Dug's 1959 Fleetside

[mongocanfly]

Looks sweet...stance is great!..

[dug224]

Originally Posted by mongocanfly

Looks sweet...stance is great!..

Thanks! What I love about this solution (other than the low cost) is that it is infinitely adjustable.

[dug224]

Experiencing a bit of 4L60E transmission slip. Trans only has 60k on it. My transmission guy told me to start by installing a $20 Corvette servo. He actually told me to start with a mass air flow sensor due to codes he read. Since I had no idea where the one I had came from, I invested a new one and it cleared up the codes. The Corvette servo dramatically helped the 1st to 2nd gear shift, however, 2nd to 3rd still slipped pretty badly. He's coming to visit on Tuesday.

While I was test driving, I swung into a recycling place and had them weigh the truck with me in it and with a full tank of gas. The total weight of exactly 4,000 lbs seems a little suspicious but I say close enough. At approx 300 hp stock, the 5.3 gives me a power to weight ratio of 0.075. I was surprised to see that the front to back weight split was as close as it is.

Front axle = 2,160 lbs
Rear axle = 1,840 lbs
Total = 4,000 lbs

Corvette Servo Kit

[dug224]

Fast running out of the little stuff to do. Still waiting on my wiper kit, front struts and upper and lower ball joints.

Installed the 5.3L badge in the grill. Riveted a small bracket to the back of the grill and installed the badge via the 2 sided tape it came with.



Installed the finish cap on top of the radiator. Cleaned up the top of the radiator nicely. I need to reroute the radiator filler neck one day to get it in a more discrete location.

[ChuckDriver]

Truck is looking great, time to put some miles on her!

[dug224]

Originally Posted by ChuckDriver

Truck is looking great, time to put some miles on her!

Thanks and I agree!! Last big hurdle to overcome to make it a daily driver is the transmission. One of my favorite things in life is when someone says they are going to do something and the actually do it when they said they would. Donnie the transmission guy showed up last night to work his magic. He's been at this game for 35 + years and makes it sound and look a lot easier than it is. Still no damage evident. He left for his shop with a bucket full of transmission parts. He will continue to assess for damage and also do some upgrades via springs and larger holes. Goal is to make it a little more aggressive where the shifts can be felt but stay short of making it so harsh that I hit the back of my head on the back glass.

[dug224]

It's now my daily driver.....transmission is now 100%. While I was waiting for Donnie the transmission guy to return to finish up, I replace upper and lower ball joints, front strut assemblies, sway bar links front and back and painted misc. suspension stuff. Tightened up the suspension nicely. Also bolted in rear axle snubbers from an Isuzu Rodeo ($2) to replace the junkie press fit snubbers that GM used. Mounted them on the bottom plate rather than the top.

I ordered one of those universal windshield wiper kits in early May off of eBay. The guy never shipped it which gave me time to read more about them. From what I can tell, they are not that great and we get a lot of rain here. Ended up getting my money back and I've decided to attempt to adapt the factory Trailblazer (or some other late model unit) to the '59. I happen to have a Trailblazer unit in my garage so I'll experiment with it. Meanwhile, I put RAIN-X on the windshield in case I get caught in the rain.