Pressing on with punch list items. It was time to figure out the cooling system. I had planned on using the original radiator but it was beyond dirty. I considered having it cleaned and tested, but at that point I'm half way to the cost of a new radiator. I decided to go with a Cold Case GMT558ALS LS swap radiator for C10s. This fits in the stock location but has both inlet and outlet on the passenger side, so it really cleans up the coolant line routing. The only thing to note with fitment is you need the 4-core radiator brackets. I didn't discover this until I tried to install the radiator and found out my original 3-core mounts were too short. For lines, I used a Gates 21439 top hose and 20687 bottom hose, both with a little trimming of the ends. The heater hoses are just Gates 5/8" and 3/4" lines sold by the foot. I wanted to use stock style constant tension clamps but didn't know what sizes to use. I errantly measured the outer hose diameter and ordered those sizes in mm. That did not give me enough expansion in the clamp to get over the flare on the ports! After installing the lines and measuring again across the flare, I ordered sizes to match these measurements and the clamps fit much better. These clamps are from Bell Metric and are very nice. The sizes I ended up with are as follows: 5/8 heater hose, 24mm. 3/4 heater hose, 27mm. Upper water pump line, 46mm. Lower water pump line and both radiator lines, 50mm. Remaining items for the cooling system are overflow tank and fans. I will update later on those items.
I was also able to get the front lights installed and wired up. I've had the engine bay harness cleaned up and just sitting inside the cab since I stripped it down while doing the LS harness, so at this point it was just plug and play. I discovered that my front blinker bulbs were blown. I also had no marker lights but ultimately discovered that it was due to the blown blinker bulbs. The wiring diagrams I've seen have the markers wired as always on, but mine were wired to be on with the lights and blink with the blinkers. Apparently GM wired these trucks up both ways. This also lead to the realization that the rear markers are always on and do NOT blink with the blinkers. This seems funny to me and I may have to make a modification to the wiring to remedy this. It's a small thing but it bothers me that it's different front to rear. Other than that, the lights work great!
Now that I am beginning to put body panels back on I am circling back to aesthetic updates to the truck. The front grill has always bothered me on this truck. I've always liked the C10 grills more, but for some reason my GMC grill just looked extra ugly. I decided to repaint all the black like factory and WOW did it revive the front end of this truck. I used Rustoleum flat black and it looks amazing in person. The original paint on the grill appeared to be brushed on, so I used a foam brush to paint everything by hand. It gave the paint just enough imperfections to blend right in with the rest of the truck without looking out of place. I also painted the headlight surrounds like I mentioned in the previous post and that also helped improve the overall appearance to me. I feel like this is how GM should have painted these originally, especially since they were painted on the C10s. At this point, I am completely satisfied with how the front end turned out and think I can kill any thoughts I had of converting it to a C10 front end.
