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There’s no such thing as “too much garage”.
A lot of DIY places, like Home Depot, sell garage packages. Hire a contractor to put it together. Additional design features to consider would be plumbing for at least cold water and a large wash tub, (hot water and a toilet are even better), wiring for 220 volts, a whole-shop compressed air system, insulation and heating if winters are an issue, and plenty of head room for your hoist. Also, a taller than standard garage door will be a benefit.
For a slab-on-grade structure, make sure the gravel base and concrete pad are over-engineered. Stay away from minimum specs/requirements. Foundation is everything. You can’t build a reliable structure on a poor foundation.
The first thing to do would be to sort out your ignition wires. Double and triple check to make sure.
As for the hole in the battery case, make sure you aren’t over-tightening the battery hold-down clamps/brackets, especially if they are the “over the top of the battery” type.
Your ignition issues or the starter shouldn’t cause the battery to fail in this way. Just about the only way I know of to “blow” a battery is to seriously overcharge it. And that will cause acrid fumes and plenty of smoking long before the battery case cracks. It might happen a lot quicker if you were overcharging/boosting a frozen battery, but I doubt you’re posting from Antarctica.
I was going to say that this looks like a classic case of penetrating oil, a bit of heat, and an impact driver. But since the bolt heads are buggered to the point where a socket doesn’t fit snugly anymore, it looks like it’s time for Vise-Grips and profanity. You could try catching one of the flats with a chisel and hammer-turn the bolts out, but in your particular application, those threads are probably seized tighter than an amphibian’s sphincter, and it’s very likely that the heads will break off, no matter which method you try. The combination of steel bolts, an aluminum heat shield and an iron manifold is bad news when it comes to taking them apart.
Here’s another weird possibility out of left field.
A neighbor once pushed his FWD car into my driveway, complaining of clutch problems. Turns out one of the outer CV joints was catastrophically shot. Engine running, transmission in gear, no motion but accompanied with hammering sounds matched to engine speed. Looked underneath the car, and the axle shaft was rotating but the wheel wasn’t. I guess the diff was sending all of the torque to the axle that was easiest to turn.
My thinking is that the clutch is always engaged except when you depress the clutch pedal. It’s heavily spring loaded towards the engaged position, that’s its natural state. I can’t see how a clutch would fail and remain in the disengaged position. Doesn’t seem mechanically possible to me.
Making several assumptions here: 1). Clutch is engaged normally, and 2). Friction surfaces of clutch are still good and capable of transmitting force.
If those conditions are true, it tells me there’s no output from your gearbox. Or the splines of your gearbox shaft, or the splines of your clutch center are stripped.
Just occurred to me that it may not be clutch/gearbox at all, but the differential. Anyway, everything I’ve mentioned is really robust, among the toughest components on any vehicle, and really require a lot of abuse to fail intsantly, or some rare bizarre freak failure.
Was the clutch flakey or slipping before this occurred? If the clutch worked well previously, I doubt it would go 100% frictionless in an instant.
From what you describe, it sounds to me like you don’t have any output from the gearbox. Being able to engage the gears doesn’t really eliminate gearbox failure. Then again, maybe I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying.
I’m not an expert, but it doesn’t sound like a clutch problem. I’d say you broke something inside the gearbox.
Two main options: Repair your gearbox, or replace it with a salvage unit.
I’d say you’re at the point where the heads need to come off and take a look inside. Could be anything. I’ve seen engines that had a fist-sized hole in a piston crown and still managed to produce readings on a compression gauge in that cylinder.
The good news is that you’re working on a simple piece of old Detroit iron and there’s so much free space in the engine bay you can swing a cat by the tail without hitting the fenders. Much easier to work on than one of today’s shrink-wrapped packages.
Honestly, if want the best results on something like this, I’d consider a complete engine rebuild. I hope this is your hobby truck, and not your daily driver.
You say the whole vehicle shakes. Does the steering wheel itself shake or shimmy quickly left & right when this happens? (The sensation I’m going for is like the feeling of someone trying to fight you for control of the steering wheel.) Also, are there any unusual noises when this happens, like popping, clicking or knocking sounds?
Another thought from left field. Perhaps it isn’t your ABS at all, but a condition where your brake discs aren’t shedding water effectively. Are your pads slotted or drilled, and are your splash shields in good shape?
1/2 ton trucks ride pretty well as it is, and for many people they’ve become the family Cadillac. If you think the ride is rough and clunky, I’d look at the shocks and tires to begin with. Shocks don’t have to show signs of leakage for them to be bad and worn out. And if you’re running tires that aspire to be an off-road tread pattern, you’re in for a harsher ride.
Another thing to consider is all the suspension bushings. A visual check isn’t really definitive when it comes to assessing them. Worn bushings can look good.
Honestly, if everything checks out OK and you need this truck as a beast of burden working truck, you might have to put up with the harsher ride. If it’s your grocery-getter, maybe it isn’t the right vehicle for the job.
Assuming your ABS is working properly, it might be that your tires are in really bad shape. When braking, there’s a forward weight transfer which unloads the rear wheels, alowing them to lock up easily if the tires are pretty bald and the road is wet. It doesn’t take much.
No need to remove the master cylinder for bleeding. You can disconnect the regular brake lines at the cylinder and fabricate some short bleeder lines that attach to the master cylinder and curve up and over the mc and end below the fluid level inside the reservoirs. Pump the pedal until the fluid flows clear without bubbles. Then quickly reconnect the regular brake lines and bleed at the calipers and wheel cylinders. It’s a bit of extra expense, time and work, though.
Like Fopeano said, you can usually just bleed a completely dry system normally with good results. It just takes a while for air at the mc to work along the full length of a brake line to reach the wheel bleeders.
A quick first step would be to look for coolant and oil cross-contamination. Check the dipstick to see if there’s any whitish/cream-colored froth on it. Also, with the engine cold, open the rad cap and look inside the rad, stick a finger in there and look for gunk.
Some engines also require that the intake manifold be retorqued with the engine at operating temperature. That might be worth a try before you start taking things apart again. Just make sure you have the torque values correct and are torquing the fasteners in the proper pattern.
When torquing a series of fasteners, it’s a good idea to torque them down in progressive stages. Following the proper pattern, torque them all to 1/3 of the final value, then go over them again at 2/3 value, then finish off at 100%.
Hope this helps and avoids catastrophe for you.
When you were farting around with thread chasers, broken tools, drills, metal chips, frustration and profanity, you did block the intake ports and coolant passages in the head with rags, didn’t you? Please say you did…or just nod your head quietly…
Also, could be that the torquing went wrong and you’ve got a coolant leak into the combustion chambers.