C30 Project Buildup

[exilous]

I already started haha, doors are gone passenger fender and wheel well already went to the scrap yard the dash has been gutted and the cap was chopped up yesterday. So its already begun. The only thing that really sucks is the fenders are in really good shape but the interiors where all the bolt holes are are all rusted out or broken I was kinda upset when I started taking it all apart. I woul dhave liked to save the fenders but no big deal.

[exilous]

Ok its been nearly 2 weeks since I last posted, I havent worked on the truck much at all because the building I rent along with a bunch of other guys got into some trouble with the town about "blight" I.E. abandoned vehicles and garbage potholes blah blah blah...so I had to clean up everything in front of my shop ASAP. Thats what I have been doing. Either way that last blazer I dismantled i figured I would check to see if the heads were good cause my old ones didnt have hardened seats in them so it would have cost too much money to rebuild them. When i took the intake out it was clean as a whistle. popped the covers off also very very clean. My spirits turned up slightly. Got the heads off low and behold the engine was rebuilt. bored 30 over and judging by the carbon buildup it wasnt rebuilt very long ago it was very clean. So I am in the process of dismantling the heads cleaning them and I will probably just lap the valves see what they need and go from there. Saves me a good chunk of change there. Other than that I got my engine and pistons back today all cleaned and ready to go. The machine shop found a good crank for me and polished it up. cost me $360 to get bored 60 over put the pistons together and get a good used crank. I ordered my cam bearings freeze plug set gasket set and a cloyes timing set from summit that came in yesterday, i ordered my main and rod bearings today they should be in tomorrow from my local parts store. I gotta decide which cam I am going to go with and get that ordered and I've been watching a few Edelbrock Performer 2101 intakes on ebay goin for half the cost of a new one so I gotta get one of those. Other than that I am ready for the buildup of my very first engine. I am pretty excited. Once the engine is done everythign else should go pretty smoothly. I will get some pics up over the next few days to keep you all posted on my progress, I would hope to have the bottom end in tomorrow if my dad ever gets his engine off my engine stand. If not saturday I should have the bottom in.

[chevymotocross]

Wow what a project! I'm practically a neighbor in East Haven. I have been slowly redoing the body on my 87 swb. Will soon be swapping the bed over. If you need any spare parts let me know.

[exilous]

Wow another connecticut guy, haha well I should have every part I need I bought 3 blazers and a 78 c30 for parts so I should ahve everything. Either way todays update. The engine build has begun!!!!  Ya. Well we put the engine on the stand and due to me leaving it my truck for a day while it was raining and driving around the bag ripped and the enigne got a bit rusty...my fault my dad was pretty mad about that. But nonethe less I cleaned the whole thing wire wheeled it and today me and my dad relieved it i guess was the term he used. We ground down all the slag and nasty crap on all the edges and rounded everything over opened up all the holes that were rough and nasty smoothed it out nice. Rehoned  it and then washed it. Washed it up we put in the new cam bearings then the plugs and the main bearings and got the crank in. So tomorrow I should be getting the piston rings installed, pistons in timing gear on the crank and then I think I'm going to get the heads cleaned and relapped or whatever they need while I wait for my camshaft to come in. I should be getting it from Summit on the 25th or 26th so that will give me plenty of time to get the rest of the engine assembled. I'm waitin to find a good deal on a edelbrock performer 2101 on ebay cause I really dont want to spend the $127 on a new one. Used ones are going between $60 and $95 shipped so I would rather go that route. Here is a link to the cam i bought, should do the engine good, I was thinking about a Lunati Voodoo cam but the magazine showed that is was used for idle to 5500 RPMs and when I went to order it the specs said 1000-5500 so I didnt get it, maybe something was messed up I don't know. either wayt I will cut to the chase and here are some pics.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CCA-CL12-231-2/
Rusty




Got the radiator support mounts in so i just had to install them...haha


freshly cleaned wire wheeled and re-honed

grinding and reliefing







There ya go guys, as I get more pics I will post them up. shoudl have more install stuff tomorrow. when i get the pistons and the lower end in.

[exilous]

Got more done today and yesterday. Been busy as heck lately. Got the crank in the other day I installed all the rings yesterday. I got the cam in today so I should have that installed tomorrow. Today I got the pistons all in. I didnt torque them down yet. I just finished putting them in about 15 minutes ago. Also I got the doors off the blazer that someone had rhino lined...ya i said rhino lined. I finally got those stripped down i fixed the dents did a bunch of bondo work to them sanded them down primered, wet sanded primered again and thats as far as I got on those. Tomorrow I want to get the interior side of the doors scuffed and painted white cause they are black right now. then I should be able to reinstall all the guts for the doors and put them in storage untill they are ready to get put onto the cab. And if all goes well I should get the whole interior of the cab cleaned and scuffed and repainted. So its gonna be another busy day. I will get plenty of pics uploaded tomorrow for you guys.

[exilous]

Wow, well its been a long time since I've posted here. Sttill laid off so I'm still working like crazy at the shop trying to get the ttruck done. Since my last post I will just sum everythign up real quick and get a ton of pics up. I had the brand new doors that were rhino lined off one of the blazers I scraped them both down sanded them did the body work welded the window mount holes and cleaned everythign and reassembled the whole door. just gotta wet sand them and prime them again. Took the fenders down from upstairs and sanded the inside of the fenders and painted them orange. So the fenders are all complete now just gotta wait for assembly and there is nothing left to do on those. I rolled the truck  frame out grabbed the cab and brought it out front cause I'm pretty much done with the frame untill the engien is ready to go in. And sadly I pretty much gave up. I am tired of working on this darn thing and it is starting to show. I'm starting to get sloppy. The firewall especially mad me real mad all the welding and cutting and bondo work and i kept finding more rot. Finally I gave it i scuffed it and painted it. There were a lot of spots that I put patches in that needed to be ground down and bondoed that I just didnt do cause I didnt want to. Sad to say it. I will regret it later on. I know I will. When I started painting the cowl and firewall I didnt even tape anything off thats how bad it got. It was a bad day I think. But either way I got the A/c box on everything bad and attatched to the firewall and that part is starting to look like a truck once more. I got a set of those fender silencer things. That mount to the side of the cab. I got them off the 85 Silverado blazer so I decided to stick them on my truck. Lets see, I cleaned and sanded the whole inside of the cab floor and whatever would be visible when the headliner and everything else was on and painted that. I oredered up some dynamat got that installed put the insulation stuff down then that crappy floor mat I got from  . it ahs cracks all over where the back of the trans tunnel is. But whatever. I cleaned up the dashpad put the AC stuf in it got that installed. Sent the seats out to get reupholstered got them back in 2 days cost me $500 for both.  And man they are comfy. When I got them back I immediatly mounted one up and sat in it for a few hours it was great. I got all the plastic and metal headliner piecess cleaned and painted black ready to roll. So much that I did I can't remember it all. I can't install the door weatherstripping or the headliner yet cause when I make the pick with the straps I'm afraid I will crush it so I am holding off on that part. All thats left for me to really do is figure out what I am doing for a stereo system, cut holes for the seat bolts and install those. Paint the plastic pieces on the doors. And finish the hood...oh the hood has rhino lining all over it too. So I gotta strip that. Lets see other than that all that the cab needs is the gauge cluster I have to finish sanding and primering the back of the cab, then roll it over and clean and rhino line the underside of the cab then that is finished.
 So now I gotta work on getting the passenger tank brackets off the donor truck, mount them on mine clean and paint my old tank and remount that then I have to run lines. I'm not using an electric switch I am going for an old had switch so My plan of action is once i get my new heads in...oh ya I had to get new heads cause the ones from one of the blazers someone cheated on the rebuild and didnt do the guides they were shot so I bought a set of loaded brand new Brodix aluminum heads. So once my heads come in I can get the engine running, mount the first transmission to it and drop that in. Then I have to do some serious fabricating to mount the 3 speed auxilliary transmission behind it, THEN i will run the fuel lines pop the cab on it cut the trans shift hole for the 2nd transmission and find a good spot for the fuel tank selector valve. Then assemble the sheetmetal, throw the exhause back on it and drive it to my buddies shop so he can custom bend me a duel exhause stack setup, WITH the flapper caps gotta have the flapper caps. Then right after that I decided I'm not painting it I am gonna bring it to Maaco and have them paint it once its painted bring it home and put all the trim stuff on it. So all in all I have busy as heck lately and I am almost done. Hurray!! Hopefully a couple more weeks. Once all that is done I gotta bring it home and that is where I wil be doing the back half of the truck, dump bed comin off gotta redo the spring packs clean the back half of the frame cut out the bed floor weld a new floor into it put the new tool boxes on the sides and then I will be done. Hopefully there will be a month on dually vehicles so I can enter it in that in hopes to make the calender Either way I will try to keep yall posted as the project nears a close. so far to date 7 month and over 400 hours invested.



This is the point where I finally gave up. I was tired of scraping and all that crap and I got no where...

[choptop]

Hang in there, I know it gets frustrating, but it will be worth it in the end. Sometimes the best progress isnt progress at all. When things start getting to you, the best fix is to take a break, and maybe do some pencil building ( check list, schedule, or just get away from it)

[hotrod24]

looking good

[exilous]

I can't believe its been almost 2 weeks since my last post in here. Got tons done. Engine is finished did the test run and oh my gosh what a wonderful sounding engine. I went with the GM corporate blue for the 78 engine, and since the transmission never had a color I took the original color from the auxilliary trans and made both red. I sand blasted the exhaust manifolds and welded up the AIR holes and luckily I had 0 leaks anywhere until yesterday from my oil pan but my bolts loosened up on my. I explained it in the engine thread. Lets see what else did I do.   .   . I got the hood scraped bondoed and primered. I painted the underside and the wheel wells orange so pretty much all the sheet metal is completely finished. I moved the cab and rolled it onto its back I scraped the whole underside and rhino lined it. then i finished sanding the back of the cab primed what I couldI only had half a can left. So tomorrow I just need to finish primering the back of the cab I have to sand the driver side of the cab and paint that white and then the cab is nearly complete. I think I'm going to wet sand the roof and lay another coat of primer on it. So the only things that are holding me up with the project as it stands now, is I need to repair the original driver side tank brackets sand them and the tank paint them and install. I have to remove the passenger tank brackets from the 78 mason dump parts truck, repair those sand them paint them and sand the passenger tank mount those up. I have to order a couple fuel valves then run the new fuel lines. Then I gotta get my dad to come down to the shop at some point so I can have him help me mock up the auxiliary transmission. Oh for those of you that havent heard about it I am putting a 3 speed auxilliary transmission in right behind my regular transmission. I measured it up and it will fit under the cab before the rear crossmember. It is shorter in length than the driveshaft that goes to the carrier bearing so it should fit perfectly. Just got to figure out some hangers for it so that it doesnt hang too low. Other than that, lets cut to the chase and get some pics to you all.

The brand new top end. Brodix aluminum heads and a slightly used Weiand 8004 dual plane intake.

A very blue engine

The transmissions once i cleaned them like 3 times. Even then they still werent clean.

The transmission painted

The big U joints the auxilliary has. HAHA I will never wear those things out.

Once everythign was assembled

Couldnt find a port-a-power so I made due with a steel block and a bolt. Worked real well.

The engine on the test pallet we made, in my dodge going to my shop to get installed into the C30. Finally 3 months in the making and it will have an engien in it again.

Engine is in, aerial shot and before I put all the wire looms on and zip tied everything...it is still a horrible mess. But who cares I can straighten that stuff later it runs though.

Ok I will get some more pics soon when more major stuff gets done. I am getting close fellas. Very close. I can really see the end.

[eventhorizon66]

Cool.  I think that's the color I'll paint my next engine (provided I go with a Gen 1).  What heads do you have there?  IK180s?

I've been meaning to chime in on this thread to compliment your work.  As far as the engine goes, I especially like how you took the time to detail the block.

[1983stepside]

wow man looking real good cant wait to se it all together wish i was as far as you are on mine

[exilous]

Ya those are the IK180's, They seem to be pretty good on the block revving it up I can't wait to be in the seat driving it to feel the difference from one stock engine to this performance engine. I really hope it is everything i could ever want. We shall see...hopefully a few more weeks and everything will be back together so I can at least drive it to my house, my buyddies shop then the paint place.

[oldwhity]

Wow! That's really turning out great!

[rmauto1]

I really dig your one ton. Those c-30's are really cool. I've got an odd ball 72 that i did on the cheap last year. they are really handy.

[exilous]

I like those rims on yours. I'm still up in the air as to what I want to do with my rims on the truck, I have to obviously keep one set of stock rims for the winter use. But I was kind of toying with the idea of getting a different set of stock rims maybe ones like the fords with like all those little round air holes in them. But I was also playing with the idea of springing for the 19.5 Alcoas which would really set the truck off. Buyt I dunno if I really want to spend that kind of coin on rims. Especially since it will be a work truck. Not that I am not a fan of work trucks looking exceptionally nice...don't get me wrong there its always nice to see a really snazzed up work truck but I dunno yet.