My 78 K15 High Sierra build - Fish Tremble

[rgunlock]

Originally Posted by CG

I gotta say Im not (usually) a "late model" fan, but I decided to check out your build thread one day. And I have to say, man what an excellent job you have done! And what a great looking truck, I would be proud to say I owned that one. I swear I get converted all the time on this board lol.

Thank you CG. I surely appreciate your comments. I am proud of this truck, and frankly of myself for plowing through a project like this.

Originally Posted by MrBeast

True'er words were never spoken!

waiting to see what happens with the rental garage up in town here, also I have a new business started that once it is making better money I will have much more of a budget to play with the truck.

It is always a balancing act between desire and finance isn't it!

Good luck with the workspace and the new business MrBeast. At least in my case, the project stretched out long enough that there weren't too many really big hits to the budget, just very regular hits

[swamp rat]

Originally Posted by MrBeast

True'er words were never spoken!

waiting to see what happens with the rental garage up in town here, also I have a new business started that once it is making better money I will have much more of a budget to play with the truck.

It is always a balancing act between desire and finance isn't it!

Must be talkin about Garage Plus 😎

[rgunlock]

Well, I've been driving this truck as my daily for a month now. It has been doing well, no new surprises that are too much of a concern. I think my reman power steering pump may have a leak, and it seems like fuel is draining out of the carb and fuel line when the truck sits. Have to start it a couple times before it stays running with plenty of pumping each time, but once warmed up a bit it has not died on me.

I did replace my shocks this weekend with Bilstein 5100's. They seem to have improved my ride a little, but not enough really to justify the cost and effort. The sway bar disconnect/adjustment brackets made a more noticeable difference, but every little bit helps. Overall, pretty dang happy with this truck!

[bilfman]

I had a reman ps pump with a leak. Took a while to find it. In the end it was a barely visible hairline crack in the female pump thread. Possibly your issue.

[rgunlock]

Truck is doing some work to earn its keep. Hauling off metal scrap to make some room, and bringing home supplies for the next project - finishing out the interior of my shop.

Actually, the big box in the bed was a little present for Hazel. You can just see in the first picture that she got a low profile tool box.

[MTCK]

Awesome. Nothing better than putting them to work!

[Greenlee]

Good to see her earning her keep!

[swamp rat]

Are you beyond the don’t scratch it stage? ��

[rgunlock]

Thanks guys. Yep Mike, its already got its first scratches. Also, I have been driving it every day for at least 2 months and it hasn't had a bath in that time. I do feel a little guilty about that and might wash it this weekend.

[cmabolt]

Hey Rick! Good to see your enjoying the truck. they are supposed to be driven after all.
I WISH I had more time to get mine out. I am about to embark on motor work so perhaps the end of this summer.

Chris

[rgunlock]

Hi Chris, good to hear from you. It's been a while. What's up with the engine that you need the summer to get driveable again?

[cmabolt]

The motor is working fine. I decided to add a little power. I am putting on some new heads, a cam and some larger injectors. All for the sake of getting this thing from zero to cruise a little bit faster. Not necessary, but I try to keep improving the truck when time and funds are available. Only issues I have had are an endless pwr steering leak. I am on my third saginaw pump and this thing keeps urinating own my floor. I have tried everything. Since I'ts an LS, I am thinking about switching to the type 2 pump. I am told it uses less hp than the older styles. Just mo-money. I have been so busy lately I haven't been able to drive it much. I did get her out and had new mufflers put on and changed exhaust a little. I switched from flow master super 44 to the 50 series. I also dumped the exhaust just before rear exle as the tailpipes coming straight out the rear never looked right on the truck. The sound is exactly what I have been wanting. The 44's were very glass pack-poppy. Not my thing really. Hope to hit more shows this year but looking like it will be later this summer.

looks like you got that carb thing figured out?
Chris

[boynton]

Chris I am not an expert so take what I am saying for what it’s worth. I have been told that the newer power steering pump make to much pressure and you have to reduce it. I know there is a fitting that some guys are putting on the pressure hose to lower the pressure I just have no idea what the part number is. It would be worth a google search.

[rgunlock]

I guess there is always something that is tough to nail down. Mine is the damn guage cluster fuse keeps blowing within minutes of putting in a new one. This weekend I pulled the dash apart and tested each guage - put in a new fuse, pull out a guage, start truck, pop fuse. I was on my last guage when I made the connection that the fuse was popping when I let out the clutch (truck in neutral). So I jumpered across the connection for the clutch neutral safety switch and everything seemed good. Not sure what the connection is between clutch neutral safety switch and guages??? Thought I was in good shape but the fuse blew again this morning going to work after a few miles. Arg!

I saw a thread just a few weeks back talking about a device to reduce PS fluid pressure to the box. I believe that it was used to get more resistance in the steering wheel, but I'll see if I can find the thread.

[rgunlock]

Update on the build that never ends I did figure out the gauge fuse issue. My clutch pedal has a long swing and is right next to the fuse block where a lot of the wiring comes in. Apparently the pedal was shoving into some wiring causing the problem. I never actually found any damaged wires, but tied them back further out of the way and haven't blown a fuse in a couple of weeks now.

I've also started the drivetrain upgrades I've spoken about. Spent the weekend - a damn hot weekend - swapping out the rear axle from the 3.08 to 4.10 with limited slip differential. What a chore!

Good news is that I now leave two marks on the driveway, and I do have the correct gears for sharp curves and right turns. Flip side is that since I'm still running the SM465 I am generally running at higher RPMs for everything. This pointed out that my old driveshaft needs to be balanced. Initially with the new axle, it was vibrating pretty hard once I got up to about 20MPH. Took it loose and turned it 180 and now its much better but I still notice the vibration up around 2500 RPM.

I definitely need to follow up with the NV4500 upgrade to get the overdrive. Right now, in 4th I'm pretty sure at 2500 RPM I'm only doing maybe a little over 50, although the gear calculators say it should be doing 60. Something is wrong there, but I need to use the GPS to figure out what speed I'm really doing - this morning was my first drive in 4th and I didn't have the GPS with me.

Any case, getting closer to DONE! I've got a fun weekend coming to swap out the front axle, then another for the actual NV4500 swap and it should all be downhill from there. Note that I'm being pretty optimistic about those 2 chores only taking a weekend apiece - this old guy don't move around so fast in the heat anymore

EDIT: The GPS tells me I'm only doing 48MPH at 2500 RPM in 4th gear. Something's not right. Thought it might be the parking brake dragging but I've loosened up the cable with no improvement.

[MTCK]

That’s awesome, glad you leave proper black marks. I made the same swap on my ‘77 that I daily drove a few years. 3.08 open to 4.10 limited slip. What a difference. I never did the overdrive swap and just had to get used to spinning 3000 rpm on the highway. These motors do it all the time in jet boats!

[rgunlock]

Well, I had time to pull the rear cover today and count gear teeth. Turns out that the drivetrain shop installed 4.10s in the front, but installed 4.56s in the rear. That just isn't going to work out!

Figure I'll give the drivetrain shop a chance to make things right, but since it has been at least 6 years since the work was done I expect I'll be finding another shop to install 4.10s in this rear axle

[7dee2]

Originally Posted by rgunlock

Truck is doing some work to earn its keep. Hauling off metal scrap to make some room, and bringing home supplies for the next project - finishing out the interior of my shop.

Actually, the big box in the bed was a little present for Hazel. You can just see in the first picture that she got a low profile tool box.

Wow, look at you go! Glad to see you using your truck sir!

[rgunlock]

Been using it for relatively light duty stuff at least. It's been sitting for the last week though. I called the drivetrain shop that did the original work on these "4.10" axles but got the "I'm slammed this week, call me next week" response. Been there done that with this guy, so took it to a different shop and got 4.10 installed in the rear. They also discovered that the "tangs" on the pinion yoke had one side sheared off so they replaced it. That was allowing the u-joint to move enough to cause the vibration from the drivetrain. First shop never noticed or mentioned that. Any more work I need done - maybe driveshafts after NV4500 swap - I'll be going back to Northwest Drivetrain.

Now the aggravating part. On the trip to the shop I noticed I had no turn signals. Dammit, another electrical gremlin! This weekend I tracked it down to the cluster circuit sheet where the leads going to the left turn indicator were fairly mangled and apparently shorting, blowing the fuse whenever I used the left turn signal. Cut that section out and reinstalled the cluster for probably the 20th time. Turn signals work now, but I have no indicator in the cluster for left turns. I'll live with that for now, but I have ordered a new circuit sheet. Was going to install the new front axle this weekend, but troubleshooting the turn signals took too long.

I'm excited I'll be driving Hazel again this week. My backup vehicle is a '96 Mazda Miata (my go-cart). While the Miata is fun to drive, at my age and size its much easier climbing up into the truck than trying to drop down into a seat literally about 8" off the pavement

[boynton]

Ha. It’s really fun to drive with two dudes and the top down. Ask me how I know. I’m glad you are getting it worked out!

[rgunlock]

Thanks boynton! Got to get this drivetrain upgrade done so I can come visit. I recall you mentioned testing out the 4wd on the farm. The truck still hasn't been out of 2wd yet!

[boynton]

Originally Posted by rgunlock

Thanks boynton! Got to get this drivetrain upgrade done so I can come visit. I recall you mentioned testing out the 4wd on the farm. The truck still hasn't been out of 2wd yet!

We need to fix that!

[rgunlock]

Not an exciting update, but want to keep the build up-to-date. I tackled the front axle swap on the 4th of July. I took off the 5th and 6th thinking with 5 days I'd get both the front axle and the transmission swapped. Seemed reasonable... but with the front axle I think anything that could go wrong to hold me up did go wrong. Didn't even finish the axle in those 5 days and took me this past weekend to finish it up. In fairness, I also take a lot of beverage breaks when its "feels like" temperature over 100 in my shop due to humidity/heat index.

Problems started with the first step - loosening lug nuts prior to jacking her up. One nut just spun on the stud. I'd cross-threaded at some point I guess. Fortunately it wasn't totally tight and I was able to make a tool with the right bends and a notch to go around the stud under the nut and apply pressure to get the nut to catch good threads and back off. Way too long spent to get the tire off! And then I'd forgotten that the front lug studs are different than the rear. I had a couple extras for the rear, but it cost me a trip to the parts store to get the fronts.

Exciting pic of the difference in the studs

[rgunlock]

When I worked on the original front axle, I did brakes, bearings, seals, etc. but didn't get deep enough into it to do ball joints. I've never done ball joints, but I had a ball joint press kit from earlier I guess, when maybe I thought I was going to change them on the original axle. So that was a major adventure.

I had the special tool for the spanner nut, but it kept slipping off with any pressure. Gave up on it and went to town - again - to get another hopefully better special tool. Nobody had one, but I did get new upper and lower ball joints for both sides. Ah ha I thought... I've got the knuckles from the 76 K5 donor that provided the axle rebuilt with 4.10s. So, I don't need to remove the knuckles from the 78 K15 axle. (BTW, the K15 ball joints seemed to be fine). I'll just put new ball joints in the 76 knuckles. Realized later that I could just beat the ball joint studs out of the "C" on the axle since its all replaced with the new ball joints. Apparently that is what I'd done years ago with the 76 axle since the spanner nuts were still in there. A shot of PB blaster and the special tool got those out. Had a time figuring out what barrels and adapters to use with the press kit - basically a different set up for upper and lower, remove and insert but got them done.

[rgunlock]

Then its time to reinstall the knuckles on the "C" at the ends of the Dana-44 axle. Driver side went together no problem. Got the nuts on upper/lower along with the spanner nut all torqued and good. But, passenger side, the lower stud just spun when trying to get the nut on. Asked on the main forum for suggestions. Came down to a) use an impact wrench and b) jack up on the bottom of the knuckle to force the ball joint stud into the taper of the "C" on the axle so it won't spin.

I didn't actually have a good impact wrench. Another trip to town for that. Don't know how I've lived without one, but it didn't work. The stud still spun. I'd wanted to totally reassemble the axle on stands where I had more room to maneuver, but went ahead and mounted it under the truck so I could try plan "b" above. Didn't work, the stud still spun.

Finally got the nut to tighten by using a small needle nose vice grips to hold the stud. I don't think I damaged the grease boot too much. Ball joints done!