My son's first truck

[dieseldawg142]

our '90 stepper that we bought from the orig owner in '95 with 24 000 miles, finally after 29 yrs of faithful service, 200 000 on road miles, approx 150 000 off road miles and smiles all the way has given it's last....sad face...
had never owned an IFS truck (solids only) and had my doubts, figured it would be a good mall crawler for the wife and to maybe get off our road in the winter.
in fact the whole time she drove it (first 9 yrs) she prob had it in 4by maybe 10 times.....sad face...
after i took it over in '04, it's off road miles skyrocketed, with a 40-ish to 1 crawl ratio, some good tires and it would go, climb, ford any terrain as long as the tires got traction, and made me a believer out of IFS suspensions
shortly after we bought it in '95


wasn't "pretty" enough for the wife, so cranked the bars, some add a leafs, 285 tires, prom chip, flowmaster cat back and a few other accs


then i took it over and it's off road chops kicked in. cue the man in black- "I've been everywhere"
literally to hell and back, never left me stranded, although i did have to limp it home once or twice after destroying some parts...
but for the last few yrs i kinda neglected it and only spent whatever money was needed to keep it running. all my money was going into my crewcab

[dieseldawg142]

i did some calculations and i figured it would take 5-7K to bring it back mechanically, not counting the cosmetics.
so it was a no brainer buying this '96 rcsb for $6500.
truck was bought new by a hot rod shop that used it for a parts chaser, then they sold it to the gentleman i got it from.
4.3 V6, 5 spd, and 3:73 gears. body is minty mint esp for a 28 yr old truck.
hot rod shop also swapped the seats for some out of a Yukon i think.
miles were just over a hundred k. runs perfect with no issues, clutch is smooth as is shifting it, brakes, which usually suck on the gmt 400's, are outstanding- they will put your face in the windshield if your not paying attention.
didn't get much of a "test drive" as the p.o. was riding with me, but it run and looked so good and i needed a daily, so i bought it.

[dieseldawg142]

like i said, for a 28 yr old rig, the body is beautiful

[dieseldawg142]

on the way home after buying it (aprox 70 miles) i was completely underwhelmed by the V6. never owned a V6 truck in my life, always 8's and i noticed i had to run it up way more when shifting than the 5.7 in the stepper.
but i had bought it and figured after driving it for awhile i would get used to it....
the offending V6..


the first thing i did when i got it home was pull off the cow catcher and toolbox. i need to mount a canopy for my dawgs. sold the grille guard and toolbox for $500 so my investment was now down to 6 K.
when the guard came off it was pretty obvious my fr bumper had some plating issues...


also had a headliner prob to deal with as well

[dieseldawg142]

bumper was a little rougher looking once the chrome came off....
at this time my stepper was still driving, so i figured i would just do a temp fix on the bumper. the plan was to take the mint bumper off the stepper when it died and put it on the new truck.
after tons of welding and grinding, it looks acceptable enough for now


first winter with us and still hadn't put it on the road yet

[dieseldawg142]

new struts on the box and some new paint got me $500 for this goofy-ness


one thing i hated about this truck is the '90's silly-@ss decals on it. a few hrs with a hot air welder from work and there gone. also took off the few pieces of rub strip that were left. where the rest of it went went i have no clue...

[bnorth]

I hope you fix up the stepper too but both are great looking red shortboxes

[dieseldawg142]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I hope you fix up the stepper too but both are great looking red shortboxes

thanks
with our little windfall, i had seriously thought about re-doing the stepper, but man it needs a lot. of course we do have some sentimental attachment to it, (29 yrs worth) but i need to be realistic. even if i fixed it up, it's still an almost 400 000 mile (not kms) truck that has seen some serious use. i bought the new truck cause the last fews months one thing after another after another was hitting me with the step. and it won't really "die", it will live on in our new truck..
and i been thinking, we have 3 trucks already, why not get what i want, another blazer, but maybe gmt400 style, or a 2dr tahoe, fairly modern and reliable but easy as $hite to work on

[dieseldawg142]

my son and i pulled these off the rear leafs today-bit of a chore, sure glad i bought that 1200 ftlb milwaukee impact the other month...
half a inch thick the entire length. rear susp could'nt move it was so stiff. now it flexes nice. seeing how it was a parts chaser for a hot rod shop, guessin' they put them in for hauling home engines, axles, etc.


one shock of 4 showed up today. other 3 are coming in 2 more boxes (?!)


we mounted up the new tires on my old stepper rims today, just to see how they will look. plus we can mount them on his truck this weekend so we can decide how high to lift it


stepper is looking even more forlon now. 3 different tires.
pass fr is a 245/70 16, dr fr is a 285/75 16, and the 2 rears are the old tires and rims from wifey's 'yoda, 245/65 17

[dieseldawg142]

[dieseldawg142]

spent like half a day cleaning my old stepper rims. literally the first time they been cleaned in about 10 or so yrs...


kid bought some chrome valve stems, luggies and center caps for contrast...

[OutlawDrifter]

Looks like it's coming along pretty well.

[dieseldawg142]

getting there...
few more things we want to change and sort out.
took it out for some light wheeling, does not bad for a v6, 41:1 crawl sure helps.
totally impressed with the cooper stt's. actually find they bite better than the KM2's we were running


leafs flex much better without them overloads. if they were still on, tires would be in the air


puppies seem to like the more room than my old stepper

[dieseldawg142]

well we hit our first real mechanical probs with the '96.
i knew we had to get it aligned after throwing some lift keys in it, but it drove real nice at lower speeds so it was kinda on the back burner for the moment, but on the freeway a few days ago it didn't feel right. felt like an old '70's large barge, do a lane switch at speed and it seemed to take it's time and wouldn't come back fast enuff so now your doing the wiggle waggle down the road till it straitened up. people behind us prob thought we was drunk or something...lol
we did a backyard alignment and determined there was no more adjustment in the stock camber bolts. so we put some new bolts in and did another backyard alignment so we could get it to the shop. the alignment guy actually commended us on the not bad alignment job with a tape measure and 3 ft long level.
$160 bucks later and she steers with one finger now


niiice! no chineseum...

[dieseldawg142]

the other mechanical prob is a little more involved.
once or twice while in 4lo it would clunk. i thought maybe a bad cv, but after inspecting the cv's, they were pretty solid. then last friday while trucking up this mountain we had a more serious prob. was in 4lo again going up a 30-35 degree gravel hill with a little throttle thrown in and she popped into neutral twice on the hill. little freaky the first time as it started rolling backwards- instantly...
so i'm thinking maybe the shift fork is boogered or the pads are worn off. will also check the "infamous" snap ring on the output shaft


luckily if anything is broken or chewed up, i got this 241 case with 2 yrs of use on it. my buddy bought a 94 k1500 new in '94 and in '97 he blew the t-case. he just made it in under the 3 yr warranty and gm put a new case in for him. two yrs later he blew the tranny and i ended up with the t-case. been sitting in my back yard since '97....wondering what the guts look like after 20+ yrs of non-use...besides his was out of an auto, ours is a manual

[dieseldawg142]

me and my son pulled the transfer case out yesterday. took a little over an hour to get it out. unfortunatley i could only use my impact on the driveshafts. we had to use a wrench to get all 6 bolts from the t-case to trans out, and were only able to turn the bolts less than a 1/4 inch at a time cause of the adapter webbing in the way.

[OutlawDrifter]

You've got your own club/gang now with Victory Red V6 shortbeds!

[dieseldawg142]

don't ya know it...
what are the chances...
well our frikkin posties are on strike, getting hard to get my parts delivered. their strike has brought my build almost to a standstill...
but still doing what i can. finished de-decal-fying the truck. liking the cleaner look much better.


and seeing how the kid already jacked the skidplates off my stepper, went to the wrecking yard and got a skidplate package for $30


useless bit of trivia, half the skidplate bolts were gone, after digging thru my collection of nuts and bolts, found some that fit the truck. the bolts i found were actually fender bolts off an old '68 nova i had 'bout 25 yrs ago-who would have thought 56 yr old bolts would fit a '97...


first semi-serious mechanical prob showed up today. starter is starting to drag, lucky i have a less than 1 yr old mini on my stepper, so that's my mission today...in the rain no less...

[dieseldawg142]

too much rain, starter can wait till a drier day.
but i did manage to score these today for a hundred bucks....just wishin could find a victory red fender. have found 2, but both are like 8-10 hour round trip away

[dieseldawg142]

gotta luv them mini's, nice and lightweight...
starts like a mother now...


no wonder the starter was acting up, the pin in the lever came out...


finally scored a good set of mirrors for $40. i hate them low line factory mirrors, makes for a b***h backing up in the mountains at nite


unused new door handle off marketplace for $10 to replace the drivers handle, i think the spring is broke cause the handle doesn't go back in. and if you forget to tap it in, you have to go to the pass. side to get back in...

[dieseldawg142]

took it up the mountain last nite. climbs pretty darn good for being low and on 265's, mind ya, the 265's are 75% BF km2's


couple days of epoxy-ing and sanding my fender flares. they were pretty decent except the p.o. had drilled about 10 extra mounting holes on the flanges...which for my ocd just didn't cut it. now it's back to just the factory holes and some bedliner


and the p.o. was faa-weight challenged. the drivers side of the seat sags about 4-5" down, and has 4 tears in it. so i grabbed the seat out of the stepper (not sagged) and only 1 hole. first time in my life i ever sewed. wife says you sew, she'll clean it. used 8lb test fishing line hoping it won't come apart. not really concerned 'bout looks cause wifey bought me a nice seat cover- but don't get it till Christmas

[OutlawDrifter]

More progress is good progress!

[dieseldawg142]

yup
moving forward...slowly but still forward...
got the seat mounted today, what a pia. the captive nuts and bolts on the 1990 stepper seat is 7/16. the 1997 seat bolts are 3/8's. no prob, get some longer bolts.....except can't find gr. 8 3/8's bolts that are 3" long. so drilled out the nuts and re-tapped them to 7/16. need longer bolts to go thru my "risers". at least now i'm not looking thru the steering wheel..


also ditched the drop in bedliner, my dawgs hated it. skittering all over the place on it. surprisingly someone por 15 the box under the liner...bonus!
and no, that is not a pile of leaves. it's a leaf pattern dog blanket


finally A part showed up, just 1. temp gauge ain't working, hoping a new temp sensor will take care of it. can finally flush the rad out now, didn't want to do things twice. supposedly my hood release and cable, muffler, shocks, speakers, power steering pump and a few other things are supposed to show up this week...we'll see...still no word on when my rims are supposed to get here...sad face

[dieseldawg142]

couple more parts rollin' in.
finally got my muffler. the old one was giving me a headache.
no chineseum in this one


why anybody would put a 3" exhaust with a chambered muffler on a V6 is beyond me. it's NEVER gonna sound like a V8, and it actually just makes it sound waaaaay worse. sounded like a ricer with a fart can muff and was constantly backfiring when ya shift between gears. and it was only 14" long compared to the 20" long walker. my sons truck had the exact same lousy exhaust on his short box, so i bought the exact same muff for mine. only prob is it's quiet and i can really hear my p.s. pump whining now...but it's supposed to be here on thursday.


and my speakers showed up today, which means i finally get to fix the door handle and take care of the rattles, like the cooling system, didn't want to take the doors apart 2 times..

[dieseldawg142]

few more parts rolling in.
new power steering pump. came in silver, didn't like, sprayed it black.
also bought a cheap amazon pulley removal/installation tool. hey for $35 it worked like a hot damn. took the pulley off and on in just seconds with no effort


wish i could have said as much as getting the pump out. had to remove the fr skidplate to get at the shroud bolts out and ended up taking the ac/ps pump bracket right off.
before..


and new one in..didn't realize my pump was a stupid evo pump, so had to spend another $75 for a '96 chev high pressure hose to match every thing up