Lipstick on a Pig- refreshing a 1983 GMC High Sierra

SBC with a decent 'BSTICK' who knew ........awesome pipes bro!!!!

Thanks for the compliments! I'm happy with how it sounds for a low compression stock 305.

I'll try and get an updated/better idle video here in the next couple days if it dries out. Rainy today. 

Also I was pondering my dieseling issue at shutoff and a sticky/soggy accelerator pump (seemingly) condition while running. I'm wondering if maybe the accelerator pump is sticking just a bit at shutoff and that slight trickle of fuel is causing the run on. I rebuilt the carb recently but the accelerator pump has been kinda sticky the whole time. Perhaps the pump in the kit had too tight of a seal or I installed it wrong. I'll have plenty of time to look into that as the snow starts to fly... 

Here's another cam idle video- not sure if the quality is any better or not but here ya go. 

The other update I did to the truck recently was to install a 'corvette servo' in the transmission. This is a really simple and effective upgrade for the 700r4 to make the shifts quicker and more crisp. Essentially it allows the transmission to apply more pressure to the bands which makes it shift a little sportier. Parts ran me about $40 shipped and installation was very simple-  remove a snap ring, pull the servo cover and old servo out of the transmission (on the passenger side, above the pan, nothing else to remove but the cover itself) and replace with new.

What an upgrade! Before the 1-2 shift was pretty lazy and would take an uncomfortable amount of  time at WOT. Now it just shifts quickly and firmly into the next gear. All gears are improved, but it doesn't do any excessively hard shifting like a shift kit can sometimes do. Since I didn't have to drop the pan I was able to retain the fluid and filter I recently changed, which was a plus. I can't say enough about how much better this works, it's amazing that such an inexpensive piece can make such a huge difference. Plus it's an OEM part so theoretically it should last 100,000 plus miles. 

Here's a quick little entrance ramp blast from today at lunch. I don't have a good 'before' video of how long the shifts were but trust me this is vastly improved. Such a worthwhile upgrade, and so cheap and easy to do. I think every 700r4/4l60e should have one. 

My old 305 Camaro had the servo with a shift kit in the 700r4. Darn thing would bark the 1-2 shift even when letting off the throttle for it to shift. Did it once at something like 15 mph with a cop sitting next to me. I got the cold stare all the way down that road till I made the turn off.  All I could tell him was I didn't do it on purpose... 

Keep up the great work man!

That idle is lovely!

In reply to Mr. Lee :

I was actually advised against a shift kit by a friend of mine who said the same thing; the shift kit was almost too harsh. The corvette servo isn't harsh at all but it does give the trans a much better feel when shifting and reduced time in 'between gear purgatory' when shifting WOT. I'm very satisfied. 

In reply to Run_Away :

Thank you! It sounds better than I expected for a very inexpensive Summit brand camshaft. 

Was your friend's shift kit a B&M for a TH350? Or the same as yours? Or what kit did you put in?

In reply to SkinnyG :

No he said he had a shift kit in a 700r4 years ago and it was way too harsh, he didn't remember the brand. 

I was looking at shift kits and a lot of people mentioned the corvette servo so I figured I would start there as I recently changed the trans fluid and filter, and you didn't have to drop the pan to install it. It firmed up and quickened the shifts dramatically; it behaves like a shift kit but without any harshness. I now don't feel the need to put a shift kit in as this solved all of my complaints with the transmission. 

Yeah, for banging out full throttle shifts, it was fantastic. For everyday life, looking back not so much. I know when I finally killed it and threw a stock trans in just to keep rolling I missed it greatly. 

TransGo has milder shift kits, but they do other things in there which can improve transmission life or shift quality other than banging shifts.

The differences in separator plate between the TransGo kit, and the plates from my stock TH350 as well the B&M TH350 kit, are noticeable.

You don't have to go all "stage-2" crazy on the shift kit.  Heck, I put a TransGo kit in the family '02 Buick Century, as it alters the accumulators to make the trans shift better and last longer. 

Micro-Update!!

Today is the first day in a couple weeks the weather has been above 0 so I decided I'd fire the truck up for a bit, let it get warm, and listen to the exhaust.

There's a certain romance (to me) in the way an old V8 tickles the senses, especially against the stark white landscape of winter. The gas pedal slaps the floor a couple times, the key is inserted, and the classic GM 'key in ignition' buzzer whines to life. The starter motor cranks the sleeping engine over, and it pops once but isn't yet ready to keep running. Some more slaps of the pedal, some cranking, and it roars to life. Eventually it warms up and a blip of the throttle kicks it off high idle and it settles in at about 750 rpm with a nice lope. I walk around the truck a few times, taking it all in.

Then I pull it back into the garage and decide to fiddle with the carb some. It hasn't been quite right since I put the cam in, and I didn't put much effort into fixing it because it ran & drove, and it was late fall so the temperature was colder than the majority of the times the truck gets driven. I guess today I just felt like experimenting and being out a bit longer. The biggest gripe I'd had with the carb since installing the cam was that it had what felt like a flat spot at tip-in/part throttle. It just seemed like it wasn't happy. It would clear up if you stood on it, but the first 1/8 or so of pedal travel seemed very unresponsive. I don't know much about quadrajets, but it felt similar to the tip in problem often encountered on Holley's when the accelerator pump adjustment is too slack. So, I pushed the roll pin out of the accelerator pump arm, and moved the lever to the secondary position, figuring I could easily put it back if it wasn't an improvement. Well, I'm not calling it a victory yet because I didn't drive the truck, but it sure seems to run and rev nicer, and I was able to back the idle stop screw off a bit which will hopefully also help my dieseling problem.

We'll see come spring but it seems dramatically improved sitting in the garage, and even if I put it in gear and stab the throttle with the brakes on it seems spunky where before it was lazy. I'm claiming 75% victory; Will re-address in the spring. I also have been contemplating going to a Holley or Edelbrock carb, but feel compelled to at least make it run as good as it can with the Quadrajet before giving up on it. I kinda like the fact that the truck came factory with this 4 barrel carb. Somehow in my mind the stock carb & intake excite me, they seem more unexpected than the typical aluminum intake and aftermarket 4 barrel seen on every SBC at the car show. 

Get Cliff Ruggles' book: How to Rebuild & Modify Rochester Quadrajet Carburetors.  It is a VERY good book. They are great carbs once setup and adjusted properly.

Spring Update! 

I had the truck out on the road for the first time since December last weekend and took a couple pictures. Nothing too exciting, but it ran well and I put on probably 80 or so miles. Went from the Minneapolis area down to Hastings to visit a lock & dam, then cruised through the historic downtown area, and from there went to Prescott Wisconsin and grabbed some delicious Spotted Cow. From Prescott I ventured home up county F I believe which took me into Hudson, where I crossed the river again back into Minnesota and drove home. 

The accelerator pump adjustment seems to be a step in the right direction, but the carb still feels 'soft'. The pedal is heavy and it's a little finnicky on cold starts. I may buy another kit and go through it again, or I may get some assistance from a friend of mine who's done a lot of them. For now though I still plan on keeping the quadrajet. 

The lock & dam in Hastings. Definitely cold by the river! 

The truck at the lock & dam - I parked a spot away from a new Kia Stinger, cool looking car. 

And a couple pictures on the way home off county road F or whatever it was. This was down in this neat valley with nice twisty roads. I was parked at the entrance of some park that was closed for the winter. Add that to the list of places to go back to with the wife in the summer time. 

In the spirit of accuracy it WAS county F, and the park entrance I stopped at was Kinnickinnic State Park. It looked beautiful! Typical Wisconsin, flat-ish farm land then some pretty substantial grade down into this valley and some gorgeous trees and views. 

Summer is flying by and I've mostly been enjoying the truck, haven't done too much in the way of modifications. I did however receive a seat-cover kit from LMC Truck for my birthday, which I promptly installed. This was my first experience with any upholstery work and it went well, due mostly to the aging foam in my seats making the covers slide over nicely, and the well made covers from LMC. Basically I removed the seat from the truck, disassembled it, removed the old hog rings and seat cover, and slid the new factory appearing cover back over and hog ringed it back on. I didn't take a lot of pictures of the process but it was fairly straight forward. Getting the hog rings in the right spot where you had access to them with the plyers was somewhat difficult, but thankfully they were pretty soft so it didn't take a ton of effort to bend them into place once you got a hold of them. The most difficult part of the process was poking the rings through the cover as it had a double thick layer for them to go through so they didn't immediately tear. This was a gift so it's a $0 gain for me, but I believe it sells for around $250 and has the back and bottom seat covers, hog rings, and a hog ring plyers. 

Here's what I started with - The mexican blanket had the right style but it moved around and got bunched up. Not great. 

Here's the condition of the original seat- quite honestly it wasn't terrible but there's definitely some room for improvement. 

Seat back removed and cover taken off bottom 

New covers lying in the sun- this was supposed to help them become pliable and easier to fit over the foam. 

New cover installed on the seat bottom

And everything reassembled and installed back in the truck. 

That's all for now! Thanks for reading. 

Dang, I bet that made the truck feel like a million bucks! Looks really nice, and in my experience it is amazing what a little bit of interior work can do to refresh a vehicle. Solid improvement.

In reply to Mezzanine :

Yeah man, I also recently waxed it and both sure made it seem like wayyyy less of a crappy old truck. 

Not that I specifically thought it was, I know the work I put into it, but the whole outward appearance thing. Now I need to replace the cracked windshield. 

Looks great. It's the little things that make it!

Hooray updates! Seat looks great.

More updates! 

Sold the other project I'd been working on this summer so this is getting some more attention now. 

Firstly, I installed this little bugger in the ash tray so I can monitor air/fuel ratios real time. I've always wondered how close a well-tuned carburetor would be.

So, off comes the header, knock a hole for the 02 bung, weld it up, spritz it with paint and bam, Wideband. Always make sure to use the oldest collector gaskets you can. 

Now, I didn't hide the wideband in the ash tray in some sort of street racery top secret fashion. I did it because I like to drive the truck, and once I get things set up I don't really like having a bunch of gauges flashing numbers in my face. With it in the ash tray I can watch it like a hawk when I make changes or take it to the track, and otherwise I can close it up and forget about it. 

The wideband was put on in anticipation of the following box of parts, but I drove it a couple hundred miles with the stock Quadrajet to see how close that was. Very economical carb! Cruise was like 15.8, wide open was probably 11.9, everything worked quite well. Which actually made me second guess the pile of parts, but that's fine. Good news is I still have the Quadrajet (and a spare) should I decide to run it again. 

This seems like an appropriate point to break up the post, so here we go. That's all for now, finished pictures shortly! 

Install went smoothly, the hardest part was hoisting the cast iron intake manifold out of the engine bay. That thing has to way nearly 50lbs. 

Overall I'm pleased. The carb is a pretty basic streetrod deal but it's a 600 cfm vacuum secondary with an electric choke, which is what I wanted for my engine. This carb runs probably 14.7-15.0 cruising and 11.0 to 11.5 wide open, so it's notably richer than the Quadrajet at cruise. I'm curious to see between the smaller CFM rating and richer mixture what happens to the mileage. With the carb, spacer, and new intake it is definitely snappier, it revs quicker and seems much more responsive. The Quadrajet had good cruise characteristics and was awesome at WOT, but the midrange part throttle feel was really spongy. This has a much nicer midrange feel and a broader 'responsive' range. I know a few people swear by Quadrajets, and I can see why, but I'm more familiar with Holleys so I made the switch. This also allowed me to use the Edelbrock performer RPM manifold I bought used 2 years ago for $75 so that's off the shelf now. Took some weight off the truck getting rid of the cast intake and probably picked up a little power with the bigger aluminum Edelbrock unit. Win Win! Now if I can get it pinpoint tuned with the wideband and not lose any economy it will be perfect. 

Also now it's a lot brighter in the engine bay, which makes it look like less of a turd. Always polishing turds. 

This most definitely is NOT A TURD............repeat after me! 

In reply to 759NRNG :

Thanks - I say turd endearingly. It's a great truck, but it's far from perfect. 

Which is good, because if it were perfect I wouldn't have it. Ha Ha.