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.

GM Assembly Line Quality Alert Trim Left Placard

I have never heard of the existence of these placards, but it makes sense that they would exist. When I worked the Boeing 747 assembly line many years ago there were always "pick-up's" that had to be worked later than usual in the assembly process for whatever reason. They would move the plane out of the assembly line to await whatever thing needed to be addressed before final delivery was approved.

I suppose this is like that, eh?

I find it odd that they would laminate it. Maybe they used grease pencil on them and they were designed to be removed and reused? Haha, if that's the case, it makes me wonder: What item(s) were originally checked as 'needing attention' and were those items completed? One will never know!

Here are shots of both sides:

 

I've owned a lot of vehicles over the years (and worked on even more), and I've never seen one of these before so I thought I'd share it with the squarebody world.

'84 to '85 Wiper/washer upgrade

1984 was the last year that GM trucks had the windshield washer pump piggybacked onto the wiper motor. Hell, maybe all GM vehicles--I dunno. I just know I've always hated it. Listening to the sound of the wiper washer pump ejaculating that precious window-cleaning liquid was always something I hated about GM products. Ka-chunk-ka-chunk-ka-chunk... if you're lucky! A lot of times they'd keep on ka-thumping when they are no longer needed, exhausting the whole tank of washer fluid if you happened to be on a rainy drive.

GM truck wipers have never been impressive, but mine were downright slow. I decided it was time to make a wiper upgrade. Do I want to waste my time/money with another GM Ejac-u-Pac washer system? No. So, what to replace it with?

I did a little digging and found out that 1985 was the first year they had physically removed the washer pump from the wiper motor, mounting it instead, in the washer reservoir. It also no longer ejaculated from twin nozzles mounted below the windshield. The 85-up system instead sprayed a fan pattern from the wiper blades themselves. Teeny little hoses snaked their way up the wiper arms where they sprayed a perfect pattern of 'wet it down' onto the windshield for as long as you held the switch. I did more digging to find out if I could swap the system over easily. My investigation (crossing part numbers, reading manuals and parts books) revealed that the 1985 wiper motor (with no washer pump mounted on it) was a direct bolt-in. Cool!

Per usual, my OCD brain required me to do lots of investigation just on which motor to buy. I finally narrowed it down to a Cardone unit, A1 Cardone part number 85-182. For sale lotsa places, but Cardone has their own sales site on Ebay, and you can get it a lot cheaper than most places. Here's the link to the one I bought (which of course the link may or may not still work by the time you read this): https://www.ebay.com/itm/155245776208. I also bought a new motor-to-firewall donut gasket. I'm not really sure on the purpose of the large rubber squish donut that mounts between the cowl and the motor because both sides are 'outside air' exposure. Maybe it's for vibration while the motor is turning or something. Anyway, make sure you put a new one on your new motor and clean up the surface before you mount it up. 

I bought a new reman washer bottle from LMC Truck, part # 36-4094 which ended up being a Dormer product, located here: https://www.lmctruck.com/1973-87-chevy-gmc/wiper-components/cc-1985-87-windshield-wiper-and-washer. I also added washer nozzles to the order, shown as #17 on that same LMC diagram. 

The washer motor I bought is ACDelco part# 8-6708 and was bought through Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001S7TQ4U

 

As you can see, the 1984 motor and the 1985/86 motor are exactly the same except for elimination of the washer pump that's usually riding piggyback. The new motor also came with new rubber grommets mounted.

Being on it already when I bought it, I don't know which wiper arms are on my truck. Who does? Anyway, they fit fine, and seem to be the right length, but the angle of the blade end was just slightly off (before I tweaked them each in the vise). I do think they are truck arms, but I don't think they are 85/86 units, based on that angle.

The nozzles I bought from LMC Truck have a little 'nubbin' molded into them to lock into a hole on the arm to keep them stationary. Well, the arms on my truck do have the little locator holes for squirt nozzles to lock into, but they are too far down the arm for the spray pattern to work. At least for the nozzles from LMC that is. If memory serves me (and it seldom does), the factory nozzle spray pattern was a fan shape, shooting all one direction. These little nozzles from LMC Truck have more of an elongated '+' pattern that shoots (4) directions, so they needed to be relocated farther up the wiper arm.

   

I didn't notice that difference until I had already gone through filing the arm to the necessary width for the nozzles to snap onto at their original locations. Note: Even though I had to file the arms to the proper width, providing a notch to lock them into, I still had to drill holes in the arms for nubbin clearance or file the nubbins off.  on the nozzles t's n, but because I had to file my arms for them to fit there was no need for the centering tit at all any longer. I bought (3) of them, knowing full well I was going to break one of them. Oddly enough, these babies are very stout. They can stand the twisting and prying multiple times (test fitting you know) during installation without breaking!

 

Right after I gathered all my parts together and was ready to start my wiper update I found a guy near me parting out an 86 Suburban. His rig was pretty stripped already by this time, but I did end up getting another washer bottle with pump and a complete cruise control transducer, all for $15. Bonus: I also got the electrical plug and about a foot of wiring for the washer bottle to make the swap easy!

A little note about washer hose:

The washer hose between your washer pump and windshield washer nozzles has to be reduced down to 3/32" exactly at some point if you want your washer hose to snake through the spring on the wiper arm like the OEM version did. Anything larger, no matter how close it looks, just won't quite fit through that spring. Problem: finding hose that is 3/32" in diameter. In this day and age, everything I found was 3mm instead. While the metric sizing does fit the nozzles and connections fine, it will not fit inside of the arm spring like they did from the factory. For this you need real 3/32" hose, such at Gates part# 27030 'wet arm vacuum hose'. I can verify that this particular hose does snake nicely through the wiper arm springs for a perfect fit. The problem: I only bought enough to do the job, and when I had to relocate the washer nozzles farther up the arm, both hoses were then too short. Buying locally, I was subject to what was available, and that was the metric hose. Because the replacement hose did not fit through the springs I opted to just affix them nicely with zip ties. 

Rebuilding a Hutchins Oogah Horn

Many years ago one of the various vehicles I bought and sold had an oogah horn on it. I put it on my truck, and each time I horse-traded trucks it was lovingly removed and relocated. At some point, I ended up letting the horn go with the truck. It didn't take long to regret my move.

I never disconnected the original factory horn when I installed the oogah horn--I always added another horn circuit. To me it wasn't a replacement to a factory horn, but an addition. It was my party horn. It was the horn I used when I was among friends or family. It was the horn of choice when I wanted to scare somebody walking in front of my truck. I missed it.

A few years ago I started looking a few years ago for a replacement, and it had to be a genuine Hutchins brand. There are still some out there, but it's hard to find one (12-volt especially) that works for under $100, and if you do it's going to be ugly. I finally found one on eBay and plunked down $45 for it, and yes--it was ugly. It didn't work but was basically intact. I knew I could get it working. I didn't save a good picture from the eBay ad, but I do have this small, ugly one. You can see it was in tough shape when I bought it. The painted portion was rusty, the chrome portion was bent and covered with flat black spray paint, the wiring grommet was gone, and it had quite a bit of rust inside. (After all, they're out in the nasty rain and stuff under the hood.)

I dissected it and tweaked a couple things for a bench tryout. It spun, but not too well, and no noise at all came from it. But, as I said, it spun so I was happy with my purchase. After I tried it out, I left it in pieces and put it in a box for safekeeping, basically forgetting about it. A year or two later when I bought my GMC I had a renewed interest in it. Let's make that baby work!

I tore it down and spent quite a bit of time straightening it and cleaning the paint off the chrome end of the horn with various chemicals until it shone again. To treat all the rust I used this stuff I got at Lowe's for about $15. Like most similar products, you just paint it on and it converts the dry, rusty area into a hard, shiny, black surface that's a perfect base. Here you can see what it looks like after I painted the stuff onto the rust inside the horn bell and let it dry.

  

When I tore it apart, almost all the screws holding it together twisted off when I tried to unscrew them, and the paper gaskets on either side of the drum head were almost totally disintegrated. Well, there are no Hutchins oogah horn paper gaskets anywhere on planet Earth that I know of, so obviously I had to make them. No problem--we have a Cricut here at our place, and it makes awesome gaskets!

First, I placed the horn bell on the scanner and took a picture of it, then I cleaned up the resulting scanned image in Photoshop, making sure all the edges and holes were smooth. Note: If you don't smooth the edges, the poor Cricut will work itself to death trying to cut what it thinks are intricate cuts but are really just rough edges. No dimensions were changed during scanning or editing, so the screw pattern should be accurate.

I spent some time cleaning and prepping on the painted parts, then shot them with some good ol' Krylon dark blue like the original was. The brushes were in good shape (after all, a horn isn't a continuous-running thing), so I didn't have to do anything there. I bought stainless steel screws to replace the old rusty originals. I reassembled it as careful as I felt like being, carefully lining everything up before tightening the screw that holds cap on the motor. (The new gaskets fit flawlessly!)

Now that I finally had my fully-functional Hutchins Oogah horn, I had to figure out how to mount it. The OEM setup was a simple, almost flimsy L-bracket that utilized two of the screws. I wanted something that didn't allow the horn to vibrate all the time like the originals do. You probably know the bracket I'm talking about. It's in the parts list at the bottom of the post if you don't. I opted to build a 'two-level' mount, with part of the mount carrying the weight of the motor, and the other end providing support for the bell end to keep it from vibrating. I used a couple of sections of 3" exhaust pipe I had laying around, adjusting the radius to match the horn dimensions. I tied them together with a piece of 1/8" x 1" steel strap material. I opted to mount it on driver's side, next to the radiator. It seems like a good, out-of-danger place to put it--I may be wrong. Time will tell.

After mounting it all up, it all fits perfectly, but I'm not totally pleased with the hose clamp look as I thought I would be.

When it came time to tune it, I was at a loss. I couldn't see a way to tune it without building a special little tool to make it happen. (I'm sure they had something similar in the factory.) Basically, all I did was cut a 6" length of tubing from some scrap I had laying around, then welded an old 7/16" 1/4" drive socket to one end, and spot-welded a 1/4-20 nut on the other end. The length I chose was long enough to reach the depth of the horn adjustment nut. This 3/16" blade Crapsman screwdriver (part# 41248 K WF) is just the right size and length to reach all the way through the tool. Now it's just a simple act of adjust/tighten/lock/test/loosen/adjust/lock/test until you get the good oogah tone.

 

For those of you looking for a tech info about the Hutchins Oogah horn, here's a parts list:

Rear Brakes (or lack thereof)

The next day I went outside somewhat excited to start tweaking things, kicking tires, and truly looking at what I had bought. I knew I had lots of work to do on the truck overall, so to get it as close to tools and stuff I opted to pull the motorhome out and park the GMC sideways behind it, in front of the shop door. I squeezed the motorhome back in so they were both behind the gate. Putting the truck there was the obvious choice anyway because having no idea idea how long it would be laid up for, it would keep it from blocking any other vehicles.

 

When I start to work on vehicles I buy, I almost always start with the brakes, and this truck was no exception. After all. stopping is much more important than starting! As I mentioned previously, the brake warning light lit up like a Christmas tree while we were on the road headed home after buying it, so inspection was definitely required.

 

During my half-assed initial inspection I saw the true cause of the brake warning light, and it wasn't the emergency brake. There was brake fluid all over the left rear backing plate and tire. I popped the top off the master cylinder and the rear half of the system was dry. It had flown the coop through the left rear wheel cylinder. There was brake fluid 'spin art' everywhere. The brake shoes were in real good shape wear-wise, but there was no way they were going to remain--cleaned well or not. Because of the C6P Heavy Duty Chassis package, the truck is equipped with, among other things, 13" x 2 1/2" brakes! I like that. The stamped code on the differential housing is BJB, and according to my manuals, translates to 4:10 gears. Figures. I was hoping for 3:73.

After checking what all I needed, I went inside and ordered rear brake shoes, wheel cylinders, and a master cylinder from Rock Auto. I opted for 'fleet quality' Centric riveted shoes--top of the line--so they would wear well, stop well, and do both quietly. The drums were great and showed very little wear, luckily.

When the brake parts came I was excited to get them installed and finished up. The install went well, with no rust issues or anything. When I put it back together, I couldn't get anything more than a trickle out of the left rear bleeder. I tried to access the proportioning valve to reset it, but it was mounted down low, on the engine crossmember. I took the radiator out, and the fan off, making plenty of room. Try as I might, I couldn't get the proportioning valve piston to move freely back and forth. I got it released once, but as soon as we tried to bleed the brakes it stuck to one side again, shutting off the rear brakes. Sigh. Oh well, it's not like I didn't have anything else to do, haha. I did some research and found a good proportioning valve and ordered one up. I think it was about $50. At the same time, I also ordered a new brake line for the left rear--mainly because I wanted a new fitting on the brake drum end.

Another item in the braking system had me a little concerned. It's a 'load-sensing' valve that's mechanically attached to the frame and rear end. What it does is, it restricts full braking to the rear brakes if the truck is riding at normal height. When you put a load in it, the truck 'squatting down' would allow full brakes to the rear wheels as well as the front. It was designed to keep empty trucks from having their rear brakes lock up unexpectedly. It turns out that GM sent out a bulletin some time later, instructing dealers to bypass the valve and remove the linkage. It was GM bulletin 88-T-151 (shown on the reference materials line at the very top of the blog page). Here's what the whole setup looks like in the GM parts catalog:

Most of it was removable without cutting, but there are still couple residual brackets remaining that I'll remove more cleanly sometime in the future, along with cleaning up the altered brake line routing.

When all the new brake goodies showed up I got them all installed without a hiccup. I love working with new parts! Brenda hopped in and lent her brake-bleeding leg once again, this time with instant results. That's what I like.

After driving the truck I noticed no sign of early lockup or anything else. Nice braking!

During the two weeks or so that I had the truck up in the proctologist's saddle I was able to work on a lot more items that needed attention, and there was no shortage of those!

Bed Liner Be Gone

I have a love/hate relationship with bed liners. I love how durable they are, but dislike the static electricity danger and potential for hiding rust. They are also very unwieldy to remove and reinstall each time if you 'part-time it' and you feel a load of gravel coming on. I put the front wheels on stands and pressure-washed the liner before I took it out:

 

When I removed the liner I was afraid to look at what I might find, even though it looked okay from below the truck. I breathed a sign of relief and grinned when I saw what was underneath: A near-perfect bed! It had some wear marks from years of rubbing or vibration, but overall very nice. Again with the pressure washer and I was happy.

I put the bed liner and its tailgate liner on Craigy's List for free and they were gone in a couple hours. The guy that showed up to pick them up was driving a diesel 6+6 crew cab. It was pretty ratty, having a bent-looking canopy that covered a bed full of 'who knows what kind of shit' and no rear bumper at all. When he emptied his cargo and started to put the liner in, he (we) realized that the top of the bed liner went over the truck bed, interfering with the canopy. At that point I wandered away and let him trim or whatever he needed to do. He got it all finished and I helped him put his canopy back on (he had dragged it off there himself!). We chatted a bit, looking my new truck over. I told him that fugly rear bumper was going to be coming off of there soon. "Text me when it does," he said, motioning to his truck, "as you can see I need one."

Road Trip Retrieval

I shopped around a long time for my most recent truck before finding it. Lots of time went by as I kept an eye on Craigslist, Offerup, and FB Marketplace. I spent plenty of time perusing ads (wasting time).

I had reached a position with the old 84 Chevy that I was just no longer interested in the truck. Well, unless I was driving it--that was always fine. I wanted to upgrade my truck in several areas but it was not the base I wanted to build on. I felt I'd be just giving my money to the next owner. I wanted to start with the right truck.

When I found what I considered to be what I was looking for, it was on Facebook Marketplace (I only have a FB account for their marketplace.) I wasn't thrilled because it was so far away, but that's just the way FB anything works... you tell them what you want to see and they give you what they want you to see anyway. Thanks to retirement, I didn't have to do much planning to go down to look at the truck. I chose a day and away we went. (Looking back, we should have gotten a much earlier start.) By the time we got to the guy's place near Grants Pass, Oregon, it was after 5pm.

Here are a few pictures from the ad. (I thought I had saved them all, but I lost several.)

The truck looked a little better in person than it did on the ad, which was a good start. It seemed to run fairly good, and everything I looked over was looking okay as well. We took it for a drive, and when he stepped on it, both the engine stumbled and the transmission slipped briefly at the same time. He only acknowledged the the engine, citing the engine as 'not being warmed up'.

I wasn't too worried about that. I was mainly worried about whether or not it was going to get me home!

Like a fool, I really didn't check too many things before taking off for home like I should have. Maybe it was the weed we smoked to ease nerves or whatever. Luckily, nothing went wrong, but several things could have (more on that later). It was very evident right away that the tires were too short in stature when I got on the freeway. The rpm's were a bit higher than I was used to. I remember asking the guy what the rear end ratio was. "Low," he said. When I got on the freeway it was almost as if there was no high gear and it was stuck in 2nd! You can see by the picture here how much shorter these tires were. The tall one on the right is the correct, stock size, and even fairly worn down was a lot taller than what was on the truck.

I didn't check the water level before we left, and it was dangerously low when we finally got home (yes, we got home without incident) at about 10 or 11pm. When we left the guy's house I gassed up before getting on the freeway. It has two gas tanks, but the right tank hadn't been used in a while, and I didn't feel like causing a major fuel line blockage if I suddenly opened up a dam of shit of some kind. I filled the tank, and by the time we crossed the Columbia into Washington again I was on fumes. Obviously, I was driving too fast, trying to keep up with traffic with normal gearing. For the final leg of the trip I kept the speed around 55 or so and had almost a half a tank left when we pulled into the driveway! Huge difference. Another thing that happened: Not long after we first got on the freeway with it the brake warning light came on. I didn't think much of it--I just figured it was the parking brake lever switch. The headlights were a little on the dim side, but they were working and the alternator was charging, so that part was fine. Lots of noises, rattles, squeaks, and unknowns. I had 2 dash lights, and none of the gauges were working except the temperature, and I didn't much trust that either. Luckily, it never rained on the way home, because although the wipers did work, I had no idea if the rubber on them would be up to the task.

I went out to check out the next day to see what I had bought (laughs nervously). The brake proportioning valve had apparently saved my ass. The left rear brake drum had a puddle of brake fluid under it and saturating everything, and the rear brake reservoir was bone dry. Without the two-part master cylinder that all vehicles currently use I would have been without brakes. Note to self: Never assume it's just the parking brake switch. I also noticed the radiator was dangerously low--like below half. Yow! I could have wasted the newly-rebuilt engine out of stupidity!

I have a rule: I never do anything major to a vehicle I buy until it's in my name, so that was the first order of business. I hurried right down and got the title transferred and got my new plates.

Ownership. Let the adventure begin.