'72 K5 - BYT - 1 ton swap

[bigblock72]

The best thing you can do to save yourself a lot of grief is go and register it as a classic, doesn't cost much to do and only costs 10 bucks a year to renew and you don't have to have a safety or and emission test done.

If you think you need to fix it; turn the idle mixture screws in about 3/4 of a turn each to fix your emission problems then bleed and adjust the rear brakes.

 

[ashman]

I may go register it as a classic just to avoid further hassle, but having one of the rear brakes not working is an issue I'd like to solve.

Near as I can tell, the brakes are bled correctly and I adjusted them out as far as I could and still get the drums over them (no hole in the back to do it with them on. ).
gonna try adjusting the mixture screws and timing tomorrow. I'll try your suggestion.

 

[ashman]

let there be heat!

finished installing this last night.

 

[Deuling]

Fantastic. Good looking install. Nothin kills motivation to work on your rig like the cold.

 

[fishinnutt]

Looks awesome, that will have progress coming quick. A little comfort goes a long ways.

 

[NorCal69]

Nice Ash. Still so jealous on your lid height in the mancave..

 

[ashman]

Looks awesome, that will have progress coming quick. A little comfort goes a long ways.

yeah... now if I can just get over being scared of tackling the bodywork...

 

[NorCal69]

yeah... now if I can just get over being scared of tackling the bodywork...

 

[ashman]

yeah, I'm more worried it'll go like this:
SH!T DAMMIT WTF?

 

[sponsoredbydad]

I know what you mean. I too was scared as hell, that feeling got me at least 2 1/2 years without working on it. It became the albatross in the garage that stored stuff. After I got started, I started to relax more and more and just pushed through it. After a while I was laughing at myself for being so scared. It's only metal, a mig and some gas and you can fix anything that comes up or gets messed up.

SWEET HEATER BY THE WAY

 

[ashman]

I know what you mean. I too was scared as hell, that feeling got me at least 2 1/2 years without working on it. It became the albatross in the garage that stored stuff. After I got started, I started to relax more and more and just pushed through it. After a while I was laughing at myself for being so scared. It's only metal, a mig and some gas and you can fix anything that comes up or gets messed up.

SWEET HEATER BY THE WAY

thanks man. This winter I fully intend to tackle a couple of spots that really need to be fixed before things get out of hand. When I do, you can be sure I'll be taking tons of pics and asking lots of questions. I've been putting it off long enough...

 

[Z71paramedic]

It's not so bad. Please, you have a warm, dry place to work on it! You'll do fine with the body work, just be sure to have 4-5 beers on hand for after making that first cut

 

[NorCal69]

just be sure to have 4-5 beers on hand for after making that first cut

and a chair... you're probably going to want to sit down for some time till that nausea feeling from deep down goes away.

 

[Z71paramedic]

and a chair... you're probably going to want to sit down for some time till that nausea feeling from deep down goes away.

I just rocked the floor, a chair seemed too high

 

[Greg72]

thanks man. This winter I fully intend to tackle a couple of spots that really need to be fixed before things get out of hand. When I do, you can be sure I'll be taking tons of pics and asking lots of questions. I've been putting it off long enough...

Ash,

Definitely start with a "confidence builder"... A simple floor patch repair was a good one for me. I think NorCal69 did a similar one.

You can practice making a patch and fitting it to the area, getting it flush and setting the welder for perfect sheetmetal penetration. I assume you are already set up with shielding gas? I wouldn't try to do bodywork with a flux welder.

As mentioned, the first cut is the hardest but I promise you there is an AMAZING feeling of confidence once you fight through that and have some success. It IS only metal...... No matter how badly your first attempts are, you can always cut it back out and try again.


-G

 

[ashman]

just be sure to have 4-5 beers on hand for after making that first cut

and a chair... you're probably going to want to sit down for some time till that nausea feeling from deep down goes away.

I just rocked the floor, a chair seemed too high

You guys are NOT helping!!

Greg: my floors are in great shape so no getting off on an easy flat piece, but there is a spot on the firewall I want to tackle. It's not flat, so I get the fun of trying to shape metal too , but we'll see how it goes. The other spot I really HAVE to get taken care of is on the windshield frame. That has me sweating!

I'll get pics up of both spots when I'm ready to get started, but first I have to rebuild my leaking hydroboost.

 

[Greg72]

The windshield frame has "index" marks on the inside lip where the weatherstrip goes... they look like little crescent-shaped cutouts and were used to line up the individual parts at the factory. You can use them to great effect when grafting in new metal as well... just make sure your donor parts are cut large enough to have the indexes as well.

I can explain it better later on if this didn't make sense.


-G

 

[NorCal69]

I have pics somewhere, Z's or my thread when I sent him the WS frame. Greg pointed out the index marks on the frame. Pretty cool. I'll dig em out when you get close.

 

[ashman]

The hydroboost unit I installed last year started leaking like sieve, so I decided to try and rebuild it.

I bought the rebuild kit for $35 and everything seemed simple enough.

split it open per instructions:

laid out all the parts so I wouldn't screw anything up:

put it all back together and tested it out...
brake pedal down and then never releases... I don't know what I screwed up, but for some reason the pressure never releases and I can't unlock the brakes.

anyway, just ordered a new one from O'reilly's instead. /sigh
I wasn't completely confident it wouldn't have leaked again anyway though. according to the instructions if there are any scratches on the main plunger you have to replace the unit.

as you can see here, there are some decent size scratches near the end of it that may have been the problem all along.

still, it's disappointing that I put it together wrong somehow. not sure what the issue could be though.

just figured I'd share a little of my fail.

 

[ashman]

I got the new hydroboost unit modified and installed without any major issues and it seems to be working just fine. It sucks that I had to spend close to $200 on it, but at least it's done and under a lifetime warranty.

I also came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to be able to afford to upgrade my axles anytime soon, so I bit the bullet and bought new tires for the rims I already have.

I think my next project is going to be fixing a rust through spot on the firewall:

I cut out a patch panel at the junkyard:

only cost me $3!

since I've never done a patch like this before, any advice is appreciated. my plan is to grind through the spot welds to remove the support pieces from the patch, then try and cut out the piece on my truck and cut the patch down to match the truck hole. hopefully there isn't any damage underneath the outside hole on the truck, but I guess we'll see when I cut it open.

I'm very nervous about getting into this, but I haven't tackled anything new on the truck in awhile and I'm getting the itch... and it needs to be done eventually.