The Build of My $200 Dollar Truck

[mattbrat004]

First off, here is some backstory leading to how i came across this truck.
Ever since i was young, i've always had a fascination with old school muscle cars. Growing up around novas and Harley Davidsons, its no wonder where that love came from. Fast forward to high school.

Looking for my first car, i obviously wanted something old school. It wasnt long before i found a 1981 El Camino. Little did i know, it wasn't the muscle car i had wanted. This thing was a turd. Turning the gears in this machine was a tired 267 cubic inch small block.

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After a while, i had gotten into my first high school shop class. So obviously the first thing i did was convince my teacher at the time to let me engine swap this in the classroom! Going into the place of the 267 was a 307.

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Fast forward three months... Turns out i had bought a bad motor. I didn't have time to fix it. so i sold my el camino for dirt cheap, and was on the hunt for a new vehicle.

I had been working for a small towing business for a while, and we had a tow call for an abandoned vehicle. We towed the truck back to our impound lot, and called the owners. Turns out that the truck had died on the side of the interstate, traveling from Eunice Louisiana. They couldnt afford to fix it, and sold it to me, for two hundred dollars. And here starts my build.

This is the truck in the condition that it was sold to me. The reason it had died on the interstate was because a stuck injector, and a bad distributor. An injector set and distributor later, i had a running truck.

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[mattbrat004]

Here is some more pictures of the truck when i first bought it.

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This thing was rough. It had three different types of rims on it, had obviously been offroading at some point, and every panel had looked like someone had hit it with a ball peen hammer.

 

[mattbrat004]

First things first, i had to straighten out the wheel situation on this thing. I ordered some new steelies, and threw those on.

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The truck had started to look more presentable already.
Now from the beginning, i knew i wanted to make a street truck. So obviously, i needed a roll pan!

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[mattbrat004]

This thing was dirty. Some engine degreaser, and gentle persuasion cleaned it right up.

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Next on my list, i needed some center caps. Now, this is a great look on these trucks. I am now rolling on 20 inch rims, and miss these rims very much.

Fall was turning into winter, and so the truck went into storage. Here is where the fun stuff started to happen.
I invested in a 4/6 drop kit.
Let the teardown start.

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[mattbrat004]

Now i was originally going with a traditional 4/6 drop kit, with the flip kit, spindles and springs. But upon further inspection, i had found out that my lower ball joints were terrible. So i sold the springs and went with a control arm setup. (Don't mind the leaks...I will address that later. )

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Next, I installed the flip kit.

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[mattbrat004]

After some more finishing touches, I got all four tires back on.

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Alright, Now the hard part.
If you want to run anything more than a four inch drop comfortably in the back, you need to notch the frame. So off with the bed.

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I ended up using Impala ss shocks in the rear. A little bit cheaper than drop shocks for those people cheap like me.

 

[mattbrat004]

First drive. Was really wobbly on the right side. (Note the state trooper in the background) Oops.

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Turns out i had forgotten the inner wheel bearing.
At this point, winter was ending, and it was time to pull her out of storage.
Here she is ready for her maiden voyage back home.

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[mattbrat004]

Kicked the season off with a silverado sport style front grille.
Bye bye work truck grille.

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Added an air dam for more low.

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[mattbrat004]

Next on my list, was engine performance. Now when i got this truck it had a 4.3 v6 in it. It was good little motor, but it too fell victim to the intake gasket leak.

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Now this motor had 157k on it, and it was obviously a hard 157k. This truck was originally a city work truck in Louisiana, and was used.
So, i went and bought a motor.

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Now, i wasn't expecting the old 4l60e to last behind this 5.3. With the motor ******** out that soon, it needed replacement as well. I picked up a 2001 4l60e for 200$ and sold the old one for 200$. So i say it was a fair trade.

 

[mattbrat004]

Now this is a mod that i cannot stress enough to do if you work on anything at night. This is the LED light mod, made popular by a Gearhead4life on youtube.

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I could swap a motor in with those lights going.
Now before i swapped the motor, i got rid of the old steelies, and got a set of 2010 camaro rims.

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Now you will need 4 5x5 to 5x4.75 1.5 inch wheel adaptors to run these wheels. All four corners will need to be trimmed or rolled to get these to tuck.
Back to the engine.
The 4.3 came out easily. ( A big thank you to @Dgonz )
I sent that motor off to a better place.

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