Time to Take a Rest

When I recently finished with my long list of upgrades I was surprised at how extensive the list was. Well, there never was a list--maybe that was why it took me so long to get started. I just know that when the bed of the truck came off, lots and lots of things were addressed.

Exhaust - Hooker exhaust manifolds, 2 1/2" pipe all the way to the rear of the new 18" long Magnaflow mufflers. H-pipe added to system as well. All welded (lotsa work!).

U-joints - Rear driveline only so far. I let Drivelines Northwest do it for me this time. I didn't feel like doing the "squeeze play" with my bench vice, nor will I pound them in/out with a hammer like I did when I was young.

Fuel tanks - Both were replaced, along with new sending units and switching valve and assorted hose connections. Plastic fuel tank shields were shitcanned. Both tanks were painted with Herculiner bed liner paint. Durable stuff! This was the main scope of the project. This is the reason I took the bed off to begin with.

Motor mounts - They looked original when I removed them. While they were each still in one piece, the rubber was riddled with fatigue and cracks.

Electric window relay upgrade - A lot of laborious wire-routing, but almost no parts cost. There is noticeable improvement, but not all that dramatic. I'm glad I did it though. The windows work a lot smoother and feel more responsive.

Window track felts - Both sides came out in little pieces from age. OEM for sure. The new ones fit nicely. Likely contributed to the windows working smoother.

Fuel line to carb - It was a long, rubber hose, and snaking it up behind the alternator didn't look safe. Now it uses a formed, steel line like it oughta. The line has lots of chances for abrasion because of its routing, so a soft fuel line is not advisable running up from the fuel pump.

Fan clutch - I started hearing a chirping noise. My ears told me what it was, but no--wrong diagnosis. The new fan clutch does look nicer though.

Alternator bearings and brushes. (see previous note about chirping.) How many people even know you can change them? $27 worth of parts is sure cheaper than a whole alternator when you don't need one.

Water pump - Okay, I admit--I can't troubleshoot worth a shit. The chirping or squeaking noise was not fixed by the fan clutch or the alternator. Not much left to pick from. Just as well... I remember seeing an occasional drip under the water pump at times in the past, and I never did like the workmanship the previous owner did on everything, so replacing it was inevitable anyway. It also gave me the chance to play with spacers, washers, and pulley alignment when I reassembled everything. Like I said--the squeal was still there when I finished. Vacuum leak maybe?

Timing tape - I put timing tape on my harmonic balancer only to find that I put it on wrong. I had 2 choices and got it wrong. I pulled it back off in disgust (with myself). Looks like I'll be timing it "by ear" when I need to.

Spark plug wires (and plugs) - The wires that were on the truck were waaaay long and of unknown brand, the plugs were too cold, and it had a running problem. I later diagnosed the running problem to a piece of crap in the carburetor. Apparently, when I went out for a test drive and hammered the gas the secondaries opened and sucked some fuel tank foreign debris that made it past all the new fuel system stuff. Opening the carb and blowing out all the orifices took care of it, and was an easy fix--mainly because the carb is only a year old and no gaskets were permanently stuck yet.

Distributor mods - I swapped out the mechanical advance springs to a different combination, and added a stop/limiter to the vacuum advance to ensure it only gives me 12 degrees max. 

Throttle cable - I kept playing with springs, but the real bottom line was, the cable would hardly move when I removed it. While I kept it for an emergency, a new ATP one was installed in its place. The ATP quality seems better than a Pioneer brand cable I bought for my previous truck. That one had weak plastic in the clip mounts. One broke easily during assembly that time. All good this time. What a difference! The throttle feels soft and precise like it should now.

In addition to all these things, there were lots of little things that I addressed on the old truck, such as bracketry, wiring zip ties, etc. Anything that caught my eye needing a repair, adjustment, or replacement was fair game. That's probably why it took me so many days to get it all done. For example, there must have been a big sale on flat washers because the previous owner/mechanic put them on practically every bolt under the hood. Lock washers? Nope. He only liked flat washers. It was good to replace so many of them with smaller diameter (washers that actually fit the holes and fasteners) flat washers or lock washers.

For the sake of marital harmony I opted to split my time between outdoor home labor (garden, wood chips, lawn mowing, etc) tasks, and working on the truck. I must say, looking back, I got a lot of stuff done. Why? Mainly, it was the sun. Being a nudist I'm solar-powered, so our summer weather has been very conducive to me working--as long as I was bare. It got hot many days, but I was dressed for it and soldiered onward. Some of the tasks were covered (if you'll excuse the pun) in my nudism blog.

Good times.

Epilogue:

You know what the chirping noise was? It hit me one day when I was reading about it online. DUH! There was no air inlet for vacuum the PCV valve was using. It was basically pulling what air it could from around the PCV valve near as I can tell. No wonder it was complaining loudly! After pulling the rubber "OIL" filler plug out of the right side valve cover, I put an Edelbrock filler/breather from O'Reilly's in it. It made such a difference after doing it that I had to tweak my tuning slightly. I felt like apologizing to the poor truck afterwards.

Electric Windows Need Strong Juice

I think my forty year-old truck is at a sort of midlife crisis point. I'm not sure if it's more mileage-related or time-related, but it seems everything rubber is nearing catastrophic failure. Everything I've found so far. Exhaust hangers, motor mounts, hoses, and now door/window soft goods.

I've been working lately on installing an upgrade to the electric windows. It involves adding relays that allow a solid, full battery voltage to be delivered to the window motors directly through heavy wires. The factory setup used good-sized wiring between the window motor and switch, but the 12v delivery wire is only 16-gauge. Woefully undersized. The driver's side of these trucks usually don't work too bad, but the passenger side is almost always slow, dragging--almost painfully slow at times.

I could have done the whole thing from scratch by buying a couple spools of wire, 4 relays, and 2 inline fuses, and then following online schematics, but nah--I bought the kit from LMC Truck. Why reinvent the wheel? Besides, I don't always have residual brain power to toss around on any given day. The wiring isn't much of a problem--the real challenge with this install revolves around fishing wires through hard-to-get-to places. I would recommend anyone that does this upgrade not be keyed up or uncomfortable in any way on whatever day you might decide to do it. It's an exercise in patience. 

I pondered this little project a long time before finally coming up with a battle plan. Likely due to door hinge placement, the factory chose to offset the holes between where the rubber conduit for the door wiring is attached to the door jamb, and the place on the inner kick panel where the wiring comes through. Whatever the reason, it makes the whole upgrade a little challenging.

I chose to drill 5/16" holes for the hot and ground wires to do the pass-through in the kick panel areas, directly in-line with the rubber boot. It was still a bit of a wire-fishing job, but wasn't too bad. I ended up cutting a length of baling mechanic's wire, fashioned a small loop at one end (to aid in getting through the rubber boot), and added a length of shrink tubing over the winding. You don't really want it too long or you won't be able to twist it very well to help it through the boot:

I found it worked best (for me) to start at the kick panel end of the wire run and go backwards through the boot towards the door. When the loop came through into the door well, I bared about 1" off each wire, stuck it through the loop (and wound it tightly), and push/pulled (guided gently) back through the holes. After pulling both the wires back through the new holes I put rubber grommets in. 

When it comes time to run wires from side to side through the dashboard, there's only one way to really do it right, and that is to take the dash cover off. Sure, you can hang wires and tuck them up from the bottom, but I found it much better to take things apart and attach my new wires to the existing run of factory wiring. When you get to this point things can look pretty scary inside:

After running wires across the cab, I needed a place to run them through the firewall. I opted to drill out one of the dimpled holes I found down near the fuse block. They're easily seen from the engine side if you know where to look, but you can't drill from that side. I popped the insulation plug (seen at the bottom) out and drilled from the inside:

I added a wire bundle clamp (or whatever you call them) to the backside of the parking brake unit to run wires through. They needed somewhere to route safely so they didn't get mashed in the brake mechanism. I don't want them near anything that might get them severed accidentally. Here's what things looked like at this point:

After running wires through the firewall I had to decide where I was going to park the relays themselves before I cut the fuse pigtails apart. The kit came with fuse pigtails partially complete, but I didn't care for the way it was done. They had the fuse connector already mounted on the end of the main power wire (yes, the long one), and expect the users to 'click' them together when they run the wires. In other words, they want you to use the power wire as is, without cutting it. That didn't set well with me, so I clipped the end off and installed it onto the fuse pigtail (seen below) so I could cut the 'loop' anywhere I decided I needed it to be cut.

The two included fuses are made to be ganged together, and did so nicely. To mount them I drilled a couple slots in the fuse block plastic to run a zip tie through, and used a one of those zip ties with the built-in mounting hole. (Note: Any areas with heat-shrink tubing are areas I have soldered and made permanent.) I mounted the fuses near the left front corner so I could use the power junction block I installed for my oogah horn. After connections were all soldered I crammed all the new wires into the existing wire sheathing. It didn't come out too bad.

Epilogue:

The windows work great. Was it an amazing difference? Not really, but it was noticeable. It's really hard to gauge it accurately because both window motors were already there and their condition is unknown. I also replaced both window felts all the way around at the same time, so drag was probably changed. Overall, the windows feel more "instant" if nothing else. There is no lag when you hit the buttons. Also, it doesn't pay to cut corners with switches. The brand new driver's side switch fails to roll the passenger side window up. Down works fine, but not up. I swapped the worn-out OEM one back in for now. At least it works. I'll stick to ACDelco or something similar next time instead of getting them from LMC Truck.

Exhaust Really IS Exhausting...

Yes, I'm slow... Yes, I'm detail-oriented (nitpicky)... but this exhaust job still took me three days to complete--even with the bed off. Well, to be honest I smoke a lot of weed too, so things get analyzed and measured lots of times for the sake of accuracy.

The easiest part of the job was taking the old headers off. I don't know what they were originally designed for, but they didn't appear to be for a GM pickup. The tubes snaked fairly closely to correct, but the collectors were way too low. I guess they were something the previous owner had laying around or something. I don't like headers. Unless I'm racing, the last thing I want to do is make more under-hood noise, and deal with spark plug access (or lack thereof). The exhaust on this truck took such a wild turn downward to mate up with the header collectors that I had to saw both of them off before I could pull the rest of the exhaust system out. Once I could get it all off the truck I scavenged a few choice straight sections in case they might be needed.

With no headers in the way, I was finally able to remove an old temperature sensor from the driver's side head. It had been broken and mangled at some time in the past but left in. Maybe cheaper than buying a brass fitting to plug it? Apparently so. I couldn't remove it before because the hex on the outer casing was hitting the header flange (barely visible in the picture below) and wouldn't allow it to turn. This time it got a nice, new brass plug.

It was also the perfect time to replace the oil dipstick and tube. The previous owner used what he had around I guess, but they were both wrong. I believe they come from a early 90's Camaro or similar. It was the perfect time to install (with a tad bit of custom bending) the new one I had just gotten from Summit. Now the tube bracket aligns with the bolt hole so it could be bolted in like it should have been.

Here's where the job took a 2-day detour: Motor mounts.

With the exhaust out of the way I would have been a fool not to replace them--they looked original. After taking the spark plugs all out the whole area was nicely exposed. Getting the mounts out was easy enough, but it's not for everyone unless you've got a decent assortment of tools to get those lower mount bolts out. Once I got the tools needed all figured out it was just a matter of taking my time. These are jobs that can get frustrating real easy if you're in a hurry. Anyway, it took the rest of that day and most of the next before I figured out the optimum way of getting all the bolts lined up. The initial struggle was with the final long thru-bolts. I just couldn't get the mounts to line up well enough to get them to go through. The secret ended up being to put only the lowest two of the 3 lower mount bolts in, (leaving the the mount to flop), and putting the long thru-bolts in. At that point, the mounts are lined up nicely, but tipped up off the frame. The bolts drew them down perfectly.

Back to the exhaust.

My original plan was to use standard GM exhaust manifolds. I bought myself a used set, knowing they needed flange bolts drilled and re-tapped. I started in on the process one day and said to myself, "You dumbass--what are you doing this for? You've got money--buy the ones you really want!"

My updated plan: Hooker exhaust manifolds, continuing 2.5" through an H-pipe, into 2.5" Magnaflow 18" (the longer, quieter ones) straight-through mufflers, reducing down to the 2.25" OEM tailpipes already on the truck.

I had bought the Hooker exhaust manifolds a month or so earlier, and so had plenty of time to ponder them. I was a little concerned with them having unique, 2-bolt flanges, and I wasn't sure exactly how to tie things together. To ensure fit I decided to buy a pair of Hooker head pipes designed to bolt to their manifolds. Well, I didn't do my homework very well, because they definitely didn't fit. Come to find out they were designed for an LS engine conversion into a squarebody truck. At first I was pissed at myself because I'd have to return them and find something else, but then I thought, "Hell, even if Hooker made just plain flanges with a short length of straight pipe they'd probably almost the same price" so out came the saw. I only ended up using the sections of straight tubing attached to the flanges, but I'll keep the rest anyway of course. It's a nice O2 bung on each one of nothing else.

Being the worrywart I am, I had to keep thinking about fit as I went, as well as being able to remove the crossmember afterwards. The H-pipe came from Summit as a kit, and went together nicely. It came with a straight section and a V-section to give more fit options. I went with the V-section to help go around the driveline. I had to browse the local O-Reilly's and Autozone (luckily right next to each other) for exhaust pieces to complete my jigsaw puzzle. I did several mock-ups as I was spot-welding the joints, finally removing the whole front section to weld it up:

Because of the crossmember design, I had to go with one side under and one side over, so I was very concerned with clearances. I did lots of bracing, jacking, prying, etc. When all was said and done, I think I got it tucked up fairly well:

Because I'm kind of a "one-man band" I didn't have a helper to hold the muffler as I went, so I cut a few rings and tacked them inside one end of the muffler, giving me a "insert" to assist holding it onto the pipe while I fussed at the other end. It worked out well. I can't imagine doing exhaust work without the bed removed. That really made the difference. Here's everything finished. I sure do love the new sound. 

Tanks, Valves, and Hoses

The truck has been plagued with problems related to the right-side fuel tank since I've owned it. The tank switching worked fine, but after it was switched to the right tank the engine would start to sputter a bit once the gas in the carb had been used up. I knew there was either a problem with the cap vent, the vent hose, or the tank switching valve. I just didn't feel like crawling around underneath it to troubleshoot.

Then the summer weather hit and I re-thought things.

Besides the fuel tank problems, there were other things. I could see a bunch of crap wedged in between the bed and cab--something that looked like sheathing or osb--probably a remnant of a dump run some years in the past. I could see there was a bunch under there and it was wedged nicely like it had been there a long time. There was so much crap down there I couldn't really see much between the cab and bed. There were also things like bracketry, wiring, etc. that would all be made easier if I could do them all at once, so I decided to pull the whole bed off. After all, there were enough items on my list to justify the labor.

I was lucky--all the bolts came out easily except for one, and I was able to get it out without anything other than vice-grips holding the head steady. Lifting the bed up proved to be a long, drawn-out affair because it was a solo operation. I went back and forth, adding blocks until it was high enough I could put a couple of 4x4's through the wheel openings. Yes, the whole affair looks rickety as hell because it was rickety as hell. Before I dropped the bed onto the 4x4's I made sure to screw the 2x4 that spanned the two 4x4's onto them securely. That eliminated any chance of the wood blocks wanting to teeter. I felt a lot better after that. The bed actually balances nicely on them, but I doubt that would be the case if the tailgate were open or missing altogether. Here are a few shots of the whole removal affair:

At this point I could see how nasty everything was. Years (decades?) of road accumulation had made for quite the mess.

I started by taking the heavy-duty plastic tank protectors off. I have mixed feelings about those things. One one hand, the company added them for protection and safety (albeit as a result of expensive litigation), but on the other hand, they accumulate mud and debris, causing rust problems. I decided to leave them off after finding the latter in abundance. The passenger side tank looked fairly decent on the outside, but everything was so dirty I couldn't tell much, and I didn't want to take the sending unit out with all that crap accumulated around it.

I figured the driver's side was still doable (I was assuming because I was still getting gas from that tank) inside, but after I pressure-washed everything so I could get a better look at things, imagine my surprise when I found the slow leak of $$$ coming from the driver's side:

I later found out it wouldn't have mattered if any dirt or other shit had fallen into the passenger tank when I opened it though. It was so bad it had about an inch of what almost looked like fine rust powder in the bottom of the tank--it sloshed with the gentle motion of waves. The sending unit looked like I had dug it out of sea water.

 

I couldn't believe it. Both tanks were shot. Well, time for new tanks! With a visible leak I didn't even bother to look inside the driver's side tank. The truck was getting new tanks anyway.

I browsed around the web and found a good deal on a pair of Spectra Premium GM1B tanks on Amazon, complete with sending units and free shipping. They arrived with some sort of oily protectant on them, making them ready to install as-is. Because I was leaving the tank covers off, I opted to coat my new tanks with something thick first, so I started by wiping them down well with acetone. I bought a gallon Herculiner kit (expensive!) of bed liner paint from Lowes. It took a couple days to get them both covered with two coats each, but I'm more than happy with the result.

I couldn't stop there though. I also replaced the 6-port switching valve. I figured that it would be just as bad inside as the tanks were after 40 years, so I replaced that too. Here are what things looked liked all put together. I sourced the filler hoses from LMC Truck. I thought about teeing the two vents together with one vent, but then I thought, "Why reinvent the wheel?" It would use more hose anyway, and that stuff ain't cheap if it's Gates brand.

It was several days of knuckle-busting work, what with playing with all those pieces of hose (especially on the switching valve) and clamps, but it's so nice to have it done. Both tanks were at least half full, so that complicated things. I was able to use a floor jack to lower them down without mishap, and I was able to safely save 3/4 of a tank of gas from the driver's side tank. I'll be getting even more out of the rusty tank (using a pump and filter of course), but I'll just burn that in my mower to play it safe. I may be able to get all the sediment out of the gas, but it will still have shit mixed into it I'm sure.

On to the next task while the bed is off: Exhaust!

Rear Bumper Time

I was cleaning pictures off my phone recently when I happened across some pictures of my truck I had taken right after I bought it. The bumper was one subject I meant to cover and forgot about it.

My GMC was bought already wearing an aftermarket rear bumper. Though showed plenty of use by its scratches and dings, it was not bent or unusable in any way. I just don't like the look of big bumpers. It appeared to be one that someone paid good money for--possibly custom-made. It was plenty beefy. I didn't get a lot of pictures of it, but here it is against my 84 Chevy and its standard, steel step-bumper. Quite a difference.

It was definitely a bumper you needed to have a good hold on when it came loose. It was heavy. I did a careful balancing act with my floor jack, ready to cringe if it fell off the jack, assuming it would wake the neighborhood with the clang of ages. Luckily, it went nice and smooth.

I contacted the guy I offloaded the bed liner onto a few months prior, and he was plenty happy to come and get the bumper. Free is a good price when you want things to move quickly! I'll bet it looks perfectly at home on his crew-cab dually. I think that design was meant for a beefy ranch truck.

I replaced it with a new Fey chrome step bumper from Summit Racing. Here it is on the truck:

It was very easy to put on--just me and my trusty floor jack. It also helped to be on a smooth concrete surface so the wheels rolled smoothly. New brackets are required with this bumper. The brackets made the install pretty effortless. You don't want to be under there all day, right? Buy the brackets.

Quality Cooling for the Transmission

My truck already had a transmission cooler on it when I bought it, which is good  the owner at least had a concern for his truck's welfare. It functioned fine with no leaks, but I hated the installation. Like most folks seem to do, the transmission cooler was installed using plastic zip tie thingy's that probably came with a kit. The cooler itself looked fine, but I don't like things haphazard and decided to upgrade it.

In retrospect, I probably could have used the same cooler and just re-engineered the installation, because the one I bought was almost identical to the one I already had. Oh well, at least I know the internals are clean now, right?

I bought a new Mishimoto Universal cooler from Extreme Terrain, item T547657. It's 12" x 10" x .75" thick, fitting nicely over one of the big openings in the radiator support. I opted for the passenger-side opening to use for my cooler, of course, because it was nearest to the transmission cooler lines. I make up a couple of brackets out of 1/8" thick steel strap and mounted them up, painted (the cooler arrived  unpainted and shiny) the whole assembly:

 

What I failed to consider is the hood safety catch--that big-ass "J" hook that hangs down for your scalp to make contact with when you least expect it. I had the whole thing installed all beautifully and was happy with the outcome. A week or so later I noticed that big J-hook was hitting one of the tubes and surrounding fins every time the hood was opened or closed! I'm glad I only raised the hood a handful of times during that period. When saw the damage, I considered myself lucky, then removed the whole thing. I re-engineered the bracketry to mount the cooler to the driver's side instead. Here's the final outcome. If you zoom you can see the garfed-up area I was talking about on the lower right (but don't look):

 

To get the hoses to nestle in closer to the grille without pushing out on it, I scrounged around Lowe's and found a couple of 90° elbows to use. I'm happy with the way everything turned out with the exception of the 'pass-thru' holes in the radiator support. I used the holes that were already there from the previous owner's installation so I used them, but I was worried about rubbing and chafing. I didn't have any grommets anywhere near that size, so I just opted for a couple pieces of heater hose wrapped around the oil cooler line at the pass-thru location. I put the zip ties on it on both sides of the support to hold it centered. Those are butt-ugly and will be replaced with grommets some day in the future:

 

I opted not to use the built-in oil cooler in the new radiator when I installed it. Why would anyone want to piggyback a new auxiliary cooler on top of a built-in radiator cooler? The only reason I could think of was maybe a little more transmission fluid capacity, and I quickly negated that point. After all, how good of a job of cooling will a coil that's immersed in 185-degree+ antifreeze do? Besides, the coiled tube they put in the new radiator was laughable in length. To use it just seemed ridiculous to me. Instead, I just slid the fittings down and pushed the hoses right over the flared ends of the existing factory lines and hose-clamped them. I like it when things don't get butchered because it's always easy to 'undo' something in the future.