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A friend got a new truck.

The Griff

The Griff

High drag, low speed
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Well last night a friend of mine sold his 92 Chevy K1500 with 300,000 miles and bought a new body style 99 Chevy C1500 with 160,000 miles.

His old red 92's body was an absolute pile, but it ran awfully good, and it was his first, and he says last 4wd. Now this 99 has a perfect body, but the vortec 4.3 it has honestly sounds like it has square pistons, it sounded like it was going to explode any second.

Today we spent all day trying to get the 4.3 out. Me and this friend have done quite a few motor swaps before, but this is by far the most difficult, so much damn spaghetti, there are no two bolts the same size, we had to use a pipe wrench to get the trans cooler lines off, and just how in the hell does the fan come off? Does it thread off? Do the 4 bolts do anything?

We have a carbed 305 with motor mounts that is ready to go in it, but at this pace it might be valentines day before it goes in it.

Half rant / half just sharing.
 
For the fan if you have a big enough wrench put it on and hit it once loose it will spin off. The clutch is also counter clockwise.
 
It doesn't matter it if had 500 HP, it still has zero oil pressure when warm and it sounds like its ready to throw a piston through the hood any second.

Were putting the 305 in it because he has it, it runs fine and it needs to be running by the weekend.

Are we going to be able to make the gauges work? Don't these trucks have a computer for that?
 
Well its either the 305 or a very tired 2.8 V6 from an S10 blazer

I tried to talk him into going to a junkyard and looking a 4.8 or 5.3, but he is pretty damn set on the 305.
 
This makes no sense to me. But for curiosity sake.......if the truck is an automatic the motor swap will never work since the ecm controls the engine and transmission. Also if it is the new body style 99+ silverado style they had LS series engines so I am curious what motor mounts he has to make this work. Seems like a lot of work to go backwards.:rolleyes:
 
Were going to use the TH350 that's hooked up to the 305. I didn't really ask about the motor mounts, I just kind of went on faith, but now that you mention it I don't remember ever hearing about them.
 
So he won't have a speedometer now since it requires a electrical signal not driven by a cable like the TH350.
 
Well ****.

He needs this truck to be running by Tuesday, He bought a radiator for his other truck, a 72 C20, but returned it to buy stuff for this truck.
 
Was the old truck not safe to drive? You said the old one ran good. I am wondering why he though the newer truck was better. Did he not realize the engine was that bad on the new truck?

Good luck.

I am glad I am not in your position. Others suggested a used engine for my K5, but with the amount of work and cost of small parts, I went with a new GM stock crate engine. I didn't want to wonder how reliable it might not be after all that work. A cheap rebuild on the current engine might have been better. I understand he needs the truck to run for this weekend. That also seems odd to get rid of a decent running truck, in this case.
 
Well the sending unit sh1t the bed and it was starting to get a spark knock, other than that I really don't know. He sold the 92 and bought the 99 in the same night.
He called me right after he bought it, and he was already saying the 305 was going In it.

Well I just got a call and apparently I'm supposed to be at his house at 8 tomorrow. no, just no.
 
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Put the questionable 4.3 back in and baby it for what he needs this weekend. Then hit up a yard and find another 4.3, 4.8, 5.3, or 6.0 from the same body style. Putting a carbed 305 and Th350 is like saying yes I want less power, less mileage, and less drivability. A lot of work for A big step in the wrong direction
 
I guess everyone has different philosophies. I had a buddy that would always buy these cheap cars that needed work, and he always had the mentality that he was going to top off the fluids, throw on some tires, and make a long trip right away. It usually didn't work out that way.

I'm of the mindset that you should always go forward. If you've got a truck/car that runs well, you don't replace it with one that doesn't. Also, I don't like to set short deadlines when working on older cars, because you invariably run into additional problems or unexpected isssues that make the work take longer than you think it will. You're going to run into problems trying to put an old powertrain in a newer truck. It's always more difficult to go that route than a newer powertrain in an old truck. If you're on a time crunch, you need something that you can drop in, hook up, and have running in a weekend. That basically means a comparable engine from the same year range.

Best of luck, and I know how it is to have limited options sometimes. In this case, I think you'll run into more frustration and delays from trying to install an incompatible powerplant than it will be worth. I'd just throw in some Lucas, Restore, or some heavyweight oil and run that 4.3 until it dies or you can get down to the yard and get a more suitable engine.
 
Well we finally got the old 4.3 out, I have never seen an engine put up so much of a fight coming out. All we had left to do was undo the shift linkage, exhaust, and motor mounts, and just pull it out, well that took 6 people, two engine hoists and an 86 C20 from 11:00 to 5:30 to get out.

After we got it out, we tore it apart just to see how bad it was in there, well it had one broken wrist pin, I guess the piston was just riding the connecting rod, the rings were damn near gone all around, and everything was scored worse than anything I've ever seen before.



Also, I mentioned this conversation on here to him, and after the whole "what the hell does anyone on the internet know?!" thing, I was, reluctantly able to talk him into getting a newer 4.3 from a junkyard, were going to the pick n pull in St. Louis tomorrow.
 
after reading this stuff :haha::doah::popcorn:

you sir need a better class of friends . . . . or don't offer to help wrench for them . :deal:
 
The Griff said:
Also, I mentioned this conversation on here to him, and after the whole "what the hell does anyone on the internet know?!" thing, I was, reluctantly able to talk him into getting a newer 4.3 from a junkyard, were going to the pick n pull in St. Louis tomorrow.
Click to expand...

You've done your good deed for the year. He doesn't know it, but you did him a big favor.

Martin
 
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