73-87 Truck and Engine questions

[elwood]

I will be in the market soon for another 73-87 2wd. This time I would like to try out a 73-78 as the last truck I had the last owner put an '85 body on the '78 frame. I like the look of the earlier trucks better (round headlights). What should I look for or avoid in the 73-78 trucks?

Also, I plan to find a truck with a good body/interior but a tired drivetrain, as I have a 305/700r4 combo w/ 100k on them from the '88 caprice.

I have some questions about the motor and trans. What do I have to swap/convert/rig up to make the '88 305 and 700r4 work in a 73-78 pickup?

The 305 has some sort of computer controlled carb and smaller distributer.

What about the trans? Where do I hook up the electrical for the lock up? Are the drive shafts and cross members different from the th350/400?

I'm not looking to build a hot rod here...just a run around/daily driver rig.

Thanks for your time...

Elwood

[cliffsta]

When looking for a 73-78 to put this stuff in, watch out for the normal rust and cancer on the rockers. GM gradually got better about rust proofing as the series progressed, but at best your looking at a 26 year old truck, possible a 31 year old dinosaur . Also, odds are you will need a hood since 73-80 hoods are notorious for curling (just click on my display pic). Not sure when GM switched over to metal beds in fleetsides, but if its a steppie it for sure has wood, and it might have wood if its a fleetside. You could go on forever, but ya know.
Check this out, gonna plug 73-87.com again You know a site is good when random folks like me are pluggin it
www.73-87.com/misc/7387ck.htm

[Eyegore]

Hey elwood check todays republic paper, truck section, someone had a 74 c10 in there swb w/ a 350/350 combo for $800, tel #602.978.5855. He's refering to it as a super project truck- whatever that means.


Tom

[bluex]

To put in the 700r4 the xmember will have to move back something like 3". The DS legth should be the same if you get a truck with a 9" TS on the 350. Again look in the garage section on 73-87.com there is an article in there with all the part numbers to wire up the lockup on the 700. It cost me around $65 for the parts and only took about 20 mins to do. I still dont have my brake cancel switch in yet though. As for the dis. you could swap the carb and dizzy over from the engine thats in the truck and not have to worry about that stuff. Look out for all the usual rust spots and happy hunting.

[C&C Chevy]

The 88 350 is a TBI motor. Throttle Body Injection is fuel injection. Be sure you have all the wiring and computer for the engine to make the swap alot easier. The distributor is non-hei, and has a seperate coil, which is why it's "smaller".

Not sure about the measurements for the eng/trans swap. Everything should bolt in fine, but not sure on DS length.

Shouldn't run into body rot problems with an Arizona truck. Just make sure the truck isn't from the Midwest.

[elwood]

Yeah I saw that $800 truck in the paper...I just about crapped myself...but I have to get my ranger sold first.

The motor from the caprice has a 4 barrel Q-jet on it with about 50 pounds of smog crap strapped to it. Can't mistake it for TBI with that mechanical fuel pump on the block.

Thanks for the replies, I hope I can find a nice one when the time comes.

[piecesparts]

You can kabosh the whole computer in this truck easily. Put in an earlier model HEI distributor and the computer will be out of the picture. My trucks had 350C trannies in them originally (computer controlled for a lockupp converter). I killed off that whole setup when I put a "JET" T-700 tranny in. The 700R4 has the overdrive, but not the lockup on the convertor. I get really decent mileage on a 400 HP 383 stroker motor with a set of 3:73 gears. There is NO computer in my trucks. The gear ratio is something that you will have to look at, if you want to put in an overdrive tranny. My son's truck had 3.08 gears when we put a 700R4 in it and the mileage sucked BIG after the install. A Chevy v-8 needs to be in it's power band (approximately 2100 to 2500 RPM). This was accomplished by us taking his rear gears to 3.73. That brought his mileagae up to a good 14.5 MPG, rather than the 11 to 12 MPG before. The cruise control and the tranny works better with this setup, not to mention the capability to smoke tires at a stoplight, when desired. High gears are not always the answer. We did not have to change the driveline on our trucks, we got the tranny with the same length tailshaft as the ones we took out. We did have to move the tranny mount back about 2" and redrill the frame (easily done). We might be able to get a little more mileage out of it, if we played with the tires sizes some more.

[HanSoloWS6]

I just did about the same thing in my '79. It had the 250 and 3 speed and I swapped to a 305/700R4 from an '87 Caprice. So far, I've had to move the tranny X-member back about 2-3" and have the driveshaft shortened about 6". Everything else bolted in fine.

As for the dizzy, I swapped the smaller one for a late 70's HEI. The carb is the elec. one you have. I kept it on there and just plugged off the vaccuum lines I didn't need. If it's a cold start, it might take a couple pumps to start and when it's warm, or at least up to 6 hours from last running, it'll fire in a second or less. It ran and drove fine, except for the pesky knock it had lol.

I still need to do the tranny wiring, but that's no biggie. And I need a shifter. I'll probably grab one from a 3rd gen F-body. I also have to rebuild the motor, which I'm doing now and should be done by the weekend. Took me 3 hours from parking the truck to have down to a bare block, but it's taking an eternity to get the machine work done and new parts lol.

I'll probably have to swap the gears too, but I'm not sure yet. I want to throw a tach in it and get it on the highway after I break the motor in and see what it runs at first.

[piecesparts]

The 350 motor has a much more broader power curve than the 305 motor. It is a good choice for this truck. Some of the earlier chvy trucks had a computer controlled carb on them, if you are doing changes like you suggested I (personally) would dump the shoebox and get a different carb. There a lot of them out there thot would bolt on and give you a good basic carburation that would be easy to work on. Carter, Edelbrock, or Holley have a great basic line. If you stick with the GM installed mess (computer controlled) it will always leave you in doubt as to how much you are getting out of it. If you kill off the computer completely, then you will need to get the different carb, anyways. Shifters are everwhere. I changed my column shifter out for a B&M Megashifter, so that I would never jump into reverse when I shift gears. It is a solid combination for the 700 R4.

[elwood]

I will only have about $2000 to work with, so I hope I can find at least a solid body.