My 78 K15 High Sierra build - Fish Tremble

[7dee2]

Very nice, I do like that color! Had a 75 Camaro when I was a kid that was kind of a burnt orange.

[swamp rat]

Nice to see the progress!

[rgunlock]

Originally Posted by y5mgisi

Good work!

Originally Posted by cmabolt

Looking Great Rick! Nice to see things coming together.

Chris

Originally Posted by 7dee2

Very nice, I do like that color! Had a 75 Camaro when I was a kid that was kind of a burnt orange.

Originally Posted by swamp rat

Nice to see the progress!

Thanks for keeping an eye on my build fellas. I did get my new Curt Class IV receiver and started this weekend on mounting it. It does require drilling some holes and I did get started, but busted my stepper bit off at the shank trying to widen a hole so I called it off for the weekend. Spent most of my time changing a window regulator and motor on my daughter's Honda and yardwork so was mainly just trying to do enough to claim some progress.

[y5mgisi]

If only we could be two places at once.

[mjensen]

Looks awesome Rick!

[rgunlock]

Mike!!! Long time no see - glad you are back! Hope to see activity on your thread soon.

So today I spent the afternoon on my back drilling big-a$$ holes in the bottom rail of my frame and got my receiver mounted. Then mounted a backup light to the receiver. Wanted to get my extra lights mounted so I can deal with the wiring at the same time as I wrap up the rest of it. The rear light is a "flood" LED light from Rigid Industries. Got another pair for fog lamps on the front, although they are supposed to be a more focused beam. Notice on the box "not for highway use". Bought the fog lamps specifically because I thought they were legal. Well, I'll point them down at an angle and hope they don't get me into trouble

Right now, I've got the mounting brackets for the fog/driving lights clamped to my frame horns. This would be the easiest spot to mount them, but I'm concerned that they'll be too close together. Temporarily hung the front bumper and the lights do tuck up under them nicely. What do you guys think? My more modern "drivers" have the fog lamps almost out to the end of the bumper.

[MTCK]

Lights look good. My experience with all those LED lights is that they don't do great at a true fog light mission. Great driving lights, or floods, but good fog lights have a very narrow focused beam vertically (think under the fog) and are wide horizontally. I've got some Hella's on my Tacoma and a set to go on my V3500 which work great. I'll be curious to see how you like these, and if they are acceptable to drive towards oncoming traffic with them on. I don't think they are too close together.

[rgunlock]

Thanks Marcus, I'll be sure to let you all know once I get a chance to try them out.

Puttered all 3-day weekend. Doesn't feel like much forward progress, but a lot of little things accomplished.

- Disconnected horns so that I was able to test my front and rear lights - all worked fine, even hi/low beam.
- Fixed the horn. Must have reassembled horn button in column wrong.

There has been a couple things really bothering me about this AAW wiring kit. One is the reverse/backup light switch. Harness has this short green & pink wired connector coming off the fuse block. This doesn't come close to reaching the backup light switch on my SM465, has wrong wire colors, and wrong connector. Finally wised up and went scrounging through my old harness. Found the piece with the switch connection, but still wrong on the other end for the AAW connector. Bit more searching and I found another part of this circuit with the firewall grommet and low & behold, the right connector to plug into AAW. Sorry for blurry pics.

[swamp rat]

Progress is progress, it all adds up!

[rgunlock]

Thanks Mike. Got interrupted posting this weekend's progress to grill some fajitas and watch Sweet Home Alabama. Few more things moving me a little forward.

Similar effort went on for the wiring for my dual tank setup. Sorted the old harness out and ordered new wire in close to the right colors to make a new one. Details are in this thread that now contains about all you need to know about how these dual tank setups with the single wire going to the solenoid valve.

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=558564

Also pulled the rest of my body side mouldings out and discovered that the left bedside trim is beyond my ability to repair. Can't count on a repro piece matching the rest so ordered a new full set from classicparts.com.

My daughter was heading for Hobby Lobby and picked me up a few samples of reddish-orange (or thereabouts) model paint to see if we can come up with a color that would look good on my GMC emblems. Couple are close, but... not sure yet. Top piece is one I got off ebay a few months back. That orange just doesn't look right with my brown paint. Needs to be redder...

[y5mgisi]

I also recently ordered a full trim set for my crew cab and I don't think you will be disappointed. It's not factory, but I think it's worth it.

[7dee2]

Glad to hear the horn is fixed that can be a bit irritating to work on. The extra light should be really nice and new trim, beauty!

[rgunlock]

Originally Posted by y5mgisi

I also recently ordered a full trim set for my crew cab and I don't think you will be disappointed. It's not factory, but I think it's worth it.

I remembered that you had so went back to your build to find out where you bought it. My truck only had the upper mouldings, so getting just those was quite reasonable - considerably less than $200 even including shipping.

Originally Posted by 7dee2

Glad to hear the horn is fixed that can be a bit irritating to work on. The extra light should be really nice and new trim, beauty!

Tell me about it! Fixing the horn I managed to scare the dogs out of the shop more than a few times

[rgunlock]

Well, a reasonably productive weekend on the truck. I won't bore you with tales of my misadventures with black RTV silicon and rain gutters - suffice it to say it seemed like a good idea at the time, but wasn't. Managed to get the 1 gutter back off the truck without damaging paint and did it right this time. Used 3M double-sided trim tape to seal between cab and gutter.

Tip of the day - have all of your screws ready in the gutter holes before you ever start driving one in. There isn't enough room to get the screws into the 'U' shape of the gutter once they are mounted. Both are mounted now, and I hope I NEVER have to remove them again!

Also repainted the black pinstripe on the tailgate band. Still need to repaint the GMC, and figure out how to get a better polish on the aluminum. I went all over it with OOOO steelwool, but it didn't really clean up very well.

[rgunlock]

I also made some progress on wiring. Got my backup light switch connected. For future reference, the wires for the backup light switch comes through a 1" hole near the bulkhead for the wiring, goes up and over the brake booster, then down the driver side. There is a bracket that goes onto the top-left bolt holding the bell housing to the engine, then connects to the SM465 on the top, driver side near the shifter.

Also made a new fuel system harness, but don't have it on the truck yet. I used my original one as a pattern and used wire that matched colors as closely as I could find. The portion of the harness that goes inside the cab was in good shape so I'll re-use that, but otherwise I ended up doing a lot of splicing with butt-connectors and heat-shrink tubing to reuse many of the original connectors.

[7dee2]

Drip rail moldings can sure be a bugger, the few times I've messed with those it was stressing. Not wanted to screw up the pretty paint or bend up the molding, good job!

[rgunlock]

Geez, been over a month again since I've updated. For any given weekend it doesn't seem like I've done much to post about, but there has been progress.

Never did find a replacement speedo cable grommet, so just bought a generic (actually package of 25 ) that looked right for inner and outer diameter. Was a royal pain to get over the end of the speedo cable and had to make a tool that I could force the inner hole wider and wider until it slipped over the cable end. Lube still required on the tool. First pic is the original grommet and then the replacement I'm using. Tool is a punch with the right diameter that I just had to grind down the sharp steps. Looks like it will work out.

[rgunlock]

I've also made progress on my wiring, but still not done. I have most of the lights working. Neutral safety switch works. Brake light switch works. High-low beam works. Not sure about reverse lights yet. The harness I made for the dual tanks works now. Hazard lights don't work, still have to figure that one out. Wipers come on, but first click right is slow and far right click is slower, and it makes a lot of noise so more work needed there too. Did get my driving lights and auxiliary backup LED light wired and working.

[rgunlock]

I know its been a long time on my paint job. I checked and I started this a year ago. Its finally cooled down enough I was able to repaint the hood (had striping) and fender (wind blew over on concrete) as well as glove box door and ash tray that just didn't turn out well 1st time around. Still have to do the cut & buff on them to match the rest of the truck. Honestly still not happy with them but they are better than they were the first go-around.

I've also been working a bit here and there on the trim. The orange GMC on the tailgate band just really clashed with my paint color, so I'm trying out black instead. Not sold on it, but better than it was. Sorry, don't have a pic of the original color handy, but what do you think?

[boynton]

I personally like the black. are you going to black out the front a s sides? I think it would give it a nice subtle touch.

[MTCK]

I forget how much I like that paint color. Then I see it again and wow.

[7dee2]

I agree black looks great against your color, very nice.

[rgunlock]

Originally Posted by boynton

I personally like the black. are you going to black out the front a s sides? I think it would give it a nice subtle touch.

I'd been thinking to do the cab corner pieces in red, but just not finding a shade I like well enough. May do these in black also. Fender emblems I was thinking of trying to do the original colors. Going to have to figure this one out quick because these emblems need to go on the fender before the fender goes on the truck! Don't actually have the GMC emblem for the grill, so not worried about that yet.

Originally Posted by MTCK

I forget how much I like that paint color. Then I see it again and wow.

Thanks Marcus! Gotta say that I was a little nervous when I picked the color, but I've been looking at it for a year and no regrets - love this color!

Originally Posted by 7dee2

I agree black looks great against your color, very nice.

Thanks Brett! Black it will stay. Just got to get my daughter to paint a second coat to try to reduce the brush marks. She painted the first coat. No way I could keep the edges clean myself

[swamp rat]

The paint and application look great! come on over and paint my truck LOL!

[rgunlock]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

The paint and application look great! come on over and paint my truck LOL!

Thanks, but that's the benefit of having a lousy camera Mike - you don't see the orange peel and mistakes