I found this on market place. The guy had it listed as non-running, and he wanted 800 bucks for it. He said it was a rust free Florida truck, Which was the part that caught my attention.
I went and looked at it, it was overall a little rough, but a good canvas. I offered the guy 500 bucks, and after a bit of thought, he accepted....
I got the title, and the next day I went back and got the truck with the help of my cousin - thanks Josh!
When I got the truck home, I decided to try getting it running just for the heck of it... After looking it over, I found it wasn't getting any fire, but was getting fuel... tracked the problem down to a bad coil. Once I replaced the coil, it fired right up, but ran rough.. I took it for a spin around the block and the transmission shifted great... I'm pretty the issue was a bad ecm, but I'll never know for sure.
As much as I wanted to tinker with the 4.3 to get it running better, it didn’t make any sense to spend any real time or money to do so, because I bought the truck to ls swap....
So I'm going to keep track of cost to build this truck. I'm not going to count consumables like shop towels, cleaning products, etc.... I have a lot of mustang parts that I'm trying to trade for things like gauges, mufflers, etc. I'll assign a value to those parts and add them as well.
TRUCK: $500
Rally Wheels: $100, but since I would of had to buy tires for the black truck, I'm charging the $100 bucks to the black truck build. It was was a even trade/Freebie.
Wheel Paint/Supply: $7 For paint - $5 for primer. Total $12
Total thus far $512 bucks
Here are the pics from his for sale ad. The body is decently straight, with no huge dents, but are lots of little dings and scratches. Pretty average a truck of its year. The paint has flaws but isn't peeling off anywhere that I have noticed, it should buff out and make a decent 10-20 footer.... The main thing is, the truck is RUST FREE!!!!
The interior needs some help too, but it shouldn't be too bad getting it squared away.
So this truck had some pretty good tires on it, so I robbed the wheels and tires off this truck and tossed them on my daily driver (89 sierra.) Then it came to the point where I needed to roll this truck around, so I hopped on market place and found a set of rally wheels with good tires on them for 100 bucks.... score!
Before tossing the rally wheels on, I needed to paint them. Originally I was going to paint them silver, but last minute I changed my mind and painted them gold. I then "polished" up the center caps and beauty rings to finish them off... I still don't know how I feel about the gold, but I'm going to rock them for now... They look better in person than they do the pics.
I tossed the wheels on the truck, I think they go well with the truck. It's hard to tell from the pics because my shop has terrible lighting.
So I could move the truck around again, which meant one thing... It took me about 3.5 hours to slap the wheels on and pull the motor and trans... and that's with stopping to running and get subway and dropping it off to my wife who had to work.
IGNORE THE MESSY SHOP...
So I had the motor and trans sold to a guy for $250, so I loaded them up in the back of my truck (to take out to the main driveway for him to pick up.) I had the motor almost completely down into the truck but decided to move it over a little bit. When I pushed the cherry picker over one of the wheels got caught on a bolt on the floor, and well...
Luckily it only dropped about 2"... The cherry picker donkey kicked me in my leg though, they didn't feel too good... But I got it load without dying, so that's a plus.
My oldest boy and I got the bed pulled off. The lighting in the garage sucks, I've been meaning to pick up some new led shop lights, but somehow I never do... I just keep dragging around my trusty old construction light thingy. I was hoping to get the rear bumper off too, but it was dinner time, and I'm fat so...
I need to decide if I'm going to run the stock tank or switch to a fuel cell.... I was going to run the stock tank, but I'm starting to lean towards a fuel cell...
I got to run it by an inspection station to get an id/od so I can mail off the title (something you have to do in Missouri with out-of-state titles.)
While it's on the trailer, I'll swing by the car wash and blast the engine bay and frame the best I can (I picked up some purple power to presoak them. Hoping to get the frame painted Sunday or Monday. I'm not going for perfect, but while I have easy(er) access might as well make it look a little better...
Nice score. I'll be watching as I keep thinking about gathering the parts to LS swap my 90 c1500 if the 4.3 every dies.
I will say, every single bolt I've pulled off this truck has came right out... I'm buying all my cars from down south now... I'm a believer...
I bought a 5.3/wiring harness/computer/tac module/pedal assembly..
I finally got to work on the frame. Knocked the loose stuff off, but didn’t go overboard. Also didn’t use pot 15, this is just Rustoleum, which is just fine for a truck or this caliper.
I started with the outsides, I’ll get the undersides and the inner portions tomorrow, probably should have done it the other way around, but whatever. Just did the cab back. That’s about 20 mins of work.
I think I can finish the truck in about a day. It won’t be perfect, but it’ll be perfectly good enough.
I got the frame all painted from the cab back, other than a few touch ups... I brushed on what I could, then went back and hit the rest with a rattle can, it's good enough for this old truck. I also started painting the engine bay, I'm going to have to crawl in there to finish the rest, but it's not looking too horrible. I need to strip a few more thinks out of the engine bay, and get it painted too. What doesn't get painted tomorrow will have to wait a week or so, the high temps are only going to be in the teens.
I ordered a set of drop hangers/shackles off ebay, $115 shipped. I need to order a set of 350 frame mounts, when I change those out I'm going to go ahead and drop the front of the truck 2 inches via cut springs.
That’s an option as well.
Finally finished up the paint on the frame and engine bay. It looks good-er. I’m not going to run a/c on this truck, so I pulled that crap out of the truck. I won’t be using the factory cruise (probably going to drive by wire), so I yanked it out too. The windshield washer tank didn’t make the cut either, nor did the factory overflow tank. I also pulled the battery box, I still might mod the bracket and toss it on the driver's side, but I thinking about relocating it to the bed. The engine bay has so much more room for activities now.
Tomorrow I’ll toss the ls on the stand and start pulling off a few things. I don’t think I’m going to tear the engine apart, just clean it up and give it a rattle can rebuild. I got a lead on a guy who is going to build me a th400 with a mvb and trans brake at a fair price, and he does good work. High temps in the single digits and lows like minus 10 coming in a few days and will last a while, and uhm, they’ll be no more work done until I see temps in the 20s... lol
I didn’t get pics as my phone died but picture it being painted black with minimum prep. It looks better than it did and it’s less dirty, good enough for this guy.
I jumped on eBay last night and ordered the 350 motor mounts so my ls mounts will work. With shipping being so slow, I decided to check around at the local parts store, and actually found them cheaper than on eBay, and they'll be here in two days... So I canceled the eBay order and ordered the mounts from AutoZone.
The two mounts were 22.97 shipped to my door (thanks to a $10 off $50 dollar coupon.)
I got my lowering shackles/hangers in today... looks like USPS drug the box under their mail truck for a few miles, and then body slammed it on the porch... If they aren't losing our mail or delivering us somebody else's they're destroying packages... or taking a month to deliver them. I will not order anything if the only shipping option is USPS, I despise them...
Luckily the eBay seller stepped up and will be sending me the missing parts out of the box (that literally had gaping holes in it.) The seller was very cool about it!
I'll post some pictures later...
I had some fox body mustang parts laying around, so I listed them on one of them mustang pages and ended up trading for some gauges and pods. One pod was for an sn95 mustang, the other for a civic. I sold the mustang one already for 20 bucks.
The motor mounts from auto zone where being shipped from a 3rd party supplier, who well, never shipped them. Called auto zones 1800 number and they wouldn’t be able to tell me anything till Monday, but emailed me a 10 dollar gift card for the hassle. So I’ll knock 10 dollars off the project total.
Been kind of slacking when it comes to the truck lately.
things I have ordered
New starter
PAC 1218 valve springs
Elgin ss2 cam
things I have accomplished since the last post
mounted tax module and figured out how I’m going to do the pedal.
cut the battery box up, move things around, and gobbed it back together.
I do wood flags, and lately, they have been selling like hot cakes... finally got caught up, so now I can work on the truck a bit more.
Got the shackles thrown on.... I was going to do the hangers as well, but I guess I loaned out my air hammer, so I need to track that down...
So I decided I wanted a nice stall and trans. The trans is going to be a th400, mvb, and trans brake... The converter is going to be a custom spec converter from PTC.... That was about 1600 dollars, so there goes the budget. lol
I needed to get the DBW pedal mounted. I thought about getting a 6.5 obs pedal, but I need to save money where I can (without cutting corners), so I just modded the pedal that came with the engine....
It was pretty easy to do. I cut the DBW pedal down and drilled a hole in it. Then I cut the stock obs pedal down, and slid it into the hole on the DBW pedal assembly. Once I got it where I wanted it, I welded it all together.
went and bought an air hammer today so I can get the stupid hangers off, and finish lowering the back of the truck... Hopefully I can get that done tomorrow, and get the front lowered and the 350 mounts thrown on...
Got my cam in the mail today...
Also order my turbo today... so I need to update the totals... Still hoping to stay under 4000ish... should be close
I decided to go with a fuel cell, so I removed the stock tank.
I'm going to remove this X-Brace and put the fuel cell here.
I got the driver's side hanger done. slowly chipping away at it.
Picked up the tranny today... finished lowering the rear of the truck the other day.... goal is to get the front lowered and the motor mounts swapped this week... oh, and mount the fuel cell. This weekend I want to start on the motor, basically pull it apart and gap the rings for boost...
