1997 Silverado Stepside Project

[lsxponcho]

Hey everyone! Its been a long time since I posted on my last oobs project.

I sold the truck in this stage and moved on to some car projects for a while. Of coarse life continually got in the way of those too, and I ended up selling them off too. In the summer/fall of 2014 I started hunting for another rcsb for a toy, and I found this one 3 hours away from me: blown 4.3/auto, 200k, maroon interior, drop shackles, 454ss wheels. It was a little beat here and there, the interior was a little dumpy, but it was perfect for my needs...and cheap lol.


My core plans off the start were to swap to sbc, and lower it. I really wanted a muscle truck, but also wanted to keep sort of a sleeper vibe, so nothing really dramatic to give away it was anything special.

My first purchase (which made no sense at the time)was a set of bfg's, 275/60's for the rear, and 235/70's for the front. Then I ditched the LMC grille, in favor for stock chevy I had laying around with black bowtie.

I pulled the dead drivetrain, and front suspension, and got right to cleaning and painting, to get ready to install the new power plant. I was lucky enough to save some parts, and recycle the engine from my LeMans project. Its a 350 vortec with edelrock 2099 top end package (less the accessories)

I wanted to keep everything very simple, and minimalistic, so abs, a/c, and everything else under the hood that isn't absolutely needed was turfed. My main concern was how to thin down the harness to go carb, without chopping out things that were needed. At that point I was really wishing I had started with a TBI truck...I hate wiring

[lsxponcho]

So the tear down was getting serious by Christmas...bear with me as I try to document things in order. I finished getting the engine harness out of the truck now, and also pulled the dash out. That sort of happened because I couldn't tell where the hvac harness connections were hiding. In hind sight, the dash could have stayed, but it is a cracked to hell, so its not all bad. I'm going to practice on this dash on the new gauge arrangement also. For what I have in mind, I think there will be some cutting involved, and maybe some heat duct re-work.


Here it is on its way out. The bench and a bunch of plastic has made its way out already.



Jumbled mess...man I hate wiring.



Getting pretty bare inside. At this point it makes sense for a interior swap.


A bunch of maroon/red garbage...



Some of the nicest duck tape work I've seen....not



Down to pretty much bare bones up front.



Started redoing the control arms also.




I took these also just because...sometimes guys ask about knock outs, so here they are.

[lsxponcho]

Pretty excited about some interior stuff I got going on. I can't win the lottery, but this was about as close as I could get for my gauge needs. I sas surfing some local adds, and landed a set of ultra lite 2 gauges for the truck, with all the sending units. The speedo and tach are 3-3/8" and the rest are 2" (I need to get a matching volts gauge, so just stuffed an amps gauge in its hole for the time being that I had laying around). I got lucky and managed to keep the stock bezel, and pretty much just gutted the back plastic half, then I made a new gauge plate out of aluminum. I still would like to get some lights for signals, and maybe a few other small things. Lastly I will paint the gauge plate black before it goes back together. I test fit it in the dash and will have to do some trimming to allow it to sit down the last 1/2" and bolt in place, but its much less than I initially thought. I should be able to leave the heat duct alone. Here are some pics













I also finished stripping the wiring harness for its minimal needs.

[lsxponcho]

More progress slowly rolling in. I finished stripping the frame, and cleaning up everything good enough for a coat of paint. I used rustoleum semi gloss black. It turned out pretty decent, and now comes the more enjoyable part of re-assembly. My Belltech stuff arrived also, so when I put the front suspension back together with the new 3" drop springs.

***keep in mind my plans at the moment were to only do a 3/4 drop. The truck came with drop shackles, so i had ordered drop hangers to do the rest of the job***

I also tossed in new ball joints, rotors, calipers, and bearings since I was in there. All the steering components have been replaced already with moog equipment so that was a bonus. Its on wheels and sitting back on all fours again. It sits like a 4x4 with no weight in it, lol. To finish up the front end, I will be getting some monroe sensitracs from a dakota. They are supposed to work pretty good with the spring drop i have (13.5" extended length, and 8" compressed ) I also started mocking up my used griffin rad (originally for a 70-81 f-body), and although the 4 core fits a little tight against the rad support, and fills the bottom channel a little snug, it works. I just ended up cutting some mild steel for the upper hold down that I will also use to make mounting tabs for an e-fan. Here are a couple pics of how its starting to look.














I am also hunting down an 88-94 prop valve, and lines, to finish buttoning up the brakes.

[lsxponcho]

This is what happens when I go out to the garage. I was building a rocking chair for our nursery, and got side tracked a little and started mocking up 4.3L front accessories. Since I'm not running a/c however, but wanted modern serpentine at the same time, I figured hey...maybe I can just chop the top portion of the d.s. bracket that mounts the compressor to see how it looks. What do you know, they wouldn't look half bad shined up. This was just the preliminary cut, so there was lots more to do yet

[lsxponcho]

So back to the useless first purchase...I realized that the truck needed a 10" rear wheel to get the look I was after. The only problem was everyone wanted at least $300/wheel to widen the 454ss wheels. So the only reasonable thing to do was buy new ones. I ordered a set of corvette rally's (15x10 front, and 15x7 rears). Its all thanks to Google and Gale Banks shop truck...dang it lol. I wish 18's were in my price range, cause it looks fully awesome. This is also when I started to realize that the 3/4 drop wasn't going to cut it.



I love the corvette themed exhaust through the roll pan too.

[lsxponcho]

Hit a fun milestone and finally stabbed the motor/tranny in the truck complete with before and after shots, haha. Here she is ready to mate up to the 700R4. Notice the lack of sunlight in the after shot...longest transplant I've ever done!

I finally got it in at the end of the night. The motor mounts gave me plenty of trouble. The new rubber side of the mounts did not want to fit over the clam shells. The rubber inserts of the frame side mounts just needed to slide up inside the shell, and the engine dropped down and bolted up. I've never ran into that before. I guess I'm lucky this is the first time installing new mounts that I have not encountered this before.

[lsxponcho]

So unfortunately the a-body hooker super comps would not fit, no matter how much I wished they would. So found a set of used headman long tubes to toss in. They were in need of a good clean, and painting or coating, but they were a really good deal. I was pretty surprised that they just went in from the top with no fighting or anything. Usually with long tubes, one goes in from the top, and one from the bottom, or something ends up being a major pain in the ass. Ground clearance is great too, and they are tucked up above the frame.

[lsxponcho]

More small updates;

I accessories are finished. The alt bracket is basically unaltered, save for removing the idler pulley. I was going to switch it with a ribbed pulley because I was woried that if I ran the belt straight from the alt to the power steering pump that it would be too close to the water pump. After everything was mocked up, it turns out there is plenty of clearance, so I ditched the idler. One other small thing to note: if I would have ran the idler, there would not have been much alternator engagement, and might have caused slipping. Now that Im certain its not needed, I may trim off the mounting boss from the bracket to clean it up just a little more.

The power steering bracket turned out well. I did oops on one spot while cutting the top portion of the bracket for the a/c pump (you can see the partial cut mark on the lower mounting hole by the water pump where I cut in a little more than I intended too). Other than that I rounded some corners and roughly polished it up a little. Now it doesn't seem like the accessories block the view from the engine so much.

After its all said and done I cut the stock belt down and with some handy dandy zip ties, I ended up with an 85" belt. I orded a new one today, so there's another thing to cross off the list.


On a side note, don't you hate when your working in sort of a mess of stuff, but you are in too much of a hurry to make sure you don't knock things over while your working. I was trying to multi task while doing the accessories, and decided to land the distributor for some reason. So I set the cap on the rad support right next to me, and sure enough while rolling the engine over to tdc, I kocked the cap off, and it broke on the ground:nono: Guess I will need another new cap...damn it!

Anyways another small but satisfying update on the gauges. I prepped the gauge panel, and sprayed it in semi gloss black and it looks way better now. I also picked up some pilot lights for turn signals and one for high beams and put them in. I also grabbed a volts gauge to match now so its complete.


To wire the gauges, my plan is to splice the factory cluster harness for illumination, left and right signals, high beam, and ground. Then run the other output wiring through a new firewall grommet to the sending devices.

[lsxponcho]

I sold the 454ss rims/tires(and made a small profit for once). I heard back from the Wheel Vintiques finally. They did not do a custom backspace run in January or February for some reason (maybe not enough orders ?), so they started on them last week. They should be done, and in Calgary in roughly 2 weeks. This time I wanted to get drag radials. I ended up with 28x11.5 et street radials for the rear, and 235/70/15 bfg's for the front....basically the same dimensions as before. Now that those ducks were in a row, I started ripping into the rear end of the truck. The exhaust and rear end are out of the truck prepping for the axle flip. I built plates, and got some new perches for it, and I will be mocking it up in the next couple of nights to set pinion angle, and weld her up. I also ordered Earls/Russel fittings for the tank so I can get the fuel system happening. I'm want to sump the tank, and run the fuel supply to the Holley blue pump mounted just behind the tank, then 3/8 stainless line (no return) up to the regulator (possibly mounted on the passenger side inner fender), then braided flex to the feed lines for the 750dp. I also ordered my drop spindles so now the truck is committed to going 4/6 drop.

[lsxponcho]

Started playing with the regulator mounting and carb feed lines. The inner fenders aren't in yet obviously, so out of curiosity I tried using one of the coolant overflow tank mounting holes to hang the regulator. With the length of the braided lines, it works pretty decent. I may leave it like this, since it would be easy to tube down, and out the back for the rest of the fuel line. The only problem is the lip of the cowl would make it hard to get an allen key into the regulator, but I could clearance just that spot, and you wouldn't really notice. Also would still have to put a tee in to run a fuel pressure gauge. I know the fpr isn't supposed to be on the firewall if I wanted the truck to pass tech, but since Calgary lost its track couple years back, i'd say chances are pretty slim.

[lsxponcho]

I sold the set of belltech hangers and shackles I had, and ordered factory replacement shackles from dorman. Also my 2" drop spindles showed up, along with some tubing. I picked up some 2", and 1.5" to build notches and a back bridge for upper shock mount location. I tossed in the perches, and diff, snugged up the plates, and tossed in a tire for my viewing pleasure, and Im happy. Wild ass guess on shock length looks like 18" length at ride height, running from the lower spring plate to where it would meet up with where the bridge will run, with enough angle for the shock to clear the frame (could also pocket the frame too if need be, but the angle doesn't look bad). I also tried my junkyard rear sway bar (89 f-150) and the bar sits across the diff nice enough, but the sway link on the drives side interferes with the gas tank so I couldn't get it centered...really to early to say if it will work, but I think if need be I could rear mount it also. It was dark by the time I wrapped up, but can't go without some quality cell phone pics.




















Everything is marked now, so I can remove the box, blow it all apart again, and start cutting to build the notches. I'm wanting to do something along the lines of the avs underbed super c-notch...aaaaand offcoarse a butt load more cleaning and painting.

[lsxponcho]

I got the drop spindles installed, and re-installed the 3" drop springs with belltech's 1" spacer. I also scored a smoothie bumper for the truck, so I decided to ditch the rear bumper and go with a roll pan.
I made another milestone this weekend, and finally got the garage wired for 240v. Now that I have the capability to run my larger mig, and more amps on the plasma cutter, it blows my mind that I waited this long to do it. I was pretty excited, so I got the truck spun around, and knocked the box off, and removed the gas tank, and the rear end out again. I mentioned I picked up some tubing a little while ago, so I put it to good use, and built sort of a truss for the c-notch. They will end up looking kind of like the avs super notch, but a bit beefier. I will end up plating the inside too, then build the bridge for the relocated shocks. Here are a couple pictures of how things are starting to look.













Now that the fab stuff is happening, I made the decision to turf the factory tank. I got a rear 19 gal tank from the same ford pickup that I scored the rear sway bar from, and rough measuring shows it will fit the frame rails. I just have to see how it looks after the notch is done, and get the rear end mocked back up so I know how much room the shocks need. Double bonus; if it all fits, then the sway bar will work perfect also. More progress pictures coming, as i'm making steady progress.

[lsxponcho]

Here we go still workin on the notch. I have to order up some shocks, and mount them yet to the rear bridge bar, so there will be a little bit of fab left before I can wrap it up.



A little out of left field, but I made a sweet purchase a few days ago, and picked up a 95 ld2500 rclb with a 5.7/nv3500 combo. It will give up its 5spd, and possibly the sf 14 bolt if it isn't too much to convert to 5 bolt pattern.

[lsxponcho]

Well, I got brave with the plasma cutter, and cut out the x member, and test fit the ford tank. Fit is practically perfect.

[lsxponcho]

At this point I called to check on my wheels again, since it had been a few weeks since they were supposedly started; Wouldn't you know, Wheel Vintiques had nothing. We had a discussion on how I was able to pay for wheels (not that its a bunch of money really) that they didn't have parts to build, and wait for 4 months for that update. Among many things, they also had a machine break down, and all the custom backspace work had not even been started. I was made more promises that I was content with (since the truck wasn't ready for wheels yet anyways), and was told another 4-5 weeks guaranteed.

As far as truck updates, the donor truck is stripped now, and I also decided to cut the truck in half, and save the box to make a trailer for hauling garbage etc. Im sure the neighbors love it, as last night I rolled the box and cab halves out seperatly and stacked them sideways on the driveway haha.


The scrap guy is going to pick up the cab, and a bunch of other steel I have accumulated, so the yard will be nice and clean again. I also pulled the 700r4 out last night to install the flywheel for the nv3500. I have to cut the shifter, and clutch master holes yet, then install the clutch pedal, and tranny...but Whoohoo for progress. I can't wait to bang gears!

[lsxponcho]

Things are getting a little out of control, and off track a little bit. I decided to part out an extended cab I had, so it could donate its grey / leather interior, and make a little cash to carry on again.



I got the 95 gmc trailer finished.. The box sides were super tough, so I got the bright idea to trim them off...she's pretty ugly still, but handy as hell.

[lsxponcho]

Things starting to come together big time. House stuff kept me occupied for a month or so, and the truck was getting lonely. So after the rear end going in and out countless times, I finalized the shock mount locations, installed the front portion of the bridge/crossmember, and made perches to mount the sway bar (which ended up being pretty much identical to how it was mounted on the ford as far as diff orientation). I also made new perches for the axle, nailed down the pinion angle, and burned them in for good. Here are some pics of how its shaping up. Don't mind the junk on the back...i was adding weight to play around with things. The fuel tank is also mounted for good,












I also got some things finished up on some of the other projects. I ended up completely stripping the truck of its wiring, and going with the 98's donor wiring. There was a few odd differences, and I didn't want 2 harnesses cobbled together. The clutch master is installed, tranny is installed (which I’m happy to report a butt load of header clearance) and the interior is starting to go in as well, starting with the dash. I pulled the power door stuff from the donor, so now the truck will be full load with leather. I just have to pick and pull some odd grey pieces make up for a few things that I'm missing. Instead of using the grey center console from the donor, I’d like to find a 2nd row console from an nbs Tahoe or something so it doesn't interfere with the shifter.













Fan and Fuel pump switches

[lsxponcho]

Money shot...been waiting for these for a long time.

[lsxponcho]

Tires mounted! I took her off the jack stands, and rolled it out for the first time in a loooong time...only for the thing to get rained on for the last few days while I blew the rear back apart. Oh well. I hit the frame with a wire wheel to clean it up to get ready for paint, and pulled the gas tank again. I relocated the spout to the top, center, rear of the tank, so the fill will come through the bed floor, and also plumbed a fuel line in the sump. I got the engine harness sort of re-installed...just have to re-install the inner fenders to mount up the fuse box etc.

[lsxponcho]

Finally done the rear of the truck. Its only been apart a million times by now, so it feels pretty good to bolt it together for the last time. Of coarse here are the finished pics...even though its nothing really new....just nice and black now.









I'm excited to hear this thing come to life soon. I still have to run fuel line, and wire the pump, and sending unit, and hang the tail light harness. If i'm quick enough, I may even notch the bed bracing and get it bolted back on this week. Not too sure on plans for a bumper yet, or what to do for exhaust. I don't really like the sound of dumps, but there isn't a good way to put tail pipes on this thing, unless I get weirdly creative. Like I posted earlier, the inner fenders are in now, so the fuse box and harness back under the hood...just have to get some loom, and hide it nice before everything gets terminated. I got a couple little things for it at the last visit to the speed shop also.

[lsxponcho]

The box made its way back on the truck! This was another all day thing, It was just too late to fire up the plasma cutter so I could trim the rear cross member of the box to fit down properly...There was interference with the new rear frame cross member/tank straps, so the box is sitting a couple inches back. Other than that it fits nicely with the notch (the entire center bed support has been removed). I also cut the bed hole for the fill spout. I ran the fuel line, and ran wiring up to the front of the truck for the pump/sending unit etc. I picked up a conversion u-joint for the nv3500 yoke yesterday too, so she won't need wood blocks for much longer.

[lsxponcho]

Got some daylight again, so i trimmed up the rear box support, and got the box is bolted in now. Going to have to trim the wheel lip for room. The filler neck is finished now too. I thought it might be flush enough to use one of those universal stainless fuel door's you see everywhere, but it comes though the floor too much. The hole is just large enough that you can sneak your hand in, and snug up the hose clamps, so I just made an aluminum cover for now. I might spray it black yet since it stands out so much. I switched gears back to under the hood, and continued routing wiring, grounding, etc. All the boring stuff. Battery, and tray is back in, heater hoses, blah, blah.

[lsxponcho]

Ran into a snag. I put new brake lines on the diff, then got the driveshaft assembled, and to my dismay there was maybe only 1" of engagement...crap! Lukily I had a few kicking around; I have a donor aluminum d.s. from an 05 1/2 ton crew cab with 5.5' box. I was suprised to find it had basically the same spicer yoke, just a slightly different part #. Original yoke C3-3-529, vs the newer yoke is C3-3-529-6, so its off to the driveshaft shop to get shortened 9.5"

[lsxponcho]

The d.s is back from the shop, and it worked out perfectly. By this point I was getting pretty itchy about starting this thing. Its been a long time since I assembled the engine. I wired up the clutch safety nuetral switch, and re-wired the start relay. This was a mess in itself. I had power to the truck, but no crank. I thought that maybe it was held up by security, and chased that down for a while. After breaking out the meter, I realized I got a little chop happy when the harness went on a diet. I found that I had cut the start signal wire to the relay, so it wouldn't crank...I added in the stock clutch switch, and signal, and away it went. At this point the fuel pump isn't properly wired yet, and my fuel pressure gauge wasn't working. It is just switched right now to test for leaks,etc so it pushed passed the floats once or twice, but I was very happy to hear it fire. I picked up a e-fan wiring kit for the flex-a-lite with a thermostatic switch, so I will be working on finalizing those things, and getting it to move around on its own power again. Whoohoo!


(click for video)

(click for video)

Sorry for the sub par sound quality, and the messy garage, and my awesome video skills...or lack there of.