richard310
pew pew
Nicely built rig so far! Looks like a lot of work and love went into this truck. Although, it's looking too clean. Get some dirt on them tires! :safari-rig:
1995 Chevy Tahoe 4X4 - Adventure Rig Build
- Thread starter Chevrolado
- Start date
Chevrolado
Cruisin'
hah thank you! Yes.. I agree. Its been way too clean. hah However, as you know, our neck of the "woods" doesn't really yield too many easy access to offroading locations. hah.
I'm just now finally feeling pretty solid on how its running that I would chance driving it a longer distance to hit some sort of trails or something. Hopefully soon it'll get its feet dirty.Thanks for the kind words.
justcuz
Explorer
You could do a short day trip over the 74 from your house, putter around Temecula's back roads, hit the Rainbow Cafe for dinner and go home the 78 to the 5. If your confident with the Tahoe now, start using it!
Temecula's has some interesting spots to explore west of the 15. Some dirt too!
Temecula's has some interesting spots to explore west of the 15. Some dirt too!
deerkiller
New member
Subscribed.
Sent from my LGL86C using Tapatalk
Sent from my LGL86C using Tapatalk
Chevrolado
Cruisin'
Well, this weekend it got to stretch it's legs for the first time.. Put about 400 miles on it running up to central coast CA to visit my family.
The first 170 miles north was bogged down in heavy traffic and I wasn't happy with how it felt on the big hills. Averaged just shy of 11mpgs. Ouch.
On the way back home on the 170 mile stretch, I didn't hit any traffic and was able to stay a steady 70mph most the way. Got 14.4mpgs. Better. Not fantastic, but I can live with it.
My general unhappiness though right now lies in 4th gear, under load, uphill traveling. The kick down is too late and the motor starts pinging as I slowly accelerate more and more to keep at a steady pace. So to avoid that, I was either manually downshifting to 3 on the column, or I'd tap the brakes real fast to trick the torque converter into unlocking for acceleration.
Aside from that though.. Temps stayed decent, tires ran smooth, and I successfully made the round trip. little victories here and there are slowly building my trust back in the vehicle.
The first 170 miles north was bogged down in heavy traffic and I wasn't happy with how it felt on the big hills. Averaged just shy of 11mpgs. Ouch.
On the way back home on the 170 mile stretch, I didn't hit any traffic and was able to stay a steady 70mph most the way. Got 14.4mpgs. Better. Not fantastic, but I can live with it.
My general unhappiness though right now lies in 4th gear, under load, uphill traveling. The kick down is too late and the motor starts pinging as I slowly accelerate more and more to keep at a steady pace. So to avoid that, I was either manually downshifting to 3 on the column, or I'd tap the brakes real fast to trick the torque converter into unlocking for acceleration.
Aside from that though.. Temps stayed decent, tires ran smooth, and I successfully made the round trip.
little victories here and there are slowly building my trust back in the vehicle.
Chevrolado
Cruisin'
Chevrolado
Cruisin'
hah thanks Chilli. It will.
On the terms of an update... (and other CA modified rig drivers will understand my excitement) This month I received my registration renewal which included the dreaded STAR Certified SMOG Check Required. Dun dun dunnnnnn... Will it pass? With all the strange bugs, the weird hiccups, the terrible gas mileage, the weird shifting..?
Well.. long story short, it WOULD've failed because the pressurized EVAP test failed initially. But luckily the guy running the machine for me did a quick run through of things and found I had a deteriorated rubber hose connecting to my EVAP canister. So he tore that off and snipped a new piece and replaced it and sure enough, passed fine. All the numbers were reasonable and everything turned out fine!
So stoked. Also, it could be a placebo effect from knowing he fixed somethin, but I could swear as I drove it around yesterday after the test that it is running much better and more responsive. hah. We'll see how the fuel consumption goes now with this change to the system.
BBslider001
Diesel Head
Good for you Dave. It definitely should run better and get better mileage with that piece replaced.
Chevrolado
Cruisin'
Yeah, man. I definitely notice a difference.. and to add on to all this.. took it for another small road trip this past weekend. ~275 more miles on the odometer now and I have to say, this was my favorite trip I've had in it so far.
I'm running 91 octane still, and with this new EVAP vacuum hose helping the efficiency of the thing, I can actually feel the difference in the way it runs. Its slightly more responsive and the BEST part is that I didn't experience any pinging this trip. And there is even a portion of this drive (headed from the beach cities out into the desert of Palm Springs) that is a mountain pass area. I would set my cruise control and when I hit an incline, the motor would actually downshift the way it should without pinging and just ran fairly well! I'm like 90% happy with it.
The issue I need to work on now is controlling the engine temp. Since I was driving out into the desert (it was about 100* out there this weekend), I got stuck in a HUGE amount of traffic in the middle of the day on Saturday afternoon.. after about 20 minutes of creeping along in 96-100* sun beating down, surrounded by 4 lanes of stopped vehicles.. it was running REALLY warm. It usually sits at the 210 mark on the gauge... and as long as I was moving in the heat, it would be about 215-220.. but as soon as I slowed to an idle...
Aside from that though, I was happy with the way it ran for the trip. I was able to make the whole trek on little more than 3/4's a tank.. So I'll need to get gas in a day or two and Ill see what kind of consumption it is getting.
Last edited:
Chevrolado
Cruisin'
Coolant has 2,000 miles on it. New water pump in at the same time as well. Both were replaced back at 175k miles. Currently rolled over 177k on my drive back from the trip to the desert.
It keeps good temp in stop and go traffic every day. It only went up this high when I was out in the middle of a traffic jam in 95* air temp. So I'm thinking it's all in the fact that my little ol stock radiator and stock fan cant generate enough cool air from the warm temps to keep the aluminum heads normal temp.
I'm currently exploring what it will take to change over the stock fan setup to a better CFM electric fan to keep everything cool.
Oh and just to state, since I said I would update once the numbers were in, it got 12.3 MPGs on the desert trip in gross traffic on the way out and bad headwinds on the way back. Not fantastic.. but it could've been worse. hah.
justcuz
Explorer
I bet it is your fan clutch. They are cheap for that application and easy to install. Also while you have the upper fan shroud off, drill a 3/8 hole in the middle of the lower fan shroud next to the lip by the engine. It will allow any moisture collected while driving in wet weather to drain out of the fan shroud. You would be surprised how much moisture comes through the radiator in wet weather.