Ol' Blue

[sphinx]

Thanks bake74.  Good to be here.

[hotrod24]

Sounds like my 80 c10. Its got a integrated 250 that I am swapping out for a 67 stepside non integrated 250. I should be doing the swap soon.  The integrated heads ,springs, valves, push rods, should interchange with the non integrated 250.  You could also just swap the whole engine from the donor truck and still swap the head parts over. The inline 6 is a great engine. I am glad I got interrested in them...

[sphinx]

I thought about swapping the whole engine.   The 76 has the old style  HEI distributor with the separate coil, the 78 has the coil in the cap but those can be swapped out.  Im not sure which one i want to keep.  I may pop the heads off both and check the cylinder bores and pistons and go form there.

[sphinx]

Need to get back working on Ol' Blue again.  Although it has not been too cold to work outside some of the time it has been very wet here this winter.  While I've been warm and dry inside I have doing some truck work, I got copies of the GM part reference drawings and identified a what is needed to add power steering to the I6.  I believe I obtained all the brackets needed to mount a power steering pump to the 250.  There are 4 of them and they are different on the integrated and non-integrated heads (not mention another set if you got the AIR pump).  I got the ones for the non-integrated head and a couple of used pumps.  Now when I do the head swap, I should be able to add power steering and get rid of that over-sized OEM steering wheel.  That will give me some leg room from the set to the wheel.  I picked a used power steering gear box from a wrecked '78.  New all I need are new hoses and some fluid.  I may have to swap out fan and/or crank pulleys as well and a new pittman arm but we will figure that one out when the time comes.

[sphinx]

Now that the weather is warming up it's time to get back to work on ol blue.  Santa brought me a welder so it's time to learn how to use it.  I picked up some scrap sheet metal to practice tacking and pluging.  I have never welded before so this is a adventure.  Once I get the hang of it I'll pick up some rocker panels, floor pans, cab corners and kick panels frm the 73-87 chevytrucks store.  I have to replace part of the passengers firewall under the heater core as well.  Some sheet steel should work there.  I'll post pics as I go so yall can give me advice!

[bake74]

     You should do a write up of adding the power steering to the I6 so we all can read about it.

[sphinx]

Bake74 that sounds like a good suggestion on the write up.  It might be a while before I get that far as I still have quite a bit of sheet metal work to do.  The power steering on an I6 seems to be a rare bird.

[sphinx]

Finally got back to wok on the truck again.  I did not get much done this spring as I had hopped.  Now that summer is here it going to get hot and I'm not a hot weather person.

Anyway, today I removed the steering column, brake peddle hanger, master cylinder and inside wiring harness.  I can really see the inside of the dash now.

I have a few rust spots on the cawl above the brake hanger that I could not get to without removing all the works.

Now the only thing holding the cab to the frame are the 4 cab bolts.  I guess I'll replace the body grommets now along with the sheet metal on the cad floor.   One thing leads to another.