Been on this board several years mainly for information, which it's full of, but realized I don't ever think I posted picts of my buildup that has been going on slowly over the last two winters. Bought this '84 about three years ago from a guy up here in Wisconsin that had brought it here from California. He only used it in the summer to pull his boat so it was very solid, but did have a small area of rust behind the door from what looks like a botched collision repair. It had great potential so I picked it up. Anyway, here's the start of the build.
Here's how she looked when I brought it home. First thing after driving off the trailer was to ditch the top. The '87 up by the house has since graciously donated it's perfect black Silverado interior, wiring harnes, and misc. other components.
The next thing after that was to install a 4" lift with new springs all around as the prior owner had trimmed the front fenders and added a 2" block to the rear to clear the 33's. I also added a lund visor and a razorback to not only hide the hardtop mounting holes, but help direct the wind off my two boys when they road in the back.
Then I did just a little more cleanup and painting and ran her like this for the first summer.
Come winter, I started the teardown to redo. 350 came out and was sold, front clip was removed (since they were cut prior, I didn't want to reuse), I swapped the six bolts out for a D44/14BFF out of a '77 burb 3/4 ton, and did a taigate conversion to loose the heavy stock one since I was never going to put the top on again.
Then I went about putting in a new body mount bushing kit, painting up the firewall and dropping in the fresh 383.
This winter has been more or less little tinkering with it since I have dedicated a lot of time to my wheeling rig (Cherokee). I have collected up almost all my parts now, finished tearing out the interior, just lacking the cowl hood and the last few brake components to finish the disc conversion in the rear. I even snagged a set of tires and rims back in January. Been looking at the DCII's, but came across these on craigslist and couldn't pass them up. Had them before on a rig of mine and loved the old school look. Just need to clean them up and polish up the lip and fin edges.
Paint (charcoal metalic with black accents) is in the shop and ready to spray the interior, just need to get back at it.
Anyway, figured I'd throw my buildup out there to you guys since I have benefited from a lot of input in here and wanted to show you some of what it's gone to.
Here's how she looked when I brought it home. First thing after driving off the trailer was to ditch the top. The '87 up by the house has since graciously donated it's perfect black Silverado interior, wiring harnes, and misc. other components.
The next thing after that was to install a 4" lift with new springs all around as the prior owner had trimmed the front fenders and added a 2" block to the rear to clear the 33's. I also added a lund visor and a razorback to not only hide the hardtop mounting holes, but help direct the wind off my two boys when they road in the back.
Then I did just a little more cleanup and painting and ran her like this for the first summer.
Come winter, I started the teardown to redo. 350 came out and was sold, front clip was removed (since they were cut prior, I didn't want to reuse), I swapped the six bolts out for a D44/14BFF out of a '77 burb 3/4 ton, and did a taigate conversion to loose the heavy stock one since I was never going to put the top on again.
Then I went about putting in a new body mount bushing kit, painting up the firewall and dropping in the fresh 383.
This winter has been more or less little tinkering with it since I have dedicated a lot of time to my wheeling rig (Cherokee). I have collected up almost all my parts now, finished tearing out the interior, just lacking the cowl hood and the last few brake components to finish the disc conversion in the rear. I even snagged a set of tires and rims back in January. Been looking at the DCII's, but came across these on craigslist and couldn't pass them up. Had them before on a rig of mine and loved the old school look. Just need to clean them up and polish up the lip and fin edges.
Paint (charcoal metalic with black accents) is in the shop and ready to spray the interior, just need to get back at it.
Anyway, figured I'd throw my buildup out there to you guys since I have benefited from a lot of input in here and wanted to show you some of what it's gone to.
