What did you do with your GMT400 today...or yesterday....

[Big T]

On the handles and rods for opening the doors:
We kept the handles in stock in the fleet. Diagnosed properly: the rod unbends itself. Then the handle maxes out. The common action is people pull the handle with fingers and that elbow gets used as a fulcrum to lever the door open. Quickly comes the bent handle.
One of the guys made a set of replacement handles from steel. The rods just kept un-bending and the problem continued. Ever notice on higher mileage the outside handle has to lift more than originally?

So the same guy who wanted something fixed once & never again got into the rods. Took them out after figuring the perfect shape to be in. Heated the bends with a torch and quenched them. Now they will never bend again. So we all watched him do it, then wondering about it… had him do the rod quench to rods on a driver door of a new truck for a rig that had extreme use- about 30,000 miles each a year (60k total), by a pair of hyperactive drivers that who were in and out of that door probably 40 times a day each shift. The handle still bent but it took a lot longer. Those two guys normally Got a new handle once a year. We didn’t have to replace that handle until a few months before selling the truck.

Idk if it’s worth the effort to pull one, quench it, then reinstall it. But if you already have one out…


Doug: just like all gm… get the locations from the manual and hit all the grounds when you get a shot. Put some No-lox on them while you’re at it to help a little bit.

What do you mean “quench”
It? Drop it in water?

 

[dbrannon79]

Quench means heat it red hot then quickly submerge in cool water.

 

[Will L.]

Yuppers. Get it red hot a couple inches past the bend in each direction then dunk in water to cool it superfast. This makes it hard and not bend as easily… or as I called it earlier unbend.