leaving me with no brake lights.
I hate shoddy work, especially if it makes the vehicle unsafe.
After that, I did a basic maintenance inspection and found that the air filter was filthy. Right then and there I decided that with 230K on the truck, I might as well dive in. Pulled the old filter out and dropped in a Wix heavy duty replacement filter (no point in spending the extra $15 on an AC/Delco OEM replacement since I'm getting an AEM for it soon). Pulled the MAF sensor (which was filthy) and cleaned it up, and pulled the intake tube to clean out the TB, which was pretty nasty too. Then I pulled the PCV valve, and was rather surprised...I'm fairly certain that it was the original one installed from the factory. It was corroded, caked with carbon/oil sluge build up, and after hitting it with some brake parts cleaner, I found that there was no valve inside it...? I could look straight through the thing. Is that normal? I thought there was a ball that was supposed to rattle in the PCV valve, but it was totally hollow. I tried to replace it, but the local store didn't have the right one in stock. I'll get a new one next week.
After that, I ran some seafoam through the motor, and put the rest in the crankcase. I fired it back up after about 15 minutes, did the smoke show thing through my neighborhood and up to the gas station, and gassed up. I threw some Lucas treatment into the tank for the heck of it.
Not bad for a couple hours worth of work. The truck is running better than it has in years, I'm sure. My sister in law (who I got the truck from), said that she was getting about 9mpg. I'm sure that had alot to do with the lack of maintenance. I'll keep an eye on this tank and see what kind of numbers it gets now that most of the PM is caught up.