78 K20 custom delux "modern meets vintage" build thread

[youngblood78]

WoW this is one heck of a truck I could only dream of doing all this to my old 78 and that blue is the color ive always wanted on my truck. how did you do all of the wiring for the 6.2? get a stand alone kit or modify it your self?

[K20chevy]

Originally Posted by quadzero

I think that is one good looking rig and I like #2. Good lighting but you still see the excellent Chevy front in all it's glory. But being on a dark lonely road you would probly be thinking, "I should'a went with #9"

Thanks. #9 would only give me more distance over #2. All these setups are bright as heck!

Originally Posted by youngblood78

WoW this is one heck of a truck I could only dream of doing all this to my old 78 and that blue is the color ive always wanted on my truck. how did you do all of the wiring for the 6.2? get a stand alone kit or modify it your self?

Thank you. The blue is GM arrival blue metallic, I believe an ´03 color. The wiring harness is a custom stand alone harness from current performance. They also did the programming of the ECU. The rest of the truck is completely rewired with a pinless performance harness though. No old wiring in it at all. The headlights are using a custom harnes that I made up and the load leveling stuff for the headlights uses the Hella harness.

[motornut]

great work on the truck,can never have too many light options
the big older ones seem right,but the small ones look cool

[K20chevy]

Originally Posted by motornut

great work on the truck,can never have too many light options
the big older ones seem right,but the small ones look cool

Thanks! Well, what I like about the larger lights is that they have a structured lense for the driving beam and the clear parabolic reflector combo for the pencil beam, so that looks more old school than the new clear glass fre form reflector ones....

[motornut]

these are what i ran on my 88,and two still new

[smashingchuck]

very sweet build.

[85k30]

Love your truck! Cant wait to finish mine.

[K20chevy]

Originally Posted by motornut

these are what i ran on my 88,and two still new

Thanks for sharing!

Originally Posted by smashingchuck

very sweet build.

Thank you!

Originally Posted by 85k30

Love your truck! Cant wait to finish mine.

Thanks! Good luck finishing yours!

[cleansquare]

So what are your plan for this rig? Full time off road? Daily driver occasional offroad? No offroad? Lol. I'm gonna venture to say you have a fortune in drivetrain and axles. Almosttoo nice to get dirty!

[85k30]

I thought I was the only one crazy enough to put a zf trans in a square body. Glad to see one up and running!

[K20chevy]

Originally Posted by cleansquare

So what are your plan for this rig? Full time off road? Daily driver occasional offroad? No offroad? Lol. I'm gonna venture to say you have a fortune in drivetrain and axles. Almosttoo nice to get dirty!

Good question! It will be both, street legal and driven on the weekends to go anywhere, as well as my off road toy. Everybody tells me it is too nice to take it offraod, but that is what I built it for. Sure I won´t go rock crawling and smash it all up, but it´ll get used well both on and off road. It is no daily driver though.

Originally Posted by 85k30

I thought I was the only one crazy enough to put a zf trans in a square body. Glad to see one up and running!

It´s been up and running for quite a while now. I put the ZF in the truck in 2008 and ran it with the old 350 first. And then in 2009 I swapped in the 6.2l VVT engine. That took a while to get the electronics to work, but all in all the transmission has been working great for the last 6 years now. When will you have yours up and running?

[K20chevy]

Please keep the votes for the light setups coming! Thanks!

[K20chevy]

This is how the tank sits now. But I have to remove everything again and move the tank back to the very back of the frame rails in order to clear the mag hytec diff cover at full bump. The way the tank sits now, the cover will hit the tank about half way through bump travel.

The thing hanging on the wire is the rear ultrasonic load leveling sensor for the adaptive headlights.

I´ll also replace the aluminum tank straps that came with the tank with some stainless steel ones.

[85k30]

I was trying to finish it up by the end of April. But I ran into some trouble with my Howell harness and had to send it back to have it fixed. Hopefully they can get it working and back to me in the next few weeks.

[K20chevy]

Originally Posted by 85k30

I was trying to finish it up by the end of April. But I ran into some trouble with my Howell harness and had to send it back to have it fixed. Hopefully they can get it working and back to me in the next few weeks.

Good luck with that! You should start a build thread as well!!!

[K20chevy]

Teaser shot of the new bucket seats...

[K20chevy]

I did find a rust free original paint cab to replace my rusted out one. I thought while it is bare, I´ll have a roll cage build for it before paint and before putting it on the truck.

Here are some progress pics

[K20chevy]

[K20chevy]

More cage work

[85k30]

Looks tough!

[K20chevy]

Originally Posted by 85k30

Looks tough!

Thanks. It´ll look even thougher when on the truck and all completed!

[85k30]

What angle did you set that zf at? Factory 3 degrees, or a little steeper to match the rear pinion angle?

[K20chevy]

Originally Posted by 85k30

What angle did you set that zf at? Factory 3 degrees, or a little steeper to match the rear pinion angle?

It was actually set at 3 degrees but I had to space the engine up a little to clear the crossmember, so it is 5-6 degrees now.
I thought about notching the crossmember sometime, to lower the engine back down a bit, but too lazy to take the engine out just to do that now. When I take the truck back apart for paint and powder coating, then I might add the notch. It drives great the way it is though, so maybe I shouldn´t mess with it.

I´m running a rear 135CV shaft, so the pinion angle on my setup didn´t have to match the output of the t-case. All the angle comes from the CV. The 1410 u-joint at the axle is the same angle as the drive shaft tube.

[K20chevy]

More votes for the light setups please!!!!!! Thanks!

[K20chevy]

Some more progress on the cage...