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1989 V3500 - The 1Ton SSB

Old junk turned into expensive old junk

K5chevyLQ4

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K5chevyLQ4 submitted a new Build:

1989 V3500 - The 1Ton SSB

Welcome to the build. This is my second squarebody build and my personal dream truck. I have built this truck in my head since I bought my first K5 almost 14 years ago. I am self taught and have been learning/lurking on CK5 and pirate since 2005. Anyways, on to the truck...

I will try to keep the words to a minimum and the pics kinda in order.
I bought this truck in 2014 with a blown 6.2 diesel for $1K. It had all the goodies. Th400, round pattern np205 with fixed yokes, 1 tons with 4.56 gears.

TO BE CONTINUED...

Read more about this build here...
 
Picked up a set of 42” iroks. At the time I was building a rig with the intention of towing it to off-road parks.

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First thing was getting the wheelbase cut down to short bed length and converting the DRW Dana 60 hubs converted to SRW. A trip to the local machinist had that complete.

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Small block in. On to the rear.
Mocked up the rear hangers for 56” springs originally. They were too flat and stiff so I picked up a new set of ford 57” springs. They were much softer and lot more free arch.
Chopped off over two feet of frame!

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So a year or so later I finally get a chance to get back to work on the truck. Spent a lot of time collecting parts and researching.
Converted it from diesel to a small block on propane.
I tried to make a Qjet work off-road on my K5 and quickly found another option.

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Next was the bed. I bought a mig welder and started teaching myself to weld and practicing on smaller projects.
This was my first big attempt at fabing/welding. I wanted an off-road flat bed that didn’t weigh a ton and allowed me to mount bed sides. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

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Here is a few pictures of the bedsides being cut down. Took exactly 12” out. First time welding sheet metal :eek1:

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A little bit of body filler and paint

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And to make the bedside easily removable I wired the tail lights with weather-pack connectors. Turned out awesome.

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I loved the look and functionality of Kurt’s aluminum dash but couldn’t justify the cost. I didn’t want to patch/hack up the factory dash to make aftermarket gauges fit so I decided to build something of my own.
:hack:

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At some point along the way I decided that if I’m going to build my dream truck then it want to be able to drive it wherever I want (not just a off-road wheeler). So the build took a small turn.
Sold the 42s in favor of a set of more street friendly 38” Toyos.
Can’t run propane very easily on the street so that had to go as well.
No way I’m going back to a carb so fuel injection it is!

And now I really start dropping some cash in the build.
Fuel injection = LS swap :saweet::woot:

Pictures are coming :cool:
 
Building the engine was definitely my favorite part of this build. I picked up a locked up 6.0 lq4 from a buddy of mine for $300 bucks.DB4AFF58-05BB-4431-93C1-1A5730A8EC6B.jpeg8C55AFB2-17DB-43E1-8417-EB978FC8C14E.jpeg
I didn’t intend on doing anything with it for a while but I couldn’t wait to tear into it.
WARNING... LS carnage ahead.
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A little bit of rust in a couple cylinders, no big deal.
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Hmm this lifter is not coming out....
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Well that might be why lol
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The crank was also seized and wouldn’t budge. Dropped all the pistons that I could easily reach and it still wouldn’t turn. I really thought I was about to scrap the whole engine. I eventually got it torn down after some trick wrenching and a lot of cussing.

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And off the machine shop it goes.

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The engine numbers indicated that it was a 2006 motor and the rods were the second generation with the floating piston pins :thumb:
The machinist honed the rods, bored the engine 20 over, align honed the mains and checked the new crank balance for me.
While all that was getting done I was cleaning up parts and ordering everything I needed to finish the rebuild. I think the mail man hated me after this month :rotfl:

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