Looks like I lost my truck to a distracted driver

Thanks, the bed is 6.5 feet. That year had 5.75, 6.5 and 8 so mine is in the middle.

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You dodged a bullet. We have six Chevy Colorados in our work fleet, and our fleet mechanic constantly complains about their build quality and about the quality of the parts used on them. I can’t repeat his exact words here when describing the Colorado.

This particular mechanic says similar things about the Nissan Frontier, but we don’t have any of those in our fleet, so his opinion on that is not nearly as informed. I’d be willing to consider a Frontier, but knowing what I know about the Colorado, I’d stay away.

Plus from a previous thread we know that the Colorado’s “mud flaps” are “mistakenly” located in front of the rear wheels. LOL

They are called wheel spats, found on many vehicles.

I know they are aero devices. My Kia Forte has them. I was unaware they actually had a name. My LOL was for OP of the thread who thought they were incorrectly mounted mud flaps.

He wouldn’t be the first person who came to the wrong conclusion about his car’s equipment, and he surely won’t be the last. Several years ago, somebody posted a question on the Outback.org website regarding the clear plastic appliques that he had removed from one corner of his rear doors.

Unfortunately, he concluded that they were superfluous–and removed them–before asking about their purpose.

Yes, you guessed it
They were gravel guards.
:confused:

Well there had to be a glitch, a brake line sprung a pinhole leak. And now I remember why I hate GM vehicles. Is there anything that should be easy to do on a GM vehicle that they haven’t done their absolute best to make impossible?

I started removing the line, there are three looms that four lines running parallel go through along the frame under the truck. Should be easy right? The looms and the lines were installed to the frame rails before the body was installed (they had to be). They clip on top, between the frame rails and the body. Who’s the genius who designed this?

All the places along the frame rail that the ABS module could be mounted, they chose directly across from the widest part of the transfer case so there is no place to swing a wrench for removing the nipples from the module. This took some real forethought, you couldn’t screw this up this badly by accident.

But on the way home today, someone landed a Piper Aero Turbo on the highway at the end of my road. No damage, good landing, messed up traffic though. Every cop and fireman from three counties at the scene.

I have the same opinion about Fords. Are there any modern vehicles with easy access components? I remember changing alternators on a Taurus and a Corsica. They were right on top of the engine and should have been easy to remove. Nope. You need an offset wrench to get at one or more bolts to get it off.

I got the lines out today. To put new pre-bent lines in place does require that the body be lifted off the frame. I found a brake line supplier that sends pre-bent lines but the line in question, they make in 4 sections so the body won’t need to be lifted. Full set of lines runs $170.

Now I understand why it costs over $1000 to replace the lines in some vehicles. Any mechanic that tackles this job is earning every penny.

Ever change a radiator? Easy huh? Just disconnect everything and pop it out the top. Except on an Aurora, it has to come out the bottom. Thats not something you do in your garage cause there’s no way to get the front end high enough to get it out. Must not have been too bad on a lift though because I don’t think they charged a gigantic amount.

Wings gotta come off to trailer it back to the shop. I always wondered how they do that. Nice country though.

I got a pleasant surprise yesterday. My insurance company called and told me that my truck had a residual value of over $2900 before the accident, but it is considered a total. The cut me a check against my uninsured motorist minus the $200 deductible. Didn’t expect that.

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So what are you going to do now?

Fortunately, there is no rule saying you have to run the new brake lines using the same route as the originals.

But how much would you want to deviate from the original route . . . ?

And please give me some concrete examples of why you’d want to deviate

Such as . . . to avoid the exhaust, to somehow shorten the overall length of the brake line, etc.

I’d want to deviate from the original route for the sole purpose of reducing labor and unnecessary disassembly/reassembly. Having never performed this particular repair before, I’m basing my knowledge and this idea on having seen someone do it this way on some automotive repair show I probably watched a decade or more ago.

fair enough

New lines in, bled system, all is fine now.

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