'90 K5 "Project Sanity" Sold 7/5/2018

[tRustyK5]

I'll be honest, the hardest part will have nothing to do with OCD. What will be hard is resisting the temptation to "temporarily" bolt up the NV4500/203/205, one ton diffs, 4-6" springs and start building a cage for it. To have the good parts just sitting here is a huge temptation! Those parts are meant for the Crew though and I have to stick to that.

What does help is my budget is really modest right now, and I really like the look of the 15" ralley's on a K5. I have no idea what gears this truck has...I'm hoping it has 3.73's then I can step up to 33's (used).

I definitely want to wheel it dead stock at least a few times though. I've never really wheeled a stock K5. At least it has a winch...I've never owned a winch before.

I'll take a bunch of pic's when I get it home. It's a real pigsty right now, should be good for a laugh anyways.

Rene

Good work Rene!

The hardest part (for an OCD-type guy) is going to be NOT taking every aspect of the truck to the Nth degree....

There will probably be a good deal of satisfaction to be had with just doing basic cleanup of the truck, maybe force some kind of discipline with yourself that says "No project can take more than 8 hours to complete, and cost no more than $200"... That way you never allow the truck to take up residence on a set of jackstands for weeks at a time and it helps insure that you really DRIVE it.

There are certainly plenty of small projects that can bring it back to "reliable wheeler" status... replacing spring bushings, motor/tranny mounts, ball joints...fuild changes, re-pack wheel bearings, etc. Clean and rattlecan some of the old and crusty areas and call it good.

Keep the tires on the small side and avoid the avalanche of upgrades that larger tires always seem to cause!

Looking forward to some more details pics!

 

[tRustyK5]

Take some brake fluid too, in case the wheel cylinders have been leaking while it has sat. Maybe a grease gun to give those zert's a quick hit.

I will bring some. I did check the MC and it was 3/4 full in both resevoirs and the fluid was decent looking. Not clear/brand new, but also not rusty or crusty looking. Backing plates and calipers were dry and the brake pedal felt good. A grease gun is probably a good idea.

Rene

 

[Corey 78K5]

You know Rene you could do a project with this one, but on the opposite end of the spectrum. Basically a restoration over time, or if you like just making the thing sano. I know a few guy's who have some older trucks who don't mod them, but they take pride in them and keep them in tip top shape. Now the ones who wash their frames are a bit over the top.

 

[bp71k5]

Depending onhow fancy you want to get, you could bring a laptop and buy/borrow an aldl cable and check out why the engine light is on. The paper clip and a manual with the list of engine codes would work too, but counting those dumb flashing light codes can be kinda annoying.

 

[tRustyK5]

I have a laptop, but no aldl cable. i wouldn't know where to get one either. I think that's gonna be a great thing to do, but not til it's home. I'll spend today doing some reading on the whole laptop/aldl thing in the injection section...

For the short term I'll do the paperclip thing tomorrow to at least narrow it down some.

Rene

 

[chulisohombre]

good find and good luck not workin out any bigger mods than nessessary.should be fun if you can stop yourself from overthinkin the build.it does sound like the coil is bad.when it goes bad,it will heat up to the point where it seperates when overheated and stops workin.should be able to check across the contacts on the coil.check my next post i put the actual readings from the book.

 

[tRustyK5]

I have another coil sitting in front of me. Which contacts do you mean exactly?

Rene

 

[wayne]

Take the coil, temp switch, and a TPS. Pumping the gas could be a bad
TPS. I had that happen in the past. The truck running fine then acting up when warm could be the temp switch next to the t-stat housing. That happened on my 90 Jimmy a few months after I sold it to a friend of mine.

 

[wayne]

Got your PM and responded. I thought I would post this here for others to look at.

http://www.73-87chevytrucks.com/techinfo/TroubleshootingTBISystems.pdf

 

[chulisohombre]

I have another coil sitting in front of me. Which contacts do you mean exactly?

Rene

first check primary resistance by checking between the positive batt terminals and tach on the cap with it unplugged and removed from the dizzy.should show o to 1 ohms.if it is above one ohm replace the coil.to check secondary windings hook up 1 lead to center of cap and one to tach lead on cap.should show above 6000 but below 30000 ohms.anything more or less than that replace the coil.test 3 if those two were good would be to hook 1 lead to neg wire and to the center of cap.sould show infinite resistance.if less than infinite it is grounded out internally and then replace the coil.those are the 3 tests and ranges to look for.if any of those checks dont look right then replace the coil.

 

[AJMBLAZER]

first check primary resistance by checking between the positive batt terminals and tach on the cap with it unplugged and removed from the dizzy.should show o to 1 ohms.if it is above one ohm replace the coil.to check secondary windings hook up 1 lead to center of cap and one to tach lead on cap.should show above 6000 but below 30000 ohms.anything more or less than that replace the coil.test 3 if those two were good would be to hook 1 lead to neg wire and to the center of cap.sould show infinite resistance.if less than infinite it is grounded out internally and then replace the coil.those are the 3 tests and ranges to look for.if any of those checks dont look right then replace the coil.

Are you thinking of a regular coil or a TBI coil? I haven't had a TBI engine since 2002 but your description sounds unfamiliar to me. Might just be me though.

 

[82355]

What is irregular about a TBI coil?

Martin

 

[AJMBLAZER]

I dunno, now I think I'm misreading what he had written. I do remember having a mechanic get all confused about my coil because it wasn't the old "soda bottle" style coil though.

 

[tRustyK5]

Well i went out there this morning and brought a coil, a TPS sensor, and a coolant temp sensor with me.

I started right in and replaced the coil and the TPS, then diconnected the battery (to clear the codes) While I was waiting for a little bit I used my cordless drill to raise the rear glass. Glass goes up...always a good sign.

I re-connected the battery, crossed my fingers and tried to start it. It started right away, no pumping of the gas. I did get a Check engine light immediately though, and I had to keep my foot on the throttle a little bit as it warmed up. After a minute or so it settled into a nice smooth normal idle. I was already pretty tickled, so i let it warm up more as I got all my crap together for the drive home. Just as I was about to pull out it was like someone flipped a switch and it went super rich, flooded out and died.

That was what it was doing before. At this point I'm having misgivings about driving it home. I did still have the coolant temp sensor I could swap though...so with nothing to lose I swapped in the sensor i had with me and tried it once again. It fired right up, took 10 seconds to clear out the excess fuel and sat there running smoothly again! 30 seconds later the Check Engine light went out and never came back on.

Pretty uneventful drive home after that. It is a bit rough around the edges, but has never been "messed with". It even still has the stock radio, and everything works except for the rear gate glass...but it came with a second complete tailgate. I hope i can make one functional one out of the two of them.

Tranny is definitely original. I have never felt such a soft shifting 700R-4 in my life. It does have all 4 gears plus the lock-up though. Motor seems to have decent power.

I'll get it cleaned out and stuff this weekend and snap some much better pics. Thanks to Wayne for the stellar diagnosis!!! He hit a grand slam in my opinion. Judging by the parts lying around inside the truck they've been trying to fix this for quite a while. There are three distributors, two coils, a Q-jet (plan b maybe) all lying around inside the truck.

I just went out and tried starting it dead cold. No gas pedal at all, it fired up on the second or third turn. Smooth right away with the idle initially at about 800-900 and falling to 650-700 after about 5 seconds. Exactly as it should be from everything I remember.

Rene

 

[stockk5]

Good work Rene!

The hardest part (for an OCD-type guy) is going to be NOT taking every aspect of the truck to the Nth degree....

There will probably be a good deal of satisfaction to be had with just doing basic cleanup of the truck, maybe force some kind of discipline with yourself that says "No project can take more than 8 hours to complete, and cost no more than $200"... That way you never allow the truck to take up residence on a set of jackstands for weeks at a time and it helps insure that you really DRIVE it.

There are certainly plenty of small projects that can bring it back to "reliable wheeler" status... replacing spring bushings, motor/tranny mounts, ball joints...fuild changes, re-pack wheel bearings, etc. Clean and rattlecan some of the old and crusty areas and call it good.

Keep the tires on the small side and avoid the avalanche of upgrades that larger tires always seem to cause!

Looking forward to some more details pics!

this is the truth... i kinda live by this in the sense of i will not allow my truck to be off the road for longer than 1month MAX and i start going crazy after like a week.

 

[COCHEV]

Congrates, Rene! Everyone should have at least one k5 at all times

I'm always on the look out for that under a grand gem... and these days they are poping up everywere...

 

[Supreme70]

Nice to hear TrustyK5, I just scored an 89 Jimmy for $900. Im pretty pumped to start working on it.

 

[4X4HIGH]

Rene, pull the distributor from your spare engine, ignition modules like to give up the ghost when they get too warm/hot as well as a coil failure. Coil failures are pretty rare so i would suspect the igntion module long before a coil. You can easily replace just the ignition module without having to pull the dizzy but sometimes the pick-up coil goes bad as well and that is located deep within the distributor and the distributor has to come out and all the way apart to change it (easier at that point to just swap a complete distributor).

 

[tRustyK5]

There is a complete spare TBI distributor that i found in the truck, plus of course the distributor from the Crew Cab motor. However, the K5 runs like a champ. Start and runs exactly as it should now. Turn key, no gas, and it fires up very quickly. Idle slightly high initially but settling to normal within 5 or 6 seconds. No miss or hesitation now, no CEL.

I need to fix the exhaust and get it through emissions testing and it'll be good to go I think.

I think at this point it was $800 because of the problem it had. Fixing that problem cost me exactly nothing thanks to CK5. I don't see any reason it won't pass the emissions testing either. It has no cat, but anything over 15 years old it isn't an auto-fail as long as it passes the tailpipe test.

I plan to spend several hours cleaning this thing, and fixing the exhaust...hopefully getting it officially on the road this next weekend.

Rene

 

[wayne]

I'm glad it worked out for you. I love the TBI engines for their simplisity. The only real stumper I ever ran into with one was when I did the crate motor swap in the K5. I could not get it running the way it should to save my life. It turned out to be the dizzy got bent just a hair and that's all it took. Finally got it up and running and was setting the timing at 2am and needed to be leaving at 6:30am to head out to a rock crawl demo.