1988 gmc k2500

[Second Series]

I have a 1988 K2500 that doesn’t get much use. I bought it a few years ago from a shady used car dealer. They had the truck on their lot, but had to meet me at a grocery store parking lot. I thought it would be a good donor for a frame swap for an older truck, and stick shifts are rare around here. I use it for work around the house, getting a load of gravel, or making a dump run.
I have had it for about six years. When I got it, it had an intermittent starting issue. I found that if I push on the fuse block, it would allow it to start. The ECM fuse is shared with the Temperature sender, oil sender, and fuel pump. If the engine overheats, or looses oil pressure, the circuit draws excessive current and blows the fuse, shutting off the system. It looks like a new radiator, so it may have overheated. The fuse was 30A, should be 20A, and the fuse socket had lost it’s tension-the fuse was loose. I picked up a used fuse block and replaced several loose fuse sockets to fix that.
The speedometer was broken, so I also picked up a gauge cluster. The gauge cluster in the truck was broken at the odometer, so it was probably rolled back. The new to me gauge cluster works, but I’ll never know how many miles are on this truck. It mostly sits. A couple years ago, I was having difficulty starting. It would try to start, and eventually go. I looked at the injectors, replaced one, but it still had problems. I measured the resistance of the temperature sender cold, ran the engine awhile and measured it again hot. It did change, but the range was shifted from what it should have been. I replaced the temp sender and it starts right up now.
At some point I did a brake job, pads and rotors turned, shoes and drums turned on the back. The right front rotor got hot on a trip back from the hardware store, so I replace the caliper. That was easy enough, so I replaced the driver side too.
This spring I decided to start driving it. I got a load of gravel and the right front rotor got hot, I was smelling burning brake pad on the way home. I’m working through this problem now.I’m ready to start the frame swap project, so I want to fix this first. I’m also ready to continue on projects around the house, so I needed a replacement truck.