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POSTER: Yours truly VEHICLE: 1970 GMC C1500 GOAL: Making the truck as awesome as I can afford / have time for. The last big push was the LS1 swap - everything since has moved back from "crazy project" to "maintenance". Currently my main focus is on freshening the suspension and brakes again so they match up to the grossly increased power output of the LS1. DIFFICULTY: Somewhere above "changing the spark plugs on a LT1 Camaro" and somewhere below "Catbus / frozenphil / Cat Terrist" as I have no significant rust / crash damage to repair. Plus, unlike the first  COSTS: I think the last time I added it up I'm well north of $20k and that doesn't include the 'cost' of the truck itself since I got it as a hand-me-down from my parents (my mom got it from her father in the early '70s, he bought the truck new). LINK: The LS1 swap threads are lost to the archives a long rear end time ago. The latest jobs I've done on it have been new rear tires, and new shocks all around. The old shocks were Belltech Nitrodrops which, after 9 years and ~60k on the clock, were in rough shape - one front and one rear were blown, and the other two shocks weren't in great shape either. I haven't had a chance to drive it since I put the new fronts on but given how much the rears helped I suspect it will be like driving a significantly newer truck again  That, and fixing a persistent coolant leak - the LS1 and radiator have slightly different radiator hose sizes so the lower hose has to clamp down more than it probably should, and doesn't last all that long as a result. At least it's cheap and easy to fix, it takes longer bleeding out the air than it does to do the swap. Next up on the to-do list is an oil change (need to find some German Castrol 0w30) and it looks like, from what I saw while underneath the front end this weekend, I will need to bite the bullet and replace the power steering box. It's original but it's been resealed a few times, yet the input shaft seal is leaking again. It's also the old '69-'72 style which takes over four turns lock-to-lock - the '73-'87 style takes a turn out of that, and at least the up-through-'76 boxes are a direct swap, to the point that stores list the same part for '70 or '76. I'll probably have to check the ratio in-store before I buy it.  
IOwnCalculus fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Mar 18, 2008 |
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Mar 17, 2008 06:11
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