1991 V3500 Project

[mikeyj350]

Hey guys! New member here and thought I'd say hello and post about my new project truck, a 1991 Chevy V3500. Been looking for the right one for a while, bought this one at an auction in Texas, it's rust free with 71k miles but non-running with some electrical/critter issues that need to be resolved. Turns out it's been sitting since around 2004, and the mud daubers have gotten to it. A mouse chewed through a couple wires under the hood too, but that damage appears to be pretty limited and easily fixable.

I'll be removing the hunting equipment in the back and replacing/restoring the bed to get a more original look. Getting rid of the bumpers too and replacing with factory. Eventually a full restoration to make it an updated and comfortable yet true-to-original long-haul cruiser capable of pulling "anything".

I wanted a 91 specifically because that's the only year they fit the 4L80E tranny into a square, making the best overall drivetrain combo imo... Dana 60 up front, NP205, 4L80E, and 14FF in back. This one came with 4.10 gears and posi (code G80) too.

I'll be back after a bit to document progress... right now the goal is to get it driving again, and get rid of all the stuff it came with that I don't want. Cheers!!!

[mikeyj350]

Day 1, got a couple hours in working on it. Ran out to the local scrapyard and got a whole underhood wiring harness out of a 90 suburban for $10 to use for whatever wires I end up needing. Gotta love u-pull-it yards!!! Also snapped up a front bumper for $50 off an 84 C10. Got lucky, it has the bumperettes on it too which are pretty hard to find in good shape these days.

The chewed wiring was mainly limited to under the battery tray (where mr. mouse had made his nest) with a couple of the RH marker light wires, and then the two small alternator control wires were also chewed. I cut out the bad areas and soldered in replacements from the harness I got out of the burb. Pulled probably 20 mud dauber nests out of various locations under the hood. Gross!! At least the mud daubers themselves appear to have long since moved along.

Under the dash, there were a LOT of aftermarket alterations that had been made, and lots of poorly-engineered wiring jobs. I've got a pretty good background in vehicle wiring (as well as being an electrical engineer) and so I'm a stickler for neat wiring and good connections. Already yanked out a few good coils of aftermarket wiring to do with an old security system and some aftermarket lights that weren't even there anymore.

I finally got to a point where I was ready to apply power and hit the key. I want to know if this thing runs!!! I stuck a battery in and started turning things on. Lights work great, power windows and locks work, radio works... nice! Poured some fuel in the TBI and she fired right up! Won't stay running though, looks like she isn't getting fuel from either tank. I'll probably need to drop both tanks and clean them out, and replace the pumps while I'm in there. Definitely stale fuel in there.

That's it for Day 1... hope to get her going soon!

[mikeyj350]

Day 2, continued working on the fuel system. Looked at the fuel pump relay, tank selector switch, and wiring to find all seemed ok. A lot of the factory split loom tubing has become as fragile as eggshells, so I'm going to need to replace many of the runs under the hood and along the frame. Reaching the tanks and testing the wiring at the selector valve, I could see that both fuel pumps were reading open-circuit. Hmmmm. TWO bad fuel pumps?? It can't be.

Well, it is. I dropped the first tank (started left side) to find one of the worst hack-wiring jobs I'd ever seen. All three wires (ground, pump, and gauge) had been cut multiple times, stripped like 1/8" and then taped together. I can hardly believe it ever worked this way. In addition, the rubber hoses had rotted to the point where you could just snap them in half with little effort.

Turns out on both tanks, the sender assemblies and pumps were complete garbage. The little hose that connects the top of the pump to the sender was about the texture of chewing gum, and had fallen apart completely. The left tank was bone dry and appeared salvageable, but the right tank had about a gallon worth of the worst-smelling turpentine stale gas I've ever come across. There was also some kind of goopy sediment all over the inside of the tank.

Instead of messing with the tanks any further, I'm going to go with two new Spectra tanks and sending units, Walbro pumps, and a new switchover valve for good measure. Add that to my first order list I'm compiling! I'm also going to order a bunch of new rubber parts like belts and hoses, etc.

Since it was all apart, I was able to rig up a spare inline fuel pump to a 5gal gas can and hook it up to the fuel lines to give her a go. She runs!! Didn't run it for too long but she sounds healthy enough to be satisfied for now. No knocks or ticking, and seems smooth even despite the tattered plug wires that haven't been replaced yet. Not bad for a recovery after sitting 13 years! Eventually (next year?) I want to build a low-RPM high-torque 383 to drop in, but for now the stock TBI 350 should be just fine.

Finished out the day cleaning up and putting my orders together between LMC, Rockauto, Summit, and Amazon. That's probably it for now until I get some parts delivered!

Here's a pic of the fuel pump assemblies:

[daddyjeep]

You are getting right after it. Nice truck to start out the project with.

[MTCK]

Your goal sounds familiar, and it is a good one! Sweet truck. It will look good with the stock bed back on. Just a tip but if you get the high pressure rated fuel hose, efi style clamps, and pollak selector valve, your fuel system would be ready for a higher pressure system in the future. Could be aftermarket on your 383 or something different but you won’t have to duplicate work. Welcome and good luck.

[Wwes]

nice project. what's the deal with the hunting gear? Was it a rig used to duck/goose hunt?

[Greenlee]

Originally Posted by Wwes

nice project. what's the deal with the hunting gear? Was it a rig used to duck/goose hunt?

Looks like a quail hunting rig. Those are pretty popular in South Texas.

Nice truck! I often search for 91 v3500’s on Craigslist and have yet to see one for sale.

[mikeyj350]

Originally Posted by MTCK

Your goal sounds familiar, and it is a good one! Sweet truck. It will look good with the stock bed back on. Just a tip but if you get the high pressure rated fuel hose, efi style clamps, and pollak selector valve, your fuel system would be ready for a higher pressure system in the future. Could be aftermarket on your 383 or something different but you won’t have to duplicate work. Welcome and good luck.

Hey Marcus thanks for the warm welcome, I'm glad the mission sounds familiar It's funny, yours was one of only 2-3 V3500 projects I came across online after a brief search and I thought, man, THAT is a sweet truck!!! Your advice is well-taken about limiting the amount of duplicate work... that is indeed the goal! Everything I'm taking apart and replacing now I'm using high-quality parts that should be forward-compatible with any mods I decide to make in the future, including the parts you mentioned. Thanks for all the writeups and progress you've shown over the years, it's definitely helped spark some ideas for things I want to do with mine eventually! For now it's a much more mundane focus... get her back to a "clean slate" starting point, tend to the ever-growing list of stuff that needs attention, and get her back on the road!

Originally Posted by Greenlee

Nice truck! I often search for 91 v3500’s on Craigslist and have yet to see one for sale.

Thanks! Yeah, you know it's funny, I was actually originally looking for a 91-95 K3500 crew (new[er] body style) because of the 4L80E. I actually found this one by mistake, and didn't realize they put that same tranny in the squarebody for just that ONE year. I started researching a bit and thought oh man, THIS is the truck I want. I've always been partial to the squarebodies (my daily driver is an 88 caprice wagon, same exact color lol), so this will be a perfect addition to the fleet!

As far as progress, it's been slow since last weekend, waiting on all the parts I ordered to arrive before really digging in. I did pull the 3 driveshafts for rebuilding, I'm a little worried about the front prop shaft, it has a fair amount of axial play which the drivetrain shop says may mean $$$. We'll see. For now the estimate is $500 to refurbish all three (ujoints, balance, etc), but could go up from there if more work is needed. Seemed a bit high to me, but it's been a decade or so since I've had this kind of work done, and at that time it was only a single driveshaft for a G-body.

Only noteworthy remark at this point, if anyone decides to throw in a Walbro fuel pump, make sure you also buy the Walbro strainer (pump #5CA400, strainer #125-547) because the stock strainer that comes with the sending unit wont fit, it's too small. That's going to bite me in extra shipping time and cost, since the part isn't available locally. Oh well, first of many experiences like this I suppose

Thanks for the responses guys!

[Whamo]

Dig it!

[mikeyj350]

Sorry for the delay in updating... been a little over a month of working on the truck and getting everything replaced and worked on that needed it. First round of major repairs (what I had begun after my last post) and alterations included:

-2 new tanks, senders, walbro pumps
-New Pollak switchover valve
-All new rubber fuel hose sections (kept metal lines where appropriate)
-Rebuilt TBI with new gaskets/seals - actually used a replacement unit I had lying around as a core to begin with, as I discovered the throttle shaft was seized shut on the one that came with the truck. Oops... lucky to have a spare lying around!
-New distributor, plugs, wires (old dist. worked but discovered rotor mast had deteriorated pretty badly when changing the rotor, so went with a whole new unit)
-All new front & rear brakes including rotors, drums, calipers, wheel cylinders, hoses etc
-Deleted load-sensing brake valve
-All new U-joints and center support bearing, balanced/rebuilt driveshafts
-All new wheel bearings
-All new front end parts including tie rods, draglink, camber adjusting kingpin and bushings, steering gearbox, ORD frame stiffener
-XJ steering shaft mod
-Replaced front & rear bumpers with takeoffs from a local u-pull yard.
-4x 16x7 8-lug Ford E350 Van Rims, powdercoated white... Ford rims are compatible with the Chevy bolt pattern, look almost exactly the same, and are 16x7 instead of 16x6.5, so I can run these tires:
-4x Goodyear Trailrunner AT tires (LT265/75/16)
-4x 12" dog dish Chevy hubcaps

A lesson learned with the snap ring in the rear drums... it is a huge PITA. Neither one would even budge, try as I might with snap ring pliers, needle nose pliers, screwdrivers, you name it. I discovered a trick to solve this though, maybe others on here already knew this but it was new to me. I found out the reason the snap ring won't budge is that the bearing race has settled up against it from the other side and is holding "thrust" pressure on it against the groove. So what you can do is take a hammer and nutdriver (or socket extension etc) and tap on the snap ring all the way around. This bumps the race down on the other side just enough so that the snap ring becomes free. From there, it's a cakewalk with a pair of needlenose pliers to grab the ring and slide it out of the hub. I thought I'd never get that bearing out until I figured this out. Hope this helps someone in the future who might be struggling with these!

Anyway, it took about 2-3 weeks for all this to get done, hopped in and hit the key, she fired right up and drove up and down the street... woohoo! I did discover an intermittent problem with the transmission (4L80E) where it would just stay in second gear... uh-oh. I took out the factory service manual and was able to quickly diagnose a bad 2-3 shift solenoid, which was reading 9 ohms as opposed to the ~20-25 ohms per spec. Pulled the pan, stuck in a new solenoid and filter, and we were back in business!

More to come later... for now here's a few pics of what she looks like now

[Katrina/10]

Nice work, I like everything you've done with it. Especially getting rid of those rusty wheels!

[Greenlee]

Nice work! . I’ve heard that the XJ steering shaft swap works great on these trucks. I replaced the rag joint on mine and it drives good now, but the rag joint kind of seems like a crappy design. Ever since I heard of people swapping in an XJ shaft, I’ve been interested in doing this to mine. You got any details on what’s involved?

[Greenlee]

Nice work! . I’ve heard that the XJ steering shaft swap works great on these trucks. I replaced the rag joint on mine and it drives good now, but the rag joint kind of seems like a crappy design. Ever since I heard of people swapping in an XJ shaft, I’ve been interested in doing this to mine. You got any details on how what’s involved?

[mikeyj350]

Originally Posted by Greenlee

Ever since I heard of people swapping in an XJ shaft, I’ve been interested in doing this to mine. You got any details on how what’s involved?

Hi, sure I can try and explain what I ended up doing. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of my install, but there's a lot of posts around the web on this site and others about the mod, and I did as much research as I could about it. Basically the steering shaft from Jeep Cherokees ("XJ", "Sport", "Classic" etc but NOT Grand Cherokees) is compatible with these square bodies. There seemed to be different years that did/didn't work (86-96 I believe?), as well as two different styles of shafts, with one being preferable over the other. But they have the same splines at the gearbox, and a *slightly* different but compatible coupling at the column side.

Instead of crawling around u-pullits trying to find the right one and hoping it was in decent shape, I ended up just buying a new Crown 4713943 shaft for less than $100, link here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008VPWBTY/. Plenty of folks seem to have had great luck with used shafts though, and maybe you'd only spend $10-$20 and a couple hours of your time going that route.

Anyway, once you get the shaft, you need to carefully heat the slip joint to compress/shorten it about 3/4" - 7/8". There are two plastic bushings inside the shaft that need to be softened with heat, one is right at the joint and the other is about 6" further up the shaft. Make sure not to heat it too much or else you'll melt the plastic away, or worse yet damage the rubber dampener up near the U-joint. If you start to see wisps of smoke, STOP and heat another area, or else it's probably ready to tap and compress.

Once it's compressed, you can either remove the steering column or the gearbox to install it. If you don't want to unbolt either of those, some people compress it further, like 2" or so and then heat it again inside the truck to extend it back into position. That's fine too but I figure the less you have to heat it and slide it around the better. Since I was installing a new gearbox anyway it worked out. I put one bolt through the frame and into the new gearbox, finger tight, allowing it to rotate enough so the shaft could be installed.

On the steering column side, you have to file a small groove on the outer surface of the nub that comes out of the column so that your bolt can have clearance to pass through (Alternatively, you can drill a hole through the new shaft yoke to stick a bolt through the original GM hole). I decided to file using a round handheld file. It doesn't take much to get the right size notch filed.

Hope that's enough detail to get started! It probably sounds more involved than it is, I spent a lot more time reading and preparing for it than actually doing it, it ended up going really smooth and was done in about an hour start to finish. Steering is definitely nice and tight now too!

[mikeyj350]

Originally Posted by Katrina/10

Nice work, I like everything you've done with it. Especially getting rid of those rusty wheels!

Thanks! Yeah I wasn't a big fan of them at all. Rusty, and three of them were missing center caps, and the one that was still there was trashed. Even if they were in good shape, I just prefer the stock appearance over anything aftermarket.

Even worse than the wheels though were the tires... holy crap it rode terribly!!! I had a bit of a delay with the powdercoaters so I actually had the joy of driving it for a few days on the old tires waiting to get my wheels back, and I'm very glad it wasn't any longer. Not only was it probably pretty unsafe (dryrot, missing blocks, etc), you would've sworn they were square instead of round lol.

[Greenlee]

Thank you for the part number and instructions! I’m with you. I think I’d rather just buy a new shaft.

[Honest Bob]

Sweet truck! Cant wait to see how it ends up.

[mikeyj350]

So it's been a while since I posted anything on here, I suppose I should catch things up a bit. I'm happy to say that "Belle" has been on the road and slowly but surely getting all the repairs and upgrades she needed to fit my end goal.

For the interior, I installed a new carpet, overhead console, gentex mirror, sound system, inverter, trailer brake controller, and a custom gauge/switch pod that mounts under the dash in front of the 4wd shifter. A couple pics here:


Overhead console out of a 91 Suburban, and Gentex mirror from a 99 Silverado


Gauge and switch pod with USB/12V power ports


Fiberglassed an amp/inverter rack to go under the carpet below the front seat. Wooden dowels serve as mounting pads for the components.


Amp rack with components installed


With the front seat installed, all you can see is the face of the inverter sticking out towards the rear. Also note the LED lighting for the backseat, tied into the courtesy circuit.


Under the backseat, fiberglassed a sub box to fit two 8" subs


Sub box under the backseat ready to cover up


All installed, you can barely tell the sub box is there!

I'm still finishing up some custom lower door panels to house 6.5" speakers, and some rear pods to hold a couple 6x9's, for now there are just some new 3.5" speakers in the original dash location, it actually sounds pretty decent just with those and the subs going. But, we'll be rocking out a lot better once I get it all going the way I want it

For the next post, I'll cover the engine and drivetrain overhauls...

[mikeyj350]

So the 350 TBI was running great, but as we all know they aren't exactly the most powerful V8's around in stock form. That became especially apparent when I bought and dragged home a 34' 10,800lb travel trailer from about 2 hours away! It's time for Belle to get a bump in oomph.

Over the years I've built a few engines for myself and a couple other friends, mostly 350's but one 454 and a couple other oddball engines too. For this build, I wanted to do a 383 TBI stroker, retaining a stock appearance but with as much torque and "sleeper" power as I can fit in there.

Additionally, although the 4L80E is a great transmission, the stock first-year '91 model could arguably benefit the most from a refresh and a few upgrades. Mine was performing and shifting perfectly, especially after installing the Transgo HD2 kit, but I wanted to have the peace of mind with the new engine, and also learn how to do my first-ever transmission overhaul.

So, I shopped around and found a first-run '90 Goodwrench 350 core and a '93 4L80E core for $100 each. The idea was, I wanted to keep the original engine and tranny untouched (at least for now) and build up both while I continued to drive the truck as-is. Both ended up being great finds, as they were indeed first-runs and workable cores.

A quick rundown of machine work and component selections that went into the engine build:

-Block bored 0.030" & decked 9.015"
-New Chevrolet Performance Vortec heads, worked over with 3-angle valve job, lift clearanced, pushrod clearanced, Z28 springs, resurfaced
-Eagle 383 rotating assy, balanced, 9.4:1 compression
-COMP Hydraulic roller 206/210 @ 0.050 w/ new OE lifters/chain
-1.6 roller rockers give 0.489"/0.489" lift
-Performer RPM Air Gap w/ TBI adapter plate
-5.7 TBI unit bored to 50mm, flow-matched injectors, injector spacer and bumped-up line pressure
-PCM reprogram using TunerPro and APU1 emulator/programmer/datalogger with MSD wideband O2 sensor
-Hedman Black Maxx headers
-Hooker Max Flow mufflers w/ new 2.5" dual exhaust
-Front accessory brackets of 98 vortec 5.7 truck motor


All dressed up before install


Old 350 coming out with my fiancee/helper Sarah striking a pose for the camera

Video of the first start here (sorry it's sideways)

This may have been the first time I had a first start where the engine fired up right away on the first try!! A couple minor snags, one was I forgot to hook the tach wire up so Sarah couldn't target the 1500-2000rpm we were going for to break in the cam, and the AC compressor clutch started dragging and began to smoke. Minor stuff, and we got it all resolved quickly.

Tuning the engine using Tunerpro and the APU1 programmer was definitely a trip, I'll save all the details on that for a future post. Suffice to say, it's running great now after a lot of trial and error. I still think I can improve the timing curves to gain a bit more power, but it's "fine" for now.... enough is enough sometimes!!!

For the transmission, I consulted with Jake's Performance and ended up with their "Stage 2" overhaul kit. Tearing my core down, there was definitely a moment of "what the f--- did I get myself into??!?" There are A LOT of parts inside this beast:


The 4L80E core all torn apart, parts labeled and organized as best as I could

Then, after many weeks of careful inspection, cleaning, parts replacement, and reassembly, I somehow ended up with everything back together!


The complete rebuilt 4L80E transmission, ready to install

After the engine was in and running acceptably, it was time to install the transmission. While the rest of the drivetrain was apart, I decided to also grab an overhaul kit for the NP205 from ORD and give it a cleaning and refresh as well. This was my first time rebuilding a transfer case also, and although it was a bit tricky in parts, it definitely pales in comparison with the tranny I had just finished! So it seemed easy by comparison.


Somehow I never took a pic of the transfer case until the overhaul was finished, so here it is already installed back in the truck

Once all was back together, I was SUPER nervous that something hadn't been done right. Fired her up on jack stands, topped off the tranny fluid, and put her in gear. What do you know, the wheels started spinning.... even in the right direction!!!!

So, the engine and drivetrain refresh has been a success. Good thing too, because Belle had more than one mission waiting for her in the immediate future. The saga continues for the next update...

[MTCK]

Holy crap Mikey. You have been busy! Built a motor, rebuilt a 4L80e, transfer case, tuned the TBI unit and built fiberglass accessories for the interior.

I gotta know - how does the stroker motor tow??? Very nice work.

[mikeyj350]

So I haven't mentioned yet that towards the end of this project I'd been in a bit of a hurry to get things finished up. Unfortunately, my father's health was in a bit of a decline as he'd been diagnosed with cancer and was about to undergo a pretty major surgery. My folks live in Buffalo, NY, about 800 miles away. Of course, I'd been telling my dad all about the truck and all the work that was being done to it, and at one point he said he really would love to drive it someday. Well, it became my mission to get the truck finished up and ready to drive out to NY when I planned to visit them before his surgery.

The timing worked out such that the transmission was installed and driving again about 2 days before I was supposed to leave for NY. Day 1 I had to take Belle to the muffler shop to get the custom exhaust installed. Then the rest of the time was spent cleaning things up, packing up for the road trip and going on one or two more tuning runs. Setting off on such a long trip with only about 50 miles on the engine and 10 miles on the transmission was definitely a calculated risk!!!

Well, I'm pleased to say Belle made the trip with flying colors, getting around 12.5mpg... not too shabby for a 383 and 4.10 gears! Of course I brought my tools along, and did end up needing to make a few minor tweaks/repairs here and there along the way. The biggest problem actually was the ONE part of the drivetrain that I HADN'T fixed yet: the rear end blew out the input shaft seal and made a giant mess all over the undercarriage.... what are the odds??!? Thankfully I was able to keep it topped off along the way out there, and looked up a reputable rear end shop in Buffalo to get the seal fixed for a fair price. All good!

Of course, the whole reason I brought the truck out there was to let my dad drive it before he went under the knife, and so here was the most fulfilling reward for me on this whole project:


"Pops" driving Belle for the first time, 2 days before surgery at the end of June.

I'm also happy to say that dad's cancer surgery appears to have been a success, and although there will be some lasting impacts from it, along with a very long road to recovery still ahead of us, he is doing well and slowly getting better each day.

I stayed in NY with my folks for about 3 weeks, basically from a few days before the surgery, almost 2 weeks in recovery in the hospital, and then a few days after getting discharged. With dad's health back to a somewhat stable point, it was time to get back home in order to get ready for Belle's next mission: hauling the camper around the Midwest!

Both my fiancee Sarah and myself are private pilots (ok, well Sarah is still working on her license, but she has flown solo already, so in my book that's close enough). We're actually also building an airplane together, but that's a whole different story, and one that unfortunately has been put on hiatus for about a year or so, due in no small part to this truck project! Anyway part of being aviation enthusiasts for us involves traveling to Oshkosh, WI every July to attend EAA's AirVenture fly-in and airshow. It's touted as the world's greatest aviation celebration, and we have no reason to disagree. It's a week-long ordeal that sees over a half million people, 10,000 airplanes, and about 40,000 campers. It's basically Sturgis for airplanes... we always meet the coolest people from all over the world, and come home with a thousand stories and great memories.

We're fortunate to live only about 250 miles away from Oshkosh, which is a very short hop considering many people travel from the other side of the globe to attend. Either way, we usually fly in and camp with our airplane, but this year we decided to try something different: pull the camper up there and camp with it instead!


Our new (to us) travel trailer, parked at a local campsite just a few days before we set off for a week-long trip, scrambling to get things ready

One issue we had right away was that the camper wasn't really ready for a week-plus of boondocking at AirVenture. Since this thread isn't really about the camper, I'll skip the details but just suffice to say we had about three days from the time I returned from NY to install a solar system, battery box, inverter, and all kinds of wiring and minor tweaks to be ready. Somehow we got it all ready in time and set off for Wisconsin as planned on Thursday July 19 (you have to leave early in order to get a somewhat decent spot and have time to get set up, etc etc etc).


Parked at our first rest stop on the way up

All loaded up, the camper maxes out close to 11,000lbs, and with the truck running around 7,000 we're pretty much right at the 18,000lb limit these "light duty" trucks can handle. I gotta say, even with the shiny new 383 stroker it was definitely struggling a bit going up and down some of the steeper hills, like the 6% grades in and around the Dubuque area. At one or two points along the journey, she had to grab 2nd gear and labor uphill at around 45-50mph and 3200-3500rpms. Most of the rest of the way though was spent in 3rd, in and out of lockup (maybe 90% in and 10% out) and cruising along at the speed limit. I was also getting somewhere around 6-8mpg. Really, not too bad in my book!

Handling-wise, it did great. It's a bumper-pull camper and I wasn't using an equalizer hitch (yet, more on this later), and honestly at least as far as steering and braking are concerned everything worked great. You'd definitely feel strong gusts of wind or the semi coming past you, but it wasn't anything that couldn't easily be corrected for. Given the size and weight of the load I was very pleasantly surprised by this!

Temperatures were also solid, especially engine-wise. With a 180-deg thermostat, coolant never got above 190 or so, even on the steepest climbs wide open at 3500rpm in 85 degree weather with the A/C blasting ice-cold. Oil typically hovered around the same but occasionally creeped up over 200 on those high-load situations, but settled right back down again once I got off of it. I think the highest I saw was around 210.

The transmission did heat up a bit, especially on the extended second-gear climbs. This was in definite contrast to driving the truck unladen, where the needle would basically never even come off the peg (say 140-ish at the end of a long drive). I saw about 230 for a little while on one section of the trip, and it was much slower to cool down afterward as well. I noticed that the temperatures seemed directly related to whether or not the torque converter was in lockup: if it was "slipping" unlocked, temperatures would creep. If I could get it to stay locked, they would slowly drop back out of the caution zone. It also seemed to perform better on the second half of the trip there, and all of the trip back home, so I wonder if it was still breaking in a bit too, causing some of the higher temps. Either way the fluid was still nice bright red and it seemed to continue running happily despite the slightly above-normal temps.


Belle proudly parked on the grounds at Oshkosh, visiting a friend's airplane campsite in the "North 40" helping unload supplies and get set up!

A trip this big wasn't without its hiccups though. I'll list out a few that stick out:

• I never got around to changing out the rear shocks. Since this is a bumper-pull camper and I wasn't using an equalizer hitch, this made for a less-than-ideal ride quality especially around uneven roads, particularly those that have evenly-spaced gaps that create a resonant frequency with the bouncing of the truck. Literally the first thing I did when I got back home was order an equalizer hitch and install new rear shocks. Lesson learned, and we're now ready to try again!
• One of the spark plug wire boots wasn't pushed all the way onto the spark plug. This caused me all kinds of grief noticing this intermittent miss and, as the wire worked its way even looser, a poor idle and stalling/power issues. Thankfully we were already done with going through all the hills, and made our way to the campsite where I quickly discovered the world's easiest fix. One push and "snap" with my index finger (and a "doh!") and we were back in business.
• My starter gave out while we were up in Oshkosh. I *think* it's because when I originally put everything together, the ring gear on the flexplate was just barely rubbing on the little bushing on the bendix of the starter, and did some permanent damage to it. It wasn't a shim issue (clearance there was perfect), it was a front-to-back issue with the ring gear, and I ended up having to grind a small chamfer off the backside of the ring gear (the opposite side from which the starter engages it). It always made a little chirping sound when starting, which turned to a squeal and then began missing engagement with the flexplate only intermittently. Looked up the nearest Oreilly's and got myself a new Ultima, still running strong now!
• My header gaskets failed on me, and so by the time I got to Oshkosh she sounded like one of those poor old trucks that just farts along and keeps on running. I didn't mind the sound, but fixed it once we got back home. Felpro makes a header gasket that fits a Vortec head, once I got a set of those instead of the oval-port gaskets that came with the headers, I think we're in good shape now.
• The biggest problem almost stopped us dead in our tracks. While up at Oshkosh, I went through all the hose clamps and re-tightened everything, especially the upper and lower coolant hoses. I failed to notice that while re-tightening the lower radiator hose, I somehow twisted it slightly, causing it to interfere with the serpentine belt. On the way back home pulling the camper through rural central Wisconsin, we [luckily] stopped for gas and noticed coolant had just started leaking out of a hole that had been worn into the side of the hose from the belt. It was still almost totally full on coolant, and the temps had stayed solid the whole time, so it was just pure coincidence and luck that we found the problem before it found us. We were able to patch it up with some duct tape and zip ties, make it 5 miles to the nearest Oreilly's, and get her fixed up with a new hose (and a bonus coolant flush) in the parking lot. 1-hour total delay... Whew! Stupid mistake that could've ended up way worse.

So, this completes my 3-part update on Belle. She's not "done" yet, but she's running great and has survived an extremely challenging 6-week journey immediately following a series of major repairs and upgrades! Cheers, and I will try and keep things up to date on this thread as the work continues
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[mikeyj350]

Originally Posted by MTCK

Holy crap Mikey. You have been busy! Built a motor, rebuilt a 4L80e, transfer case, tuned the TBI unit and built fiberglass accessories for the interior.

I gotta know - how does the stroker motor tow??? Very nice work.

Thanks man! Yeah it's been a busy last few months for sure

I described a bit about the towing in the final update above, but to elaborate I'd say it's "adequate" for my needs pulling the camper. Unladen, she's sporty but definitely not a hotrod. If I were towing in a more mountainous area I'd say I would prefer something with a bit more power. Also though, to really get this engine to its full potential I should probably spend some more time tuning. One of the biggest issues I ran into was that my roller rockers and aluminum valve covers make a noise that sets off the knock sensor, causing the computer to retard the timing to the maximum. The valvetrain isn't loud to the ear; it just makes a particular sound that sets off the sensor. So, I've had to disable the knock sensor and program in a relatively safe timing curve to the tune. I'm nervous to mess with it too much more, I know it's safe now and I'd hate to go tweaking things and end up melting a piston!!!

Let me know if there's anything more specific you'd like to hear about, happy to share... cheers!!

[Katrina/10]

Sounds like a great success, I look forward to your tuning story!

[Palf70Step]