Creature from Black Lake meets TBP???

So you know the cult classic movie The Creature from Black Lake? It was filmed South of of Fouke AR (Legend of Boggy Creek) in Oil City LA and funny enough I was given a copy of the ID of the buyers of T.B.P. and they live in Oil City Louisiana! Black Gold (Texas Tea) Black Lake and a new old Black Blazer in town. Just can’t get the Squatch out of a Squatch’n vehicle!!! LOL

Going …going……gone…..

The day had finally come for The Burnt Potato to depart, on and off for sale for months, a friend from work heard of it and said he wanted it. He came over on July 5th 2013 and helped finish swapping out starters as I had told him it had gotten hard to start but would still run ok with the old 2.8. It got done and it was still holding water I had put in it from 2 weeks earlier when some others looked at it. I think it may have still had a coolant leak from near the head but the 3.1 engine and spare parts went with it loaded up in the back. He pulled it home with his personal F450 wrecker truck and washed it up nice the next day and sent me a pic. He is reselling it to a another person. Not passing the folder on in this case. The blog will continue from time to time but minus one tater.

Just kidding !

I actually pulled the ad not long after listing her up for sale. First off, she had sat up a few months during a hard freeze and I think a freeze plug may have let go on the 2.8 because after cranking her up and moving parking spots  her temperature soared and I found all the radiator empty. I poured  water in and it quickly ran on the ground from the engine! I took this as a good sign to keep her and follow thru with the installation of the recently acquired 3.1 engine that is badly needed for any torque improvements I can get…. She will resurface on the trails sometime in 2013 fans ! LOL

Letting her go :(

Liking our 01 Suburban alot and just sold my little 95 red S10 yesterday. The guy riding with the buyer asked about the Blazer and wanted it pretty bad. I left a message with the buyer to tell his friend after thinking about it. Listed it today to see if others bite while I wait on Pedro… I still have a 91 Chevy 2500 454 truck I am keeping..

So many Chevy’s so little time and $$$

http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/cto/3521353890.html

Nearly 4 years and 30,000 miles later

Its coming up on the 4 year anniversary of the current chapter and about to surpass 30,000 miles I have put on her while still sporting the same engine that was in it when I got her.  We made it to Honobia this year as planned and some tough four wheeling on the K-Trail (Kiamichi) as well as several trips to my local area on Chambers Creek and the Trinity River. Here is a creek pic from our MABRC  Summer BBQ up in N.E. Oklahoma (Adair County).

2012 is here and so is TBP!

Been back driving the ole tater for a few months and been out and about 4 wheeling. Here’s a quick vid from last weekend.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150519561386453

Oklahoma!

This past weekend was wonderful, with great weather and trip in TBP to Beavers Bend State Park with my Dad and son. It was also a research outing with Mid-America Bigfoot Research Center and we had a awesome cabin to stay at my friend Will provided as our basecamp. It was the first time my Dad had been to Oklahoma in decades and he really enjoyed it. I went on several night hikes in the park and other research areas and had nice time. TBP did great as expected but I did push it too far with a hard ticking loose rocker I didn’t tighten when I should have and after dropping off Dad on the way home, the pushrod broke from all the abuse and made a lot of noise and ran like ass! Oops, my bad. I drove (limped) it home like that and easily fixed it the next morning with my spare parts. It’s running very smooth and quiet now thank goodness.

TBP Lives !!! Drove today and back on Insurance :)

Back in July when I got the good used transmission and stabbed it into the Blazer it was in our record heatwave and I lacked motivation to work on it. I finally bought the new clutch master cylinder  in September to take care of a leak in that hydraulic system and found that the clutch fork layed loose and something was wrong inside the bellhousing and I was pissed !!! 😦  Needless to say , I waited until the heatwave broke in October and today I left work early and proceeded to remove the shifters, driveshafts, transfer case and transmission so I could get to what was wrong. I found the clutch fork had come off the pivot ball and that was the problem. Got it back in place and reassembled the whole thing this afternoon, topped off the fluids and drove that sum beech !!!! YAAYYY!!!!  All is working good and quiet (I replaced the muffler and tailpipe in July)    Bring on Bigfoot 🙂

GREASE =PROGRESS

Finally something has trans-spired !!!

I was doing my usual cruise thru Craigslist yesterday looking for a good deal (for over a year) on a correct Borg Warner T5 5-speed trans for a 4×4 S10. I have been avoiding converting to automatic because it is not really what I wanted, the 5 speed makes this lil truck fun and somewhat rare.  Well, yesterday was my day! I saw a new ad from that morning and it was exactly what I wanted and it had the transfer case with it for $150. I called the guy and only had a $100 bill I could spare and he took the deal!  I rushed over there and picked it up. Turned out to be a low mileage pull-off from a ’88 model Blazer that had been in storage for a long time and seems to be in great shape. Didn’t even need a TC chain. Today,  I got it bolted up in place and just lack some minor finishing and a hot battery and the TBP lives again! Yay!!!  I do want to get a new grill, windshield and rear hatch gasket before I put it on insurance and get it inspected though. Bring on those Squatchy mountains of Honobia, OK this Fall!!

Lazy bum! Fix that truck!!!

I am speaking to myself of course! I have given so much thought and yearning to just get a good tranny behind the still good running 2.8liter but yet I can’t seem to motivate myself once I have time. Likely the automatic swap with the parts I have will happen first since the 4×4 specific BW T5 5-speed is quite thrashed. I did pull it off a while back, kinda hoping to just stick another one in from the junkyard but it hasn’t happened. It always seem lowest priority.  I do have an intersting future engine possibility, a free 1986 low hour 4.3 liter v6 Mercruiser rated 175 HP.  More powerful than a 3.4 liter  160 hp buildup but either a great upgrade to the 110 horsepower legend currently residing under the hood. Did I mention I also got to put  a new chain in the transfer case as well before it hits the road again…