New (to me) truck/tow rig

So a few months ago I traded my modified 95 Dodge dually turbo diesel, a perfectly good and useful truck, for an absolutely useless 78 Chevy prostreet truck with a blown 383. I was kind of tired of the Dodge after owning it for a long time, and to be honest I always wanted something with a supercharger and a chop top, strange I know, but it's true.

I knew I'd need another truck sooner rather than later and had pretty loose criteria, so I started searching CL and ebay. Well this is what I ended up with:

97 Chevy k3500. Vortec 454, 5 speed, 4x4, 4.10 gears, 8 foot bed.

The bad:

-212k miles

-AC in-op (compressor does kick on just havent had time to troubleshoot)

-interior needs work as in new rubber floor and seats.

-intake seeping, which is common, but still a pain. I'll do all the other stuff while I'm in there.

-fuel mileage....nor surprise there.

The good:

-vortec 454. My dodge was a 700 ft lbs of TQ to the wheels beast. The vortec will never be that, but it does pretty good.

-4 door, so I can haul our three dogs in it when needed. We used to use the suburban, then it got smashed by the tree, so we've been using my wife's 2 door wrangler which was not ideal.

-good tires!

-4x4 works, which is great because my dodge was 2wd and I got stuck a lot. Stuck while towing a trailer sucks.

-rebuilt manual trans and new clutch

-I paid 4k.

I need to go through it and do a tune up and while I'm in there I plan to do injectors and FPR since they are somewhat common issues. I also need to fix the AC, find some seats, and install a gooseneck hitch because really this thing will be towing most of the time.

Pics!

Looks good. Not a fan of the W/T grille, but cool otherwise.

In reply to SyntheticBlinkerFluid:

I actually prefer the other grilles of that era too, but doubt I'll go to the trouble to swap one. More than likely the truck will get a brushguard and winch that will hide most of it. I'm a big fan of the Warn Trans4mer system and am looking for a used one for this.

Yeah, that will help out.

Nice! I don't mind the W/T grill but I do like the other style. I wouldnt waste the time changing it. I miss having a crew cab, dually, long bed truck.

Nice! I'd sort of like to find one of these for my next truck. I'd prefer the 4L80E over the Row-Your-Own but either one makes a good tow vehicle.

Nice. Pretty much exactly what I've been looking for, but they're all rusted out up here.

Sweet. Another GMT400. I've actually thought about swapping to the W/T grille on my Suburban just so I can use some nice Autopal conversion lights instead of the stockers. I'd be better off taping a couple of flashlights to the fenders than using what's on it now.

I likes it, and plus one for 4X4. I was looking for something similar at one time.

$4K sounds like a great deal, that's a lotta truck for the money.

Call me odd, but that is my favorite GM truck/SUV grille. As they got more headlights and more chrome, I liked them less and less.

insert puking emoticon here

In reply to pinchvalve:

That kind of looks like a Kia Rondo.

crew cab, long bed, big block, manual, that is everything i would ever want in a tow rig, nice score!

and i dig w/t grills

pinchvalve wrote: insert puking emoticon here

My God I hate that era of GM trucks. I like just about anything before or after.

Now I just need to find some seats! The vinyl W/T seats suck suck suck. I hear the GMT800 seats are sweet, and they should bolt to my frames, but so far I haven't had a lot of luck finding a good set. Just need to be patient I guess.

Nice acquisition, the GMT400s are by far my favorite GM trucks. The 454 is a great towing engine, just drinks like the Russian Red Army......

Well that didn't last long. I went on an 800 mile roadtrip yesterday and picked up an 02 k3500 with the Duramax/Allison combo. It's a one owner truck with 133k, dark green crew cab with beige leather...real nice rig. It's about due for injectors, but I knew that going in, so paid based on buying a set and putting them in myself.

I plan to clean the 97 up and list it for sale. I recently did upper and lower intake gaskets, injectors, fpr, distributor w/cap and rotor, plug wires, plugs, serpentine belt, oil change, thermostat, etc. It's a good truck, runs great now, and the 454 pulls well, but I missed diesel. I've owned cummins, powerstroke, and finally got my hands on a nice duramax.

Around 500 miles on the new truck, 400 of those from the drive home from the dealer, and so far I love it. Pics!

Wow.. Nice truck. Should be a good mile muncher.

I liked the first, but love the new one. nice score.

Awesome choice. Looks like it has the same brake controller that I put in the dieselBurb, too.

Powar wrote: Awesome choice. Looks like it has the same brake controller that I put in the dieselBurb, too.

It has the Tekonsha P3, which is a great controller. I had put one in my other truck, so now have a spare.

The tires are just fair, so I'm swapping the Toyo Open Country's off the maroon truck before I sell it.

Other than tires, and installing a set of injectors at some point, it's just a great truck. I'm real happy I was able to work a deal on it. Definitely the nicest truck I've ever owned by far, but I have some long tows coming up, so decided to step up my game a little.

Nice! I have an 02 k2500 diesel and love it. I just put a programmer on it and my god what a difference

fiesta54 wrote: Nice! I have an 02 k2500 diesel and love it. I just put a programmer on it and my god what a difference

What programmer did you get? This one has an old Edge Juice on it, but I thought I might upgrade to something newer. The Edge seems to work fine, but I keep hearing about how much better the tunes are, as well as the features, in the newer programmers. I'm mainly interested in the economy and towing tunes, but of course more power is always nice too!

Cotton wrote:

fiesta54 wrote: Nice! I have an 02 k2500 diesel and love it. I just put a programmer on it and my god what a difference

What programmer did you get? This one has an old Edge Juice on it, but I thought I might upgrade to something newer. The Edge seems to work fine, but I keep hearing about how much better the tunes are, as well as the features, in the newer programmers. I'm mainly interested in the economy and towing tunes, but of course more power is always nice too!

Actually I guess I misspoke, I put a pretuned ecm in mine with a 5 position switch. I didn't have the desire to make my own tunes and this was much cheaper so it mad since to me. I got mine from Creatures of the night performance. They can tune for whatever modifications you may have and you can send it back and have new tunes put on for free.

fiesta54 wrote:

Cotton wrote:

fiesta54 wrote: Nice! I have an 02 k2500 diesel and love it. I just put a programmer on it and my god what a difference

What programmer did you get? This one has an old Edge Juice on it, but I thought I might upgrade to something newer. The Edge seems to work fine, but I keep hearing about how much better the tunes are, as well as the features, in the newer programmers. I'm mainly interested in the economy and towing tunes, but of course more power is always nice too!

Actually I guess I misspoke, I put a pretuned ecm in mine with a 5 position switch. I didn't have the desire to make my own tunes and this was much cheaper so it mad since to me. I got mine from Creatures of the night performance. They can tune for whatever modifications you may have and you can send it back and have new tunes put on for free.

Cool sounds good. I've heard pre-tuned ECMs are the big thing now so I may go that route. I'll miss the gauges from the edge, but could either add some or keep the edge just for the gauges.