1991 V3500 Project Heavy Hauler

[MTCK]

Thanks guys. Put the 350 mounts on and it dropped right in. Lots more to do...

[DirtyLarry]

Looking great Marcus! That is odd about the manifold cracking. Looks like those spark plug boot heat shields fit nicely for the manifolds. Not sure why they wouldn’t fit the manifolds for my FIL’s 454. Dieselwrencher nailed it with the engine mounts where the bracket that bolts to the engine sometimes needs to be opened. Another possibility is the mount portion that bolts to the frame could have been upside down.

Can’t wait to see her fire up!

[MTCK]

Thanks Larry, and thanks again for the heat shields and nuts. They took a little bit of massaging to get in there, and two of them I had to use bolts instead of studs in the adjacent hole.

I didn't take a picture, but there was definitely a difference between the 350 and 454 engine side mounts. Problem was the metal tabs on the poly inserts were too wide, even with clam shell to cross member bolts loose and spread all the way out. It literally fell right in once I switched them.

Mother nature gave a big middle finger this AM and it is snowing to beat the band, so I'm going to get the harness ready to go today, fab up my mounts for the radiator overflow and washer fluid tanks.

[MTCK]

So now I just hook up these wires and it works...

[DirtyLarry]

Yep, that's all. Just plug in the wires and fire it up. LOL If it was that easy any caveman could do this

[Greenlee]

Nice work. That new engine looks right at home in there.

[MTCK]

Thanks guys. I couldn't resist a little mock up last night. I think there is a good chance the factory L29 radiator hoses will work. Offsets and sizes are correct. To be seen.

[400/400]

Nice work!

[MTCK]

Thanks. Good looking pics on your build too.

I'm gaining a newfound respect for the engineers that package all this crap under the hood on new rigs.

[whitels1]

Looking good, keep it up and you will be done in no time!!

[MTCK]

Thanks Dave. I was shooting to get it to the exhaust shop this week and make a trip to anchorage with it this weekend but that isn't happening. One piece of advice if anyone ever does this swap: build your fuel lines and hook them up To the back of the intake before you drop the motor in! Took me two nights and cut a wrench in half to finally get the fittings tight. Fingers crossed for no leaks. It's finally starting to look like a truck again.

[68Timber]

The Vortec big block air plenum looks right at home in there, like a factory option. Nice work.

[COS399]

Good tip. Looking great and can't wait to see how it performs.

[MTCK]

Thanks guys. Stock look is what I'm going for. Got a little more done today. Plumbed the Vintage Air condenser and auxiliary transmission cooler. I thought the electric fan from the donor truck was going to work great, and I had a trinary switch to key a relay for it, but there was no way with the dryer being mounted in front of the condenser.

[MTCK]

Also installed new headlights, parking and turn signal bulbs, finished the underwood wiring, installed the radiator, shroud, fan, and rad hoses. The donor truck hose worked for the top, but got a big block lower for a 91' square body.

[MTCK]

Installed the battery trays, batteries and positive cables. Also routed the 110v wires for the heaters for block, oil, and trans pan.

My list is getting shorter, but off the top of my head I need to finish the Vintage Air install, fill the coolant, finish a couple of grounds and the alternator wiring, couple wires to hook up in the cab, fuel pumps and selector valve and I should be making smoke. That kind of sounds like a lot...

[y5mgisi]

Sure is looking good!

[DirtyLarry]

I’m having a hard time figuring out the location of your picture as it doesn’t look like how the TBI lines were on my Suburban or Rob’s K5.

In any event, with the L29 having threaded lines at the fuel rail I would recommend building them out of AN adapters and hose. Back in 2007 when I briefly ran a L29/454HO morphodite in the K10 I used all AN bits to connect AN hose to the L29 fuel rail. Unfortunately, I didn’t keep all of the part numbers I used. For the fuel line end at the frame you’ll just have to see what you can cobble together. You should be able to cobble AN fittings to connect to the outlet of existing TBI fuel filter. The return side if you cannot figure out a clean AN adaptation you would be fine to just cut the metal fuel line, slide the hose on and use clamps as the return line has low pressure going through it. If you go that route I would also recommend using some type of cement like Loctite Hi-Tack gasket maker because it dries really hard. That fuel line will never come off once it fully dries!

[MTCK]

Thanks Larry. Sorry for the lack of a description. That is the fuel selector valve down on the passenger side frame rail. I made up braided AN lines to connect from the metric o-ring hard line fittings on the frame to the fuel rail.

The crimped punky looking rubber at the end of the hard lines are all down by the selector valve. Thanks for the tip on the loctite.

[MTCK]

She lives. I'm not going to waste everybody's time with a boring 5 second video of it idling with open manifolds. Lit right off on about 1/4 a revolution of cranking and instantly made 60 psi of oil pressure. No misses, revs crisply and idles smooth. Hope to slide the bed back and get the second pump swapped and get it to the exhaust shop Friday. Oh and the fan in the vintage air system hauls the mail. Moves a ton of air.

[Greenlee]

Congrats Marcus! Nice work. It looks like it came from the factory with that engine.

[MTCK]

Thanks Greenlee! I'm pretty happy at this point. Getting close.

Worked on swapping my drivers side pump tonight. Had to slide the bed back to access the soft lines on top of the tank. Hopefully this weekend I can get everything buttoned up.

[whitels1]

Nice to see this thing getting back on the road, you have done some great work, everything is nice and clean!

[COS399]

Marcus - Do you know what year and model of vehicle that motor came out of? Looks like it came from the factory that way.

[MTCK]

Thanks guys. Donor truck was a 2000 GMC Sierra 3500 (GMT400) crew cab long bed 4x4 with 180xxx miles on it. Ran good and it was tempting to just stab it in but I kind of wanted to rebuild a motor because I never had and it looked like fun.

Got the other fuel pump installed, tank back in, plumbed and bed on. It runs on either tank and I can switch tanks without the motor stumbling. I was kind of curious if that was going to work or not.