1993 C1500 ECSS

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ima93chevyguy

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So I had a first today..
First time I've towed with my truck
A family member broke down on the side of the highway and I went and towed him about 15 miles back to the house. Happened to have a chain in my truck for emergencies. Wasn't too bad truck stayed around 2k most of the time but did really well overall. Started to get pretty warm toward the end but not overally warm.
I did have one casuality, the chain popped once and broke my light-up receiver hitch cover. Oh well. New one is only about $15. No pics because I already tossed it out accidentally.

Just thought I would share because it was fun and basically what I did today. Not too bad for a little ole street truck.
 

ima93chevyguy

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So, long time no update...
I had a fairly busy summer between working and other things I had to do. Didn't get as much done to the truck as I would have liked. Now I'm back at University suffering through another semester of the college life.

I'm pretty content with the truck as it is right now and am finding a hard time to find things to do to it that aren't maintenance related. Of course most of my money is going to the school so I don't have a ton of spare funds to throw at the truck just for fun.

Just a recap of some things I did recently.

Installed Headers.

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They're Summit Shorty Headers: https://www.summitracing.com/parts/sum-g9014
Bought them on Black Friday 2017, finally installed them March 2018 so they've been on the truck since then. They're good headers, I got shorties because they will bolt right back up to the exhaust like they should. I stripped them and then coated them in VHT black paint.
Other than the obvious terrible time of removing the manifolds and all that other stuff these had some pain areas; one being that in the O2 sensor hole, one of the pipes came down too far and would not allow the sensor to go in there. I had to go in and grind it down so that the sensor would fit. Also of course I had the issue of them not wanting to fit properly but I finally got it all squared away. I used the hardware provided when I installed them and that was a mistake! If anyone buys these invest in good quality Head bolts, collector bolts, and block gasket. I went to the local hardware store and got Grade 8 bolts (I believe they sent Grade 5's with them). I also got some felpro #1404 gaskets (https://www.amazon.com/Fel-Pro-1404-Exhaust-Manifold-Gasket/dp/B000CMESAE). I have only taken them "off" once since installation; replaced the gaskets and collector bolts. I really do like them, they provide more of a "rumble" and sound more throaty; and to my surprise they reduced in cabin noise. I'd recommend them.

Also I hit a raccoon one night and it chipped off my valence on the corner and blew out half the places where it bolts up.

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Anyway I ordered a new one off of Ebay and slapped it on.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/88-98-00-C...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

It's okay as far as a valence is concerned, typical fashion it did not want to line up properly.
 
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ima93chevyguy

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As far as my on-going projects...

The first one is my take on the underhood LED light mod. I decided to use Rock Lights instead of the LED Strips. I tried the strips and they weren't satisfactory to my tastes. Luckily the way my cowl hood is designed I was able to mount the lights and then run and hide the wires. Bear in mind that I'm not finished yet because I ran into a problem. Then for power all I did was take the bulb from the socket under the hood and smash out the glass; then I Soldered two wires in to the existing terminals then laid silicone all over it.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/4pcs-9W-Wh...843790&hash=item210822de4d:g:1pUAAOSwTQtaEovD

Here's the lights that I bought. As a disclaimer I would like to note that these lights are in fact terrible. I would not use them as rock lights ever. For my application of just going under the hood they should be fine. They are decently bright and put out a pretty good flood pattern, I have not hooked them all up at once yet and I will be sure to post pics when I do.

The Problem. So I had mounted them and wired everything up and as soon as i plugged in my socket it blew the internal of the "bulb" I built. So i clipped off the "bulb" and connected wires from the battery and it would spark as soon as i touched the power wires together. So, i determined it was grounding somewhere. Well..., long story short i found out that one of the lights was internally grounding itself out by letting the positive wire on the LED board touch the housing it was encased in. So when it was mounted to my metal hood it just grounded itself out. I took it apart and fixed that and will be remounting and rewiring the end of the week. Then I also had to build another "bulb". BE AWARE OF CHINESE JUNK!

Here's a few mounted pics and my "bulb"

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I tried to mount them at the top left, right, middle and bottom middle. Not sure how the spread will be so I might end up moving them once I get it wired up again. Zip-ties are not permanent. I put 3M tape on the back and then ran a self-tapping screw on the solid end. I ran the wires through the oval holes and then down the middle closer to where the hood light is.
 

ima93chevyguy

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Alright I finished up my underhood lights this past weekend and I'm very happy with how they turned out! After sorting through the Chinese gremlins they did exactly what they should do.
Here's some pics in the dark of everything lit up.

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ima93chevyguy

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The weekend before last I actually painted the mirror backing plates, the mirror covers, and cowl panel on the truck.
It was a pretty rushed job so it didn't turn out really as good as I want but I can always do it. The mirror plate was pretty much bare metal and I couldn't stand it, plus all the other stuff looked cruddy too. I primed the metal stuff and then used spray enamel and some clear on everything. I did the wiper arms a few days previously.
This was an attempt to clean it up more for Cruising the Coast here in MS which was this last weekend.

I need a new cowl panel because mine's had its use, but after looking at prices it can wait for a little while..

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ima93chevyguy

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I was scrolling through my phone the other day and realized that I never did post these pictures my buddy had took of my truck way back in like February.
They're pretty good as we were just messing around one Saturday with some rather gloomy weather.

All pictures were taken on my land/road



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ima93chevyguy

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Finally replaced my valve cover gaskets over the weekend. Wasn't too hard, I know a lot of people complain about the gaskets. I used the blue fel-pro silicone ones and didn't have any trouble.
However I still have oil pooling on the driver's side of the intake.
I checked the two bolts on that side and were able to tighten them about a 1/4th turn so maybe that will help me determine if that is what was leaking. I need to see about siliconing them if that is where the oil is coming from.

As soon as the weather is more permitting here I have a ton of stuff planned that I need/want to do. It rained pretty much 90% of late dec. and early Jan. so most of my holiday plans fell through.

Stay Tuned :rockit:
 

ima93chevyguy

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So I swapped ECM's in the truck over a month ago from a different truck, it made the harsh 1-2 shift go away.
Well the ECM I borrowed needed to return to its home so I got a remanned one from O-Reilly's last weekend and swapped my PROM.
It did some weird stuff at first I guess because it was re-learning then it straitened out and did correctly. So I guess my bad quality shifting was in the computer and not the actual PROM, which is good because I finally was able to fix a problem that's been there pretty much since I got the truck :cheers:
 

ima93chevyguy

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Finally got around to painting under my fenders again, they had gotten pretty ragged looking.. Maybe it'll hold for a while

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Then I put on my new lugnuts since all the chrome was peeled off my old ones.. I went with spiked lugnuts Not sure how I like them yet but i'll run them for a while and see.

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