‘76 GMC LS Swap

[RotaryRocketeer]

Been a long time since I’ve posted, and a lot has happened. My 350 dropped a cylinder and left me stranded, never to run again. Luckily I had picked up a 2000 model LQ4 about 2 months previous to this. Just had been waiting for an excuse to put it in. It was in my detached three car garage on a stand with the heads off at the machine shop and ready to pick up. But naturally, my girlfriend’s super clean ‘69 El Camino decides to burn to the freaking ground as she started it THE DAY AFTER my truck had its heart attack. I’m at work, fire dept comes in and sprays everything like crazy and fills my block with recycled toilet water. El Camino was a total loss, heartbreaking for me and absolutely devastating for the lady. Her first car up in flames.

Luckily the car had very good coverage through Hagerty (can’t say enough nice things about those people and their customer service,) and everything was squared away very quickly with the car. Home owners’, however, dragged their feet for several months before even issuing the first and most disappointing of what was to be many payments. I have a ton of tools, parts, big kid toys, memorabilia, and whatnot in that garage. They didn’t even know what half of it was.

They finally realized that we weren’t going away and they’d have to actually cover what was in the garage and issued a payment that could almost have been considered fair. It was enough to put my builder LS on the back burner and just get a crate motor so I could have my truck back on the road after 6 months of sitting heartless outside of a burned up garage.

We got the garage workable enough to get the truck straightened out and will finish it after the old girl is back up and running, so excuse the state of things in the photos and know it will get better haha.

I’ve done a lot already and it should be done in a few days, so bear with me and the thread will eventually catch up.