HAPPY then SAD. . . . .

[custom97]

Not sure if it goes here but here we with my new purchase and my build. Well I finally found a squarebody. We picked it up Sunday and both my son and I were very excited to bring her home. You should of seen his face light up when we first saw and test drive it. He has all these ideas running thru head. I was telling my wife, I'll never forget the excitement in his eyes when he was talking about this truck. Growing up, unfortunately I didn't have that luxury of having somebody to share that first car, first project and I'm glad I can now share it with my boy. But enough of that here's some pics of the new member to my household and to squarebody family. Now the sad part of this morning. You know, not everyone out there is very honest and forthcoming about vehicles and us as buyers we have the responsiblily of checking our purchases. But when deceit is part of the equation, there is no way to know. It was a good thing I didn't drive this truck home because I would have gotten stranded and aggravated. I'm kind of mad now but you everything can be fixed right. I popped the cap off the radiator this morning and low and behold no fluid in the radiator. OUCH. I checked all the fluids before the purchase and it all checked you know but again when there is deception in order to sell a vehicle you can't never tell. Hoping it's not the intake cause I don't want to do another one. Sorry for the rant so early in the morning but it just annoys me off. Enjoy the pics:





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[Desert1957]

First of all , DON'T panic. It may be something very minor.

Do Not assume its something major with out checking some simple things.

Remember these trucks are OLD, you need to be aware of some age related problems like coolant and oil leaks.

*Refill the radiator with coolant.
*Do a visual to see if there are any leaks.
*If you find a leak, try and determine where its coming from.
*If no leaks are present , obtain a radiator pressure tested to pressure test the system
*If no leaks are present remove the tester, re-install the radiator cap and warm up the engine.
*Does it run smooth?
*Check for excess smoking from the tailpipe, let the motor warm up.

If you have NO external leaks, you need to check for other internal engine problems.

Do these steps first and let us know what you find , everyone here will help you as much as we can.

Desert

PS: Nice clean truck, looks like a great starting point for whatever you have panned.

[75chev4x4]

So it had coolant when you looked at it before you bought it and now it doesnt? Thats strange, does it seem to be leaking anywhere? Have you checked your oil to see how it looks? Call the person you bought it from and ask them maybe they can tell you whats going on. I wouldnt worry too much, your right everything can be fixed and youll get it straight.

[jjzepplin]

Nice looking truck. The boy should be happy! And maybe he will learn to do some engine work now too. And then it will run even better

[motornut]

it looks nice,very solid,hope it's not serious

[78 Big10 454]

Sharp looking ride. You made a wise choice for a father/son project, even with the potential cooling system problem. Whatever the problem is, that's quality time with your son in getting it solved and your hands dirty.

[68Timber]

Hope its nothing serious, that's a beautiful truck. Love the color combo.

[DREAMER1]

You can stop at autozone or Oreillys...they'll loan you the pressure tester thingy for free. Just hook it up where your radiator cap goes, pump it up and look for leaks.
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[RastaRobb]

Ahh, the problems are part of the expereince. This is the first, and a long way from the last of the things you two get to figure out. Part of enjoying the ride is just getting it to run. It will be great.

[Tx Firefighter]

If it runs real smooth and your oil isn't milky, its probably something external and minor. Water pump, leaky hose, radiator.
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[bnoon]

Originally Posted by Tx Firefighter

If it runs real smooth and your oil isn't milky, its probably something external and minor. Water pump, leaky hose, radiator.
Posted via Mobile Device

Gotta check the plugs too because I've had the head gasket leak into a cylinder without leaking into the crankcase, but if it drained the entire cooling system it's more than likely an external leak anyway. Good luck!

[custom97]

Got some stuff done to the truck. Removed the rails, tool box and rear bumper. Washed her up and got her looking alot better. Found a rear bumper off a Burban but the guy gave me the wrong brackets. Not sure if I can make them work or not.

[mrolds88]

Nice ride. One other thing to check might be the heater core.

[ronnyT]

Nice looking truck! I can see why your son is so happy with it...

On another note though I once got an early 90s Honda from some friends in return for some work. It needed a crank sensor and some other odds and ends but I got it running and drove it about 200 miles in the course of a couple weeks and it ran great. I put it up on craigslist and had a guy come and let him take it to a dealership for a big money 2-3hr used car test. He came back a few days later and bought the car for around $1800 or so. A few days after that he calls me and tells me the coolant went low and his kid kept driving it and blew the headgasket on the highway. I had already used the money to pay down some cc debt and couldn't have offered him anything even if I wanted to. He was pretty mad but after I drove the car and he had the dealership test and at least an hour test drive I really felt like I wasn't responsible anyways. I apologized that this happened but it had to have been a freak thing since I never added a drop of coolant and it was good at the dealership too. Didn't matter to him though he called me just about every name in the book. Sometimes old cars break, it happens

Good luck with the fix, hope it isn't too bad

[caramaro]

that's a very nice truck i'm sure it's a minor fix just be glad you didn't get stranded in it, it can always be worse things are gonna happen with these old trucks

[custom97]

Thanks to all the compliments. My son seems to be enjoying this more than I am. Installed the Burban rear bumper and a flip kit. Just need to do the front, waiting on my drop spindles.





Also cleaned the center caps:
Before


After:

[y5mgisi]

Cool truck man!

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

Nice looking truck looks like a great place to start. That sucks about the coolant hopefully its something easy. Looks like a good father/son project what a great way to connect!

[bnoon]

So, you've done a lot of work already and no word on the coolant situation. Did you figure it out already, or do you just like to do work to yard art that can't be driven?

[custom97]

I guess it is yard art for now.

[Tx Firefighter]

Pull all 8 spark plugs, pour water into the radiator until full and use a pressure tester borrowed from the parts store tool rental thing. Pump pressure and see where its leaking.

It might be a split heater hose, a 30 dollar water pump, who knows ? You might be fretting over nothing.

I will say though, if its something external to the engine, I'd do a full cooling system overhaul for reliability. A solid 100 dollars worth of parts will replace the main items in the cooling system and get you on the road to reliability.
Posted via Mobile Device

[custom97]

Got it, thanks.

[piecesparts]

I also hope that you are not experiencing anything big on this, however, my guess would be a head gasket failure on this truck. If it is a 305 engine, then there was a lot of them that experienced a crack in the heads that caused a lot of coolant leakage issues. Been there, experienced that. I removed my old 305 and put in a GM 350 in it's place many years ago and got many miles out of it, before I put ina stroker engine for more HP.

[custom97]

Well, when I did the oil change on the truck nothing out of the ordinary came out. Unless you count the overdue BLACK oil from the oil pan. No milky looking residue or anything like that. When my 97 was losing coolant it really didn't show any signs of milky oil except the oil filler cap was rusty looking on the inside. That's kinda what drove me to do the intake gaskets. Sure enough when I pulled that intake off, it still had OEM gaskets and were in bad shape. Truck is not smoking white and not overheating so I'm leaning to another set of FELPRO intake gaskets. Eventually I want to go to a stroker engine so I don't want shed to much cash on this engine.

[custom97]

I redid my steering and suspension on the 86 this past weekend. The bushings were a PIA but with some help of some coworkers we finished them at work. I went ahead and replaced everything with MOOG to save me some headaches down the road. I've got to do a braked job later, the brake pads are low but not bad yet. I went ahead and used a 2.5 drop spindle and cut a full coil off the original spring. I sure am liking the stance now. I installed 2 new rear tires and ordered the front because they didn't have the in stock. Went with 245 60 15 for the front and 275 60 15 for the rear. The rears look real good in the back. Have to get used to seeing the truck sit so low. Hope to get my fronts tomorrow and then do my alignment soon after that.