Upgrades

[123 pugsy]

Nothing but trouble since I finished my truck. First ,the 700r4 was giving me problems,so I rebuilt a TH350 myself.Should have known I was in trouble when I pulled the pan and found 1 of the bolts didn't go thru the gasket.So much for paying anyone ever again for a tranny rebuild. Next problem ,I was installing an RV cam in the lousy 283 when I noticed about 70 thou crank end play.Thrust bearing and crank toast!

[123 pugsy]

I installed the 350 4 bolt I had laying around the garage. I got it honed, installed new rings,bearings,the RV cam I was gonna use in the 283, World Product S/R heads,and Edelbrock intake. I should have used the 350 from the beginning.I thought with the 283 and a 700r4 I would get good milage. What a mistake!

[VileZambonie]

Looks great! Is it running?

[77c15]

Nice job on the chevy orange. Looks great in the yellow and black engine compartment! How did you get such a high quality finish?

[123 pugsy]

I've had it running for awhile now. Runs great and gets better milage than the 283 with overdrive.Its got an Edelbrock carb on it now which I'll be swapping over to TPI.
The orange paint is some kind of engine paint from a store called Canadian Tire up here.I'm not sure of the brand.

[123 pugsy]

The next upgrade was to add some Jeep Cherokee power bucket seats. The original seat just couldn't go back far enough.I found a jumpseat for it brand new on Craigslist,a set of black seatbelts at the wreckers and a smaller steering wheel at a flea market.



The seats were sitting way too high so I had to remove the factory brackets and lay them as close to the floor as possible.



I made the brackets up to use only the 2 factory bolt holes. No drilling of the floor required.I also ran the wires for the new amp at the same time.

[Mr79C10]

Looks GREAT!
 Im going to be adding buckets to my 79 C-10 soon. I just picked up a set from some one on Craigslist.

[123 pugsy]

Thanks,just hope your seats are not as high as these. What are they out of?

[Blazin]

I put Caravan bucket seats in my buddies 83 years back They were high back but sat good, didn't stick up to bad in the back window. Had built in arm rests etc.

[123 pugsy]

The height I'm referring to is the seat part. The Cherokee seats are quite high on the seat. It made it tough to install and keep the as low as possible.

[cjtimp]

That really looks good, great inspiration to get started on my bucket seat conversion......

[123 pugsy]

The next thing on the list was to deal with the spare tire. I had this beauty jangly bar thingy from my last truck ,so I painted it up and checked it out. Put the spare on it and it flipped and flopped around like a dead fish.




I went to the wreckers and found this beauty. Its off I believe a Chevy Lumina.Not sure,those things all look the same to me.





Made up some bracketry to hang her up.......




Drilled a couple of holes here and there....




And got the spare outta the way and have the crank hidden behind the license plate.



Oh yeah,those are salt stains you see under there. This truck was built to be driven.

[bigblock73]

Oooooh, I love that spare tire idea...brilliant!

You should do a write up for this site and/or 73-87.com...bet people would love to add this to their ride!

Good job!

[123 pugsy]

Thanks Jeff. How would one go about doing a write up on something?

[Stewart G Griffin]

Yeah that lumina thing is a good idea.  I had a lumina apv and it (the spare tire mechanism) works well.


But more importantly, i'm baffled why the 283/700R combo didn't work.

Can you give us more detail on both engines?