Over 25 Years Later, Finally My 71 C-10 Truck Build

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Get D in there!

I try. He's got a girlfriend though, so he's about useless most of the time.

We'll see if he helps me out this week. I tasked him with a few things he can do. The new engine is going in next weekend with or without his help. I need this back on the road and I'm getting excited that it's so close. It's been a few years since I fired a new engine I built and it's an incredible feeling.

[NewType72]

Never rely on the sons we're so worthless

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by NewType72

Never rely on the sons we're so worthless

Exactly. I mean really! What could he possibly have to do that's more important than working on my stuff. Ingrate.

[hgs_notes]

The boy did some cleaning and had the alternator tested and started to get it cleaned up and painted. So he's not completely worthless.

[hgs_notes]

Friday night I got the new engine loaded into the back of the plow truck for the ride over to the other garage for the install.


I spent a little more time doing some cleaning under the hood. BTW, don't bother with that cheap walmart degreaser. That crap wouldn't even clean off the light oil film on my firewall. I used simple green afterwards, much better. Then I got the engine up and in the truck.




That's about as far as I got that night. It was in and the pins on the back were in the corresponding holes of the bell housing.

Saturday I worked on the porch. Today I worked on the truck. I managed to get the tranny mated to the engine and got it bolted into the truck. The torque converter is bolted to the flex plate. Oh yeah, Friday I found out my flexplate from the 283 wouldn't work on the newer style 350 crankshaft. Good thing I saved the flexplate from a couple other engines and had the correct one. I finished painting the alternator and mounted that and was finally able to see if I had the right fan belt. The headers are bolted on. I had to modify the throttle rod. The FI Tech unit places the throttle further forward. The original rod I had was out to it's maximum length and about 1-1/2" too short. I cut it and welded in a piece of bolt that was the same diameter. The new EFI is bolted down, the O2 sensor was swapped for the new one. The shifter is reconnected, starter is in and I probably did a few other bits.

This is how it sits tonight.


I thought I might get to fire it today, but I ran out of steam. What's left is power steering lines, fuel pump, wire the EFI and new pump, install the cap and plug wires. I think that's about it. Maybe tomorrow.

[Dieselwrencher]

That all looks very nice! What did you use to paint the intake?

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

That all looks very nice! What did you use to paint the intake?

It's the same stuff as the heads and block. It's got a ceramic in it I think. Really good stuff. I'll post a pic of it tomorrow.

Today I got most of the wiring figured out, including the alternator. . The boy said he can get me an adapter for the power steering hose from work tomorrow. Other than that I just need to swap the fuel pump and install the cap and plug wires.

So close.

[Low Elco]

Onward! Cant wait for the fire up video!

[NewType72]

Very quick progress! Love it, new engine looks very tidy in there can't wait for the startup!

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Onward! Cant wait for the fire up video!

Maybe not tonight. Having trouble finding the fittings I need for the fuel line.

Originally Posted by NewType72

Very quick progress! Love it, new engine looks very tidy in there can't wait for the startup!

Thanks, it's going pretty good. Me either.

Ryan, here's what I used for spraying the engine and accessories...


It's really good stuff but I haven't run the engine yet to see how it holds up. It covers well, sprays nice. Seems pretty durable. But it's kinda spendy. Worth it though.

[Palf70Step]

engine looks good in there. Looking forward to seeing the fire up.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

engine looks good in there. Looking forward to seeing the fire up.

Thanks! Me too, but not tonight. I need to get a few things for the new fuel pump install. I don't have anything with the 06 or 08 AN fittings and I need to replace some stuff. Today I stopped by the shop where my son works. They have everything but I didn't have measurements for hose, etc. so I was only able to get some of what I needed. I think I'll have the rest of it tomorrow, then it's show time.

I did a little research on the power steering hose adapters, etc. because my son wasn't able to get one from work. They were out of them and had them on order. During my interweb cruising I found a couple forum posts that said they just removed the fitting from the pump for the older flare hose and replaced the fitting in the newer style pump, easy peasy.

Of course I still have an old pump sitting in the lean-to parts storage, so I pull out the fitting, take out the one from the new pump and whatayano, they are the same but different.

Old pump left, new pump right


Flare fitting left, bubble metric flare fitting right.


Screws right in and I didn't even have to remove the pump to do it. Save your old pump flare fittings when you swap pumps and you're good to go without any money spent on adapters. The original hose fits just fine in with the pump in the new position on the serpentine belt set up.

Down to the last couple tasks now, but I'm going to go work on my porch again tonight. I've got the support beam built and most of the header/ledger boards up. Trusses going up soon.

[hgs_notes]

Still not running, but last night I did get the new fuel pump installed. My son brought home the hose and fittings we needed, except for the -8 stuff. I managed to find some 1/2" copper tubing from an old garage heater that had the correct flare fitting and some 1/2" rubber hose to put together the suction side of the pump plumbing.

I used a corvette style regulator/filter and -6 hose/fittings for most of the plumbing.


Between the pump and filter...


Tie in to the old fuel lines for the pump suction and return lines...


Having an inline pump isn't the best option but it works. If I have a premature pump failure due to the longer suction line than the recommended 3' I'll probably order a newer style blazer tank with the EFI set up inside it and switch to an in-tank pump.

I think all I have left to do is wire the pump and hook up the plug wires.

[hgs_notes]

Yesterday I finished the wiring and was ready to fire this up. At first it wouldn't fire. It would pop a little once in a while, but the timing was off. I had the distributor off a bit so I just moved the plug wires on the cap over one spot. That got it to fire and run but it wouldn't idle. I did a little more fiddling with it and eventually it settled down and ran ok. I didn't notice anything unusual, oil pressure was 40-50 at idle. So I started to pick up the RPM to start the cam break in.

The engine was warming up, pretty fast at around 2000 RPM. Smoke coming off it burning oil off the exhaust pipes, etc. Vacuum was ok at first, kinda low so I turned the distributor a bit and vacuum came up to about 17, which is pretty good. The temp kept climbing, oil pressure was dropping, all normal for an engine warming up.

Then oil pressure was crashing, it dropped to about 12 while at 2000 RPM which is way low and the temp kept climbing. 10 minutes into the cam break in and I shut it down with low oil pressure and the temp at 220 with both electric fans running.

Not good.

The EFI system seemed to be doing what it was supposed to and the A/F ratios were in line and running smooth. That's about the only positive I could take from this.

I let it cool down a bit, checked the fluid levels again and fired it back up. Had about 10 psi oil pressure for about 1 minute then it dropped to 0 and started clacking. Shut down again and now I'll be pulling it out to see what went wrong.

I've gone through everything in my head many times over, but obviously I missed something or messed something up. I'm not a pro builder but I've done more than a few engine rebuilds, including the 283 that has been in the truck since 1985 (twice) and the 350 in the Jimmy which ran great and a 400 sbc in my friends camaro that he has been running since about 1990 (including some drag racing). Not exactly a novice but no pro. Something was missed or something broke and it has to come back out to find out what.

[clay68c10]

Dammit! I hope it's something fairly simple.

[NewType72]

Man sorry to hear about the pressure drops. As clay said hopefully it is something simple and will be easy on you. Truck prayers your way my friend

[Palf70Step]

with the above comments. Hope it turns out to be a simple, semi painless fix.

[Low Elco]

Awww Maaaannnnnn..... Hope it's something simple.

[Dieselwrencher]

X2, I hope it is something simple and not a big deal. Good luck with it Mike!

[hgs_notes]

It wasn't something simple and it won't be easy to fix.

I celebrated fathers day by investigating one of my more recent failures. I was tired of working on the mega-porch so I pulled the engine out of the truck.


I got it on the stand, dropped the oil pan and saw...

Not much, really. No broken parts, no pieces of shrapnel, no loose bolts. Just a lot of very gray oil. I wrote off part of that to the assembly lube and cam lube, etc. but it also wasn't right, because it was gritty. Everything I touched felt like it had sand in it. I know I didn't screw up that bad.

I pulled the caps off the main journals and the bearings were completely wiped and the journals were severely scored.






The rod bearings were better but still in bad shape. #1 and 2 journal was the worst of it...


More tear down was needed, but I ran out of time because to take off the driver side accessory bracket, you have to remove the PS pump. To remove the pump you need to remove the pulley. The little flange that the puller grabs on the pulley broke so I spent an hour or more trying to get the pulley off.

I did see this in the oil pump though...




Scoring and pitting on the pump gears. The problem I have with this is that I never opened up the pump before running it so I don't know what the condition was prior to me running it.

Fast forward to this afternoon.
I get the intake off and everything I feel under it is gritty. I get the heads off and see some scoring on the cylinder walls.




The lifters were roached, except for 3. They looked like they were riding on a grinding wheel instead of cam lobes.


One of the 3 that weren't toasted...


So now I can pull the cam. It was toasted. The lobes were visibly worn, like up to 1/10" in some cases. You can see one of the good lobes behind the worn one in each of these pics.




I think I found the source of the grit. It looks like the cam break in went horribly wrong. Yes I used cam lube. Yes I used engine assembly lube. Yes the block, crank and other parts were cleaned up. It looks like the cam just disintegrated. The valve adjustment was pretty good according to the vacuum readings I had. The engine ran for a total of about 15 minutes.

Even the pistons are tightened up on the rods. They move but you can feel how stiff they are now. I think the only usable parts from the short block is the block and maybe the connecting rods.

So now what? Never one to wallow in grief for too long, I'll see if the crank is salvageable. If not, looks like I get to build the 383 I've thought about for so long. This is a severe case of the mightaswells.

BTW, the mega-porch is coming right along...

[Dieselwrencher]

Sorry to see of the engine cam loss, but that mega porch is looking awesome! I wonder if that cam was never heat treated after being ground?

[Palf70Step]

Yeah really sorry to see what happened to that engine.

[hgs_notes]

Yesterday, summit denied my warranty claim because they said I didn't use the right valve springs. The cam is rated for .466 lift and they had a "suggested" part that was rated at .500-.510 lift and said that since mine was less than that (the head rebuild kit said .480 lift) that they wouldn't cover it.

The springs themselves are rated at .520 lift. They went off the specs for the head kit. The springs are only a part of the equation though. The max lift is based on other factors, such as clearance between the retainer and the valve guide or seal. So today I sent them the spring spec and they will honor the warranty. Unfortunately, that only gets me a new cam and lifters. I told them I need a master rebuild kit and that I'm not even sure I can salvage the crank. He said they would sell me the parts I need at their cost. I guess it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick (one of those sayings my mom likes to use) but still will cost me a lot in the end.

In the mean time, I have a truck that is in short term disability and I need to correct that. My friend Mike said "why not swap the jimmy engine into it?" Mike's a pretty smart guy. Why the hell didn't I think of that? Probably because I've got too much going on right now.

Oh well, time to go swap another motor and get this thing back on the road where it belongs.

[mcbassin]

Man, What a sick result of an engine rebuild. I'm sorry to read that for sure. I have read similar stories on this site about cams taking a dump shortly after the rebuild.
I hope you get it all sorted out.
Very nice work on the mega porch too!

[Dieselwrencher]

Mike, can you see if they will put this amount towards a roller cam and see if you can find a roller block and build one of those? Or just upgrade to a roller for this block the next go around and get away from the flat tappet blues all together?