Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

I know. And I remember seeing it in person. But there're probably enough basket cases to go around, and you have already made a lot of headway on it (not a basket case), and more importantly put time in on it with your mom. That's gold. If you HAD to sell it, we should for sure talk. This is one of those cases where as cool as it would be for me to have it, I'm happier that it's yours.

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

there you go always spewing them wise words, much appreciate that

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

so I went on a little parts acquisition expedition, and got some lights for parking to fill the holes in the grille

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

fandangled with the headlights

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

learned how hard it is to find OEM stock mirrors and if you find some how ridiculously expensive they can be, but a forum member was kind enough to part ways with these at a reasonable price

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

discovered the 57 different hood/fender grille/trim combinations and mounted up the thicker whiskers to match my hood

honestly I don't like any of this trim, and will be deleting it all later on, I don't know how I acquired the piece the resistance that goes on top of the rad support to fill the gap after you ditch the hood trim, but I got it in the shed

say whatcha will, but that glamour pic is money ha ha

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

Dusty sure has came along way! That's rough having to move that many times. And your garage was dirty? :lol: Nah, you're good. :lol:

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

thank you so much, yeah this is the first time we have a garage with them fancy floor paint jobs you can ice skate on, I remember when Big Al came over to check on me and the truck and he goes man you can eat off this garage floor, little did he know I cleaned the crud off of it the night before knowing he was showing up, ha ha

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

so folks here is a big reason why I am all about get your rigs ronnin' cause it ain't until they is ronnin' that they start to tell you things, they start to complain about things

take Dusty for example, one of the biggest headaches he gave me was overheating, and it honestly took a combination and a collection of things that had to be done to dial him in

so allow me to set the stage, here I am flushing the rust out of the cooling system with a garden hose (nothing to see here HOA) or maybe I'm jus top filling it to burp it

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

here I'm checking the radiator to see if it holds pressure, it doesn't need mutch 15 PSI I think (correct me if I'm wrong) but what ever it is 5, or 10 you just want it to hold it there while you go pee or get a beer or both, the purpose of that is that you raise the pressure to raise the boiling point, blah blah blah

and man if you don't got one of these Mityvac pumps git one, they also make a vacuum pump, also very handy, anyway they used to be made out of metal and in the US if I remember correctly now they are plastic, but still OK

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

alright we can thumb wrestle over what I'm about to say next but I firmly believe that a well tuned engine can run with only water in the radiator and not overheat, it don't even need no fan shroud (as that is there for your safety so you don't cut your fingers off, ha ha) yes it does need a fan

so here is People's Exhibit A: water only with a 195° F thermostat and we are running too hot at 201° F

now some folks will say that ain't hot, or that's fine, well I shut it off there cause it would have probably gotten even hotter, and keep in mind this is just idling in the garage at like 650 RPM

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

so what a lot of dudes will do here is put in some antifreeze - man I've been told this a dozen times, so here I go to show you that nope it does not matter, you are trying to mask the problem not fix it

People's Exhibit B: 195° F thermostat with 50/50 water/coolant mix and about 10 minute run time ran way too hot at 210° F think being stopped at red lights

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

OK, let's keep playing this silly game, next thing you are not supposed to do is to swap the 195 thermostat for a 180 so guess what we're gonna do? ha ha

People's Exhibit C: 180° F thermostat with 50/50 water/coolant mix and about 10 minute run time it still ran way too hot at 199° F

now before you go on saying, see it's an improvement, keep in mind we stepped down the thermostat, so it's all relative, it's still almost 20° above it so even worse

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

so we yank a crank the water pmpulator (it's the wrong style anyway) remember the long pump vs short pump discussion, and fetch a new one

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

I like the period look of white walls and black steel wheels!!!

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

thanks but they are a bit too narrow so we have these American Racing 17" Baja's in our future

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

A shroud is a very important part of the cooling setup. The ring should be within 1/2" of the tips of the fan, and the box should tightly cover as much of the radiator core as possible. Forces the draft the fan pulls to suck it through the radiator. Otherwise it's just thrashing the air in the engine compartment around. Neat 'ol beater!

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

you sir go on that side of the line in the sand, ha ha

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

Glad to see this thread going. May be a little more help on this one as Your in my era now. Overheating is always something small and stupid in my experience like a bad rad cap but could this be the same problem as Rusty with the heater core bypass hose?

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

ah, you have excellent memory, no not on this one, but Rusty got me with the overheating twice, the second time it was the crack in the radiator just above the coolant line, so it was not holding pressure but there were no leaks, and that was on a 1 year old brand new radiator, one of them aluminum and plastic ones

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

so allow me to bore you to death with what happened next with the cooling system, a new water pump required a new pulley

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

now one thing I learned over the years whilst buying $,500 dollar trucks, ha ha is never ever trust anything that touches water such as a water pump or a radiator and never buy them parts used, so we replace the rad next

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

and here is the mandatory stare and compare

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

then I recall wanting to upgrade my radiator fan from a 4 blade hand slicer to a 7

Re: My Dusty 71 GMC a Mother & Son Project
 

but Dusty wasn't a big fan of that idea