A tale of three trucks or, three trucks enter, two leave

[renegade6]

This may end up going into two separate builds, but for now it will be one. To start we have the following:

The Wife's truck: 72 K20 long bed stepside with a 350/350 and pretty plain. It had a partial restoration and while it looks good, they did some shortcuts on body work that will have to be addressed later. It has a low idle miss that goes away with RPM and I think the cam is probably about gone. The plan is to leave it pretty plain, but put a 6.0 LS and 700R4 to help with driveability.

My truck: 72 K20 Long bed with a 396, 700R4 and an Old Air conditioning system. Fortunately, it hasn't really been messed with so, what you see is what you get. Runs fantastic and minus some minor brake issues, made a 5 hour trip when I bought it. Plan is to fix the rust and body work and put a flatbed on it. I don't plan on going back completely stock, nor do I plan on making it a show truck. Just a good running truck to use on the property and tow with. Depending on funds, I may go fuel injected, but will have to see

The donor: 2001 Sierra 2500 2WD with a lot of miles. Even though it has high miles, it runs great. This one isn't going to make it out of this alive. Engine is going in the Wife's truck, flatbed is going on mine and the rest will be parted out.

Way Ahead: I'm going to start with the engine and transmission swap in the wife's truck and then start bodywork on mine.

Stay tuned.

[First c10]

2 builds?? Sounds like me for a couple years!!! sub'ed!

[renegade6]

It's actually 3

I have a 63 Biscayne https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/90718-63-Biscayne that I have a major mental block on and it is waiting for the two most expensive pieces, body and interior.

Originally Posted by First c10

2 builds?? Sounds like me for a couple years!!! sub'ed!

[First c10]

well then I have 2-56 chevys a bel air and 210 after the truck!!!!

[renegade6]

I don't feel so bad. I will have to remember this when getting into debates with the wife.

Originally Posted by First c10

well then I have 2-56 chevys a bel air and 210 after the truck!!!!

[First c10]

Originally Posted by renegade6

I don't feel so bad. I will have to remember this when getting into debates with the wife.

You will probably still not win !!! lol

The 63 is a cool build. I really cant wait for the truck to be completed so I can work on the cars!!!

[renegade6]

Engine removal and wiring harness build.

Had some time and help this weekend to pull the 6.0 out of the Sierra. Pretty uneventful and based on how the inside of the engine looks, I thought it might have been replaced at some point however, the VIN on the engine matches the vehicle so, guess it has 253K miles on it. Going to change lifters, oil pump, valve springs and gaskets and see how it works.

For building the harness I followed the steps in LT1Swap.com and no surprises. It helps that I have a lot of wire loom and have a bit of experience wiring. Now, to see if it will work without any check engine lights.

[renegade6]

More pictures

[renegade6]

A bit of jumping around here.

For this update, I cleaned the injectors using a homemade cleaning kit and went ahead and did a refurb on them. A friend told me about replacing the inner filters and o-rings with a kit you can get on ebay. On a scale of 1-10, about a 2. Only trick is using a sheet metal screw to pull out the inner filters.

Second part is installing the sending unit and fuel pump in the 88 Blazer fuel tank. Tank and straps were purchased from Rock Auto and sending unit and pump were purchased from Amazon. I've used a Walbro fuel pump in the past and it only lasted about six months, so this time I'm trying a Quantum. No idea how well it will work, but fairly inexpensive and good reviews on Amazon.

[renegade6]

Next part was re-assembling the engine. Nothing picture worth here. For the oil pan I decided to go with a Jegs knock off LS3 pan. Will see how it fits when we get to that point.

Last update was installing the square body Blazer cross-members to support the blazer fuel tank. I went ahead and mounted it to make sure everything fits and drill the hole in the bed for the fuel filler neck. My plan is to put the filler on the back side of the passenger fender fender in line with the brake light so that it won't be that noticeable.

As far as removing the old cross-members, I would strongly recommend a good air chisel, much easier than trying to drill them out and if I had to do it again, I would pull the bed off. Drilling holes in the frame overhead is not much fun.

[renegade6]

One thing I did do differently is modify the rear Blazer cross member so that it would bolt on the bottom. Some of the other ones I've seen only had to bolt on the top. Don't think it matters much either way. Lastly, I used the cut out piece from the bed cross-member to box it in and make room for the fuel lines and wires.

[renegade6]

Latest update. A bit of jumping around in what I'm doing because, I'm waiting on parts and don't want to waste time. As of today:

-square body cross-member and motor mount perches are in.

-engine and transmission are installed. Used a Jegs muscle car oil pan and as a result, had to do a lot of surgery on the square body cross member. If I had to do it again, I would pick another pan. For priming the motor, I built a pressure primer, on previous builds, I used a garden sprayer and it finally quit on my last build so, time for something more permanent.

-fuel lines installed. I used a Dorman fuel line kit to run the nylon lines all the way to the tank and used the filter fittings from the donor truck. This kit works really well and saves having to piece together stuff. It even had the fittings to connect to the Blazer sending unit.

-exhaust built, just waiting on hangers to finish install. Used Hooker exhaust manifolds and these easily clear the frame.

-wiring harness 95% complete, only have to connect a few more wires

-swapped the instrument cluster to one with gauges and because the bezel was a bit tired looking, dressed it up with some wrinkle paint.

-Made the brackets and modifications for attaching the 700R4 TV cable to the LS throttle body

[renegade6]

More pictures

[renegade6]

It's alive and running. Not too many pictures on this update, hard to stop when I get in the groove, especially with wiring. Significant updates are:

-Installed front clip
-LS swap details:
-Fabricated transmission cooler lines from NiCop and plumbed in new radiator and external trans cooler.
-The factory radiator works. For LS hoses, I used the factor 2001 upper hose and a lower hose from Jeep Grand Cherokee. A little heat on the upper hose allows it to slip on to the stock radiator. I will need to fab up a panel to cover the gap between the shroud and core support.
-For the steam vent, I connected it to the heater outlet on the radiator
-Intake is a generic Silverado kit from Ebay using the stock 2001 air cleaner assembly. I'm not a fan of the K&N type filters and no need for the extra horsepower on this truck.
-I relocated the battery to the driver's side to make it easier to hook up the electrical using the stock 2001 parts. The ECM is below the battery and I used the original battery/ground cables with new end connectors. The battery tray looks like it is from a 80s GM car or square body truck.
-Surge tank is mounted below the air cleaner due to limited flat space to mount it.

-The air conditioning is a vintage air system and nothing really special about installing it, other than it is a really tight fit under the dash and I had to remove the brackets to get the evaporator under the dash and then install the brackets. I used the Kwik performance bracket for the compressor. On a past swap, I used a Holley bracket and it took forever to find the right belt. For this one, Kwik gives you a part number for the correct belt and as a result it was a lot qwicker...Because of the battery change, the main power and ground wire is run inside the cab to exit on the driver's side through an existing hole and the circuit breaker is mounted next to the Maxi Fuzes.

-This truck has had air conditioning previously and had holes drilled thru the floor. The last owner decided to take the easy way out to patch them and I welded the holes up. I had removed a factory plug on the firewall and recycled it to fill the hole for the fuel line.

-Gas cap hole patched and filled.

-Flooring. Installed a vinyl floor covering and was fortunate that it got warm enough on the day to install. If I had to do this again in the winter, I would wait until summer. Having a torpedo heater really helps to loosen it up.

This about wraps up the wife's truck. Next step is to either start on my 63 Biscayne again or start working on my 72 with rust repair on the cab...

[renegade6]

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