My 1980 square build thread and life story. Ls/4500

[Cwarta]

Hello, joined up to share my build! It's been thru many changes in the last couple years. First, a little background on the truck.

My grandfather bought the truck in 1982, but didn't like it so he was going to sell it. My dad fell in love with the truck and bought it from him shortly there after, and used to for work untill 2008 or so, and then parked it, it didn't get touched until 2013, when I FINALLY bought it from him, after trying for many years. From my best guess the truck has over 700,000 miles on it, obviously I cannot prove this, but my father kept a sheet in the glovebox with info on it and it was wrote down the odometer had rolled over 6 times by 2004, so it is what it is. It Was used to haul scrap iron day in and day out for a very long time.

My earliest memory's were of this truck and seemingly everyday my dad and I would talk about about the things we wanted to do to it, many a times we both agreed we wanted to change to an 81+ front end, lift it and use it for a toy. Well when I got my hands on it, I started doing the things we constantly talked about.

The truck was an 80 k20 custom delux with all kinds of extras in the rpo codes, sm465/205 with 4:11's.

First I lifted it, 4.5" and put these 33's on it. Had a blast with it the first winter, then changed to some crappy 36" military 16.5's and got ballsy and buried it in the river. Had to leave it and and come back the next day. Sure enough the water rose and buried my truck, luckily we were able to pull it out still. But of course it trashed the engine, I had to start it with water in the oil to help get it or or leave it, so I chose to wreck the motor.

So at this point I decide, why not build a good motor, and do some body work. Built a nice little eagle Rod 355, with lt1 aluminum heads for it, got it done just in time to decide I wanted to ls swap it. So I sold that and picked up a 6.0, mated it to the sm465 and fell in love with the power and economy. Ran excellent, was pulling 18mpg with the 35's and 7.5" of lift. Then I bought a used cam kit and took a guy for his word on the springs, and, well it cost me a 6.0.

So now, here we are at its current phase of reassembly.

I wanted to turn the truck into a sweet daily, because for so many years that's what it's been for my family.



So I bought or upgraded the following over the last month.
4 wheel disk swap
New 5.3
Nv4500
241c drivers drop t case
Dana 60 front axle cad 3:55
Dana 70u rear axle 3:55
Hydro boost setup
Crossover steering like the factory 97 12v axle was but new
Xj steering shaft
Brand new steering box
New 32" tires
Dropped back to the 4.5" lift only
2" cowl hood
Among other things
Also picking up a 2004 Tahoe dash tomorrow to install using an iPad for the cluster

Now, the first responses I'm going to get is "omg why did you use that front axle, it has no lockouts and ****ty unit bearings"

Well, the answer is simple, money. I paid $525 for the nv4500,241, and the front Dana 60 cad axle. Not to mention, we own 6 cummins trucks, each has 350,000+ with zero front axle issues to date, so I'm not worried about my aluminum headed 5.3 lol. I will be running a cable actuator instead of the vacuum modulator.

Just starting to put the drivetrain back in with the new dash etc, so stay tuned and I hope I didn't bore anyone to death.

P.s, a very kind farmer GAVE me this donor truck, 4.3/400 state truck. Immaculate condition from the cab back. Thank you again sir.
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