[Blasirl]

same here..used all the available spots, just nowhere to bolt it up to where it kinda bulges

I kind of think that is better as it is farther (further?) away from the exhaust except for the flap on the right of the rear of the opening. Less melted stuff.

 

[sparkman]

Trunk bar looks really good, it's really close to the OEM color.

 

[Blasirl]

Trunk bar looks really good, it's really close to the OEM color.

Thanks, I really got lucky as that is the only red Plasti-dip color I found. Now if I could only find some touch-up that actually matches my car...

 

[Blasirl]

I added to my Cruze tool collection today:

 

[Blasirl]

I finally found the time to thoroughly clean and install the LTZ gauge cluster I bought from xbazzarex.


While it was in pretty good shape, it was extremely dirty. I disassembled the unit into its multiple pieces and started by using a clean parts brush to dislodge most of the dirt. Then I took it to the shower and sprayed it with hot water. Once I felt it was clean, I used my air compressor to blow it dry. I then cleaned the lens with glass cleaner. I considered using either olive oil or baby oil on the lense, but I was afraid it would sour inside the cluster. I may try it on the outside later.

This picture is the sequence of the parts.

At first, before I actually took the unit apart, I thought the chrome ring and the clear lense were the parts I need, but I discovered I was mistaken. The smoked piece on the left as well as the chrome ring were what I needed.

I found that most of the "How To" threads omit a bunch of details. One thing I discovered was the small clips holding the flap (not sure what it's called) that covers the steering column are easily undone using a small screwdriver or two.

I also realized that this is a job to do when you are not in a hurry, agitated or in need of the commode. All of the little clips are very fragile. This made me stop and really make sure that the clips are in the right place and ready to be re-engaged.

Here is a before and after of the completed install.

EDIT: Some related links:
How To Remove Instrument Panel(Cluster) For Cleaning
How-To: Upgraded Instrument Cluster

 

[Blasirl]

Recently ordered new filters from Rock Auto and discovered something after changing my filter

I discovered that WIX makes a private label filter for CarQuest

 

[Blasirl]

Last week the DIC had the padlocked Cruze body and a P0171 code after the car had sat for a week while I was on vacation. For some reason the car would not release my key until I went through the process of turning it on and off while slightly turning the steering, hitting the brakes and trying the shifter occasionally. The battery had died as well (I had a flat too, but that doesn't affect the engine too much.) After jumping the car, all seemed normal except for the dash lites.

Blurry padlocked Cruze symbol

I had also been having issues with the coolant leaking ever since the water pump had been replaced. So, driving around on a donut, breathing antifreeze with a christmas tree on the dash just didn't put me in much of a Christmas Spirit.

I dropped off the car with my favorite mechanic and just said fix it. I had to drive the Children's hospital to visit my daughter and just wanted to go. So, he changed the water outlet and added some coolant. He hard reset the electrical system as while it was in his possession, the interior of the windshield frosted (windows were closed) and the HVAC system decided not to work. and am monitoring the codes for now.

EDIT:

My good friends check Stabilitrack and power Steering are back. I have to see what the codes are later. 73100 miles 11DEC18

 

[Blasirl]

The two CELs went away and things were good until three days ago. Another CEL. I did not have my reader setup and kept going. Parked for a day and when I restarted, CEL was gone. When I get a chance, probably in a few more days, I'll check for all of them to see what they are / were.

Two days ago I hit the big 75,000. so far so good. My wife took the Bomb for a ride, came back and told me the radio now works. I haven't yet really tested it to see if indeed I get more than 1 station, but will also do that on the way home tonight. Was kind of brain dead this morning.

 

[Blasirl]

P0171 last week, this past Friday and now again today. They show up and go away.

A code P0171 may mean that one or more of the following has happened: The MAF (Mass Air Flow) Sensor is dirty or faulty Note: The use of "oiled" air filters may cause the MAF to become dirty if the filter is over-oiled.
There is also an issue with some vehicles where the MAF sensors leak the silicone potting material used to protect the circuitry.
There could be a vacuum leak downstream of the MAF sensor Possible cracked vacuum or PCV line/connection
Faulty or stuck open PCV valve Failed or faulty oxygen sensor (bank 1, sensor 1)
Sticking/plugged or failed fuel injector
Low fuel pressure (possible plugged/dirty fuel filter!)
Exhaust leak between engine and first oxygen sensor

Read more at: https://www.obd-codes.com/p0171

I'm hoping it is just a dirty MAF.

 

[Blasirl]

Boy, potholes are killing my car. I now have a metallic clunk on what seems to be the drivers side. Is is intermittant, but definite. I cannot see anything except some wire mess/screen coming off of the exhaust. I'm hoping to get some good weather so I can jack the car up and have a looky lou. I might get in trouble for this, but...

EDIT: I have discovered that the sway bar was the culprit. I added Whiteline sway bar end links for the cure.

 

[Blasirl]

I am looking forward to changing the snows out for my pure contacts, a thorough cleaning and swapping in my Hot-wheels steering wheel soooon!


what-did-you-do-your-cruze-today

 

[Blasirl]

I discovered an LKQ pick n pull yard not too far from my house and a few weeks ago made my first trip there. I was able to get a bunch of parts I wanted to be able to put my Cruze back to stock if I needed to. I picked up a key surround, a center top junk box, a spare steering wheel bolt, a drivers door wiring harness, a center console harness, two tail light harnesses, a couple of positive battery cables, a ton of fuses and relays and finally, ECO panels and all of the fasteners for all three panels all from an ECO - the two rims left on it were trashed so no go on those. I found about ten Cruzes and most were LTs.

I found a 2LT that had a leather interior and started to take it out. For the price I could not pass it up. I was able to get the passenger seat out, but I did not know how to disconnect the seat belt and not wanting to ruin anything. I left it. I also picked up some rims for my daughters Cobalt as well as a trunk lid liner and a spoiler.

I went back eight days later expecting the leather seats to be gone, but they were still there. I had looked at how to remove the seat belts before I went back and did that right away. I did not however look well enough to see how the spring release on the rear seats worked. After about two hours of trying, I took out the sawzall and brute forced them out. The front seat was powered almost all the way back so I went out to my Cruze and pulled the battery and grabbed some wires. (I discovered the Blue Fungus was back - I must have a parasitic draw somewhere)

I tried everything to find a connection to power up the main harness. The front end was in terrible shape and I ended up not being able to power it up. I thought, "well, I made it this far, I'll strip the covers off, leave the frame and use mine." Well, that did not go as I thought it would either. I was able to remove the head rest cover only. The head rest would not come out. I had forgotten about the coat hanger trick. As I was about to leave, someone walked by and I asked if they had a minute. I held the push button in and we both pulled up. It gave way and I now had a complete headrest although it was stripped.

As I had already had the leather off the seat, but still captured by the head rest wells, I had a new challange. I stared into the wells until I went blind trying to figure out how to operate the releases. Closing time was coming so I pulled out the big guns again. I pulled them out with a pair of Channel Locks. Even with them out, I still could not figure out how to peaceably remove them. Now the leather seat back came right of as well as the heated seat pad. I was out of time so I had to leave the seat bottom intact.

View attachment 270569 This may not be the original pic

I was able to talk my son into coming with me about 9 days later. Guess what, The lone seat was still there. This time I brought a few DeWalt batteries fully charged and some wires with connectors for the batteries. My son stuck his head into the glass lined floor andproceeded to directly hot wire all of the motors. He would have been happy to only do the one needed to move the seat forward, but you know Murphy...

Whle he did that, I removed what looked like a decent intake manifold, an intact MAF, the body side drivers door main connector (someone who only took the outside mirror painted panels busted out the window as the door would not open and trashed the door panels and actually the mirrors as well - some people) and some other odds and ends I thought might come in handy. Eureka, he got it. I moved in with the breaker bar and removed the seat bolts and seat, I also snipped out the body side connector in case I needed to harvest some pins. All in all it was a good day, I had lunch with my son and scored some leather sets!

I finally consolidated the power heated leather seats from the 2012 2LT in my garage. As I said earlier, the drivers was stripped apart because I thought I would not be able to get the motor to run to move the seat off of the floor bolts to remove them. I figured half a seat was better than no seat. So I set forth to try and repatriate the leathers back to the seat. It took me about an hour as the zippers are extremely tricky to get started without tearing the stiching apart. I found the headrest was much easier to recover if you roll the leather between 1/3 and 1/2 back on itself. Do not pull on the small side tabs though, the stiching will come right out.
Except for the wells, this is the reconstituted drivers seat.

Now to install them

 

[Blasirl]

Yesterday I did some spring cleaning - installed some new mud flaps and cleaned up the engine bay. I was going to wash her today, but it rained instead.

here is a broken flap

Broke the lugs

jacked her up View attachment 270579

Cleaned off the area and found that the flaps rub the paint off. Good thing the panel is plastic.



After installing the rears, I decided I might as well put the fronts on. Not sure why, but I originally choose not to do this when I installed the first set.
You have to remove the plastic rivnut from inside the wheel well, and also from under the door sill. You can kind of see the hole in the shroud. I ended up using a panel nut and one of the screws that came with the flaps as the hole in the flap was too small and I did not want to weaken it any more than it already was. I also just screwed a second screw into the wheel well shroud. Not the best, but we will see.
[

ATTACH]270985[/ATTACH]

This is a front flap installed

This is some of the hardware

As I finished each end of the vehicle, I torqued the lugs to 100 ft-lbs. View attachment 270585

Cleaned the engine bay up a bit.

#991 78286

 

[Blasirl]

How I swapped in power seats

I acquired my leathers seats (I’ll refer to these as the new seats) a few weeks ago, ordered new headrest sockets and gathered all my tools.

I disconnected the battery using a 10mm socket and 3/8” ratchet.
I opened the driver’s door and used a razor to gently pry the cover on the seat belt connection open and then used my seal puller to open it all the way. No marks were left. I used just the pick on one at LKQ and it left a small divot.

I then used the same 10mm socket and ratchet to unthread the bolt holding the belt together. After what seemed like a long time ratcheting, I checked to see why it was not coming out. I forgot this bolt is held in by a friction washer, so the next time I checked sooner.

After disconnecting the belt, I put the cover back on and closed the cap so I would not lose or break it. These can be rebuilt – more on that later.
I then moved the seat (the old seats) all the way forward. I discovered later that I should have raised it all the way up as well.

Through the back door, I used my articulated ratchet along with a ½” to 3/8” adapter and the largest Torx bit from my Harbor Freight kit to break the front seat bolts loose. A short, but beefy ½” drive ratchet with a pipe nipple for a sliding cheater was my other choice. I now know why the Torx bits were on sale. They all are marked 3/8 for the ratchet size and nothing for the Torx size.

I used my impact with a socket adapter and the Torx bit to remove them after breaking them loose. The impact was not strong enough to loosen them.
Once the bolts are out, I used my knees to push the seat up and forward and grabbed the slide rails with my hands and pulled back about 1-2 inches until the front hooks released.

I set the seat down, got out and went to the driver’s door. I used a rawhide mallet to hold the seat up so I could disconnect the umbilical cord. First, I flipped the trap door open.

I then found the tab used to lever out the connector.

I levered out the locking device and the plug came right out. I pulled the mallet out and set the seat back down.

I got out and should have put the seat all the way back, but I didn’t, and I struggled to get the seat out the front door. The passenger side I remembered to put the seat back and I took it out the back door. Much easier.

With both drivers’ seats (old and new) out and lying on their sides, I started on the new seat as these had blown seat belt tensioners.

I am going to describe this as if the seats are in the normal position even though I have them lying on their sides. I found that if I grabbed the tensioner cover plastic about 2/3rd’s of the way towards the front and with my fingers between it and the seat, twist and lift upwards while at the same time, using my other hand to push the front of the plastic piece up and also towards the front (forgot to take a picture of this), it will start to pivot off up and towards the back of the seat.

 

[Blasirl]

How I Swapped in Power Seats part 2

Now, using the same Torx bit and my long breaker bar, I broke the silver bolt loose. Again, I used the impact to finish the removal process.

Now to remove the wiring. I found that the clips used to hold the harness to the frame differed between the 2014 Lt and the 2012 2LT donor. The 2LT metal teeth clips needed to be helped along with a small flat tip screwdriver. Think shark bite. The LT clips were easy snap on/off types.
The plug for the harness was a bit tricky to figure out. Find the red tab and pull it out fully.

There is a small tab that then needs to be squeezed to separate the plug.

I ended up disconnecting the black push in clip so I could see how this worked. I used my little flat tip to lift the capture loop and slid it off. I removed it altogether from the seat to get this picture of it.

I set the tensioner aside for the moment.

Rinsed and repeated on the old seat. I then took the tensioner from the old seat and installed it on the new seat. You should use blue Loctite on the bolt, but used red as that is what I had on hand. It may be a mistake as red is supposed to be permanent. I torqued the bolt to 33ft-lbs using my torque wrench, the adapter and the Torx bit.

I then reinstalled the better looking of the two plastic covers. (Remembering that they are left and right handed.) I then put the blown one from the new seat back on the old seat. I did not use thread locker nor did I reattach the harness thinking that if I ever changed back to stock or possibly sold the stock seats, someone would end up taking those off again and possibly be rebuilding them. Why make it harder.
With seat out I took the time to vacuum the carpet. The driver’s side was terrible compared to the passenger side. Some slob must have taken up residence. I also cleaned up the console a bit too.

I inserted the front seat through the rear door and installed it in reverse of the removal. Same for the passenger side. Again, the bolts require blue Loctite and 33ft-lbs of torque.

This is a comparison between the 2LT cord (top) and the LT cord (bottom)

To be continued later

 

[Blasirl]

How I removed and replaced my Rear Seats

To start, I disconnected the battery with a 10mm socket and 3/8” ratchet. I removed the back-seat bottom by tugging on the end of the seat and gradually going toward the center.

I then used a 15mm open end wrench to take of the three nuts under the center of the folding seat backs.

With the nuts removed, folded the seat backs down. I then lifted the bracket up and gently pulled the seats towards the front seats creating a V between them.

I stepped into the V opening with one foot and reached down and lifted at the intersection with the now unbolted bracket. I lifted, up and forward, at the same time until the seat swivel pin came out of the 40% seat.

With the seats separated, the real work was to begin. I had read somewhere that all you had to do was push the seat back toward the door to get it out. It was
not all that easy nor was it clear on how to disengage the spring-loaded pin. I struggled with this for quite some time. I tried screw drivers, brute force pushing while trying to lift. Nothing doing, especially by myself. I was getting tired when I hit a eureka moment. I ran downstairs and grabbed one of my longer reversable quick clamps. I quickly reset it to be a spreader and got to work.
These are shots in sequence as far as what to look for but are of both sides. I just pieced this together to explain it. The first picture is the spring-loaded pin at rest. The second is when the seat is pushed towards the pin socket. The third is after it was removed and the fourth is an empty socket.

To be able to lift out the seat, the pin needs to look like number two. In order to get it there, I used my quick clamp spreader.

I lost this photo somehow

This is after I popped out the first pin.

I reset and pushed the 60% seat to get it out.

Because I could not steady the spreader and lift at the same time, I used a prybar, as centered under the pin as best I could, to facilitate the lift. Now that the seat is disconnected, I set the 60% back against the front seats, so it will be out of my way even though it is still connected via the seatbelt.

The next thing is to remove the nut holding the center passenger seatbelt. Remember the tab on the right and how it goes back together.

The last part of the removal, for me anyways, was the airbag bolsters. I think it would make things easier if you take them out either before or after the seat bottom is removed. I found that grasping both sides of the top is easiest. When you are pulling, pull out perpendicular to the sheet metal behind the bolster. Remember that the bolster pivots out for removal. This picture shows the metal loop that is sandwiched with a plastic piece that is inserted into a plastic cup that is in a sheet metal hole.

The second picture shows that the cup and insert is still in the hole as it did not come out with the bolster. I was able to reuse the clips this time. I ordered a pair of them just in case I damaged them. The third picture shows the lower mounting hole. [The plastic piece on the bolster just slips in, rotate the bolster towards the seat and clip in the top clip to install it.]

The next thing to do to remove the bolsters is to unplug them. I found that a pair of needle nose pliers did the trick for me. I used a pair that the teeth were still decent and grasped the orange part and using my other hand, held back on the yellow part. It came apart very easily.

Now that the seats are out, I set about vacuuming and cleaning up the melted Good & Plenty’s my daughters left me. (I think I have since found a better way to remove the seats, but I’ll explain this later.)

 

[Blasirl]

How I removed and replaced my Rear Seats pt 2

I cleaned up the leather seats and used some leather conditioner on them as well. I moved my pleather seat back covers as well.

Now to reinstall the seats. What I had done was to install the 60% seat first, torqued two of the nuts correctly and tightened the third with a wrench guessing at the torque. When I installed the 40% seat, I had no problems getting it in. Because of this, I discovered that it would be easier to bolt down the bracket first, torque the 15mm nuts to 33 ft-lbs, bring in the 60% seat and reinstall the seat belt remembering its orientation, and torque the 19mm nut to 33 ft-lbs as well. Now insert the pivot pin, remembering the plastic washer and then set the spring lock pin in place. Do the same with the 40% back.

The last thing was to install the rear seat bottom.

wheel

 

[Blasirl]

Just a minor modification...

 

[Blasirl]

Rehabbed my Camaro wheel last week

How-To: Disassemble a steering wheel to rehab it.

 

[Blasirl]

Installed my Paddle Shifter wheel last week.

How-To: Add a Working Paddle Shift Steering Wheel