Well, it's been a while. Life happened and working on this truck wasn't priority. But it's stuck around, safely taking up significant square footage in my garage with the engine significantly torn down, but mostly sealed. Most of the parts I've collected are still hanging out in the bed. There are few more in the garage and basement. Every once in a while, I push the truck out, wash the garage dust off, clean the floor under it, and push it back in place.
Thankfully, I have good news! The truck is moving up off the very back burner. Not to the very front, but my goal is to work towards running and driving by spring. I'm tired of having a truck that can't do anything but sit in the garage. To that end I've changed my scope a little bit. I still want to TBI swap it, put in a 4L60e transmission, put on a serpentine accessory drive, and all of the associated wiring. But I'm no longer focused on keeping as much of the original '76 engine as possible. I picked up a parts truck that you can just see in the first photo above.
It is a 1990 GMC Sierra SLE, extended cab, short bed, 350, 4L60e, two wheel drive. But best of all, this truck was bought used by my dad back in 1996 or so. He later sold it to my brother, who gave it back to him after a couple of years. And my dad gave it to me to use on the Camper Truck. I love that I'm going to be using a family truck to fix up another family truck. It makes me happy.
The truck was sitting in the back barn (not the front barn, or the middle barn) just waiting to be used as parts for my grandpa's current farm truck (a '95 Chevy K1500). The battery was completely dead. Once that was replaced the engine started, on about 6 cylinders out of 8. And driving it to the front barn reveled a rusted through rear brake line.
Obviously not drivable. And I wasn't willing to fix it all for the 360 mile drive home wondering what else was going to go wrong on this parts truck. Thankfully, my dad being the awesome guy he is, offered to tow it up for me. I offered to pay for the gas there and back. A month or so later he and my grandpa made the long drive up with the GMC on a trailer. And it continued to live down to expectations as a parts truck: it refused to start on the trailer. We said, screw it, put it in neutral, I rode the (two working) brakes, and Dad pushed me off the trailer and into my garage. Success!
Now, what makes this '90 GMC a parts truck and not something worth saving? Quite a few things:
- as mentioned, the engine is running on fewer than 8 cylinders
- the exhaust is rusted off somewhere under the bed
- crash damage in the front bumper
- the interior is falling apart (the driver's door panel is missing altogether)
- the driver's door can't be closed from inside the vehicle. Even from outside it requires that special touch to close it.
- But most of all: rust. The wheel well lips are disappearing and the driver's rear cab mount rusted so badly that the cab is resting on the frame. You can see how the body lines and pin stripes don't line up anymore.
Side note: the perceptive among you might have noticed the truck now has a cap on it. My brother never used it, but my dad kept it around because he had customized it back in the day. I remember going with him to pick it up, used. He got it painted to match the truck, then came up with this fancy mural for the sides. Being the engineer that he is, he drew it up in late-'90s CAD software and printed it out full size. That was transferred to the truck with stick on pinstriping at a drive-in movie theater one summer. It's a little rough for the wear, but I'd like to clean up and save one or both sides, add some of the truck's badging, and some sort of signage like "Dad's Shop" and give it back to him as decoration.
So, what's the plan? Save what I can, scrap or give away the rest. The save list:
- Heads
- Intake manifold
- Exhaust manifolds
- Engine wiring harness
- Body wiring harness
- Transmission
- Class IV receiver hitch. That's going to replace the knee-knocker 1/2" plate that's bolted to the Camper Truck's bumper.
- The rest of the engine parts. I'll hold on to all of it until the Camper Truck is running.
If there is something that's not on this save list that anyone can use, let me know. I'd be happy to share.
Ultimately, the heads, intake, and exhaust manifolds will end up on the Camper Truck. The rest of the engine (TBI, sensors, wiring, accessory drive, accessories) will be made up of parts from the GMC, new parts, and used parts that I've already collected. As much as I'd like to hot-rod the engine now, I'm doing my best to focus on just rebuilding this pair of engines into one running, driving engine. We'll see how well I do.
Until next time.
-Sean