1990 GMC V3500 Slow Build

[burban nate]

Here is my current project. I'm swamped at work right now and don't have much time to work on it as I'd like so progress will be slow.

I bought this '90 Chev V3500 my junior year in HS (2006). One of my dad's friends had it since the early '90s. I remember seeing this truck once and a while when I was real young and new I had to have one someday. It had 219,000 miles on it when I bought it, and those miles were hard miles.



Anyways this is where its at right now.





Cab is completely stripped and is ready to get sand blasted so the metal work can begin. It will need both center and rear cab supports, inner and outer rockers, inner and outer cab corners, and a good chunk of the lower back panel.

I'll be using mostly stock frame and suspension. I'm buying new springs for all four corners because there were busted leafs in all the spring packs. I'm possibly swapping in a rear Dana 80 w/posi for the 70. I'll be putting in an OEM rear sway bar. The Dana 60 front is going to get a rebuild with premium parts. I'm keeping the 4.10 gearing. I'm possibly going to put in a quicker ratio steering box.

I'm going to keep the 454, THM400, and NP205 combo. the 454 has been rebuilt with a steel crank, HP rods and forged dome pistons. It has 049 heads with a performance valve job, Comp Cams TBI roller cam, and good valvetrain. I'm going to use a Vortec intake and control it all with a Dynamic EFI EBL Flash P4 computer. I'm also going to use the Kwik Performance brakets to adapt the '87-'94 SBC serpentine system. The Turbo 400 will get a rebuild with premium parts and a towing converter. Also it will get a 2.75:1 low gear planetary. The NP205 just got new gaskets and seals, it looks really good inside. I will also be adding a Gear Vendors overdrive.

The interior is going to be tan and black two tone. I'll use '89-'91 'Burb front buckets and both floor and roof counsels. I'm going to install a '91 elec. speedo cluster and add a big truck 5000rpm tach/fuel gauge, diesel C-70 100psi oil gauge, and big truck vacuum gauge. Also I'm going to mount a factory clock in its own pod on top of the center of the dash, and a few extra factory gauges in a custom cluster under the dash for oil temp, trans temp, and possibly a few more.

Exterior will be mostly stock except I'm using all GMC trim, I like the GMC grille much better. I'm not sure on color yet, it will either be all black, white and blue two tone, or green and charcoal two tone. I'll be adding '91 power mirrors, Alcoa 8 hole aluminum rims, 'Burb tinted rear door glass, and a '81-'82 marker light bumper with gaurds. I also have a set of factory tow hooks to put back on with the valance panel. I'm also going back to stock ride height.

Nate

[y5mgisi]

Subscribed.

[MTCK]

That's a plan! Cool truck. I'll be following along.

[burban nate]

The last year and a half was not very conducive to getting any work done on this project at all. I did manage to build a new motor for my 1970 GTO Judge and completely rebuild everything mechanical on the car (suspension, brakes, axle, and trans.) So I have just been in parts collecting mode for this truck.

My vision has changed a bit since I posted this thread also. I have finally decided that it will be black with maple/carmine red interior. I've also decided I'm going to buy a Chevrolet Performance ZZ502 Ramjet crate motor and use EFI Connection's 24x ignition system with an LS1 style ECM. I'm also going to use a 4L85e trans which I'll either adapt my NP205 to or if I'm lucky enough, find a '91 only VSS NP205 with correct adapter.

I'm hoping to find a 2011-2016 GM AAM 11.5" dually rear axle in a salvage yard for it. I'm also working with a machinist to convert a set of forged SRW Dana 60 hubs to 8x180mm bolt pattern so I can use the dually wheel adapters off of the same '11-'16 GM trucks. He is also going to build me some caliper brackets to use the brakes off the '11-'16 trucks on my Dana 60. I want to run the factory 17" forged aluminum dually wheels off the '13-'16 trucks.

I'll be finished with The Judge by the end of April, then I will be focusing on the metal work on this truck.

I did manage to get the gauge cluster sorted out though. I started with a '91 elec. speedo cluster and a junk c-70 diesel tach housing. I cut the tach specific parts out of the diesel housing and epoxied them in the '91 housing. Then I cleaned up the seams and gave it a coat of the closest blue the hardware store had in a plastic paint spray bomb. I bought a big truck gas cluster from Dave on here which donated its 5000rpm tach, 80psi oil gauge, and vacuum gauge. I still need to touch up some surface rust on the trip reset knob and some of the gauge face rivets, and I need to sand and polish out the lens. But I am really happy how this turned out. I still need to find a nice OD shift indicator, I thought I had a spare but I can't find it.



Nate

[COS399]

Nice. I'm in.