83 Longbed project for son's 16th birthday

[fitz]

  I gotta admit,  when I seen a new member that bought a rotted out truck, I got a little nervous for you.  I thought, oh boy, is this gonna be 1 of those truck that gets torn down over 1 weekend and never sees the road again.  I speak from experience ( I got an 81 stepside that's been sitting in the garage for 10 years now with a blown motor).  Life can get in the way of things.
  After reading through your Camaro build thread, I am truly impressed.  Looking forward to seeing the continued progress on this truck.
  I'm also a big camaro fan.  I had a 79 camaro in high school and a few 69's since then.  I've owned my current 69 for over 20 years.
  The truck is comming along great.  I hope your Son is learning a lot during this build, you have a lot of talent to offer him.

[1981lt1]

Thanks for all the comments. The camaro was a 3 year project with many custom things done along the way that took way more time than I thought. And, there’s still a couple small things I need to finish on it. The truck however is going to be very simple with the engine/trans being the only thing considered custom. So I’m planning on having it back on the road by Xmas this year.  I will admit, I wouldn’t have taken on this project if I knew how much rust it had on the parts that aren’t available to buy.

[1981lt1]

The rust repair is officially done.  Off to the frame shop tomorrow morning.

[Mike81K10]

You have done well and look forward to how things work out at the frame shop.

[1981lt1]

Dropped off the truck at the frame shop this morning and they told me it might be done tomorrow, but probably Thursday.  I also picked up the engine/trans for the truck today.  I scored a 2008 5.3 with the 6L90 trans for $1500.  Engine is supposed to have about 108K miles and is super clean with only a couple of broken connectors.  I'll need to replace the throttle body since that is one of the broken bits, and i'll need a new MAF and O2 sensors.  Other than that, it's pristine.

[1981lt1]

Well sports fans, it turns out the engine is a 4.8L. I’m a little disappointed but in don’t believe the guy I baught it from knew. I knew the engine came out of a van and I couldn’t find any 5.3/6speed combos for express vans, and I confirmed the crank casting number to be sure.  I should have done this research before I baught it but it’s still a decent deal for how clean this engine is. The 4.8’s are decent little engines and it’s for a 16 year old so things could’ve been worse. I’ll get rid of the VVT and put in a decent cam and headers. That should wake it up a bit.

[1981lt1]

Little more drama with the wiring.  I realized today that I have all of the wiring except for the engine fuse/relay center.  The one I got with the engine was the interior relay center.  I was wondering why the wire gauge was so small and I was going nuts trying to find out why I can't find any power distribution wires in my harness.  Now I know why.  Luckily I'm a car part hoarder so I have an old 95 LT1 body harness that is in perfect condition so I'll graft that into the engine harness.  I get the truck back tomorrow morning and my engine mounts will be here on Saturday so I'll be fitting all the parts by Sunday.

[Mike81K10]

Your making really good progress, hope your son gets his hands real dirty on the engine and harness install. Wish I could have built a truck with my father at his age!

[1981lt1]

Yesterday was a bit of a setback.  Apparently the cab was tweaked on the driver side and straightening the frame didn't help.  When I welded the rocker panel in, I assumed it was square and didn't check the door gaps before final welding.  Let's just say the result was very bad.  I was able to fix it but I forgot to take some pics.  You can see from the pics how bad it is. 

[1981lt1]

After dealing with the door drama yesterday, I decided I wanted to see the engine sitting in the frame and I really wanted to make sure the huge 6 speed was going to fit.  The engine is literally sitting on the old motor mounts and the trans is being held in with some ingenuity, but everything fits.  According the post office, my motor mount adapter plates were supposed to be here today, now they say Monday (which is a federal holiday) so I won't see them til Tuesday.  I freaking hate the post office.  Who uses them still?  I will order an aftermarket trans crossmember cuz I really don't feel like modifying the original one. 

[1981lt1]

Got my motor mount adapters yesterday and got everything installed.  I learned the hard way on my Camaro that the low mounted compressor has clearance issues with these brackets.  Thankfully it's nothing a little trimming couldn't solve.

[1981lt1]

No that the engine is in, the real fun begins!

[1981lt1]

Some of you may be wondering why I am starting with the wiring.  Experience has shown me that I need all of the panels in place to make sure I don't have any interference with my wiring, and, constantly leaning over fenders and draping wires across the body panels could cause damage.  I also may have to weld some studs or brackets.  And, wiring just plain sucks so I'd rather get it over with.  I had a pristine body harness from an old 4th gen Camaro project so I decided to use it for the fuse/relay center.  It's compact and has everything I need.

[1981lt1]

Well it's been a while since I posted any progress.  I have been doing nothing but wiring and my OCD always gets in the way and makes this take so much longer.  I also got my trans cross member so now the engine and transmission are securely bolted in. 



Relay box connected with main power wires connected:





Pretty much everything connected except for the accelerator pedal wiring:

[1981lt1]

Here is where my OCD kicks in.  The engine harness was "close" but I like to hide my injector wires and alternator wire.  The factory just runs everything over the engine which makes for an ugly installation and it really pisses me off when people can't take the extra couple of hours to make the harness fit the engine.  It just makes everything look better.  Once I wrap everything you'll never see it.

As you can see, the driver side is pretty darn good.  I modified the #1 injector and coolant temp to get them tucked in:





The passenger side was a different story.  As you can see from the pic, all of the plugs are clear over by the water pump:



I modified the MAP, coil plug, and every injector connection to get it tucked in: