HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD
I was not aware of the 30 minute editing limit.. so I wasted two top posts on blank reserved posts.
Many people are a fan of the three speed on the steering column. I thought it was awesome, I had never really seen anything like it before in my life.. but after doing some light driving in the truck, I decided it had to go. It was not doing my otherwise stock 350 with sludge oil any faster.
I guess most people at this point would want to do a turbo 350 or something but I wanted a 5 speed swap. Couple of days searching craigslist, I found a white 1990 Chevy W/T with a $400 5 speed and a $800 468(?) Big block Chevy.
I REALLY WISH I BOUGHT THE ENGINE NOW. I WANT A BIG BLOCK.
Here it is! It is a something(HM290, maybe??) I don't remember but it is the grandfather to the NV3500 transmission which has a lot more information than HM290.
Oh yeah, and while I was collecting parts for the swap my dad and I broke down on the way home from the partstore.. with our labrador. It was about 90+ degrees that day with humidity well above 90%.
So while my dad was off having an adventure with an old man in an early 2000's Subaru to find me parts, I was left with my dog in the boiling heat.
PS, if you're ever stranded you should find a dog. Nobody will offer you a water unless you have a dog. Even then the only water you're offered is specifically for the dog.
If you have ever dealt with such a transmission swap, you'd know that a hydraulic clutch is necessary in order for it to work. And if you've ever done it in a squarebody you would know the easiest bolt-in set up is OE from the late 80's. Finding a truck in the 80's with a clutch is not easy and these pedal assemblies go on ebay for prices that will rob you blind.
I again went with craigslist and found a truck part out, while we were at it we bought the brake booster as a core and upgraded to stock vacuum boosted brakes. These pedals were pretty bad but I cleaned them up nicely.
So after a few weeks of collecting everything we thought was necessary (didn't have everything necessary) We got the truck up on stands and took the hood off in the garage and started the swap. These photos make it look easy but this really was a long process and the truck was leaking gas out of a dry rotted filler hose.
Oh and my dads truck got kicked outside. This is a common occurrence with Blue, and I am thankful for it as working outside in the heat/cold really sucks.
And the next thing you know it's mounted up to the 350. This progress was made pretty (compared to recent work on the truck) quick, the hard part was the hydraulic clutch situation and finding time to figure it out.
Oh, and the new transmission was so fat the pipes had to go. They were really odd shaped to work around the 3 speed shifting arms.. and someone actually took a bite out of the frame so that these pipes would go around the shift linkages. But we will get around to that bite sometime later. It was repaired but much much later and I haven't found nearly half of my photos yet.
So, in order to get around the new transmission I bought I set of headers from Summit (mistake, you'll see why later.) and my dad pieced back a very hacked leaky exhaust setup.
So at this point it is about the beginning of August 2015 and so far my Dad and I have replaced the distributor with a HEI Streetfire from MSD (Part #MSD-8362 from Summit), transmission swap w hydraulic clutch + pedals, power brakes, exhaust hack, headers and probably some other stuff too. It's hard for me to remember so long ago.