Green Mile

[lsxponcho]

Well, I guess its time for me to start a build thread. Ive always dug the sqaure body style as my first truck was a 78 reg cab that my dad help me build up. I have a soft spot for this truck in particular since it was my Dads. He originally came up with the name Green Mile. We joked about how damn long the truck was, and for years i tried to convince him to turn it into a dually. Never the less, it stayed in this state for a long time (minus the duramax wheels), and was reliable as hell. Ive borrowed the truck from time to time to get work done around my place, and since his passing ive inherited it and use it as much as i can.



Well we all know how long things last in there current state. I was ruined after looking at pics of other guys crew cab short box conversions. So out came the tools, and out with the old box. The kids thought this was cool.




....and out came the knife



I found myself an 82 short box parts rig and donated the box to a good cause

[lsxponcho]

Over the summer i got things worked out with the conversion. The drive shaft was shot, so $550 bucks later it came back with all new yokes, and 14" shorter. After that i tossed some different tail pipes on it which was just some leftover parts from some stock srt8 jeep parts (dual in dual out muffler over the diff, and 3" tail pipes). The truck had good exhaust work done before, and the big block wears long tube headers, with 2" duals, x-pipe, leading to the " newly re-purpused junkyard special jeep parts". It had some old turbo mufflers on it before and sounded pretty mundane. It breaths pretty good now. After that i finished up the slip tank the parts truck came with for temporary fuel tank, and re-mounted the hitch receiver, etc. I also found gmc center caps for the duramax wheels, and mounted on some 265's as the 245's looked silly.

[lsxponcho]

a few fishing trips later, and late during the summer i couldn't take how hot it was in the truck, so i went down to crappy tire and got some cheap window tint. I did 30% fronts, and 20% on the rear doors, and back window. All these things are temporary as down the road i want to find good rear doors, and do one piece windows for the front doors. Also im going to find a solid rear window....and get the a/c running again, haha. Here it is wearing its new shady windows, doing one of its many duty's...takin out the trash.

[lsxponcho]

Now that winter is here to stay progress has been slow. I did manage to score a set of nice clean RED! burban doors for the rig. Now i just have a small amount of box rust to deal with, and then she will be clean and straigt, ready for a round of home body and paint. Ive been thinking either gm metallic charcoal/black color, but it would probably show all my rookie body skills, so possible a nice bright red like the donor doors. Once i start on the body, im going to take advantage of having the box off again, and c-notch the rear and drop this thing to where i think it should be...and possible look for better fuel tank options, like the burb tank.

Before...

After inserting cheap ass microsoft photoshop rendition


Im guessing this is where it would end up with the rear end flipped with c-notch, and 3" drop spindles with a maybe 1/2 to a full coil cut in the front. Tire size may have to change up front i think. Of coarse while its down for the count i sure like day dreaming about what it would be like with a 6.0L/4l80e, and maybe a single turbo. It sure would be cool to give this old tub some scoot, not that the 454 is all that bad...but it could be alot better.

[lsxponcho]

Made some progress on the interior while we had a break in the weather. I got some cool black and grey leather seats from a 04ish pontiac aztec (front buckets, rear folding split bench.) So i pulled the carpet up, and stripped the bench seat braket that had the old couch style buckets and oak vaneer center console. Im not sure what brand the old ones were, but the seat braket says 88-98 chevy truck on it, so maybe its some conversion?? The front buckets were terribly easy. I stripped the power stuff from under the seat, and basically mounted cross brakets on the factory 4 mounting holes on the aztec seat, and drilled holes and mounted them to the old sliders. Seats sit perfect height, I can tilt the wheel all the way down and still have room for my fat hams. The rear seat was a pain in the ass. Im guessing that any one that has done 99-04 tahoe, suburban or cadillac seats feels my pain, cause they look like the same style bench seat brackets. I basically had to raise and make new seat mounting brackets once i hacked off the bottom seat folding hardware, and now they mount up nice. I will take pics to show what i mean, as im terrible at explaining this stuff. Now the truck has some nice modern seats... and is about 4 different colors now like the exterior too. HAHA. The only down side is the rear bench is narrower than the old bench, by what looks like 4" at least. There is still 3 seat belts, but car seats will be tight. Im also going to pick-n-pull some nice grey newer gm shoulder belts front and rear so i can use all the new seat buckles. The interior will change to black and grey now to match the seats, and i will get or make a new full center console. Pics up soon.

[lsxponcho]

Here's a couple pics of the same seats i found off the interwebs. Enjoy

[lsxponcho]

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome. I am looking for some thoughts on how to lower the Green "3/4" mile as a friend has newly dub'd it. For example, flipped axle vs hangers/shakles, leaf pack changes for the rear, and drop spindle and how much drop spring up front, or cut coils. Also any tips possibly feed back on how your ride handles and how well it tows with or without helper bags, etc. My rig will more than likely see its share of tow pigging down the road.

[1tonchevy]

nice truck! what seats are the new ones out of? and the old ones look pretty comfy! what are they?

[lsxponcho]

Originally Posted by 1tonchevy

nice truck! what seats are the new ones out of? and the old ones look pretty comfy! what are they?

The new seats are from a 2004-5 ish Pontiac Aztec...the ugly crossover mini van. Im not sure what brand couch the old seats were. They were pretty comfy, but friggin ugly and bulky.

[lsxponcho]

Well here she is in all here mutli color glory wearing the new 91 suburban doors. Also in this pic the drip rails are removed and welded up, and as if 4 colors aren't enough, i shot a couple of rust spots with rustoleum black, and covered up on the goodmark hood where the edp coat is wearing off, haha.


While im at it here is a pic of the monster under the hood...pretty flashy with all that painted tin under there

[lsxponcho]

Over the weekend i thought of messing around with the ride height. Im not sure where i got the 6" measurement from before, but after i went through the trouble of making some quick new perches for flipping the rear, i realized that would equate to more like 8-9" of drop in the rear. So much for that idea. Also while out this weekend i picked up a suburban gas tank from the same guy I purchased the doors from. To make a long story short i may sell the 14 bolt out of the truck to him as i have a half ton short box rolling chassis at my moms place with a 12 bolt, etc. Maybe its time to do a 5 bolt conversion and drop this thing. Spindles are way cheaper!!

[lsxponcho]

After feeling sad about the lack of progress on my static drop, i decided to take my need for butchering out on the grill. Not sure if anyone noticed in the microsoft paint photoshop pic i made, but i planned on removing the vertical bars in the grill, and smoothing it back out, maybe changing the gmc logo, and later build a billet, or honey comb insert to lay in down the road. Here are a few progess pics of said butchering



here it is just sitting back in place not bolted in on the truck. Im not sold yet on wether that was a good idea yet...Maybe after some more work

[classicchev]

I have a set of springs that are altered for a lower static, I sold the hangers a long time ago, but they are available

[1tonchevy]

Originally Posted by classicchev

I have a set of springs that are altered for a lower static, I sold the hangers a long time ago, but they are available

because i bought the them

[classicchev]

Did you use them yet!!!!!
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[classicchev]

I think you should have just bought my truck, you would be waaaay further into the project, and you could have made your dads truck a dually.
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[lsxponcho]

Originally Posted by classicchev

I have a set of springs that are altered for a lower static, I sold the hangers a long time ago, but they are available

What's done to the leafs? Did you just remove a few? How much drop do you think they would provide ballpark?

[79 blue monster]

looks awsome! keep up the good work!

[classicchev]

I think a couple leafs wher taken out. The previous owner did it. I have a 4 link in the rear now
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[Devillusion]

Looks great, coming along further than my two....hahaha

[1tonchevy]

Originally Posted by classicchev

Did you use them yet!!!!!
Posted via Mobile Device

sure did she tucks in the rear! now i have to fix the front lol it's sitting cali

pics in my thread

[lsxponcho]

So as per my weird spindle query yesterday, last night I picked up 88-98 upper ball joints and tried out my belltech 2400 spindles. I just picked up cheap mevotech bj's as the only retail at 44 bucks just to see if this works.


I also measured the stub, and mine must be the hd 1.25 rotor spindles meant to be stamped 2500 (since they share the same casting) as they had the 4.5" stub. I also had some newer coils that I tossed in. They are a little lighter duty than the monster 1 ton coils that came out. Here are a couple of poor dimly lit cell phone pics.





The spindle is just sitting at the extension of the shock in these pics

I jacked it up a few times (poor representation of ride height, but somewhat of an indicator side to side) and it seemed like it delivered at least the 2 " drop. So back out came the coils, and i cut half a coil to start, which seemed to get me around a 3" drop compared to the other side that I still have the 1 ton hardware on. Today my outer tie rod ends should arrive (which are also mevotech, 40 bucks retail), and i will give those a try. I will leave the coils at that until i can get it wrapped up, and pick up some rotors, and calipers and bolt some wheels on. Ive got 15x7 van rallies, and 15x8 truck rallies that i will try first and see how it goes. So far if this works, i should be well on pace for a way cheaper drop than the $600 dollar belltech 1 ton drop spindles i was looking at.

I also ordered Belltech 6750 4" hanger and shackle kit which should arrive around Christmas, and also will hopefully pick up some nice leafs from classicchev

[lsxponcho]

Not much of an update...Im iching to go get some front brake parts this weekend. I did toss some rubber on my front van rally's, dropped the wieght of the truck down on the lca's on jack stands and mocked it up. It may drop just a little more once it rolls around and settles out.



Trying out a newer style center cap. Front rubber is just some 235/75 hankook's. In the rear im going with truck rally's with 31x10.5 rubber. Hopefully that fills up the wheel wells. We'll see.

[C@rnut001]

You have a nice truck and are making great progress on it. I have enjoyed reading about it and seeing your pictures of what you are doing to it.

[lsxponcho]

Originally Posted by C@rnut001

You have a nice truck and are making great progress on it. I have enjoyed reading about it and seeing your pictures of what you are doing to it.

Thanks for the comment (and to others I have not replied to yet). Its great to hear positive feedback. Hopefully after the weekend I will have a whole bunch more pics of my one ton posing as a half ton.