Re: 72 k20
 

Sounds Great! PM incoming.

Re: 72 k20
 

Here’s a few from the week. While I’m waiting for some parts to come in for the disk brake swap, I finished tear down on the L31 Vortec that’s gonna temporarily live in my truck. The bottom end was cherry on it. I hadn’t planned on doing a whole bottom up build but I noticed when I pulled the cam that the cam bearings had some really abnormal wear. Beings I had to pull the bearings I elected to tear it all the way down. I dropped it off yesterday at the machine shop for a clean up, hone and fresh cam bearings. Should have it back Monday or Tuesday.
It’s kind of a shame that the cam bearings were bad because otherwise the bearings, crank, and bores look brand new.
This engine was actually running on natural gas powering a small screw compressor out in patch. We pulled it from the field several years ago in favor of another compressor package. It’s amazing how long these things run and get very low wear, without the solvent properties of gasoline.
Anywhoo here’s what im going to use in the build. Other than the cam it’s mostly stuff I’ve got stashed away. I build gas compressor engines for a living so I’ve got some resources to say the least.

New Speedmaster 64cc chamber 190cc runner, .550 max lift, aluminum heads
LT4 hot cam
LS7 lifters
New GM rings
Original pistons, pins and rods cleaned and mic’d
Polished OE crank
New proper length pushrods
New plastic timing cover
Double roller timing set
New melling oil pump
Clevite rod and main bearings
Felpro gaskets and seals
Weiand street warrior vortec intake
Hei ignition
Edelbrock 1406 carburetor
Undecided electric fuel pump, fuel psi regulator
There’s probably a few loose ends I’m forgetting but that’s the bulk of it.
I’ll document the build more when I start putting back together.

I think this combo should put 400ish horsepower to the crank pretty easily. I love the idle of the LT4 hot cam:metal:
Here’s a few tear down pictures.

Re: 72 k20
 

And another

Re: 72 k20
 

Keep 'em coming.

Re: 72 k20
 

Thumbs up. Way up.

Re: 72 k20
 

Thanks guys, my machinist got covid and isn’t doing well at all right now so my engine building is on hold.(he’s still got both my 6.0, and 350 blocks, cranks and rods) I’m praying for him, he’s a good friend of mine. In the spirit of thanksgiving I went out on a drive after we ate to enjoy one thing I’m thankful for, my Dad. He got my into these old trucks when I was really young. He’s had covid in his house in the last week or so, we were supposed to back to Virginia this week but between his house having it and my moms house having it, that didn’t happen. So I drove around in my truck and took some cool pictures since I couldn’t have dinner with him today. Everyone in my family in VA. seems to be beating covid at this point, that’s something huge to be thankful for!
I did manage to round up some single rear wheel 14 bolt hubs for my disk brake project, but I haven’t ponied up the $250 it’s gonna take to get the caliper mount brackets cut on the cnc mill. Maybe next week.

Here’s a few pictures from the afternoon.

Re: 72 k20
 

Looks like a nice day there. It's good to see the truck out. Is that a gas powered plant in the back of the last picture?

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Larry, that is San Juan generating station. Used to be a four unit coal fire plant, now it’s a 2 unit coal plant because of Obama era epa regs. It’s slated to be completely decommissioned in 2022 unless another entity ponies up and buys it from PNM. Pretty sad deal in my opinion. A lot of the coal plants out here in the west are being decommissioned and reclaimed. Lots of lost high paying jobs for the mines and plants both.

You're right the weather was quite good clear, little wind and about 50.

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Tyler thanks for posting the pics and glad your family is doing well. Hope your buddy turns the corner to better health.

I look forward to when I can get back out onto the high desert. Lots of fun to be had. Fossils and other things to be discovered. It's fun to see elk herds out in that country.

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I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and I also hope your machinist friend pulls through. It's crazy how CV seems to effect all age groups differently and how things keep changing with it. Hopefully it gets gone by next spring.

Nice pics, it definitely looks like fun there! I have a project 71 K20 and I was just thinking if I should keep the HO52 or just swap a 14BFF in it now. It's supposed to be a low budget truck but we all know how that goes. Haha

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I'm getting ready to do a Dana 60 swap in Blue..

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For sure, that’s the one thing that keeps me pretty contempt with life up here. I could make more money if I went to other oil patches, but the wide open public land we still have up here is a huge plus. All kinds of adventure to be had.


Good to hear from your Ryan! Thanksgiving was great, hope the same for you. Covid is a wild one. I’m not one to buy into all the things we are fed about it, and I feel there is a ton of legislative overreach going on. I do however, believe it makes some people sick as hell. It’s Wild to see how it affects people so different. My stepmom had it and was pretty sick, in bed all day, difficulty breathing, chest pains the whole 9 yards. My dad didn’t hardly show any symptoms at all. Both are completely recovered now.

Low budget huh??? That won’t last long:lol:
I’d vote for the 14 bolt solely on the ability and ease of getting parts for it. I can certainly understand the desire to keep the HO52 for originality sake, if mine had still had it I’d probably have done what I could to keep it running. That said the legendary beef of the 10.5” 14 bolt is hard to beat. Square body 1 ton is a bolt in with the exception of one shock mount and ebrake cables. It’s Hard to beat the 14 bolt as it’s still in production today and still nearly identical to the original in 1973.

The rear Dana 60 is definitely a good option as well.

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I got the disk brakes mocked up this afternoon. All I’m missing is the flanges. I talked to the machine shop (not the same shop as my buddy Ernie who’s still fighting for his life with covid) who’s is making them for me today. They are backed up for the first part of next month but hope to be able to have them done closer to Christmas. They will be cut on the water jet and then all the holes milled with the cnc. I dont think $250 for the set is bad. They will be precision made and that’s pretty important when it comes to stopping. That said, I’m very confident that this setup is going to work well. I’m going to start writing the diy for this brake swap this week. Pictures are just a mock up like I said with the jack stand holding the caliper and bracket up for now.

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Like. :c2:

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Looking good.....:metal:

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That's looking promising. I do not plan to go that far on this K20 project. Don't quote me though. :lol:

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Thanks guys!

Ryan, I’m sure you know all about project creep. I was just going to sell this 14 bolt when I parted the K30 it came from. There was a guy who was all ready to come from Phoenix on a Saturday morning to pick it up. The Friday evening before I texted him and said I decided to not to sell it. I felt bad but something inside me kept feeling the urge to keep it. That something would be my inner parts hoarder. After all my K20 already has a 4:11 14 bolt in it... Then I got to thinking... and that’s where things always get time consuming and expensive! See I was able to justify keeping it because after all it’s a K30 axle so it bolts right in... and well, my current axle doesn’t have factory welded perches or shock mounts, and well, I’ve got a couple factory disk 14 bolts stashed in the corner that I’m probably never going to use... and well, you get the point...:lol:

It’s funny that damn K30 part-out was supposed to make me some cash, and it definitely has, but I’ve ended up keeping more than I sold. I couldn’t bring my self to part with the frame, the axles, or the 465/round 205. There’s easily 1500 there thats stashed away:lol:

I was hoping to start building my 350 this week but obviously that’s not going to happen. So instead, I sold the leftovers of the first 14 bolt disk brake donor axle this evening. I also moved the axles I’m working on around on the shop so I could bring the front 60 in and start going over it. Got the dually hubs pulled and listed on Craigslist. Need to find a set of single wheel hubs for it now, that’s gonna suck, they are hard to find anymore, forget new ones it’s crazy what the aftermarkets go for. I didn’t find any surprises everything looks really good.

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I've got a dead square body project that has a srw D60 in it. :lol: Aren't 1st gen dodge hubs the same? I know a guy looking to trade for some drw hubs.

Re: 72 k20
 

Ryan, let me know what you find on those hubs.



This afternoon I went thru some gremlins in the hvac wiring I’ve had since I brought it home in 2015. The blower never has run since I bought it. Back in July I started messing with getting the blower motor running. I got side tracked once I got power to the purple motor supply wire. The motor still wouldn’t come on with power, so I figured it was bad and put it on the back burner, then it got cold and I figured heat might be kinda nice. I was wrong the motor wasn’t bad and I didn’t have consistent voltage at the motor feed.

After applying power directly from the battery to the motor it fired right up. I then went thru the whole system with my fluke testing voltages, continuity and grounds. Then I went thru all the wiring removing each individual contact from each plastic connector and cleaning them with emery cloth. Basically there were a couple problems.

First there were a few connections that had light corrosion on them and had mediocre continuity. The ground on the motor relay wasnt making good contact to the relay housing, preventing high speed on the fan. The biggest thing I fought was loosing voltage as soon as the motor feed was connected to the motor. The voltage would drop to 0 no matter what position the switch was in. This is what lead me to cleaning every contact.

Eventually I got it to run on the relay in the high position. Still nothing when trying to run on the resistor. If I jumped the resistor power between the dark blue wire from the resistor and the purple motor feed wire at the relay connector I could get the fan to run on the resistor. It would not run on the resistor without jumping power at the relay connector.

It came down to the relay. So I figured what the hell, I’ll open it up and see what gives. The relay handles current when the coil is both de-energized and energized. When de-energized it handles the current coming from the resistor to the motor. When energized(high position on the switch) it handles a full 12 volts required to spin the motor at full speed. The contacts on the de-energized side of the relay, that handles the current when it’s running on the resistor were dirty/lightly corroded. The bad continuity in the contacts wasn’t able to handle the amps required to spin the fan thus dropping the voltage to 0 at the motor connector. A little cleaning and it’s working good. If you take the relay out of the metal case you can watch the contacts open and close and see for sure where the issue is. I should have taken pictures but by the time I got to this part of it all, it was starting to get pretty cold and dark was approaching. I need to put it all back together tomorrow and hook the heater hoses back up. It’ll be nice to have heat!

I don’t know if I ever mentioned it or not but the majority of the cab wiring including the fuse box and even most of the under hood wiring is actually from a 72 C10 I Parted out 5-6 years ago. The original wiring in the K20 was in really bad shape. Gum wrapper fuses, several melted wires etc. I wasn’t about to build the truck then burn it to the ground with crap electrical. I had to re-pin a few of the harnesses and add things like the back up light wiring for the manual transmission, but all in all it’s worked out really well. This and getting the back up lights working are the only real electrical issues I’ve had. Backup lights were a bad fuse panel feed connection, that one took a while to figure out as well.

I doubt any of this makes much sense without pictures, more than anything I wanted to document it in case I forget what the hell I had to do down the line if there’s any more issues.

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Good info on the relay Tyler. The relay on my Longhorn is acting up. I have been tapping it occasionally to get it to make contact.

Re: 72 k20
 

Do you guys make much use of dielectric grease? I’ve added dabs at exterior lamps and under the hood - mostly just because.

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Larry, bend the tangs back gently and remove it from the metal housing. Hook it up to the relay connector, when you get it apart you’ll see where to touch the ground wire to. Once you cycle it with out the case in you’ll likely see quickly where the problem is. It’s probably nothing more than dirty contacts.

Pete, I don’t see how dielectric is going to hurt anything that’s for sure. I bet all those contacts I cleaned yesterday wouldn’t have gotten corrosion on them over time if they woulda had grease on them.

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I use dielectric grease on most contacts. Especially if exposed to moisture.

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Well today between Christmas shopping with momma, a trip to the bank, two trips to work for Heater hose (idiot me should have paid attention to the heater core and seen the hoses are 5/8 and 3/4) and bringing wood up to the house, I was able to get some more done on the truck.
I got the interior put back together, and the hoses run and radiator topped off. The heat is about enough to run you of the truck now. I need to replace the heater ducting next but what I’ve got will be just fine until then. I drove it around this evening running some errands, when I realized quite quickly the battery was dying. The ammeter works intermittently, and apparently it wasn’t working tonight. I went to pick up dinner and it almost didn’t start when I got back to the truck. Went straight home to find the battery was below 12 volts. Poked around some and discovered the ring terminal had broke off of the charge wire on the alternator. Easy fix back up and running with a charged battery again. I’m sure we all know how it goes on these old trucks, if it ain’t one thing it’s another.

As a side note I talked to my buddy Ernie today, he’s turned the corner and gaining his health back steadily. He said he hopes to be back to working on my stuff by the end of this coming week. That’s by far the best news of the day. The good lord looked after him well.

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That's great it was an easy fix and even better news to hear your friend is beating it!