TA_C10: Stage 1

[CarlsLQ9SS]

Just read a few pages, looking good. Your welding looks really good to me.

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by 1971Stepside

I think I should have ran mine to the frame rail like that instead of all the way up front under the radiator. I thought it needed some air movement. Would have saved me a lot in braided hose.

From what I have read there is plenty of air on the side rails. We will see. And yours being up front should just be more of assurance its gonna work

Originally Posted by CarlsLQ9SS

Just read a few pages, looking good. Your welding looks really good to me.

Thanks man, took me a while to get used to it but I get more and more confident the more I weld.

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by nlped

Just an observation, but if that’s a truck pan and you’re lowered, that pan may be in jeopardy as it’ll be lower than the front crossmember.

Ok Update. And this one cost me more money... nlped thank you for keeping me up at night..... So I thought I was fine, no, I was not fine. The pan stuck like 1.5" below the x-member when I ran out in the garage to check. How did I ever think it was level???.... ugh.

So I ordered a Cadillac CTS-V oil pan. Bolts right up to my engine and gives me more clearance. Had to modify the windage tray to make it fit but no big deal. Painted it of coarse. Installed the oil filter assembly. Now I have a ton of clearance.

[TA_C10]

Filled the new torque converter with fluid, installed it. Got the engine and tranny back in the frame along with headers and exhaust. Also installed the new trans filler tube. Going to have to modify the bracket as it's not right. Setup to hit an empty hole. So I will probably cut off the bracket and move it on the tube so it lines up with a proper bolt hole. Ready to finish exhaust now. And after painting and re-wrapping the coil pack wires they look so much better.

[nlped]

You ARE welcome.

As usual, every thing is looking really good!

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by nlped

You ARE welcome.

As usual, every thing is looking really good!

Thank you sir. All I can think of is either the new springs finally settled some so it dropped, or I just plain never noticed and just thought I did.... And I really doubt the springs settled a whole inch much less 1.5.....

My sleepless nights are over with that new pan. For now anyways.

Now let's see some Walt!

.

[1971Stepside]

I experienced the same insomnia until I changed my oil pan. LOL

[Chris50]

Amazing write up. The details and seeing your progress is what motivates people like me to keep going. Even though, I did loose most of my day reading everything since your first post...LOL. Time well spent though. I'm ready for the paint and the open road pics. Keep up the great work!

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by 1971Stepside

I experienced the same insomnia until I changed my oil pan. LOL

Glad to know I'm not the only one

Originally Posted by Chris50

Amazing write up. The details and seeing your progress is what motivates people like me to keep going. Even though, I did loose most of my day reading everything since your first post...LOL. Time well spent though. I'm ready for the paint and the open road pics. Keep up the great work!

Thank you sir. It's difficult to keep motivated sometimes but sometimes just digging in and grinding away will bring the motivation itself. Seeing progress.

:chevy

[TA_C10]

Update - Mufflers welded in.

That pretty much says it for this post. It took me 5 hours just to weld in the vband ends, 45's, and mufflers. But progress is progress. I think it's gonna work . I think I'm going to start working on my H-Pipe next before I finish the tail pipe dumps.

[cebra]

What wheels/tires are you planning to use?

[LagunaGlide]

Looking good. I am new here and will definitely be following along. You are doing a lot of the stuff I will need and want to do, but at an accelerated rate.

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by cebra

What wheels/tires are you planning to use?

I'm going to be using the wheels/tires that came with the truck when I bought it. If you look at my first page there are some pics. They are 275/65R15 I believe.

Originally Posted by LagunaGlide

Looking good. I am new here and will definitely be following along. You are doing a lot of the stuff I will need and want to do, but at an accelerated rate.

Thanks! Motivation is key on these builds or you will be on it for years IMHO. Oh, and the money thing too...

[TA_C10]

Change of pace. While I wait on a few more parts I started on my passenger side front fender. Appears the PO attempted to repair rust with mud... The new piece didn't quite fit right so I had to make some slices on the back side and improvise on the edges(STRETCH!). More on this later.

Current progress:

[MDPotter]

I found a repair like that on my rockers - except they used some kind of mesh along with bondo to fill in the holes.

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by MDPotter

I found a repair like that on my rockers - except they used some kind of mesh along with bondo to fill in the holes.

Yeah I don't know which PO did this, but geeze. The cab was so bad I don't expect anything less. These old trucks have gone through too many hands.

And just to comment on this repair. It's not easy like I thought it would be. That groove on the edge of the wheel well makes it really hard to grind down welds and keep that edge looking correct without thinning out the metal around the area. I keep having to fill the area up with weld and 'shape' it back. Whew. Hopefully I will finish it tonight... Sucks.

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by TA_C10

Yeah I don't know which PO did this, but geeze. The cab was so bad I don't expect anything less. These old trucks have gone through too many hands.

And just to comment on this repair. It's not easy like I thought it would be. That groove on the edge of the wheel well makes it really hard to grind down welds and keep that edge looking correct without thinning out the metal around the area. I keep having to fill the area up with weld and 'shape' it back. Whew. Hopefully I will finish it tonight... Sucks.

I try to leave as much original material as possible so the 'patch' panel can be trimmed to fit as necessary. Sometimes, you need to get 2 patch panels to make 1 the correct size/shape if it doesn't break the bank.

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

I try to leave as much original material as possible so the 'patch' panel can be trimmed to fit as necessary. Sometimes, you need to get 2 patch panels to make 1 the correct size/shape if it doesn't break the bank.

Yeah I'm learning that over time. This piece I made sure I cut above the cancer but below the style line. But that style in the wheel well couldn't be helped. Had to cut through it. That's good advice though Scoti.

[TA_C10]

Update - Passenger side fender

Finished the fender, patching and welding up all the little holes anyway. This thing had those large farm truck mirrors at some point. I ended up finding a lot of old patch work that needed fixing. Welded up a torn tab. Slapped a little paint on the welds until it goes to media blast.








I found a several of these little patches one of the PO's made as some point. They look to be a screw that is held on by a bracket on the back side of the sheet metal. Looks like the way they filled holes back in the day. The head of the screw was ground down to match and then mudded over. I got rid of 3-4 of them. Filled them with weld and moved on.

[TA_C10]

Update - H-pipe Exhaust

Getting my H-pipe figured out. Never cut saddles before. I found it's easier than I thunk 😉 It's a little low right now, going to prob cut the 45° in half and draw it up to maybe 40° or so. It doesn't hang below the cross-members but there's plenty of room to draw it up.







I cut the saddles using a carpenter square. I marked a center first, then about a 1/8" away from center line I made my 35 degree marks and cut them. I don't have a band saw so this was done with a mix of large 6" cut off wheels and a sawzall.





The plan is that these 2 saddles will go on each side of the exhaust and I will use v-band clamps on their ends to join the center 45 degree section. This should allow easy removal in case of maintenance.














And these little guys I got from Summit. They are rubber isolators that should work real nice for securing the exhaust at the trailing arm x-member.

https://www.summitracing.com/parts/SUM-610332

[siggyfreud]

Oh those isolators look nice! I'll have to incorporate them when I redo my exhaust!

The system is looking really nice!

[TA_C10]

Originally Posted by siggyfreud

Oh those isolators look nice! I'll have to incorporate them when I redo my exhaust!

The system is looking really nice!

Thanks. I can't take credit for those isolators though. Both my H-Pipe and isolator ideas came from both @SCOTI and @gringoloco

[TA_C10]

Update - Trans dip stick mount

The trans dipstick and tube I bought were for a 2005 suburban off rockauto. The setup I have didn't work because the bracket utilized a blank in my bellhousing so I cut it off and relocated it up to a different hole in the passenger side head. Same bolt I'm using for all my engine harness grounds. Not much to it. I drilled out the spot welds. Moved the bracket up and welded it back on. I filled my drilled hole marks too and smoothed everthing out and shot it with VHT roll bar paint.


This first pic is the old location.

[TA_C10]

Update - Exhaust Hangers - Snappers


These little guys are really nice. Got them from Summit. Rubber isolators. I saw them in @gringoloco build. They worked perfect for my setup. However the hardware they send with them(button head bolt) wasn't the strongest. I was able to strip out the head(allen head) and then using channel locks I was able to twist the bolt in half pretty easily.

Now the reason I found all this out was because I decided to weld the nuts on the back side of my trailing arm x-member because after the 3" exhaust is installed, I won't be able to get a wrench or even a socket extension behind the plate I welded in/boxed in. No big deal, but I decided to try and weld in a nylon nyloc nut... I was hoping to weld it at the base and not melt the plastic but no deal, it friggin melted quick. Then of course I tried to run the bolt in it anyways to see if it would still work(at this point I didn't care about the locking function) and when I ran the bolt in, somehow a little sliver of metal made its way inside the melted plastic/nylon and got caught in the threads and my bolt was stuck. I ripped that sucker right in half without much effort. So I am probably going to get new bolts stage 5 should be plenty.


Here is the nut that melted. I ended up cutting that back off and welding a normal stage 5 nut on the back and they work great. I didn't take pictures of the final product.






And here they are installed. They work great. Let's hope they isolate well because this is a daily and I don't want vibrations and drone inside the cab. We will see.

Left side has button head allen bolt(came with hanger), right side is a stage 5 bolt I will probably end up using for both. And on the ground is the original button head bolt I twisted in half. You can see how short it is.

[SCOTI]

When boxing stuff in that requires hardware access, drilling some holes to pass wrenches through can help too.