SkinnyG's 1977 Chevy Silverado

My first vehicle was a '77 Suburban. I love this body style. I'm actually going to pick up a '91 Sub in a few hours, and might start my own build thread on it.

Nice Work!

I'll post biggie-size pics when it stops raining. It's got a lot of orange peel that you'll want to see. Or not.

Went to look at a 12-bolt axle I found in the local classifieds.

Turned out to be 3.73 and G80 Gov-Bomb. Yay!

BUT....

VERY metallic in the gear oil, and the side and spider gears appear worn through the case-hardening, and I'm unsure if the ring and pinion are still good. much less the bearings. No chunks, but sparkly. Also appears to be a LOT of play within the diff itself.

I passed.

If it needs that much work, I might as well put in all new.

I may be dreaming to think I will run across decent parts locally, that haven't been in production since 1980.

And Then I Broke The Flexplate....

That can't be good....

Nope. Not good. Total time: 2 hours. Not too bad.

The aftermarket tach the truck came with didn't work properly after I installed an MSD box. I finally bought the MSD Tach adapter (8920), and discovered WOT shifts were occurring at about 3800rpm. I knew it was shifting early, but wow. The cam should be good to 6000rpm (231°@050", 0.470", 108°LSA, 104°ICL, 10.9:1). Gotta change the governor weights.

OEM Weights are 0.062" thick.

I removed the governor weights and marked them 1/2" from the end, and 1/16" off each side. Ron Sessions' TH350 book says grind no more than 1/2" down, and 3/16" in. I figured I'd do this in stages - it's harder to put metal back.

Then ground them down, and de-burred. I didn't even install them yet. I decided to get more aggressive.

This is now 5/8" off the end, and 3/16" off the sides. This brought the shift point to about 4800rpm. More grinding is in order.

Then I happened across another 12-bolt axle, so I took my sweet time rebuilding it, with all new everything, including 3.73 gears and a Detroit True Trac.

Axle tubes TIG'd to the housing using 309L

Tonight, a thorough cleaning and a coating of POR15 Also welded on some Mopar Performance spring perches #P4120074 for a more rigid "flip kit."

Original axle had 3.07:1 gears, an open diff, becoming even more open via a metallic sheen to the oil.

My truck has Heavy Duty brakes and the replacement axle does not, so I needed to swap the backing plates. Phase I complete.

Detroit TrueTrac made in Taiwan?!

Phase II: ???

Phase III: Profit!

Nice!

Shouldn't phase 3 be burnouts to test the locker?

The Yukon Gear manual says I must refrain from using The Force for the first 100 parsecs.

After I've changed the oil, I will make the shift to light speed and see if I can't go plaid.

No smokey hazer yet.

But, and there's no numbers to substantiate this, I think I might be getting slightly better mileage.

If I am, in fact, getting more mileage, I would attribute it to the 3.73's making less work for the truck in town, as well as getting the cruising rpm up to where the cam is working and the torque converter is slipping less. The engine totally sounds different (in a sexy way) above 2500 rpm, and I'm cruising closer to 3000.

The Rolled-on Tremclad looks even better the further you are from it.

any updates on this ole girl?

Actually, yeah! Late fall I brought a trailer home. It has been lowered (the old axle from my truck is under it, its axle is the one I rebuilt), and will be painted to match.

Then I noticed the rear of the truck was sitting odd. I suspected the frame had been tweaked a bit hauling so much sand and gravel for the the workshop I've been building. Some measurement confirmed things were not happy, but a well-placed chain and a bottle jack on the four-post hoist at work, and things were happy again. I also took the leaf packs out, and found a number of leafs that were not holding up their end of the bargain.

Which I corrected.

And also have been trying to remove a driveline vibration. Note the 3° shim. I'm up to 4° now, and am in the midst of machining up a couple 5° shims out of steel to avoid the galvanic corrosion of Canadian winters.

Also picked up a set of Crane gold rockers at a screaming deal, so I installed those and did up a video to show my students how it's done. https://www.youtube.com/embed/CwzJDWUaajE Potato goodness around the 3:40 mark.

I really like the "LEAF SPRING RE-ARCHER".

If you turn it to the opposite side, it's the "LEAF SPRING DE-ARCHER," which I used in lowering The Hideous Hardbody.

The 80's called. They want their braided hose covers back. I ain't given 'em.

Also went through a few Power Piston springs in the Q-Jet. Truck idles in gear at 8inHg. For some drunken reason, I was running an 8inHg spring. Changed to a 6, and now to a 4inHg spring. Seems much better.

Megasquirt in a box, to be unleashed perhaps this summer.

AAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNDD the TH350 decided that 39 years is enough, and turned into a two-speed on the way to work today.

Transmission will be pulled tonight after dinner. Parts should be in tomorrow.

Trans was pulled and disassembled in 3 hours:

Most of the direct clutches were gone. Steels had lots of blue. I suspected this is what I would find.

Intermediate clutches looked ok, but the steels were W.A.V.Y. Strange.

I ordered a rebuild kit, extra (doubled) sun gear bushings, an extra friction and steel for the (cut down to fit) direct piston, a hardened intermediate sprag race, a wide 700r4 low roller clutch and case saver assembly, and a TransGo Shift Reprogramming Kit. I deleted the 2-3 accumulator, and drilled the 2-3 apply to 0.157" since TransGo already had 1-2 feed drilled 0.140" in the kit.

Trans went together fine. Have to fine-tune the shift points. Feels a WHOLE lot better.

I think I still owe y'all that big smokey hazer down mainstreet.

And now back to doing more drywall......

I have a TransGo shift kit in my 78 Z28. I like it and very reliable

Do a burnout!!! We only been asking since like forever

I fully intended to convert the truck to TBI using MegaSquirt over Christmas. But that dang "family commitment" thing keeps getting in the way.

I cast an adapter with my Metalwork class, and this is a Holley TBI body I got off ebay. It came with 4.3L injectors (and rumour is Holley Injectors aren't all that great), but I had already bought a junkyard TBI for a 350, so I Frankensteined the GM pod onto the Holley base.

Then details to the swap were hindered by things like "Christmas Hours" and "I didn't plan this through all the way," and it does not look like this will be done over the break. While yes, I ~could~ ~probably~ get it done, but it's better to just stand down, and do a more thorough job of the swap.

Then, while I was fueling up (I'm always fueling up), I noticed a crack where there used to be a large bubble on the wheel arch. Like a fool, I picked at it, and a large chunk of Bondo fell out.

So yesterday, I fired up the orbital, and chased that and one other crack. When I first picked up the box, there were cracks behind the wheels - I had a kid chase the crack and see how far it went. Apparently it went REALLY far, and there was a LOT of Bondo in there. So we just mixed up a resale-size bucket of filler, and put it all back. These were new cracks.

It's like a giant Gob Stopper of sedimentary Bondo layers. And close to 5/8" thick in places.

Wheel arches had been replaced some someone, but very very badly done. There are so many defects, so much filler, and so much rust, I'm not going to do anything about it.

Except slap some more in there.

And then rolled on a couple more layers of Tremclad. Not even thinned. Straight from the can. Like a boss.

BrokenYugo wrote: I really like the "LEAF SPRING RE-ARCHER".

Yeah that's much better than the one my dad had that involved me holding the spring over the lifter valley of a V8 while he beat it with a sledgehammer.

RE bondo: You've picked your battles, and I approve.

Just re-read this whole thread again. I love this thing!