My son's first truck

[OutlawDrifter]

You've got your own club/gang now with Victory Red V6 shortbeds!

[dieseldawg142]

don't ya know it...
what are the chances...
well our frikkin posties are on strike, getting hard to get my parts delivered. their strike has brought my build almost to a standstill...
but still doing what i can. finished de-decal-fying the truck. liking the cleaner look much better.


and seeing how the kid already jacked the skidplates off my stepper, went to the wrecking yard and got a skidplate package for $30


useless bit of trivia, half the skidplate bolts were gone, after digging thru my collection of nuts and bolts, found some that fit the truck. the bolts i found were actually fender bolts off an old '68 nova i had 'bout 25 yrs ago-who would have thought 56 yr old bolts would fit a '97...


first semi-serious mechanical prob showed up today. starter is starting to drag, lucky i have a less than 1 yr old mini on my stepper, so that's my mission today...in the rain no less...

[dieseldawg142]

too much rain, starter can wait till a drier day.
but i did manage to score these today for a hundred bucks....just wishin could find a victory red fender. have found 2, but both are like 8-10 hour round trip away

[dieseldawg142]

gotta luv them mini's, nice and lightweight...
starts like a mother now...


no wonder the starter was acting up, the pin in the lever came out...


finally scored a good set of mirrors for $40. i hate them low line factory mirrors, makes for a b***h backing up in the mountains at nite


unused new door handle off marketplace for $10 to replace the drivers handle, i think the spring is broke cause the handle doesn't go back in. and if you forget to tap it in, you have to go to the pass. side to get back in...

[dieseldawg142]

took it up the mountain last nite. climbs pretty darn good for being low and on 265's, mind ya, the 265's are 75% BF km2's


couple days of epoxy-ing and sanding my fender flares. they were pretty decent except the p.o. had drilled about 10 extra mounting holes on the flanges...which for my ocd just didn't cut it. now it's back to just the factory holes and some bedliner


and the p.o. was faa-weight challenged. the drivers side of the seat sags about 4-5" down, and has 4 tears in it. so i grabbed the seat out of the stepper (not sagged) and only 1 hole. first time in my life i ever sewed. wife says you sew, she'll clean it. used 8lb test fishing line hoping it won't come apart. not really concerned 'bout looks cause wifey bought me a nice seat cover- but don't get it till Christmas

[dieseldawg142]

and after wife cleaned it


always hate how the stock seats in gmt 400's sit so low. i don't drive "gangsta" style. so made a couple seat risers for under the seat


really wishin some stuff would hurry up and get here...did get my centercaps. i paint the backsides of them cause nothing worse than your caps rotting thru from the inside out.


i think they look not bad....prob look better when there's a rim in there...

[OutlawDrifter]

More progress is good progress!

[dieseldawg142]

yup
moving forward...slowly but still forward...
got the seat mounted today, what a pia. the captive nuts and bolts on the 1990 stepper seat is 7/16. the 1997 seat bolts are 3/8's. no prob, get some longer bolts.....except can't find gr. 8 3/8's bolts that are 3" long. so drilled out the nuts and re-tapped them to 7/16. need longer bolts to go thru my "risers". at least now i'm not looking thru the steering wheel..


also ditched the drop in bedliner, my dawgs hated it. skittering all over the place on it. surprisingly someone por 15 the box under the liner...bonus!
and no, that is not a pile of leaves. it's a leaf pattern dog blanket


finally A part showed up, just 1. temp gauge ain't working, hoping a new temp sensor will take care of it. can finally flush the rad out now, didn't want to do things twice. supposedly my hood release and cable, muffler, shocks, speakers, power steering pump and a few other things are supposed to show up this week...we'll see...still no word on when my rims are supposed to get here...sad face

[dieseldawg142]

couple more parts rollin' in.
finally got my muffler. the old one was giving me a headache.
no chineseum in this one


why anybody would put a 3" exhaust with a chambered muffler on a V6 is beyond me. it's NEVER gonna sound like a V8, and it actually just makes it sound waaaaay worse. sounded like a ricer with a fart can muff and was constantly backfiring when ya shift between gears. and it was only 14" long compared to the 20" long walker. my sons truck had the exact same lousy exhaust on his short box, so i bought the exact same muff for mine. only prob is it's quiet and i can really hear my p.s. pump whining now...but it's supposed to be here on thursday.


and my speakers showed up today, which means i finally get to fix the door handle and take care of the rattles, like the cooling system, didn't want to take the doors apart 2 times..

[dieseldawg142]

few more parts rolling in.
new power steering pump. came in silver, didn't like, sprayed it black.
also bought a cheap amazon pulley removal/installation tool. hey for $35 it worked like a hot damn. took the pulley off and on in just seconds with no effort


wish i could have said as much as getting the pump out. had to remove the fr skidplate to get at the shroud bolts out and ended up taking the ac/ps pump bracket right off.
before..


and new one in..didn't realize my pump was a stupid evo pump, so had to spend another $75 for a '96 chev high pressure hose to match every thing up

[dieseldawg142]

finally got around to addressing the dr door. man it rattled like a mother. evry time you shut it sounded like the door was gonna fall off.
first issue-door plate had 3, yes 3 screws holding the whole thing on...rattles galore


just as i suspected the spring came off the door handle


next issue, notice only 1 door pin and 2 broken ones out of 10 on the whole door...no wonder this door felt like it was ready to come apart


to kill rattles i put vacumn hose over the door handle and door lock rods and threw some pieces of dynamat on the door. also had to go pick up a big bag of door pins

[dieseldawg142]

here's what the door handle should look like


well after waiting 4 weeks finally got my new shocks-happy joy!-not!
this is exactly what the boxes looked like when they got here...ok, more concerned about what's in the box


joy was short lived. shocks were NOT new, someone screwed with them and returned them. half assembled, missing bushings and missing the bars for the rear shocks. also missing red zip ties for the boots, but someone threw on less fashionable white ones


guess they gave up trying to put bushings in...sure don't look like NEW $400 shocks to me...


just the decal, but jeez....


emailed the shop i bought them from, guys like whats wrong. so i tell him and he's like-no way, we don't do that. i'm like ok, here comes the pics. literally 3 seconds after i sent the pics, without another word i got a return thing. pay for new, would at least expect new...

[dieseldawg142]

also put a new serpentine on for my ps pump, and the temp sensor didn't fix my temp gauge all the way. the needle moved up another hash mark or two, then stopped. even after i let it idle for twenty mins, would not come above 100F. so i stuck my finger in the rad, after running for twenty, and the water was barely luke warm. hmmm, maybe thermo is stuck open...sure enough, it was wide open and after putting in a new one, she's purring at a steady as a rock 190-195F. good to have the temp gauge back again


cool! these just showed up like half a hr ago


so of course we just had to mount them like...RIGHT NOW!!!


just like the kids truck, chrome caps and luggies


bummer about the shocks...gonna be waiting all over again and of course it happens the day before my rims finally get here..

[dieseldawg142]

well after changing the noisy ps pump, i still got a whine. stethoscope on the alt was pretty loud so put a new one in.


still no luck with a victory red fender, so hole sawed a hole in the fender and pushed as much of the dent out as i could. pretty tuff to get it perfect as the fender has a crease in it. luckily the flares cover the worst part of it. and that canopy has got to go. looks like a humpback....much prefer a cab high canopy

[dieseldawg142]

took a break from spinning wrenches yesterday. out with the mutts for a haul


yay...


gotta love it. hood pops open with just one finger on the lever now...nice to be able to access your engine easily again

[dieseldawg142]

well my chevy truck is about to become a gmc truck.
when the p.o.'s mom smacked the pole, it also broke the valance panel (filler piece between the grille and bumper) and the dr. fender extension. turns out the 88-94 grille and valance are different from the 95-98 in the way they mount. so started searching for a grille and valance, but people around here are either greedy or crazy. guys are wanting $2-300 for a grille and valance- like come on man, i can buy a new one online for under a hundred, only prob is they want anywhere from $300 to (yes!, no bs) $1200 to ship it across the border....ya right...as i'm into my truck for 10 g's all in, decided to go gmc as i got a perfect gmc grille, valance and fender extension sitting on my front lawn.
pulled off everything i needed and sanded them down yesterday, then went to local body shop and got a small amount of victory red mixed up. today i will paint it all, except grille which will be black


lift blocks came, keys are supposed to be here today or tomorrow...joy joy, looking forward to whacking on torsion bars again...

[dieseldawg142]

started cleaning up the bumper brackets


frikkin' chilly in the shop. first time this yr had to light off my heater


shout out to SuspensionLifts. ordered my shocks dec 5, got the fronts today. five days from Callyfornia to BC and only $30 shipping. courier says the rears will be here later today or tomorrow.
and this is how i expect my new shocks to look...better than them used ones i got sent (TXTrucks)


not GM, but wifey's Christmas gift showed up today as well. she hates the stock TRD muff on her tacoma. this should be fun to wrap....and yes, i got her a couple other presents...
i know better than to just buy her stuff for her trucks..

[dieseldawg142]

does it look like victory red?
three coats of paint. got enough left for one more coat.
there wet right now but when dry be interesting to see how well it matches the truck

[dieseldawg142]

sold my chevy..bought a gmc
not really, just swappin' parts around.
what i figured would be a couple hr job turned into like 6 hrs or so.
once i started bolting up the bumper brackets from the stepper, i knew something was wrong.
the orig brackets on drivers side of course had some bends in them, but also found the rad support mount, which the inner and outer brackets bolt thru, pushed up and back. good thing i changed grilles as well cause one of the tabs on the dr side was busted off. and the fender is so bent up, the fender extension will not fit on...oh well, when i get another fender, i got it ready.
did the p.o.'s mom hit that gate pole at like 80mph?
after swinging away with a 30lb sledge for an hr, kinda got it back into place. aint perfect, but looks ok for a daily driver. and not only did gm change the grille mounting, they also moved mounting brackets around, so that was another hour or so cluster schmuck.
overall happy with the way it turned out, paint on grille came out good and i even polished up the headlights and turn signals.


still need to measure up the spacing on the t.gate letters before i transfer them over. old beast still don't look too bad, but we have actually cannibalized quite a few parts from it for both the new trucks

[dieseldawg142]

also yanked my amp and sub box out of the stepper. frikkin sub box weighs 85 lbs, i threw it on the bathroom scale. prob make a newer, lighter one...after all it's only a V6...


and my wife, contrary to what i think, does actually listen to me occasionally.
i been grumbling about the pathetic skinny steering wheel in my truck. i gave my son my last lace-on cover for his truck, and now we can't buy them north of the border anymore. my buddy works at the auto parts store and i asked him why can't we buy them anymore, and he says they can't sell them cause peoples fingers and hands can get caught up in the lacing....i'm like are you serious?, and he says yeah...and he's right, can't even find them online unless i buy south of the border...scary thing this, our gov reacts to things, not pro-active, so that must mean some door knob out there must have actually got their fingers tangled up in it.....so much for public education i guess....
anyways, my wife went to Bellingham (WA) last weekend and bought me a lace on. she was saving it for Christmas, but my bellyaching prompted her to give it to me early...yay wife!!

[dieseldawg142]

couple more minor things addressed. still had a bit of whine coming from the serpentine, idler pulley bearing was hooped. was quiet when i spun it, so took it out, stuck a bit drill thru it and revved it up. around 12-1400 rpm she started howling....yes, finally done with that annoyance.


paid a bit more, but it ain't off-shore


also finally fixed my DRL's. pulled the fuse for the drl's and yanked the bulb out of the dash so i don't got the green eyeball glaring at me. the day i need a truck to tell me when to turn my lights on......


lift keys and rear shocks showed up...just in time for a Christmas run up the mountains


actually took the dawgs out yesterday, had this little slide come right down in front of me. talk about timing..

[dieseldawg142]

sure glad i got a healthy, strong, young-un at home. couldn't be doing this without him. tore my rotator in 3 spots 'bout 7-8 months ago. sure is a beech spinning wrenches with a screwed shoulder



need to get it in for an alignment, but that ain't stopping me from taking it out tonight and testing it

[OutlawDrifter]

Pickup is looking good, Merry Christmas!