Our Little Father Son Project

[AJII]

It all started with me swapping out the 5.3 in my '01 Silverado for a 6.0..and has spiraled out of control from there

So, we had a little 5.3 sitting on a stand begging for a home. And I remembered my uncle saying something about a guy he knew had a 80 something K10 sitting in his yard that he may sell. So yep, we bought a truck for an engine. Backwards, huh? That was August of 2011.

I wasn’t there when my Dad went to look at it and buy it. So I trusted his judgement..and this is what we got. When I saw it at first, I wasn’t so thrilled. It was COVERED in mud, mildew. Fenders were toast, hood was worthless, roof was caked with bondo.

But the more I looked at it, the better I liked it. It had zero rust, bed was pretty decent.


Found where the previous owners had been keeping track of maintenance, and found that the Th350 and Posi rear only had about 40k miles on them. Score! Goodwrench 350 has the same mileage, but popped a headgasket (the reason the PO parked it)

To make a long story short, we dropped in the 5.3 and got it running!




Was a pretty awesome feeling, but pretty short lived…first drive showed that EVERYTHING in the suspension was worn out. Round 2 of repairs.

Ball joints, tie rod ends, wheel bearings, seals, etc, etc, etc..Also put in a ORD add a leaf to straighten out the front axle. As well as a steering box plate (steering box was held in by 2 bolts at this point) and steering box brace. (Expensive, but nice pieces)




Got it back together again and said…well, now it just looks like crap. Round 3 of repairs. This is where we are today.

Entire front clip was toast. Doors were full of bondo, roof was damaged previously and repaired with, you guessed it, more bondo.



We have never done any body work so this has been quite the experience. Bought a stud puller and got most of the big dents out, bought a new front clip, and new doors. Have most everything smoothed with body filler and are now ready to start throwing some primer down.





I’ve been put on a recent assignment out of state for work. So we only get to work on it 2 weekends out of the month, so progress is pretty slow.
Hope you like!