new around here

[Drizzle]

Hey everyone,

I have been on this forum once or twice but never said anything. So I'm going to get it all out of the way now. If you have time and half way interested then here is my story.

I'm 32 and never really worked on any decent vehicles ever but always wanted to. So when I got the opportunity I bought a 86 C10 SWB for 3k or so. I thought it would be a easy"er" vehicle to start figuring crap out on. It's had a 400 bored to a 406, 350 turbo, I think a 290 cam "Flat Tap", edelbrock 600 carb, double hump heads and was lowered some front to back. I drove it 3 hours home which I thought was a good sign of a decent motor and for the most part it was. However. It started to overheat here and there. Checked the oil, no soup. Went through cooling system, all was good. Came to conclusion that a head gasket must be messed up. Well keep in mind I have never done any of this before. The power of Google and YouTube were my instructors.

Thank the lord I had a new neighbor next to me that saw me pulling the heads and came over to introduce himself and figure out what the heck I was doing. He is a pretty good car guy with a cool Monte "383 ect". Anyways. Feeding him beer, he watched me and made sure I didn't screw up too bad. After pulling the heads we found that the gaskets looked decent. So we looked at the heads and sure enough, Crack! Well crap now what... So I started looking around and researching 400 sbc heads. I found that you HAVE to have steam holes for the 406 to cool properly and that was probably the problem with the double humps as well as the incorrect gaskets. So me being cheap and read a TON of info as well as calling businesses, I decided on the NKB 200 64cc heads from Skip White. http://www.skipwhiteperformance.com/...tem=NKB200272S. I tell you what these heads are clean. Now that I halfway know what to look for these things looked port and polished out of the box. I also decided that now would be the right time to replace the ENTIRE top end while I was at it. So I went with Comp Cams roller rockers, guide plates, 1.6 push rods, Polished Cross plane intake and a Holley 750 4 barrel. I also sanded and polished my valve covers and air filter cover. "Shiny" My neighbor drinking and pointing out my mistakes the whole way.

After all said and done, we got it back together and it runs like a charm. Of course every once in a while something catastrophic happens and we have to tear something else apart on it like the starter wouldn't catch and we found that the flex plate was toast. New flex plate and high torque mini starter was ordered. "Summit is my friend" So we had to replace that and in my head I figured "while we are pulling the transmission back, we should pull it out and put a shift kit in!" Transco shift kit it was! Laptop on the shelf watching transco youtube instructional video the whole way. So we got that all back together and everything was happy happy.

For about a month when the alternator power post grounded out and fried all the positive wires under the hood. So here I am, re wiring a truck, 4 months ago I had NO idea what I was doing and reflecting how far I have come in such little time. Of course neighbor hanging out drinkin beers with me. Anyway I got everything re wired, new yellow top battery and fired right back up. "Put safety glasses on for that" New high torque starter is toast but works for now until I get around to putting another one in. In between all this I found time to put new vinyl on the seats, new carpet, and paint the tailgate. "only tailgate for testing purposes" put about 40 hours in tailgate alone between sanding, priming, SANDING, priming, SANDING, painting, clear coat and sanding again! Worked out pretty well if I may say. Really look forward to doing the rest of the truck in the spring. But now it is interior season so NONE of my gauges worked properly except for temporary oil pressure and water temperature gauges I had stuck in it. So after a ton of research I decided the to go with Dakota Digital VHX Black with blue lighting on there way with New bezel and cover. Can Not Wait for that to show up. I lost a ton of pictures I took on my journey but I will post what I got as well as a little video I just made. http://youtu.be/rfvR588jnmM

I hope I didn't bore you too much with all this but I love my truck and am finding appreciation for older vehicles in general.

Thank you for your time and glad to be here.

[carboncrew]

Wow...you jumped in with both feet. Very cool

[Lokin4AReason]

welcome to the party .....

[Low Elco]

That's a lotta work! Nice going! Glad you made it here- Lots of good info and sharp cats.

[SCOTI]

Nice start.

[77K10Silverado]

Sinister!! Welcome aboard!

[Drizzle]

Thanks everybody. All I can think about this last year is what to upgrade next. Long list.

Forgot pictures of the tailgate,

[Joe Pass]

AHH...I remember my first one.

[Greenlee]

Nice! The motor sounds healthy.

[Drizzle]

Dakota digital is in and it looks sweet

[Drizzle]

Daytime

[Drizzle]

Worked out well putting the brain close to the old wiring harness. Didn't have to extend any of the wires coming from it.

[TruAggression]

Lovin the color you chose on the tailgate!!!

[Drizzle]

New lights down low. Finished all wiring on the gauges and cleaned up a lot of wiring. Progress

[Ozzy2013]

Welcome to the forum !

[l92powered77]

welcome and just wait untill you learn about LS SWAPS!

[Drizzle]

Originally Posted by l92powered77

welcome and just wait untill you learn about LS SWAPS!

Thanks man. I doubt I will ever be interested in an LS swap personally. For this truck I want to keep things old school mean. A rumblin bumblin mess. Forged and blown if I ever save enough dough.

[portrodder]

Welcome aboard and that's some great work.

[Drizzle]

Adaptor kit for truck rims to fit rally center caps. I like the look. Gotta replace the tires now and plan on painting the actual rim part the same color I am painting the truck.

[gasmn1620]

How difficult was the Dakota digital install. I want to do that too.

[Drizzle]

Originally Posted by gasmn1620

How difficult was the Dakota digital install. I want to do that too.

Pretty simple actually. You need a wiring diagram for your truck. I used a mixture of the Haynes manual and a diagram I found on this website. After installed the setup is a breeze. Well worth the money. If you want to buy all regular gauges and fab up your own cluster it would cost at least the same amount but several hours of your time and chances of breaking something. if you have any questions let me know.

[Shifty One]

Very cool project! Keep bringing pics!

[rusty76]

Where did you get the adapter kit for the centers?

[Drizzle]

Originally Posted by rusty76

Where did you get the adapter kit for the centers?

Ebay. 70 bucks for the brackets and i think fifty bucks for the center caps. Got the center caps from Jeggs. Cheaper than rims and look similar in my opinion.

[RUN GMC]

Nice truck......hope to see it around when I visit Maryville/Pigeon Forge area.......I just installed a led under my dash on the passenger side.......does your truck have two under dash lights or did you wire in a second one.......