Heart Transplant

[bad68bowtie]

Well, it came a couple years later than I might have liked, but I finally got a new motor in my truck. By the time I pulled the old 305 that was in there it was blowing oil at the rate of about a quart every 60 miles or so. It was smoking so badly that as I was driving down the highway I could never tell if people were looking at me because of my truck in general, or just because of the enormous smoke cloud behind it .

A little background on my truck- I got this thing when I was 16 (I'm 20 now) and just for me it broke down on the way home when I bought it. Long story short is that I had to put a new crank in the 305, should have put a new motor in then...but I didn't...so here we are now. The truck has always been a pretty cool daily driver, but the wear and tear it has seen since I've gone off to college has started to take its toll.

Anyway, being in school makes funds a little tight but my dad helped me out in purchasing a 290 horse GM crate motor. I work at a full service gas station when I'm not in school so I had a window of opportunity to get this done this past week.

Here's the 305-


Here you can kind of see all the oil that was going EVERYWHERE-


And the 350 about ready to go in-


And going in-


Luckily for me I work with a master mechanic who knows GM stuff very well (and owns a '69 stepside) so this all went pretty quick. After we got the motor stabbed back in I drove it for a few days and then headed back to Athens, needless to say I've been very pleased with the motor. I haven't gotten into the throttle really but the thing runs like a sewing machine, not exactly something I could say for the boat anchor 305.

I'm really glad I got this done as I'd started to become increasingly frustrated with my truck and gave serious consideration to getting rid of it. Now it's actually fun to drive again. Of course the only problem now is I have to tackle the rest of it .

Finished product-