2003 Chevrolet Silverado in-tank fuel pumps

Ever since my fuel pump made a loud whining noise all throughout Arizona for Burning Man 2009, I’ve always said it’s going to die and strand me someday and I should really get it replaced before then.

This Friday was the night it decided to die.  I was driving across the I-90 bridge going into Seattle when the engine started missing and I lost a lot of power. So much that I was down to 35 m.p.h. going up the last hill.  I turned off on the first exit, Rainier Ave, and pulled into a side street parking spot. As soon as I stopped, that’s all she wrote and the engine died.  At first I wasn’t sure what it was, but concluded it was the fuel pump after the engine would clearly crank for a second or two before dying.

I called AAA and they sent a tow truck to me within an hour.  I had it towed back to Alex’s shop since it would’ve been unpossible to take it to the apartment parking garage. I decided it was the fuel pump, or at the very least it needed to be replaced anyways. The next day I studied the Haynes manual for all the parts and tools I’d need, then walked over to NAPA to buy everything.

The factory specs say there should be 55-62 p.s.i. at the fuel injector rail. I repeatedly measured 19-20 p.s.i. so it was clear that wasn’t right.  I had always dreaded replacing the fuel pump since it seemed like a giant hassle and a mechanic would easily want $1k for the job. Several people on the internets advocated just removing the bed or taking a Sawz-all to make an access hole in the bed, neither of which were really options.

It wasn’t too terrible of a job. I did it completely by myself in about 12 hours of work over two days. By far the longest part was just pumping all possible gas out of the tank. I got it down to ‘E’ with the fuel warning on. Unhook the EVAC canister, disconnect the two fuel+return lines, put the tank on stands, and undo two straps.  It turns out the plastic gas tank wasn’t heavy at all, maybe 20 pounds even with the little gas left over.  Putting it back in was a hassle, this is where a 2nd set of hands to align the tank while jacking it up would’ve been handy.

After that, I was getting 55 p.s.i. at the rail again and the truck has been running fine!

I’ve been wanting to wander around Wyoming for a couple of months now and finally decided to go last weekend.  No real planning, the only requirements were to see Jackson Hole and some big mountains. Friday morning I took my truck to the mechanic to have the transmission and differential fluids changed.  I picked it up that afternoon and after work I went home to grab some cold weather gear (highs of 35 F were forecast there), then started driving.  I went up through the panhandle and crashing at the usual I-27 rest stop near Plainview, TX around 1:30 AM.

Saturday, May 29: For whatever reason it was a fitful night of sleep and I finally gave up trying to sleep at sunrise at 7.  Ultimately before arriving in Denver I’d have to stop at two rest stops to take naps because I was so tired.  At some point I actually debated calling off Wyoming and go back to do silly things with my friends in Denver instead.  I decided I was “so close” and kept on going.  When I hit the Wyoming border, my motivation and excitement level jumped.  I hopped out of the truck to take a photo at the border sign and realized it was super windy and cold due to a storm front rolling in. It was quite a contrast to the smug and hot weather I just left!

The drive across Wyoming on I-80 was pretty uneventful.  The whole area is this flat rolling grassland which sort of reminds me of a decent high school softball field — not particularly magnificent, but not covered in weeds, rocks and bare spots. As a coworker summed it up, it’s just a notch above the scenery in West Texas on I-10.

Once at Rock Springs, the approach to Jackson is exactly like that of Burning Man, “turn north on I-80 and drive through nothing for 100+ miles”.  By now it was after 11 PM and very dark.  The road got windier as I went, having to concentrate that I didn’t drop off into the black darkness below.  Around 1 as I was about to enter the forest, highway 191’s pavement completely ended, turning into a rough one-lane gravel road. This was the Road of Bones (Jungo Road) happening to me all over again!  Fortunately there were less death defying experiences this time and it was over in a few miles.

Sunday, May 30: Sometime after 2 AM I rolled into Jackson after 18 hours of driving from the Texas panhandle. A quick cruise through town and seeing all the rustic wood facade buildings made it apparently this was clearly a fancy resort town. I crashed in a Motel 6, hoping to get a decent night’s rest.  My plan was foiled by the rowdy kids next door who were desperately banging on the door+windows to get the attention of “Cynthia, you bitch!” most of the night.

Sunday morning I got my first look of the town in the daylight.  The very first car I saw on the road was a Maserati Coupe. Then I found out there was a Four Seasons ski lodge there.  This, on top of what I saw last night, was all starting to make sense now. Clearly there was a lot of yuppie ski dollars flowing into this place! I also realized why it’s called Jackson Hole: the entire town of Jackson is in a valley rimmed by mountains.

I had breakfast and wandered around the town square for a couple of hours. The “town square” area was really nice, almost out of a movie set. Being surrounded by mountains definitely helps!  I saw that there were quite a few higher end shops there, art galleries, jewelry stores, and restaurants.

There’s a certain stereotype of Wyoming people I established long ago, that of black felt hats and long duster coats.  Turns out that stereotype was pretty true, I saw lots of people walking around Jackson in black hats and long coats. I guess they’re pretty effective at staving off the chilly air while being fashionable in a west sort of way.  Once thing I noticed about WY, the “bucking horse and rider” icon was on practically every sign.  Texas has our Lone Star, they have their horse.

I calculated I needed to leave by 2 PM in order to reach Denver by 10, so I headed outside of town to see the Tetons.  I immediately saw the National Elk Refuge and was taken in by the scenery.  A couple miles down the road was an even bigger surprise, which was full on white capped mountains.  Magnificent.  This made the whole drive worthwhile.

The further I went, the more I liked what I saw.  It was chilly which added to the allure somehow.  There was always something new to take pictures of.  When I got to Moran Junction I entered the actual Grand Tetons National Park area.  This took me even closer to the mountains and right into the thick of the forest.  People were fly fishing in the water below the Jackson Dam, others were having lunch on the shore.  I saw several people out on bicycles and a few more on horseback.

I was in awe at how pretty all the scenery was.  I’m already plotting how I can go back for a week. I would love to go hike up a mountain or go horseback riding all afternoon. One thing I didn’t realize was that the major ski area is just over the pass in Teton Village. This will give me more to look at the next time I’m there.

After a full morning of sight seeing I left Jackson.  This also gave me the opportunity to see the pass in the daylight, what tried to kill me the morning before.  That night I stopped through Denver and had a cup of coffee with Steve to catch up.  I kept on going and spent the night at a rest stop near Pueblo.

Monday, May 31: At daylight I was up on the road again, making it to Austin at 10:30 PM. Denver to Austin in one day is quite a haul and this two hour head start from Pueblo didn’t make that much difference.  While I was thrilled to have seen so much beauty in Wyoming, I was equally glad that I was finished driving.  I wanted to kneel down and kiss the floor in my apartment!

The complete set of pictures are available on the Flickrs.

The numbers

Overall, it was 3,027 miles and 43 hours, 14 minutes of driving. This was by far my most ambitious weekend road trip ever and I don’t think I want to repeat it anytime soon. I’m definitely flying into JAC next time!

Unfortunately I learned that replacing the fuel pump is a more labor intensive job than I expected. They told me it’d be easier to take the bed off the truck to replace the pump rather than dropping the tank. I think it’d be even easier to take a Sawz-all to my bed.

Also, shut up woman, get on my horse.

I suspect it’s been dying for a while. Last summer I noticed I’d have a weak idle with similar symptoms whenever sitting at a light and the A/C compressor would kick on.

I went by A-Line and bought a remanufactured AC Delco unit. Swapping it was quick and easy, took less than an hour to do. Which was good, because it was 36 F outside.

I have a new apartment at Riata in the works. I originally didn’t consider it because my coworkers had me believe it was super expensive, but after actually checking it out, it wasn’t bad at all.

I had put down an application fee at another property, and was quite excited about it, but eventually started having second thoughts. I’ve gotten quite used to taking my bike out into the neighborhood here for casual after work cycling, the new place is on top of a bigger hill with no neighborhood access. Riata is flat, has some neighborhood, easy access to Parmer, problem solved.

The new new place should work out pretty well for medium distance cycling too. Sunday afternoon I drove Parmer to see where it would take me. Turns out it takes me 25 miles north over gently rolling hills, with little traffic (once beyond 620) and wide shoulders to nearly Lake Georgetown. Taking it all the way up to RR 2338, then west takes me to a little community called Andice. There and back would be about 60 miles. I haven’t figured out a good route afterwards, since riding along 183 is out of the question, and Hwy 29 isn’t much better. Ideally I’d like to find a 120 mile route up north.

The mechanics finally gave up on my truck after two weeks in the shop. They couldn’t cause a leak and gave me blessing to put radiator sealant in. I picked up some sealant tablets (GM branded, too) from Champion Chevrolet and dropped them in. It’s interesting, because the main ingredients listed on the pack are crushed walnut shells and ginger root. It seems to be working, as I’ve driven almost 3,000 miles and the coolant level hasn’t budged at all. This is even with my 800 miles of 75+ MPH driving to Oklahoma a couple of weekends ago in 100+ F weather.

I finally decided on buying a travel trailer. I had toyed with the idea of buying one a few weeks ago when I needed to rent one for Burning Man. I went as far as going to Buda to a couple of lots and checking them out. I didn’t know what to do with it outside of Burning Man, then realized I could totally rent a spot for it in west Texas and have it as a weekend getaway.

I really like the idea of having a trailer to tinker on, such as lining the roof with solar panels and wiring it up for a wind turbine. I figure 360 W of photovoltaic + 100 W of wind production is clearly a solution looking for a problem. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s feasible to generate the 160 A at 12 VDC to run a 13,500 BTU air conditioner with this.

So settled on the Puma 19 FS, which is a 20′ trailer with a bunk sleeper in the rear. Brand new they seem to be going for $16k, but I found at least one of last year’s model in Corpus for $10k. I need to find out where I can get a loan for that. Interestingly, people totally finance these things for 10-20 years. I guess if you just bought a $100k coach, that might be feasible.

Of all the times I’ve mentioned my trailer idea, more than once somebody has asked me “why don’t you get a popup?” I don’t really know where this comes from. Pop-ups are a horrible idea for BM. They’re tiny, and you’ll be spending a good amount of time inside for a solid week. Not only that, they’re made of clear vinyl and plastic. That’s begging to be a sweltering solar oven in the desert sun. I experienced this firsthand while on the lot in Buda in the middle of a hot Texas afternoon. They were the hottest things on the lot! Oddly, the Airstream trailers were pretty toasty too compared to the traditional trailers and 5th wheels. I decided this would be a good test to see what’d they’d be like with no A/C and no vents open, since it doesn’t get much hotter than here.

The truck has been in the shop all week and I’ve realized it’s a great way to save money and diet. All of a sudden, shopping and cheeseburgers are not convienient. Lots of bike riding in the meantime. This morning I feasted at Taco Shack and loaded my backpack full of groceries from Randalls. This afternoon I went for a cooker ride around the neighborhood. My weight is varying wildly, which I blame on the heat.

Things aren’t looking well for the truck. They still haven’t found the leak, but discovered cylinders on the same side of my busted O2 sensor is running hotter than the other. The concern now is that the initial lifter rattling is a sign that the engine has a sludge problem, due to coolant seeping in somewhere. Even if the leak is fixed, is it too late? We don’t know yet how bad it is, nor if it is recoverable.

I haven’t been able to decide what I want to do with it. I got a couple of quotes on new & used engines. A crate engine+install is around $4200, whereas a used engine with 41k miles is $2900 installed. I keep coming up with different numbers for replacing heads, could be anywhere from $1000 to $3000. At that point it’s worth the extra grand to put a new engine in.

Alternatively, I could just put that money toward buying a new one. I really, really do not want another truck payment. 2009 Silverados are $32k, wtf? 2007-2008s are still in the mid-$20s. I’ve pondered buying a 4WD Z71 if I did get another, since I’ve been in a few spots where that’d be handy. Ironically, I found a 2006 Z71 at a Mercedes/Lexus/Maserati dealer in Dallas that was a trade-in.

Right now I’m leaning toward a new engine, just to get it over with. If the shop comes back and says they can make it go away with a $1k head gasket replacement, that works for me!

I’m anti-vehicle this week. The bicycle is doing very well at getting me around. Unfortunately it takes careful effort to go someplace without being a sweaty, smelly mess. I have a horrible craving for a bacon cheeseburger at Roaring Fork or Trudy’s.

It’s been a busy past couple of weeks! Victoria visited me for a week, then the same day she left my sister and her friend arrived for another five days. Lots of running around and heavy eating. I’m glad to have had visitors, it’s a welcome change. Weather has finally settled down and it’s sunny out.

Between all of them we went to Fredericksberg, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, Congress ave bats, the capitol, UT tower, and many eating establishments in between.

I finally took my truck to the mechanic again to work on my mystery coolant leak and my usual basket of other problems. It’s to the point I’m putting in a half gallon every couple of weeks. I would think it’d be fairly obvious where it’s at, but no luck today. Really, I’m not any better off than I was. I need to have them fill it full of dye, put it in neutral, put a brick on the gas pedal and run it at 3 K RPM for a couple of hours.

He did point me to a TSB on that engine that describes a casting defect on cylinder heads built by Castech which is known to cause coolant leaks with no evidence. It claims in the oil drain holes a porous crack can develop, letting coolant weep out. To verify, it involves getting inside the valve covers. Once inside it should be pretty obvious from what I can tell. The telltale manufacturer’s name should be on the top, and there should be clean/shiny spots around the crack while the rest of the head is oil-stained. There could also be coalesced oil+coolant “butterscotch” everywhere.

There’s a few obvious problems with this. It’ll take a couple of hours of labor just to get into it to see if it’s even made by Castech. It may not even be the cylinder head, it could be a head gasket or intake manifold gasket. Any of these could be weeping at high temperatures and it burns off without a trace. Once in there, if it is identified to be a leaking head, that means new heads. Worse, the vented coolant could’ve corroded my rods and lifters.

From a previous estimate, I know replacing a head gasket would be 10 hours of labor+parts at $1100. Fine. New GM Goodwrench cylinder heads are $344 each, so that’s at least $1100+$688+gaskets+oil+more labor. If it involves rods and lifters, it gets ridicuously expensive. It takes 16 lifters, OEM are $11 each, AC Delco are $44 each. By my estimate, the worst case is around $4k in parts and labor.

The upside to the visit, he’s very convinced my lingering P0135 code is caused by a flaky replacement Bosch O2 sensor I put in. As soon as I walked into the parts store and said I wanted a new sensor, the guy said “you must’ve just failed an inspection.” I mentioned I was replacing a Bosch, and both of them audibly tsk’ed. So, one expensive new O2 sensor later, we’ll see what happens.

Two other interesting notes from today. They inspected my brakes, my pads were at 60% wear — and they’re original parts, 160k miles on them. I clearly don’t stop much. The other, I discovered GM actually makes coolant seal tablets. More interesting, they’re made from ginger root and walnut shells. There’s a couple of tech notes where they recommend this, they’re designed for DEXCOOL and aluminium engines. The only problem I can find is that they also recommend draining the coolant every 24k miles to help maintain the pH balance.

I’m certainly not a fan of cutting corners, but I’m very tempted to try the tabs for now. I’m still angry about my financing deal on this truck. I don’t want to give up on it yet by trading it in. The rest of the truck is in great condition. I may have to get my Maserati coupe sooner than I expected.

Took the truck to the shop and let my mechanic dink at it. Between an exhaust gas test and pressure test, no leak was found. When I first dropped it off, they suspected a head gasket leak but later couldn’t determine if that’s what caused it. While I was waiting, I called another recommended shop to get an estimate on a head gasket replacement. 12 hours labor, $1,100. Expensive, but surely it’d fix it.

Also had them check my O2 sensor. They cleared the code again ($80 for that privilege), by the time I got home it was back on. This sounds like a problem with cabling. In the end they recommended bringing it back so they could change the oil and carefully look for signs of coolant, and track down the wiring fault. I trust their work but need to try a friend’s outfit; I won’t have to travel across town to get there.

Each turkey sandwich I make costs $2.68 and provides about 340 calories. By the time I eat two of those and a taco in the morning, that’s about half the calories needed for my basal metabolic rate. I’ve added streching and strength training over the past few weeks to stave off muscle loss. Thus far regularlly I’m down to 168. I can’t remember the last time I was in the 160s.

Friday begins now.