Out of boredom....

[Nova_Cobra64]

I don't know if I can really consider this to be at project status yet. It is a work in progress anyway, and I can assure you it is going to be a long project.

I have always had a rebuild of the truck in the back of my mind for years, with nowhere to start on it. My life has changed a fair bit in the past year. This summer I completed building a 26x34' garage, it took me over a year from start to finish. It was tough to find the time to get anything done as I was working 6.5 hours from home (15 on 6 off) and had worked the last 3 winters straight through. This summer I requested a transfer to a station closer to home, and am now working only 2 hours away and no need to work the entire winter without getting home. It turned out to be a good move, I am making more and home a lot more as well. The only issue is I found myself bored once winter hit. So a couple weeks back I was in the middle of one of my boring trips back to the shop after a long day in the oilfield, thinking about how I was going to spend my days off. And suddenly it hit me, I could pull the engine out of the truck for something to do and see where that leads me. No other plans came up between then and the start of my days off, so I bought an engine leveller and stand and borrowed an engine crane and decided to go for it.

It might seem a bit odd, but the hardest part was getting the damn thing started and into the garage. I parked it in my back yard at the start of winter. I figured with my dad living in my house and paying the heating bills, it would be rude not to let him park in the garage all winter since he was paying for the heat. Between the lack of block heater and choke, and the fact that the truck had sat for the last 3 months, getting it started in -20c was a real PITA. After my second day of working at it, I got it going after pulling and cleaning the plugs and dipping them in gas. And then getting it out of the snow was a whole lot of fun too. I had to use my 04 Silverado to pull it 10 feet out of the snowbank it was parked it. And from that point I got stuck backing into the alley, the truck just didn't have enough weight in the back to get traction going slightly up hill. But I eventually won and got it inside to thaw for a few hours before I went to work.

Pulling the engine went well. Aside from a broken screwdriver and a racheting 9/16 wrench that decided to lock up the first time I used it (and every fricken bolt seemed to be 9/16), the engine pull went quick and smooth. I decided to get a little more carried away and decided to pull the racing seats out (didn't really care for them, I think I will make them into computer chairs instead), as well as the shifter, stereo and door panels (I figure I can work on doing some custom panels over winter).

My prior thoughts on the engine was to leave the bottom end intact and put in a roller cam, some aluminum heads and a better carb just to squeeze a few more horsepower out of it. I took the oilpan off to have a brief peek. The bottom end still looks to be in good shape. I was surprised to still see crosshatching in the cylinders. The PO's claims of the bottom end being balanced and blueprinted look to be true based on the obvious work done on the connecting rods. The pistons appear to be Zollner Z8222 pistons (now marketed as Sivolite #1470 from what I've found). Based on the specs I find it unlikely that the engine was 10:1 compression as I've been told. Unless there was extensive machining done to the 441 heads, I don't see the CR being over 9:1. In the end this may open up my head selection a bit as I figured if the engine was currently at 10:1 with 76cc heads I likely wasn't going to be able to go much smaller as I don't want to push the compression too high. I am going to pick up some supplies before my next days off to try and figure out what the compression ratio is and then consult some of out engine-wise members on what route they suggest going. I've got my fingers crossed that the cylinders look as nice up top as they did at the bottom of the bore. But who knows, this thing could end up being reassembled and stored in the corner of the garage yet, my dad keeps pestering me about the GMPP 480hp LS3 that he has sitting at work that they are eager to get rid of (customer is a no show).

As for the rest of the truck, it is pretty up in the air yet. Both doors are in really rough shape and are not reusable. There is a bit of rust in the LH inner fenderwell. The box is decent overall, but will need some attention over the shaved tailgate work. The box cover will be coming off and I intend to replace the tail lights with something that looks a bit cleaner. I want to do shaved door handles and 1 piece windows. The cab is still pretty solid but I do want to clean up the welds from the replacement panels the PO put in. There is some major roof work needed, I cleaned it up a few years back just so the peeling bondo didn't look so bad. I plan on going with a manual overdrive tranny, likely TKO600. I am going to keep the 4.11 and posi but swap it into the 5 lug rear from my parts truck while converting to rear disc using Captainfab's brackets. Naturally the front end will get swapped to 5 lug disc as well. Ideally I'm hoping the body work can be done off the frame so I can strip it down and paint it. The interior will get some procar lowback seats, and a custom consol/sub box as I intend on putting a fuel cell in the box. The paint is still up in the air, I am leaning towards attempting a matte paint job myself. The color will depend on the overall look I go for which is going to depend on if I switch to the 67/68 Chev front end or do some custom work to the GMC grille. But I'm sure that is a long ways away.

Here are a couple pictures of what I accomplished prior to pushing the truck back out into the miserable cold, as well as some pictures of the roof issues. http://www.flickr.com/photos/1711832...7625864888014/