Thread: 1972 Chevy K30 Longhorn Build

Tweet

Congrats, nice pat on the back to you. You will be happy to know that my neighbor is building 47 Chevy Fleetmaster and he is putting in a 4 cyl Cummins.

Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

Congrats, nice pat on the back to you. You will be happy to know that my neighbor is building 47 Chevy Fleetmaster and he is putting in a 4 cyl Cummins.

Sounds cool to me. Swaps are a favorite thing for me.

This is a trivial moment for me. I've been busting butt on this blue ford for the last 2 weeks. This weekend the owner came over and helped work on it. I typically don't do this with people I really don't know. I've gotten to know him pretty well over the last year and he has been wanting to help out because he misses his truck. (It's been down for 2 years now) So I figured it would be nice for him to be able to see what it takes to finish a project like this. People always say they know, but I highly doubt they do. I have to say this truck has turned out quite nice. Plus he wanted to drive it 7hrs down to Illinois some where to use for his high school best friend's wedding. Which is tomorrow. It isn't a show rig, but it is so much nicer than when he brought it to me. I'm not into super high lifted trucks any more, but I'd drive it for a little while. Haha

We fired the engine up for the first time at midnight Saturday night. It took a little bit for the injector operating system to prime up, but shorter time frame than what I was expecting. It sounded so nice. This thing has huge injectors and a pretty large cam. With the tuner it has on it, the 0 tune has the injector pulse width pretty low and the thing lopes pretty good. It is not an ordinary sound for one of these. Pretty cool in my hot rodder mind.

Other than a small fuel leak, nothing weird went on. We fired it without the radiator in it to make sure everything was kosher so we didn't have to rip the front of the truck back off in the event it wouldn't run or what ever. (This engine has been a problem child) Sunday early evening we got to putting the radiator in, and sure enough. It had a good sized pin hole we didn't see until about 3.5gal in to filling the coolant system. He went to Napa to get a new one. Around 10pm he filled the cooling system up and guess what? The water pump was leaking. We tore the radiator back off and removed the water pump. This gear housing was corroded pretty badly before and it had to be welded and ground/repaired. We thought the repair was just to the back side but I put a straight edge on it and the water pump sealing surface wasn't perfect and there was some pitting there. These use a formed o ring to seal them. I didn't use sealant on it when I installed it because I can't remember why. I think I was in a hurry to get it painted. Either way, while this was tore apart it gave me the opportunity to fix the fuel leak. That was one of the hard lines for the return regulator that wasn't all the way tight. Of course you couldn't get to it so I removed the alt/ps pump mounting bracket to get to it. I cleaned it all up and added some aluminum compatible high temp sealant to the gear housing and the water pump. Installed the formed o ring and we put it back together. We let it cure over night and put the truck the rest of the way back together today.

He is so happy to hear it run and be able to drive it. It hasn't seen the outside for 6 months. It is nice to see that space in the garage again. I still have some things to finish up for him. He wants to put stacks in the bed and leave the tail pipes. He then wants me to put in 2 electric cut outs. The problem is, the exhaust is 4" in, 5" tail pipes, the his cut outs are 3". That is going to not be fun. His front calipers are sticking and heating up, and I have to re install the vacuum reservoir and run new vacuum lines to the lock outs. That is a very small list compared to a month ago.

I'll bet that was a great feeling watching it leave for awhile, I'll bet it was a $500 dollar bill for sure to rebuild this pickup It doesn't seem right how a guy can sum up 6 months of work in a couple of paragraphs

Originally Posted by 53 Chevy5

I'll bet that was a great feeling watching it leave for awhile, I'll bet it was a $500 dollar bill for sure to rebuild this pickup It doesn't seem right how a guy can sum up 6 months of work in a couple of paragraphs

Oh, it was. Most of that description was just for the last few days. But I know what you mean. It still drives me nuts that this deal has been a year long ordeal. What do you do though? one thing always led to another. And the dude is still trying to get his money from the first guy. I could go into that more but I won't..................

Originally Posted by 40FordDeluxe

the 0 tune has the injector pulse width pretty low and the thing lopes pretty good. It is not an ordinary sound for one of these. Pretty cool in my hot rodder mind.

WHAT! No video?





.