6.0L K25 1980 Longbed Stepside

[kym.alhashemi]

edited see post 2

[kym.alhashemi]

I was to slow to fix links.....i contacted an admin, anyway sorry and here is the one with correct links

Hello
First of all sorry for the grammar crime that i commit in this post, my English is not that great.
This is my first post here in this forum but i have been a long time lurker, i have read almost 90% of the posts here in the 73-87 forums, i have borrow/stole some of the ideas from the members/comunity on this website as picture evidence would show.
I would like to share my project with you guys if you are interested in it, its a little bit late but i got a lot of pictures, I got a 1980 k25 Stepside LongBed that i put together from 3 different cars at a local junk yard, it was my first car and my daily driver, had it all since high school and i had put a 305,350,454 and a 5.3 in it in those years till it finally died due to negligence and reckless driving in my youth days, i started restoring it back in 2008, it has been a on and off thing, since i got other cars that actually work i kept my focus on then, plus i kept loosing interest for the car and i did not have the time or money to complete it. plus my limited mechanical/fabrication knowledge.


The only Picture i can find where it is "ALMOST" a complete car...


Since then the chassis had been sandblasted and painted, and the car has been to the paint and bodywork shop. But before i show you the body work here is the pictures of the dis assembly of the car.
fyi the only reason i am focusing work on this car atm is just because i got a phone call from my parents asking me to take my junk out or they will take it to the salvage yard....so i had to !






NEVER buy made in china products....

Since i live in an apartment and i work from my familys home, i have to keep on cleaning the area......sometimes i feel i clean the yard more than i work on the truck




I thougth it was a great idea to put my parts under the shade of a tree, aperantly i was wrong tree have leavs and leavs tend to fall....


next to my other junk car. i had to remove all the fallen leavs from the vent holes and windshield wiper holes.....

Here is a rare picture showing a pecice of junk pulling another pice of junk !!



Sorry but i have to put this as a Honorable mention !! this useless cart i put together actually WORKED !!! it held the cabin for almost a year !! other than one of the wheels breaking on the trailer its fine !!! you don't need metal trolleys !

Before i show u the body work let me share the horror and torture this car has seen its lifetime.









I lost all other pictures, i keep on losing or breaking phones so a tone of pictures are lost.


As you know when anyone says paint/bodyshop you start to expect delays.... so the car has been to 2 shops by now.
first shop was a great and well known shop in my country known for its show car paint level. anyway they kept it for almost 3 month with not even touching it, and once they touched it suddenly the price went up and kept on changing the agreement/arrangement and delaying it further. by that time i had changed my mind from making it a show/restored car to making it my work truck daily driver.



No comment.....















Was gonna go for the original red but decided it too common here in my country actually everyone paints there c/k trucks red and white top even if its not a 73-87 year truck...
Changing color in my country is a BIG BIG hassle, basically we have a law that states you should bring your car for inspection before you can get the color change approval, well that was a big problem for me since my car was in a million pieces and it was already in primer, after a month of going back and forth with the road and transportation authority i finally got approval to paint my car, anyway here is the color i chose



Trying to show the color with the light reflection....the reason i chose this color that it keeps on changing between light and dark from the angle you see it from or the amount of light on it.























I don't know if you would notice it but i stole/borrowed "Tx Firefighter" Idea in capping the end of the bed rails. and soon his idea of the truck bed, since i will be using this car as my work truck i decided not to put a wood floor in it.



This is my current progress on paint.

Almost 100% of my family members have at least one GM car in there house, we got a cousin that has a ford raptor but he dose not count, soon we would go to court and disown him for owning a ford... anyway i manged to score a 6.0 engine from my uncle its been in his home rusting away for 4-5 years, he said it was complete with a harness and everything and it only has 15k miles, he offered it to me and i took it .
After getting banned from working in the family home i had to find a place where i can work on my engine, i found a temporary place that i would use but its only during the weekend and off hours that i can work there since its a functional workshop/salvage yard. i just hope to finish the engine before i get kicked out of this place also...
















The amount of rust and dirt on this engine is stupid....took me a whole weekend cleaning it, as if it layed next to the titanic, 15k miles he said.....



This is how i got it back from the machine shop, unfortunately unlike the states in my country not all machine shops clean engine blocks you have to clean it your self.





After cleaning it. This is the best i could do without messing it up, this is only my 3rd or 4th engine that i rebuild and i am still afraid of making things worse or damaging them.






I have never painted a engine block i just would degrease it and rebuild it but this time i decided to paint it, i read on the forums that grill paint was good and would not chip off from the heat, so i went to ace hardware to buy it, while i was in the paint section i asked for black grill paint when i saw Rustoleum high heat primer and paint, suddenly i remembered seeing a read lsx engine here on the forums and had the idea of copping it. *(coping seems to be used a lot in my build)
Anyway here are some pics once i find the real picture and the name of the poster i will edit it and include his name for credit






the farther you are the better it looks and its a diffrent story when ur neaar it
basically the engine is not complete i am still missing some parts but this is my current progress on it.



since i found them i would like to share with you my glorious engines...
my 5.3 may it rest in peace, it was a good engine for the 3weeks i had it for.



and the old 350

[IowaHooch]

Very cool truck!

[MTCK]

Cool rig and good progress!

[73Super8]

Great job! Awesome to see such rust free sheet metal. Are there a lot of long bed stepsides in Dubai? I seen a few in pictures. Pretty rare here even back during production days.

[kym.alhashemi]

Thank you guys.

Originally Posted by 73Super8

Great job! Awesome to see such rust free sheet metal. Are there a lot of long bed stepsides in Dubai? I seen a few in pictures. Pretty rare here even back during production days.

Actually they are very common in our country, so common that we have country songs about longbeds stepside.....they only imported long beds stepside trucks GM ford or dodge everything was longbed due to the work nature and demand for the trucks, all the short bed trucks in our region are imported and very rare.

[y5mgisi]

Subscribed! Really like the new color!

[73Super8]

Originally Posted by kym.alhashemi

Thank you guys.



Actually they are very common in our country, so common that we have country songs about longbeds stepside.....they only imported long beds stepside trucks GM ford or dodge everything was longbed due to the work nature and demand for the trucks, all the short bed trucks in our region are imported and very rare.

That's cool! Love your truck.

[Wrecked1982]

I wish I had bodywork skills as good as this

[Chevy3+3]

Going to be a beautiful truck when finished. If you don't mind me asking what is the paint color?

[hamad]

love your truck and pictures! wish I had your skills and guts to try something like this a home

[kym.alhashemi]

Thank you for guys for all the kind words.

My skills in bodywork is "0", The body work is done by a bodyshop, I wish i had the time and skills to do my own body work. You give me to much credit

Originally Posted by Chevy3+3

If you don't mind me asking what is the paint color?

I did not understand the question, you mean what color is it ? or whats the color code
answer 1: its gray
answer 2: I will get you the code of the paint i used , i am not sure if its VW/bmw, Nissan or Porsche color i saw many samples and forgot it, ill try to post it by tonight

[Chevy3+3]

I know its gray of course. I guess I was asking for the paint code. Thanks

[kym.alhashemi]

The engine is finally in, sorry i did not take more pictures but i was in a hurry to get the engine transmission mounted, so i can take it back to the body shop. btw please dont mind the dirty running gear it will all be replaced, and the stupid mismatching bolts will be replaced, i am in a hurry so forgive me.

The engine and Transmission











I saw many posts with positive reviews on this mounting style, i wanted to copy it instead of using original LS mounts and brackets that i had for my 5.3
And here is my C.A.D sample....


This is the straightest i could cut the plates with an angle grinder.








Due to the mounting style i had to do some small modifications, nothing acetylene torch and a hammer cant fix,






I dont know if you can see it but its on the bottom corner of the block and chassis, wish i took a couple of pictures before painting it.



I dont think i will stick to this mounting style its a little bit low and due to the clam shell mounts i wont be able to use a bottem mounted AC compressor like i use to, still have to think about it.









I think i might need a different gear lever, but this will do for now.





The car is in the bodyshop atm, i will start work on it on Friday, after that ill drop the rear and front diff clean and paint them, install the new suspension and transfercase then take it to the exhaust shop.

More pictures to come on Friday or Saturday

[73Super8]

Looking good!

[y5mgisi]

Good work! What transmission are you using?

[JIMs70GMC]

Any updates? Very nice looking build!