Project: Slow Moe

[brakenit]

I've wanted to get back into another square for a while now. I've had a '79 C20 Silverado 454/TH400, '84 C10 Custom Deluxe 355/700R4, and a '78 K10 Blazer 350/TH350. I didn't expect to buy anything for another year or two, and I really wanted a 73-80 stepside but sometimes you have to strike while the iron's hot and in the midwest opportunities for 99.9% rust free trucks like this don't come around very often unless you want to shell out 6-8k for something someone else has already modified to their tastes.

So, here is what I wound up with. Meet Moe.

1984 C10 Custom Deluxe, 250ci I6 3 on the tree, 54k miles and I am now the 3rd owner. I don't think this thing has hauled more than groceries more than once or twice in it's life. It was garaged, owned, and driven by a 90 year old man who recently passed away and this was part of his estate auction. I paid $3k, probably more than I should have but I wanted it and I'd have a hard time finding another square within 1,000 miles of here this solid for this kind of money.







I don't know if this guy knew it but some people haul stuff back here. I might carry a cooler or something back here someday.


The dash pad is pretty badly cracked but other than that the rest is just faded, the clutch pedal isn't even worn yet.


If you can look past the surface rust on the rear/driveshaft the floors are rock solid. They don't even have any surface rust. No undercoating hiding anything it's just the factory gray primer/paint underneath.


RACE TRUCK! You could easily store a half dozen Ethiopians in here to push the truck should it ever break down but since the I6 is bulletproof you don't really need to.


My daily driver getting ready to drag it home. The 5.3L/6L80E made it an easy trip.


My other project truck, '04 Colorado ZQ8 I5/4L60E. Lowered 2/2 on 18x10's all around with 275/35/18's in front and 285/35/18's in the rear. It's been undergoing the worlds slowest turbo install since I hit a deer with it 3 years ago.

[brakenit]

I was poking around under the hood a couple days after I bought it and removed the hose running to the air cleaner and spotted a mouse nest. Pulling the air filter revealed a filter filled with feathers and dust.





I cleaned out the nest and blew out the filter with an air hose since I have a new one on the way and took it down the street and back for a test drive. The steering was downright scary, the steering wheel moved 10" in either direction before the wheels moved so I went home and parked it. After doing a little reading I went out and in 10 minutes with a 5/8" wrench and a 3/16" allen wrench I adjusted the steering box and the steering was as tight as the day it was new again. I like easy fixes.

I took it out and drove it around the neighborhood for a half hour or so and took a couple pictures.

[brakenit]

I started ordering a mass of parts to get the truck back into good running/driving condition since it likely hasn't been driven regularly for several years.



The bulk of the parts list is: New water pump/alt belt, new radiator and heater hoses, distributor cap, rotor, water pump, thermostat, plugs, wires, valve cover and rearend gasket, 2.5" McGaughy's drop spindles, Specialty Retail flip kit brackets, rear shock relocation brackets, new tailpipe to make a new exhaust with, new front calipers and rubber brake hoses, and some other stuff I'm sure I'm forgetting.

2" McGaughy's drop coils for the front are on their way as well to put me at about a 4/5 drop.

I was able to get a matching pair of loaded front calipers for $27 and brake hoses for 28 cents each on closeout from Rock Auto so that I can upgrade to the 1 1/4" front rotors for around $100 with the drop spindles.

[texastruckjunky]

Some people have all the luck finding clean trucks. Good find, I have not seen a clean original truck in a looooong time.

[brakenit]

It really was sheer luck that I stumbled across this truck. I was browsing Craigslist and saw a listing for another auction that was supposed to have a car trailer and a bunch of car parts, and when I went to auctionzip.com to look it up to see pictures of some of the stuff I just happened to see the listing for the auction I bought this truck at. The thumbnail picture of the auction was a picture of this truck and even from the tiny little picture I knew what it was and that it looked super clean.

I showed up at the auction with the rented Uhaul trailer in tow. I wasn't intending to leave without it.

Anyway, todays update. I started tearing things apart to clean up the engine bay, remove the emissions equipment, and give it a complete tune-up.

I started by cleaning up my workbench and unboxing all of the parts so I would know where everything was at. The parts pile doesn't look as impressive unboxed.




I can already tell it will look a lot less cluttered without the air pump, hardlines, and mess of vacuum hoses. I wonder if I can find an EGR blockoff.

[brakenit]

I've never had a personalized plate on a vehicle but the BMV website says this is available. Can't decide if I should spend the extra money on it or not.

[brakenit]

I work a lot and I'm short on workspace so progress on my projects is typically very slow but I figured I'd share a small update. I've been working on cleaning up and painting the engine and buying more parts. I'm not looking to make it show worthy, just cleaner to work on and presentable.






I just got these wheels in the other day. Tires are supposed to be here today if the Fedex man ever shows up. They're 17x8 and 17x9.5 MB Old Schools, and tires will be 255/50/17 and 275/50/17 Nitto NT450's. I had originally planned on 15x10 steelies but wound up getting too good a deal to pass up on these. I paid $430 shipped for the set of wheels, new from Discount Tire Direct.


I also have a full front suspension rebuild kit with poly bushings and tubular tie rod sleeves on the way. Most of it's showed up already but the bushings are on backorder. Hopefully they won't take too long so I can get the suspension rebuilt and lowered with the new wheels and tires on. I'd like to actually get to drive this thing this summer.

[Can't kech me]

Sweet wheels!

[brakenit]

Don't mind my lawn, the grass won't grow without any rain and I got tired of knocking down the weeds in this damn heat.

Not a great picture but hopefully I'll be able to start driving it soon and I'll be able to get some better ones. I don't know how long it will be before it gets lowered. The bushings I ordered to rebuild the front suspension are on backorder. I'm pretty happy with my choice in tire sizes, they'll look perfect with the drop.

[l79m20]

looking good!

[NEVERENOUGH]

Nice truck I just got back into a square body also with an 82 with the 250 6 banger. I will be following your project it seems we have similar goals.

[brakenit]

Thanks guys. I can't wait to take it on it's first real drive with the new wheels and drop.

[brakenit]

I've been slowly tinkering with this pile and finally got the engine back together. Not everything came out as good as I would like but I feel like I met my goal of getting it cleaned up and at least presentable, not a show truck. There's still some more minor cleaning up and fixing I'll do to the engine bay but for the most part I think it's done until I decide it's time for the I6 to go.

After I got it back together I started it up and let it run a little and it ran better but after a few minutes I could hear the valvetrain getting noisy. I shut it down and drained the oil and it seemed like there was some water in it. Either I got some water in it when I was cleaning/degreasing it or it has a blown head gasket. After I changed the oil it seemed better so I think it was just water from hosing it down quite a bit but I'll try to get it plated and insured tomorrow so I can drive it some this weekend and find out for sure. If everything mechanical seems ok I'll probably start tearing it apart to rebuild the suspension and lower it next week some time.

Before:



After:

[kwin]

I'm loving the 250! nice to see some one buck the trend and keep the reliable litte straight 6!

Keith

[bulldog2513]

Originally Posted by kwin

I'm loving the 250! nice to see some one buck the trend and keep the reliable litte straight 6!

Keith

my uncle, who is an old school racer, showed me when i was 16, that "reliable little straight 6" can be a monster. he was helping me find my first car and brought a blown 454 78 camaro to the house. mom had a FIT! so he restored a 70 nova for me (my birth year), put in a 250 that he built for racing (all the bells and whistles he could do to that engine) and mom was happy with that I6. so was I......i was whoopin up on built 350's my friends had!! wasnt a car in stone mountain, ga that could beat my ol' blue nova (thats where my "Ol' Blue" truck build comes in at lol) keep the 250 and ride it proud! great lil truck. wish i could find one over here like that.

[Devillusion]

very nice.......wish we could find them in that condition around here...wow.

[brakenit]

I got the truck plated yesterday and drove it about 120 miles yesterday and today. I'm having a problem with the truck forcing coolant out of the radiator and overflowing out of the overflow bottle. It's basically pushing about a gallon out of the system and then the radiator is only about half full. It has a new thermostat and water pump, so I'm afraid it may have a blown head gasket or cracked head. I honestly don't have much interest in spending any money on the 250 so unless I can figure out something else wrong it may be going the way of the Dodo.

[Devillusion]

run it with the rad cap off and see if there is lots of small bubbles coming up....or maybe wrong water pump? Low probability but you never know, some water pumps run opposite directions depending on the route the belt goes.

[brakenit]

I ran it without the cap, the level stayed normal for a few minutes until it got to operating temp and the thermostat opened and it dumped a gallon on the floor like it was under quite a bit of pressure and then the radiator dropped to half full. I left it running and dumped another gallon in to fill the radiator back up and it did it a second time. Even though the coolant is fresh it smells horrible. I don't know if any I6's came with a reverse rotation pump.

[Devillusion]

hmmm.........that sucks.

Too bad you weren't closer, I have an I6 that is going to the scrapper soon. I'd just give you the darn thing for the cost of what the weight in scrap is. Runs great too.....

[brakenit]

I did one last test today. Since I'd never seen a vehicle force coolant out of the radiator under pressure with the cap off I decided to pull the thermostat to confirm my suspicion that it was building pressure from the a blown head gasket or cracked head leaking into the coolant and then releasing it all when the thermostat opened. With the thermostat removed it no longer forces all of the coolant out but it did constantly bubble for over 15 minutes. The smell of exhuast fumes in the coolant was even stronger. So the prognosis is that she's done. I won't be putting any more money into the I6 as the only reason I intended to keep it was because I thought it would be reliable and I could run it for a year or two so that I could put together a big block for it.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do for now. I have a mostly stock mid 70's 350 with a small cam, Edelbrock intake, and carb sitting on a furniture dolly next to it but there are also a couple relatively cheap 454's on Craigslist and eBay right now. I'll probably keep the 3 speed for the time being and convert it to a floor shifter, decisions, decisions....

[brakenit]

After thinking about it last night as much as I would like to just drop a big block in this thing I would much rather do what will allow me to drive it this year. Since I already have the 350 it will obviously be the quickest, cheapest, and easiest to put in so it will be the most likely to get completed while the weather is still nice.

I just ordered a new distributor, some ceramic coated headers, cut to fit plug wires, a stainless engine bolt kit, and a Hurst Indy floor shifter from Summit.

I'm going to get started stripping the half flaked off orange paint from the 350 this week and try to get it painted. I'm undecided on color, I'd like to go with a gloss olive green or dark brown but they don't seem to offer those in engine paint.

[brakenit]

Soooo.......

The 350 I intended to swap in wound up being a pile of junk since the person who "freshened it up" did nothing but ruin it. They had half of the pistons installed backwards, and when reinstalling the pistons they didn't take any care to protect the crank by covering the rod bolts so it had deep gouges on the journals. The only thing salvageable is the block, and considering it's a mid 70's 2 bolt main it's not worth messing with.

I had to see what the valve covers and air cleaner would look like before I disassembled and inspected what would be the junk engine.



So, it sat all winter while I collected more parts and tried to decide what to do.

Last week I came across a completely rebuilt shortblock on Craigslist for $500. I drove to check it out and it was really clean and looked like everything was done right. The guy had bought it for a project car for his son, but his son took no interest so he scrapped the project and the engine sat on a stand for 10 years. Before selling it he took it down to a machine shop and had them take it apart, clean everything up and check the clearances and then reassemble it.



I also got a really good deal in the classifieds on here of a complete March billet serpentine front drive setup for it from survivingalone, it came with a billet one wire alternator and power steering pump with a billet housing. I have a Crane XE262H-10 complete cam kit on the way and found a nearly brand new set of heads pulled off of a GM Goodwrench 350 for $100. I may do a mild pocket port on them when I swap the springs, and I'm considering swapping the pistons for something that will get me up a little over 9:1 compresssion since the stock style dished pistons that were used will probably only yield about 8.25:1. It will also be getting an Edelbrock Performer EPS intake and a 600cfm Quick Fuel Slayer carburetor.

Here's where it sits today. The entire front clip is pulled and I spent the morning pulling the entire suspension and front crossmember from the truck. I'll clean and paint the frame and then rebuild the front suspension before the new engine goes in.

[brakenit]

So, I haven't been very forthcoming with updates on this. I was promoted to a new position at the end of May and it took me a little while to adjust. I have been working on it a lot through the weekends, especially the last couple months.

I've completely rebuilt the front suspension with poly bushings, balljoints, inner and outer tie rods, and solid steel tie rod sleeves. I also installed rebuilt calipers, new slotted rotors, a new master cylinder, and replumbed the front brakes to install a Wilwood adjustable proportioning valve.



I cleaned all the old sealer off of the firewall and tried to clean it up and smooth it out a little before repainting it with the closest Rustoleum I could find. It's not a perfect match by any means but it will be good enough for underhood until I can repaint the whole truck.





And, last but not least I finally got the engine assembled and dropped in. I still have a lot to do but I'm hoping I'll be able to start it up and break in the cam this weekend or next.

[mattcrp1]

Looking good! Are you going to lower it?