CK5
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79' GMC C15 - Spruce Caboose

79 GMC 1500
i also have spare mirrors and some other things that would fit in a box i think.

hmmm this has me thinking..... Secret santa thread would be cool. I know christmas is a shit time for me because of some childhood memories of the ol man passing away, but maybe it would be a cool way to give some people a nice suprise in a time when lots of people are alone, or fighting something poeple are unaware of.
 
Made some solid progress on getting the seats in the truck. Ordered some upholstry for the bucket seats. Black madrid vinyl with oxen vinyl inserts.. I have no idea what that means but black on black is good for me. The mint dash pad i had found was black, carpet i ordered was black, and im just going to follow suit. I was hoping theyd have the green to match my truck, but they only had the lighter olive green color. Some dark green seats would be cool.


The outside bracket ( closest to the doors ) lined up with both holes, even though i read one wouldnt line up.. oh well not complaining! The angle at the rear or the bracket needed to be bent up so that it planted on the floor much better.



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I had spare steel laying around and some anger to release with a hammer so i took a stab at making the bucket seat brackets.. Turns out a hammer and some anger is really all ya need sometimes.


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Turned out decent so i figured id make another. Its a little thick for what i wanted, but i didnt have any thinner scrap until i hit like 14g. Once i got them all done and stoked to see how the buckets fit. I realize the bucket seat sliders i got, are missing the _n_ shaped piece on the bottom that attaches the bracket (single bolt), to the seat(2).

Finding the seat brackets online, i quickly saw what was missing. I measured off the back bracket and its 7/8ths high off the slider bracket, including material thickness. I decided to sacrafice my metal straight edge since it was the perfect width already, and a thick enough to be too strong for some seat mounts. I drilled 3, 3/8th holes in them for mounting. The mounting holes for the seat side are on 3 1/2 inch centres, with the single mounting hole at 1 3/4 in from both holes.

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Turns out the oil burner is also good for flashing off the thin base coat with some good heat... the styrophoam, probably not such a good idea.
 
Are you using modified Suburban sliders on the buckets? You can ignore the bracket pics i sent you via PM bolted to the seat, they were the older style.

You can use a rivet nut on the mounting holes of the weld in floor brackets or weld a nut to the back side. They should be spaced approx 11-7/8 to 12 inches on center from the original bench seat hole. I would just bolt them loose to the bucket to rough align them to tack weld.
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Are you using modified Suburban sliders on the buckets? You can ignore the bracket pics i sent you via PM bolted to the seat, they were the older style.

You can use a rivet nut on the mounting holes of the weld in floor brackets or weld a nut to the back side. They should be spaced approx 11-7/8 to 12 inches on center from the original bench seat hole. I would just bolt them loose to the bucket to rough align them to tack weld.
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As for the sliders I'm not sure. I know they weren't from a truck because the passenger seat isn't stationary, the seats were out of an 85 blazer from what I was told, so maybe the brackets are from the same? What doesn't make sense to me about them being blazer seats is that they don't hinge, so i don't think he knows properly. I'm thinking they are suburban front seats and suburban sliders but having never owned a burb, im just guessing.

Okay yea in the pm I was wondering if you still welded the brackets to the floor or mounted them , I'd rather weld them though since I already have to put 2 holes in the floor for the rear inner bracket bolts.

Rivet bolts. That explains it... I was looking at your mounts and wondering what kinda nice sorcery was going on there. Would those be suitable for the floor as well. Or should a wide flange type capture nut thingy be used, like the factory style?
 
As for the sliders I'm not sure. I know they weren't from a truck because the passenger seat isn't stationary, the seats were out of an 85 blazer from what I was told, so maybe the brackets are from the same? What doesn't make sense to me about them being blazer seats is that they don't hinge, so i don't think he knows properly. I'm thinking they are suburban front seats and suburban sliders but having never owned a burb, im just guessing.

Okay yea in the pm I was wondering if you still welded the brackets to the floor or mounted them , I'd rather weld them though since I already have to put 2 holes in the floor for the rear inner bracket bolts.

Rivet bolts. That explains it... I was looking at your mounts and wondering what kinda nice sorcery was going on there. Would those be suitable for the floor as well. Or should a wide flange type capture nut thingy be used, like the factory style?
The only difference between Blazer and Suburban seats is the Suburban seats have arm rests. You can bolt Suburban sliders on the K5 seats.

You can also bolt the bench sliders on the driver side bucket seat with the little adapter you made then shorten the wire. The only difference between pickup and Suburban sliders are the rear section. Pickup cab floors turn up at the back while Suburban floors turn down. However, there is no bench slider with a passenger side handle.

For the floor mounting in the rear, I would tack weld a large fender washer under the floor (or have a helper hold it in place) and rivet nut through the washer and original floor at a minimum. The rivet nut can hold the washer in place and distribute and load offer a wider area. The other option is to cut the hardware from a donor floor and weld it on. Either way, there isn't much load on the seat hardware if people use seat belts in an accident. The seat belts hold you and the seat down to the cab.

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The only difference between Blazer and Suburban seats is the Suburban seats have arm rests. You can bolt Suburban sliders on the K5 seats.

You can also bolt the bench sliders on the driver side bucket seat with the little adapter you made then shorten the wire. The only difference between pickup and Suburban sliders are the rear section. Pickup cab floors turn up at the back while Suburban floors turn down. However, there is no bench slider with a passenger side handle.

For the floor mounting in the rear, I would tack weld a large fender washer under the floor (or have a helper hold it in place) and rivet nut through the washer and original floor at a minimum. The rivet nut can hold the washer in place and distribute and load offer a wider area. The other option is to cut the hardware from a donor floor and weld it on. Either way, there isn't much load on the seat hardware if people use seat belts in an accident. The seat belts hold you and the seat down to the cab.

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Awesome, thanks for the info. I will get a few of those for the brackets, and use the wide factory style that picks up more floor space as well, or go the route you were mentioning with the rivet nuts and washers.
 
I found myself overthinking seat anchoring. Like @kennyw said, the seatbelts are doing all of the hard work. The seat hardware just has to hold the seat in place in a street car.
 
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I found myself overthinking seat anchoring. Like @kennyw said, the seatbelts are doing all of the hard work. The seat hardware just has to hold the seat in place in a street car.
In the event of an accident or roll over, you still want the load to be spread out with a washer and not tear through the sheetmetal. But that load is your body pushing on the seat spread over at least a couple of the mounting points. Think of it as a lever prying the seat bracket over sideways. The seatbelts still hold most of the load in that case, but as a mechanical engineer designing things, I will take that out of the equation and size it as if the seatbelt didn't help so it is overly conservative. In a Suburban or K5 it would be critical for the seat falling over backwards in a rear end collision. In a regular cab, the seat hits the cab in a worst case.
 
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In the event of an accident or roll over, you still want the load to be spread out with a washer and not tear through the sheetmetal. But that load is your body pushing on the seat spread over at least a couple of the mounting points. Think of it as a lever prying the seat bracket over sideways. The seatbelts still hold most of the load in that case, but as a mechanical engineer designing things, I will take that out of the equation and size it as if the seatbelt didn't help so it is overly conservative. In a Suburban or K5 it would be critical for the seat falling over backwards in a rear end collision. In a regular cab, the seat hits the cab in a worst case.
That is true, there are the lateral loads. Especially the scenario of getting rear ended. I've seen seat backs get broken from that so there is a lot of load on the bolts in those cases.
 
In the event of an accident or roll over, you still want the load to be spread out with a washer and not tear through the sheetmetal. But that load is your body pushing on the seat spread over at least a couple of the mounting points. Think of it as a lever prying the seat bracket over sideways. The seatbelts still hold most of the load in that case, but as a mechanical engineer designing things, I will take that out of the equation and size it as if the seatbelt didn't help so it is overly conservative. In a Suburban or K5 it would be critical for the seat falling over backwards in a rear end collision. In a regular cab, the seat hits the cab in a worst case.

Ahh okay yea makes perfect sense. I think ill have some washers laying around from some new 3/4 inch grade 8 bolts i never used. I know when i replaced the rear kick panel seat belt mount in the blazer, i kept the factory mount and reused it.
 
I got the oil bypass cover drilled and tapped for the 1/8 npt thread, manual oil pressure line. Never tapped aluminum before, and didnt know if it was going to be easier to mess up because the shavings and material is softer, so i just backed the tap out 3 times in the process of going in, sprayed out with air and oiled.

Due to the proximity to the header and the plastic line, i wanted to have it come out and follow the engine parallel as possible, towards the front of the motor. So i tapped it on and angle... despite contemplating it for a bit. Im realizing now its still going to be quite close.. and some brass line would be nice to have running up to the firewall in the future, when she becomes a daily.



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I don't trust that plastic line, copper is way better.
Yea ive only ever used it once before with the previous gauge in this truck with a 350. Hopefully the copper fittings are also 1/8 npt thread for when this gets switched over.


Now that ive googled the copper stuff im kicking myself because the kits are the same price :doah:... tuition never ends
 
last thing id need is oil spraying out on the headers.... although probably pretty exciting, i think ill pass on the opportunity
 
That's why I always end up with electrical gauges. Just easier to connect.
 
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Understood for sure. I already have the electronic gauge going to the ECU, and i dont think i want to tap a hole big enough in the block , just for another electronic sending unit. Having rarely used taps , this was a good way to break the ice without stabbing the block as well
 
for a little while i was wondering if the same sensor up top in the valley pan would supply two gauges. one in the ECU and one onboard in the cab?
 
You can definitely tee into the top one. It might be a weird fitting though and I think it has a screen too.
As far as tapping stuff just go easy and check with your fitting while tapping to make sure you don't go too deep since it's a tapered fit. Sucks when you do that. Thin materials it's easy to do. Also don't go too tight and crack it when installing the fitting either.
Surprised you didn't go with BSP(British standard pipe) with all that metric shit you got going on. Lol.
 
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