u/WeaveLikeGreatGranny

This spring I chipped off loose rust with a screwdriver and a scraper before brushing on Fluid Film. It looked pretty good for a while but yesterday I noticed some peeling rust on the fender and looked a little closer.

Come to find out, the deep-creep nature of fluid film actually loosens the rust flakes and paint with corrosion under it! I ended up re-scraping everything I did just 3 months ago. It actually looks way better now. The frame is smooth and there was even little spots of bare, gray metal poking through. So apparently fluid film is also a rust remover? Haha

To help out the next guy, I also wanted to mention that the best way I've found to get the loosened scale off is a combination of flathead screwdriver and a 2 cent air gun with a tiny metal nozzle and 120 psi. The air easily gets under the loose stuff and pops it off like a paint scraper with the added benefit of getting into tiny crevices, voids, and cup-shaped things like the lower trough of the frame rail, the rear axle shackles, and the hollow cross members.

Trigger warning to southern truck owners: the rusty frame in the photos is *after* both rounds of cleaning and before the second coat of fluid film. It looks bad in the photos but hopefully the metal that's left will stick around a while now the rust is gone and it'll be kept greased up. Minnesota is hard on stuff.

Today was the maiden voyage with the 10k dump trailer for my new 05 2500 6.0 after the transmission was rebuilt. It's 1.7 cords of tamarack half-log siding that went 80 miles to the customer.

Other than this truck, I've only owned a 06 1500 4.8 4L60 and... Things are different. The transmission mechanic is not good at communicating and comes off like he's gaslighting me when I ask how these things are supposed to work.

He says the gear whine/whistling I have after the rebuild is normal in 1st gear. I was able to find a forum post where others felt that way too. But... Why can every other 4 speed auto be designed to not make noise in 1st ​gear but not this one? Does it use straight cut gears or something? It feels like a cop out on his work if he can't tell me why. ​

Is it normal to have 3rd gear not lock up until at least 45 mph? The 4l60 would lock up at 30 for driving through town and let me shift between 3-4 above 45 mph while maintaining lockup and keeping temps low. It's wild to me that a transmission designed for heavy towing doesn't have lockup at any speed lower than 45, which is kind of a lot of my driving, between going through town and using lots of dirt roads.

Is it normal for a "low stall" torque converter to not even creep the vehicle forward at idle? I asked for that upgrade but right now it feels like it needs more throttle to get moving than my 06 half ton with the stock converter.

Any experience with HP tuners or something else that is capable of transmission tuning like changing the lockup behavior? Yes, it's working fine and not overheating but it _feels_ like a step backwards from my half ton, and the engine power feels like it really wakes up once the converter locks.

HEY, HOSS. I TOOK YOUR OVERBEARING ADVICE AND BOUGHT A 2500 FOR TOWING MY 10K DUMP TRAILER.

It's a rust free garage kept 2005 2500 4x4 6.0 with 90k I bought from Oregon while visiting family (I live in MN) for $15k

Needed a transmission right away. Mechanic said it was a factory defect where they rolled over an internal seal during assembly so all the rotating parts were lube and cooling starved. Needed a bunch of new hard parts due to wear.

On the way home, the driver side heater blend door got stuck in the hot position. Searched YouTube for advice, and one comment on a video recommended:

1. Key off

2. Hold throttle to the floor

3. Turn on key on for 1m 15s while keeping throttle held down

4. Turn off key

5. Continue holding throttle down 15s

I couldn't believe it, but this actually restored the blend door actuator movement. Works fine now!

Next adventure is figuring out why the brake controller I installed isn't recognizing the trailer. Hopefully it's not some major wiring debacle...

Anyway, thanks for all the input from the members on my post earlier ​this year explaining the benefits of the 2500s rather than just shouting that 4.8s can't tow. Because I still love that truck! That post is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GMT800/s/3Q3fZi6aRZ

I am weaving with wool yarn I got from an estate sale that had been in storage for an unknown number of years with mothballs added to the box for mouse deterrent. The yarn is in good shape still but the cones only smell faintly of mothballs so I thought it would be good to go after washing... But when I washed the shawl, the smell got a lot stronger once the wool got wet! 😩 The small sample I did didn't smell once it dried, but I'm worried the much larger shawl will be worse. And I don't want to smell like mothballs if I wear it in the rain 😒

I used a lightly scented dish soap for the fulling/washing but wondering if anyone has tips for eliminating the odor?

I'm beginning to do a bit of towing with this and want to make sure I don't cook the transmission. It came with only the heat exchanger in the radiator and am looking for a large auxiliary cooler to help with summer work. However, as you can see in the picture, lots of miles are also going on in the winter.

Right now, I'm thinking: giant Tru-cool 40k as the only cooler coupled with a 180 degree inline thermostat.

The reason I want to bypass the stock radiator is because, in the winter, the cold side of the radiator is very cold at highway speeds regardless of engine load. The trans pan temp sender would only occasionally read *over 100F* when cold out. Towing 10k at hwy speed at -10F results in a fluid temp of under 120F, and I hear that's not good either. ​

I'm wondering if the 4L60-E has some other thermostat that I should be checking on and replacing rather than buying an external one for $70. And if anyone has thoughts on transmission sump temperatures vs whatever temperature might exist somewhere else at the same time. I'm also thinking about moving the temp sender to the hot line of the trans cooler to keep better tabs on what's happening in real time.

We will be planting buckwheat as a cover crop into newly tilled sod for future market garden beds. Is this something we can allow the goats to access as forage at any point in the growth cycle? I searched the reddit for this but the algorithm only found posts related to "buck"s or "wheat" haha