My son's first truck

[dieseldawg142]

our '90 stepper that we bought from the orig owner in '95 with 24 000 miles, finally after 29 yrs of faithful service, 200 000 on road miles, approx 150 000 off road miles and smiles all the way has given it's last....sad face...
had never owned an IFS truck (solids only) and had my doubts, figured it would be a good mall crawler for the wife and to maybe get off our road in the winter.
in fact the whole time she drove it (first 9 yrs) she prob had it in 4by maybe 10 times.....sad face...
after i took it over in '04, it's off road miles skyrocketed, with a 40-ish to 1 crawl ratio, some good tires and it would go, climb, ford any terrain as long as the tires got traction, and made me a believer out of IFS suspensions
shortly after we bought it in '95


wasn't "pretty" enough for the wife, so cranked the bars, some add a leafs, 285 tires, prom chip, flowmaster cat back and a few other accs


then i took it over and it's off road chops kicked in. cue the man in black- "I've been everywhere"
literally to hell and back, never left me stranded, although i did have to limp it home once or twice after destroying some parts...
but for the last few yrs i kinda neglected it and only spent whatever money was needed to keep it running. all my money was going into my crewcab

[dieseldawg142]

i did some calculations and i figured it would take 5-7K to bring it back mechanically, not counting the cosmetics.
so it was a no brainer buying this '96 rcsb for $6500.
truck was bought new by a hot rod shop that used it for a parts chaser, then they sold it to the gentleman i got it from.
4.3 V6, 5 spd, and 3:73 gears. body is minty mint esp for a 28 yr old truck.
hot rod shop also swapped the seats for some out of a Yukon i think.
miles were just over a hundred k. runs perfect with no issues, clutch is smooth as is shifting it, brakes, which usually suck on the gmt 400's, are outstanding- they will put your face in the windshield if your not paying attention.
didn't get much of a "test drive" as the p.o. was riding with me, but it run and looked so good and i needed a daily, so i bought it.

[dieseldawg142]

like i said, for a 28 yr old rig, the body is beautiful

[dieseldawg142]

on the way home after buying it (aprox 70 miles) i was completely underwhelmed by the V6. never owned a V6 truck in my life, always 8's and i noticed i had to run it up way more when shifting than the 5.7 in the stepper.
but i had bought it and figured after driving it for awhile i would get used to it....
the offending V6..


the first thing i did when i got it home was pull off the cow catcher and toolbox. i need to mount a canopy for my dawgs. sold the grille guard and toolbox for $500 so my investment was now down to 6 K.
when the guard came off it was pretty obvious my fr bumper had some plating issues...


also had a headliner prob to deal with as well

[dieseldawg142]

bumper was a little rougher looking once the chrome came off....
at this time my stepper was still driving, so i figured i would just do a temp fix on the bumper. the plan was to take the mint bumper off the stepper when it died and put it on the new truck.
after tons of welding and grinding, it looks acceptable enough for now


first winter with us and still hadn't put it on the road yet

[dieseldawg142]

new struts on the box and some new paint got me $500 for this goofy-ness


one thing i hated about this truck is the '90's silly-@ss decals on it. a few hrs with a hot air welder from work and there gone. also took off the few pieces of rub strip that were left. where the rest of it went went i have no clue...

[dieseldawg142]

the grille was also pretty faded out, so with Tim's suggestion (Special K) i sprayed it with some metallic charcoal i think it was called


also yanked off the rear bumper to knock out a dent, fix the license plate lights and a new coat of paint

[dieseldawg142]

rear bumper looking a little better now


cause of my dawgs, i needed a canopy. got this one for free from a buddy, but needed lots of work and was actually off a dodge sb, so the fit was not spectacular, but it would work.....and the price was right...


also scored these factory flares off a silver sub for $150.


sprayed them with bedliner


give the truck a nice look i think

[dieseldawg142]

bumper looks ok now i think


cause the canopy was free, that left money to make it black. no matter what color my trucks are, my canopy's are always black...that white is just to loud anyways
couldn't belive the damage to the roof of the canopy...turned out buddy had dragged it down his driveway upside down...

[dieseldawg142]

also paint the insides of my canopy's grey. new paint on the window frames, new struts, new weatherstripping, some clamps and was able to get replacement keys instead of whole new locks

[dieseldawg142]

after i put the canopy on, i put some insurance on it and drove it a few times. still unimpressed with the 6. it's a nice little truck, but i sure do miss the low end grunt of the 8.
told my son if he worked on it he could drive it. privately i think i had already made up my mind to give it to him. the 6 just was not what i was expecting, and besides, his firebird can not handle our snow very well. 2" of snow and his airdam is plowing...
putting in new end links and swaybar bushings


then the headliner prob. learned my son how to take down and re-finish a headliner

[dieseldawg142]

and installed.


while installing the headliner, the pass door closed on both our fingers multiple times, as the detent was all screwed up. hmmmm, i wonder why...


also didn't like the factory mirrors. they hang too low instead of eye level. so we swapped the mirrors off the stepper