97 Tahoe 4x4 2door

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PotentialTahoe

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Looking at Tahoe.
112K Miles
4wheel drive, clicks over when activated in LOW.
I haven't road driven it yet but starts up fine.
The leather seats are cracked, is there in inexpensive fix to this problem? Or replacment seats. It is missing the rear bench seat, does anyone know where I can pick one up at? Thanks.

What should I look for when road testing. Any potential problems with the 4x4 that I may need to look for? Any other sounds or leaks i.e. rear end tranny areas I need to look at. I am not mechanically inclined and I need help. Any incite would be much appreciated.
 

General Stalin

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Well, first how much is the person asking? If it's missing seats and the leather is crappy, that souns like a pain. Unless you find one cheap at a junkyard, those bench seats are not that cheap to replace as far as I know... especially with leather upholstery.

Mechanical inspection: before driving, pop the hood and check out the engine compartment. Look for any slicks of fluid stains (oils, coolant, whatever). Look around the seam of the intake manifold and around the thermostat housing. Sometimes these truck leak coolant form there. Check the seams around cylinder heads/valve covers. Make sure the gaskets aren't popped out and there are no signs of fluid leakage.

When looking under the car, first look at the pavement under the car real quick for any stains/puddles. Look under the engine/oild pan for any moisture or fluid drips. Check the back of the oil pan/front of the transmission. That is the rear main seal and higher mileage trucks like these sometimes end up leaking oild from that. if it was leaking from the rear main seal, you'd probably see a fairly obvious spread of moisture/fluid all on the back of the oil pan coming from above it. while you are under there, check out the condition of the fram and exhaust. Look for bad rust and any rusty spots, holes, or any sign of breakage in the exhaust system. You also generally want to look for any kind of fluid leaks. Vehicles should be tight as a drum as far as fluid is concerned. Nothing should leak (in a perfect world). At all. Check the brake lines, differential(s), axles. Try and use your best judgement. It should be pretty obvious what is just water/mud and what is actual oil, lubricant, or brake fluid or something.

Driving: When you go to drive it, before you move at all, keep it in park and press down the gas pedal a few times and check the brake pressure. Good brake pressure will make for a stiff pedal pretty early on. It should get stiff without pressing it too far to the floor. If the pedal feels kinda soft and has a considerable amount of travel, then the brake pressure is not that great. While still in park, push down the gas a bit and tach it up; check the smoothness of the engine. With no load on the engine, it SHOULD rev up very freely with no hesitation or stuttering. Now, with your foot on the break, put it into reverse, Neutral, Drive, 3, 2, 1, and then back the other way back to park; one at a time making sure the transmission engages the gears. I would suggest (if the car is not back up against a wall or something) to put it in reverse first and make sure reverse works fine. Either way, when you go to drive it, just pay attention to the tachometer and the sound of the engine when you are in drive. Make sure the transmission shifts smoothly and at a low RPM (this would be when you are driving smooth and calmly). When driving with gradual acceleration, these transmissions gear up at a low RPM. If you get to go on the highway, see how the acceleration is and mash it going on the on ramp. Going from like 30-40 mph steady speed to wide open throttle should make you trans downshift with considerable force, and it should get up to speed pretty quickly.

This is all assuming everything in the vehicle is basically stock. Hope I helped. I wish I knew last year what I know now, back when I was car shopping.
 

YukonMud

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Good Post General Stalin. After I do the above and everything look good and it test drove like expected then I would consider taking it to the dealer...they can catch things that an untrained eye might miss. But for $100 it is a good idea to insure that you think it is in good condition with a clean Carfax. That way you don't have to spend $100 for every vehicle you look at.
 

PotentialTahoe

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Back from the purchase,

I bought a 1999 2 door classic 4x4 (gov't vehicle) 127K miles today. I bought it from a small dealership here in Miami, it was sitting lonely in the back lot behind 50million other cars and trucks. First, the battery was dead, no big deal, got the jumper, cranked up, no hesitation. No bench seat in the back, just a spare tire. Vinyl bucket seats in the front. Pwr windows and locks work perfect. Driver side blinkers and tail light don't work at all. A/C makes loud noise when turned on sometimes. It comes from the passengerside floorboard, loud squelching noise. I didn't expect the a/c to work anyways. Has newer A/T MUD terrains on it so it was hard to judge its road smoothness. I got it up to 60 and it shook a little but I knew it was from the tires/alignment. Tires need to be balanced real bad. It was raining today, so I had no chance to check the fluids. I had the truck idling for atleasdt 45 minutes plus driving and putting it in 4H and 4L gears. I found interesting because it would only go into 4L when put in park and then the stick had to be pulled all the way down to 4H and then all the way back up into 4L before it would allow me to engage the 4L. Ok well I bought the truck for $1700 out the door, taxes and transfer included. The bottom and side marker front lights are all missing. All I have left there are the actual headlights. I need these lights to complete the look. I am not sure if they are the classic lights or non-classic. Here is the downside the the purchase, of course I didn't notice this until I left the lot witrh the bill of sale AS-IS. The brakes felt good at the lot but after about 30minutes of city driving, I get no brake pressure at all and very hard to get the brakes to stop me. Does anyone know how I can fix this inexpensively? I do not have any pictures yet but if someone could show me how to post then that would be wonderful, I can post some pictures.
 

General Stalin

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Ugh, sounds like you bought a piece of garbage. It's gone almost 130,000 miles in just like 9 years, which ios well above the factory average, and from all the crap you are saying about it missing seats, lights, and a nasty brake problem, plus alignment and tire issues, you are looking at a total money dump right off the batt. Plus you bought it "as is" so I don't even think you can return it at all. At least it was relatively cheap, though :eek:.
 

SmothZ71

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That would be an okay purchase for someone who is mechanically inclined - I may have bought it at that price after looking the entire vehicle over. But in your case, it sounds like an expensive proposition. Do you have any plans to do the work yourself? Six years ago I was a complete n00b to auto work. I'm not a master tech now by any means, but when I bought my first Jeep I learned that truck inside and out, did everything I possibly could on my own, gleaning knowledge from the factory service manuals(came with it) and forums when I was stuck on something. I could probably tear it down and rebuild it now with no problem, but I just sold it yesterday :cryin:
Hopefully you have a decent junkyard somewhere close by. At the least, go buy a Haynes manual, some tools, hit the junkyard and start stripping(the trucks, that is).
 

PotentialTahoe

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The truck will do me just fine. I just need it to pull my boat in and out of the boat ramp. I needed 4wd and thats what I got for 17 bills. I noticed now that when started it leaks oil from the front engine, but only when running. I am thinking it may be the oil sending unit. Well I am not going to fix any of these things, It will sit next to my boat at the marina and only run when I need to pull the boat in and out. 21' ANGLER CC. I would like to take it to good year to get the real horror story but it drives down the road and the egine is quiet and holds oil. Needs an oil change. I love all the positive feedback from this TAHOE forum. Thanks gentleman.
 

bayonnite

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how is it holding oil, if you said it leaks when running? sounds like its going to be IN THE WATER next to your boat soon!
 
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GMCYukalade

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don't let them fool ya 1,700 for a 2door.. not bad man.. i just bought a 4door same year model for $1500 has 214,000 and still runs great!
 

PotentialTahoe

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This vehicle may have been in a better shape if it weren't used as a police vehicle. I am surprised that the engine is so quiet and transmission shift so smoothly but yet the brakes are bad and it has an oil leak(coming from somewhere).
 

General Stalin

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$1700 IS a decent price for a fixer-upper. Are you sure it's oil leaking from the front of the engine? You'd have to get under the truck, get some acetone or some other hardcore fluid to clean and dry the front of the engine, and then let it run and see where the oil is coming from. Who knows, the block could be cracked, your oil pan seal could be gone in the front, your oil cooler (assuming it has one) could be leaking, or the coolant lines. Could be a real number of things. High miles aren't that bad as long as it was properly maintained. You just gotta keep in mind that these older trucks with high mileage ARE going to cost you along the line. Older vehicles with over 100,000 miles on them are just going to have problems, that's really all there is to it. Tranmission problems, differential problems, transfer case in 4x4's, brakes, etc. All those parts aren't built to last forever. These vehicles were made in the 90's, where driving well over 100,000 miles with the same vehicle was relatively new.
 

PotentialTahoe

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General,

I completely agree with you. The oil leak can probably wait to get fixed, I want to know how I need to go about diagnosing the brakes. Soft pedal period. My first assumption is the master cyclinder, which may or may not be bad, but could also be just a leaky brake line, which I am sure would be very hard to find without replacing all of them.
 

GMCYukalade

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If it was a police vehicle, it should have the 130MPH speedo in it as well, as far as brakes - check the back ones, - take the wheels, off, drums off, tighten the adjuster screw untill it is hard to put the drum back on, - also while your back there go ahead and check the brake cylinders make sure they aren't leaking... - finish that up, and test the brakes again.. if you still have soft pedal - bleed the brake system, start at the back pass. and work your way forward, back pass, back driver, front pass, front driver.. - if still you have a soft pedal - than you worry about the master cylinder etc
 

PotentialTahoe

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If it was a police vehicle, it should have the 130MPH speedo in it as well, as far as brakes - check the back ones, - take the wheels, off, drums off, tighten the adjuster screw untill it is hard to put the drum back on, - also while your back there go ahead and check the brake cylinders make sure they aren't leaking... - finish that up, and test the brakes again.. if you still have soft pedal - bleed the brake system, start at the back pass. and work your way forward, back pass, back driver, front pass, front driver.. - if still you have a soft pedal - than you worry about the master cylinder etc

Ok, I'm in, How do I start bleeding the brakes from the back passenger side first? I wanted to also let you know, I looked in the brake fluid resevoir this morning and it is BONE DRY. Do I need to add brake fluid to bleed the brake system first? Thanks. I wonder if there is a write-up on this here.
 

General Stalin

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Type it in on google "How to bleed brakes" you will find plenty of easy to follow how to's. Bleeding brakes is a fairly common enough practice that it is will documented, also it's a universal process.

http://www.wikihow.com/Bleed-Brakes

Can't get easier than that.
 

96ProCompTahoe

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if its empty, thats probably why you have a soft pedal. fill it up and then start bleeding the brakes. make sure you don't run the resevior dry, or you'll just put more air in the system and have to start over.

hopefully your bleeder screws will still move and weren't completely rusted to the calipers like mine were... haha
 

96ProCompTahoe

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well who knows how much air you have in the system if it was empty.

when we swapped the calipers on mine, i just picked up a bottle at napa, close to the size of a pop bottle and it was less than $5. didn't use much of it on mine, but you can always take it back if you pick up a couple and don't use one.
 

PotentialTahoe

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ok, do you have a picture of the caliper screw i am looking for to bleed out the brakes? I am also going to check out a haynes manual.
 

PotentialTahoe

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Ok, I found out where the oil leak is coming from. The engine block is fine, no leak that I can tell, Big leak coming from hose that appears to be coming from the front driver side area of the engine from a black metal boc that has metal a/c lines coming into it, but there is a rubber 1/2" hose coming to it that goes into the power steering pump. I don't know know what that hose is but I am taking it off today and getting a new one.
 
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