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79' GMC C15 - Spruce Caboose

79 GMC 1500
These are complete shells not skins.
Even better.
Changing skins on a door is the last thing I want to do, big pain in the ass

That's what I had meant. Thanks.

Yea I've heard some chitty stories of guys doing door skin repairs, with LMC parts or whatever and definitely want nothing to do with it.
 
That's what I had meant. Thanks.

Yea I've heard some chitty stories of guys doing door skin repairs, with LMC parts or whatever and definitely want nothing to do with it.
Yeah I have done it before so I know first hand
 
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Yeah I have done it before so I know first hand

I'll take everyone's word for it haha. I also don't think my welding and fab skills would be up for that task. I had another set of doors here off a 3500 with the big tow mirrors but I think they can continue to collect dust since I found these.
 
Started picking apart all the pieces and disconnecting the harness. My engine stand hasnt shown up yet, so for now its living on the tire. My original plan was to delete the VATS system, get a tune put in it and re do the harness myself. After talking to rene about the whole process, I think the best plan is to go with a holley terminator x kit. Guys around here charge 4-500$ to delete vats and tune it ( a simple base tune), while doing the harness myself is probably doable..id swear A LOT:doah: and with the limited free time i have, itd be quicker and a better use of my time to go to work and make the money to substitute the harness purchase. Guys around here are charging 6-700$ for a nice new harness. The holley kit will only be about 3-400$ more but i will be able to learn to tune it myself, and as i add things to this motor depending on which route i go, i wont have to pay or bug someone to keep tuning it. The holley kits also support trans control, for now i will be bolting this up to my th350 so i wont be using it, but a 4l80 will be saught after eventually, for a better long distance cruiser.

I also pulled the pin on 3 inch drop spindles from belltech, rear shackles and hangers too. Kit came with their nitto drop shocks as well, so that should be showing up sooner than later.

IMG_20200920_161114.jpg
 
Got the motor on the stand and removed the harness and other things I won't be using. Actually starting to look like an engine now.
One manifold bolt is broken in the head ( PO ) hoping I can drill, tap, and weld a smaller bolt in it or something to get it out

PXL_20200925_012107818.jpg PXL_20200925_012101235.jpg

My next plan is keep cleaning and cleaning. The iron block is a tad rusty , and I'm hoping to paint the block Chevy orange so I'll have to buff it all with the angle grinder and some 3m pads.

I was wondering if anyone here can chime in on the Active fuel management systems on these LY5 motors .From my research the oil pump is high volume, half the lifters are different, and the valley cover is also different. I don't need to worry about deleting the afm from the computer since I won't be running it, but the cam lobes are also different. So I'm thinking a cam swap, lifters, valley cover and oil pump are in the books for this motor. Should probably change the timing chain while I'm in there too.

The other option is just to leave it alone and have it run off the holley tune, but I'd hate for a worn out lifter to fail as they are prone to doing on these afm/dod motors. much easier to do these things on a stand than in the truck..

The maws are really hard to ignore when I think about opening up this motor..:whistle::doah:
 
You can get an AFM delete kit that replaces the lifters and valley cover just to eliminate a potential failure.

https://www.texas-speed.com/p-7379-...ce-dod-afm-delete-kit-for-536062-engines.aspx

That's a nice looking kit, lots of options. Thanks!

I've read that if you put new regular lifters in, the cam also has to be changed so the lobes on the cam match those 4 lifters you just replaced, since the stock cam lobes are shaped for those AFM lifters in those 4 cylinders.
 
I haven't heard that but it wouldn't surprise me. If you are already that deep though a cam is cheap and Texas Speed is one of the best LS shops out there.
 
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I haven't heard that but it wouldn't surprise me. If you are already that deep though a cam is cheap and Texas Speed is one of the best LS shops out there.
I've got a 2015 silverado 5.3L at the dealer now for work. It had a miss and they said it had a couple lifters fail so they were gonna do all 4 on that side. Then the found a bad pushrod or two and a bad cam. Quoted me $6k to do the repairs. It's got 65k miles on it but like 14k hours of run time. We are doing a used engine we got for like $3k plus another $4k to put it in. Fun stuff, glad it's not my money.
 
Got the motor on the stand and removed the harness and other things I won't be using. Actually starting to look like an engine now.
One manifold bolt is broken in the head ( PO ) hoping I can drill, tap, and weld a smaller bolt in it or something to get it out
If it's an exhaust manifold bolt broken, it's common for the rear one to break.
 
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I haven't heard that but it wouldn't surprise me. If you are already that deep though a cam is cheap and Texas Speed is one of the best LS shops out there.


Yea I'll def poke around. I'm far away from texas so shipping might be brutal but if it's worth it. It's worth it!
I've got a 2015 silverado 5.3L at the dealer now for work. It had a miss and they said it had a couple lifters fail so they were gonna do all 4 on that side. Then the found a bad pushrod or two and a bad cam. Quoted me $6k to do the repairs. It's got 65k miles on it but like 14k hours of run time. We are doing a used engine we got for like $3k plus another $4k to put it in. Fun stuff, glad it's not my money.

Ah no way. Yea I've been reading bad things about the 2009 and newer models for those problems, as well as 2007-09 when they introduced the Afm systems.

Yea I didn't pay much for this motor around 1200 bucks, I don't mind sinking a couple grand into it to ensure it'll have a good life hopefully. I'm not going to take any chances, I'd rather put the work in now on the stand. It's just hard to know which route to take. This is the first motor I've ever really messed around with in terms of cam lift, springs ect.. not sure if I should put a cam in that's over .050 lift and then run bigger springs or just buy a cam that will work with stock lift and be happy for now.
 
I don't like doing things twice or spending money twice but I also don't have a flourishing money tree haha..

And I think it's just all a part of building something and I better just get used to it
 
Got some more stripped. Also found all the rockers have this marking on the rear side of them. Covers are a tad gunky but nothing that didn't wipe off easily with a cloth. Everything looks ok for now. Seems like the front seal in the timing cover is leaking a little. Might pop it off and see what the chain is looking like. And if im doing a cam, it seems like the 3 bolt cams are better..? So maybe a new cam sprocket could go in too.. ohh the rabbit hole is black and deep :whistle:

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https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-8713-1

Thinking of going with this cam. Nice it comes with the ls6 style springs to accommodate the extra lift. I will need a larger stall converter for the th350 but that's something I can buy when the time comes to slam it in which won't be for a little while.

Anyone have any bad experience with summit cams?
 
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/tfs-30678503

Also this is the only afm/dod kit that will ship to Canada atm. It has the pcv on the valley cover but mine is located on valve covers. I can just plug this right? Trickflow doesn't seem to make a kit that doesn't have the valve at the front and this one includes a plug...

And my valley cover has a sensor at the rear of it which I don't see on many of these kits and I'm not sure what it does. ( Not the vertical oil pressure plug ) the black horizontal one
 
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Aaand I figured out it's the electrical connectors for the solenoids in the oil valley cover. No shit the non AFM/DOD motors don't have them :whistle:
 
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