So update time...
back when i originally posted i was waiting on my Vintage Air kit to really start tearing into this truck. It finally came in the week before Thanksgiving, which meant i didnt get to start in on the truck until early Dec.
The deeper i dug, the worse bodgery i found, someone had meddled in almost every piece of wiring on this truck and it was a disaster. Wires to the alternator just spliced in and electrical taped, the compressor for the airbags was spliced into god knows what, all the steering column wires were just twisted together, wire nuts... the list goes on.
The first thing i did was rip all that wiring out and get the painless performance harness installed, it was time consuming but i enjoy the tedious nature of wiring and i especially love the finished product once you get to bundle it all up. At this point it is 90% finished, the truck has cranked and ran with the new wiring, i am chasing some issues with the blinkers and cluster but that has gone to the back burner for now, other items took precedence.
The next item on the list was getting the vintage air kit installed, i didnt want to complete the wiring install without getting this done. This way i can work all the vintage air wiring into the new harness. The only things i lack for finishing the vintage air kit is running the coolant and refrigerant lines and putting in the duct hoses in the dash. Again, i didnt want to button this up until i worked all the bugs out of the wiring but the fan is working and the controls are functioning to control the vintage air, so we should be good there as well.
While i was waiting on all the transmission parts to come in (see below for that story). I started taking apart the front suspension and brakes for cleaning and rebuilding. I had ordered all the parts for this back in the fall and just not had the motivation to start fighting with the mess under this truck... inches of mud caked on EVERYTHING, some of which is permanent. I pulled all the control arms, ball joints, tie rods, everything off. Once everything was off i dropped in a new steering box and broke down all the control arms for cleaning. I soaked them in purple power/water mixture overnight and pressure washed TWICE and couldnt get all of the gunk off. This is a work truck so i have given up on cleaning further and they are getting painted as is, standby for future updates on this.
My original plan for this truck was to LS swap it with a modern OD transmission however the further i dug into the truck the more i realized how solid the engine, it really is a low mileage crate replacement and i couldnt justify throwing it away or selling it for cheap. So somewhere mid Dec. i decided to sling an NV3500 in and run the existing engine as is for awhile, this truck is going to see mega highway miles, I drive 40k-50k miles a year all over TX. So parts got ordered for the swap and we started in on tearing the old out, nothing to eventful with that other than the trans fluid being the most beautiful cherry red, i was [pretty stunned with how clean it was. In this process i also realized the crate engine is from a much later model, it uses the smaller diameter bolt pattern for the flywheel, 1 wrong flywheel later i realized this... this was not the only issue i had with ordering wrong parts.
I had planned to use the clutch pedal and master from a 2005 Silverado, but the pedal assembly is to big and clashes with a bunch of stuff under the dash so back that went as well as the master. I ordered a wilwood setup that i think will work just fine, more on that later.
I also ordered the proper yoke for the new transmission but of course it doesnt use the same u joint as the one i just took out... so another night with a caliper and some internet sleuthing and i think i have the proper U joint on order to make it work, fingers crossed...
Somewhere in all of this i realized the master cylinder was junk in this truck, it had no fluid in it when i took the cap off for the first time. I filled it up... fluid all gone again... turns out the cap was leaking and the left rear wheel cylinder was also leaking, so i ordered a new master and wheel cylinder for the left rear. Once i decided to replace the master, i noticed the lines were rusty as hell as well so i ordered a full set of stainless hardlines for the truck. I already had the rubbers on hand, the ones I have taken off were beyond dangerous... one of them was missing all the rubber down to the woven metal innerds...i am astonished it wasnt leaking badly. Crazy thing is, the brakes on the truck worked awesome despite all of this BS... At this point all the original lines are out and i have started to install some of the new lines. I had the engine held up with a jack preventing any further brake line install but...
Tonight i dry fit the transmission to cut the shifter hole and see if i needed to clearance the tunnel at all, mine is a low hump cab. Everything is in and loosely bolted up and... IT FITS. I need to beat out 1 seam in the cab and one little spot next to the shifter but everything fits and should be good. While i had it in there i dropped the jack out of the way so i could get that brake line that was holding me up installed.
Sorry for the long winded post, trying to get caught up here photos are attached, i know thats what everyone is here for lol.
