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

[dieseldawg142]

today was the day i basically gave the kid the truck, told him the bills for fixing are his now and that dad can use if needed till i can get another daily
when i bought the truck, the hot rod shop had did a cat delete with a 3" exhaust with a dynomax chambered muffler. why anybody would put that on a v6 is beyond me. it don't sound cool. it sounds like a tractor going down the road, most horrible sounding vehicle i ever owned, even wife didn't like it, which says a lot...
as my son does not have money falling out his behind, a new exhaust was out of the question. so he found a Walker 3" turbo muffler for $100. sounds worlds better now. even the wife likes this one...


another issue we found was the dr side bushing and cup for the rad support had pretty much dis-integrated.
nothing left of the cup


so a new body bushing kit is out of reach right now, he went back to my stepper and salvaged the drivers one. and no, that is not a hole in the mount, it's a piece of rusted bushing stuck to the mount

[dieseldawg142]

truck seems pretty orig. driveshaft sticker and torsion bar sticker still hanging in there


gotta love the rust free body....too bad everything under the body isn't as rust free

[bnorth]

I hope you fix up the stepper too but both are great looking red shortboxes

[dieseldawg142]

when your 19 nowadays, a cassette deck don't cut it.
my son got a very good deal on this pioneer cd/whatever else they do stereo.
also got a screaming deal on these speakers as well. 6" rounds to replace the door stockers, and 6x4's that mount in the rear pillars.


the new speakers rattled the heck out of the doors, so we put some dynomat in them and they sound much better. also didn't care for the 6x4's. they just don't have any juice in them, so he disconnected them and took my speaker boxes out of my stepper with some pioneer 6x9's and uses them with the door 6's

[dieseldawg142]

with his limited funds, int mods are minor.
some hd Dickie seat covers to cover them fancy yukon seats


this rocker was for the fog lights on the cow catcher. been repurposed for some led back-ups. he has a more factory looking switch, but he wants to change the little panel as the prev owner had something bolted to it


all engine codes are gone. kicked out an egr code, replaced the egr and all is good again. abs light was also on, one sensor took care of that, and the right turn signal dash bulb was not working, but a new bulb took care of that


my son is like me, likes the old skool lace on wheel covers


he has also been bringing the door handles back to black. looking at earlier pics, they were sun faded completely grey

[dieseldawg142]

my son has been raiding my stepper again. here's the led back-ups he wired into the reverse circuit...that he swiped off my stepper


he also jacked my tow hooks off the stepper as he had none cause of the cow catcher


god darn, he even snaked my 4" stainless tip

[dieseldawg142]

his truck has one single plastic skid plate.
he wants to "borrow" the ones off the stepper, alum for the fr, the diff and the t-case


my old stepper is looking forlorn, ya, there's rims missing now

[dieseldawg142]

after scrimping to buy stuff for his truck all year (with dads help) my son came into some money.
him and my wife both got a substantial inheritance from her dad's passing early this yr.
well, it was time for some new rubber. them wimpy 265 at's just don't cut it where we go.
so ordered up some 285 Cooper STT's. he wants to also "borrow" the rims off my stepper and get them painted black...wore them BF's down pretty good. there is only about an eighth left on them.


as the stock shocks are also hooped, he ordered some longer Skyjackers, hopefully be here this week or next


we also have a set of keys and blocks on order to lift it enuff to slide them 285's under it.
future plans are get the hood re-cleared, the factory clear is starting to flake in a few spots and he's thinking he might like the stepper box on his truck better

[dieseldawg142]

we took it out the other night. wheels not to bad, not as good as the step, but it's got the cruddy little at's on it. should do better with the Coopers and a little height

[dieseldawg142]

Originally Posted by bnorth

I hope you fix up the stepper too but both are great looking red shortboxes

thanks
with our little windfall, i had seriously thought about re-doing the stepper, but man it needs a lot. of course we do have some sentimental attachment to it, (29 yrs worth) but i need to be realistic. even if i fixed it up, it's still an almost 400 000 mile (not kms) truck that has seen some serious use. i bought the new truck cause the last fews months one thing after another after another was hitting me with the step. and it won't really "die", it will live on in our new truck..
and i been thinking, we have 3 trucks already, why not get what i want, another blazer, but maybe gmt400 style, or a 2dr tahoe, fairly modern and reliable but easy as $hite to work on

[dieseldawg142]

my son and i pulled these off the rear leafs today-bit of a chore, sure glad i bought that 1200 ftlb milwaukee impact the other month...
half a inch thick the entire length. rear susp could'nt move it was so stiff. now it flexes nice. seeing how it was a parts chaser for a hot rod shop, guessin' they put them in for hauling home engines, axles, etc.


one shock of 4 showed up today. other 3 are coming in 2 more boxes (?!)


we mounted up the new tires on my old stepper rims today, just to see how they will look. plus we can mount them on his truck this weekend so we can decide how high to lift it


stepper is looking even more forlon now. 3 different tires.
pass fr is a 245/70 16, dr fr is a 285/75 16, and the 2 rears are the old tires and rims from wifey's 'yoda, 245/65 17

[dieseldawg142]

[dieseldawg142]

spent like half a day cleaning my old stepper rims. literally the first time they been cleaned in about 10 or so yrs...


kid bought some chrome valve stems, luggies and center caps for contrast...