1993 C1500 Stepside

You may have seen my other thread about my 1988 C1500 long box I bought a couple of years ago. Well, I must say these trucks are addicting and I've been on the search for a SWB truck for the last few months. After owning my long box for awhile I decided it wasn't a good fit for me to lower and modify like I initially had planned. The primary reason being that I've been using it for towing and camping and the truck is largely original so I don't want to tear it apart.

Anyway, that brings me to my latest project. A 1993 C1500 Stepside Silverado. The truck has its original 350 Auto. Two tone white on top, bright teal on the bottom with grey interior. 15x10 wheels and it absolutely screws 1993. I bought the truck near Savannah, GA and drove it up to Nashville for a few days and then back home. The truck is far from perfect but all the pieces are here and its a rust free Florida truck, which is always my top priority. The mileage is high at almost 290K but the motor and trans still run strong and I've clock almost 3k on the truck since I bought it a month ago. This will be another slow build but ultimately I want a reliable truck with a 4/6 drop that can be driven anywhere.

Right now the truck really has a great look to it. As far as mods the only thing I can see currently is the 15x10 rims with 275/60/15 tires and a dual exhaust setup. The truck also has a nice diamond plate tool box, which will be staying for the time being.

So, I knew the tires were pretty old on the truck when I bought it. They had plenty of tread but they had a build date from 2010. I made it almost 200 miles when the front, left tire blew out in dramatic fashion. Damn thing peeled like a banana. Luckily, I was in the left lane when it happened and either the truck pulled hard left when it happened and i took it into the grass on the side of the road. Because the truck was in the grass/mud I needed to cross the highway to get to the other side and almost got the truck stuck in the mud the bad front tire still on. Another very dumb thing I did was not purchase a jack before I left Savannah. I knew the truck was missing the jack and tire iron setup. Thankfully a very, very nice women actually drove me to O'Reilly's to buy a jack and then drove me back to the truck. Got to love that southern hospitality!

Needless to say but finding a set of 275/60/15 tires on immediate notice at 4pm in the afternoon wasn't the easiest task. Thankfully, it happened right in Macon, GA and I was able to get Firestone to install a set of tires that same evening. I ended up with a set of Primewell PS860's. Definitely not my first choice but really they've been working out pretty well, I don't have any complaints actually. These tires and rims are too wide for a 4/6 drop so they may very well end up on my '88 anyway.

To add insult to injury, when the tire let loose it acted like a whip and whipped the crap out of my rocker panel and fender liner. Really, I got very lucky that I didn't take the tuck into a wall or something. And with the way it sounded I thought for sure that the entire fender was destroyed. Anyway, live and learn. Don't mess around with old tires. I should have bought a new set before I ever left Savannah.

...

What a gorgeous machine!

So I made the rest of the trip home without any incident. The truck ran really strong, even with 287K currently on the clock. I could smell raw fuel in stop and go driving. I looked under the truck while it was running and saw that one of the fuel line fittings was extremely loose. I managed get some wrenches on the fitting and tighten it. I would have been a 2 mins fix with the bed off but I probably laid on the ground for almost an hour trying to get just the right angle to tighten it up. The good news is that I haven't smelled any fuel since.

The other priority was replacing the door pins and bushings on the drivers side. The door was closing very hard and I felt like I was doing more and more damage every time I opened and closed it. I had my wife hold the door steady while being supported on a jack. It was still nerve wrecking but we both survived.

Another small issue I had was the wipers didn't park in the right position. They were parking in the middle of the windshield. I removed the plastic cowl and adjusted the bracket on the motor. All is good now. The truck must have been parked under a tree or something for some time. I dug all sorts of debris out of the cowl. I also took a hose and flushed out the drainage holes.

I was also having some issues with the drivers side tail light not working properly. I swapped out the circuit board on that side and everything is back to normal with the lights.

wiscomick said:

What a gorgeous machine!

Click to expand...

Thanks! The truck really just has a good look and stance to it as it sits now. It's a great 5 footer. It looks great but its worn enough that I don't feel bad using it for modifying it. I think its really going to look great with everything pretty much the same cosmetically, just with a 4/6 drop and some different rims.

Can't wait to see the progress. Keep up the great work.

Loving the truck man! Cant wait to see what else you've got planned. I have a set of wheels that look very similar to those on my 1500. I wonder if its from the same company.

I've gotten a few more things accomplish on the 93' today. I had assumed that she was burning a ton of oil. I had been told when I bought the truck that the valve guides were bad but checking the dipstick I've maybe burned 1 quart over the last 1,500 miles, which seems pretty reasonable for a 350 TBI with almost 300k on it.

The gas gauge sending unit isn't working so I've been using the trip odometer as a gauge. I had figured that I could easily go 200 miles on a 25 gallon tank with mixed city driving. Well I made it to about 180 miles and filled it up and to my surprise I put in almost 23 gallons of gas which led me to a whopping 8 mpg with 50/50 mixed driving. In my hwy drive back from Savannah I had averaged about 17 mpg, which seemed normal for a 350 Auto.

I knew the truck was idling high when warm, almost 1,500 rpms and I was smoking out the neighborhood with it sitting there. Even in drive I was idling over 1,000 rpms. Truck was running great though. I put the pieces of the puzzle together and realized that I wasn't burning that much oil, the truck was just running that rich.

I did a bunch of research and decided to replace the coolant temp sensor, for $16 it was a low cost shot in the dark. While idling the truck yesterday, it not not help at all. I finally got a CEL for the IAC after let it idle for a good 5 mins or so. I removed the IAC, didn't look too bad, cleaned it and reinstalled that, still no change.

I researched the IAC code and someone had suggested spraying the throttle body cleaner around the TBI while running and see if the motor bogged down at all. I sprayed it right at the base of the TBI and engine just about died. Bingo, bad base gasket.

So today I removed the entire TBI unit, cleaned everything as well as I could. Cleaned up the intake manifold and tried to degrease the engine the best I could. Put everything back together with a new base gasket. A mouse must have taken up residence prior to my ownership, there was debris all over the top of the IM. I also cleaned and reoiled the K&N air filter. I also started flushing the coolant system.

Truck is idling about 850 rpm while warm in Park and about 650 rpm while in Drive warm. I haven't noticed any black smoke yet, I'm hoping this cleaned everything up. I sprayed the base of the TBI after the repair and it seems to be sealed pretty well now. Well worth the $30 I had invested into the repair, I'll save that in no time on gas alone and not feel like an idiot with smoke bellowing out of the back of the truck.

Very nice truck Sir