'89 Stepside "Way Cool Jr."

Just skimmed thru the entire thread - the amount of hurdles you've had to overcome and continue to do so is alarming to me to say the least. With that being said, I feel this is going to be one hell of a truck as you continue to plug away at it. Already looks pretty good as is!

Interior - really diggin' what you've done here. The blk and woodgrain is a solid combo! Had the seats been blk, oof!

Fabrication - you're mellow attitude towards fabbin' something up to make things work is admirable. I wish I had that kind of patience and outlook on problematic snags lol

Life - do you ever rest?? Seems like you're always on the go, none stop!

I look forward to seeing more of this! Slow and steady. I'm dreading a rear diff seal on my rig then I see what you're dealing with - I shouldn't complain.

Thanks for the kind words! Right now I'm somewhat unmotivated on the truck. I got the new radiator today, and if I get off my butt tomorrow I'll drain the old radiator and get it swapped out. Then I'll focus on the transmission swap.

To be honest, I think I'm a bit bipolar, but instead of manic/depressive, I'm manic/demotivated. I'll have a couple days where I'm really on it, ready to hit the shop and work hard on getting stuff done. When I'm down, I try to stay motivated by pushing myself to do little things.

The seats might end up black at some point, but for now my wife likes them beige.

The fabrication comes from being cheap and having a history of working on weirder cars that don't have parts availability. This is my first Chevy build. Sure, I had a Camaro back in the day, but I tried swapping a Cadillac motor into it. My RX-7 was where I learned to be creative with junkyarding and adapting parts to non-standard applications. When I bought my Sunbeam I started getting serious about welding and fabrication. With a little practice it comes a bit easier.

I hate rear diff problems, but I don't shy away from them any more. You can do it. As I tell my kids, you don't learn from not trying.

I, too, am a sucker for a good deal. I love the idea of repurposing parts from one car into another. At one point, I had some beige leather seats in my 94 accord from a 2003 CL Type S. Power sliders and all. Was a great experience lol

CL-S Seats by Sergio Zapien, on Flickr

CL-S Rear Seats by Sergio Zapien, on Flickr

Anyhow, hands on experience is the way to go! I'm sure the more I dig into my Chevy, the more I'll figure out how it works

I've been taking a little break from WCJr, but there has been some progress.

View media item 32322I don't like how far out the electric fan sits, nor how poorly the shroud fits. I nabbed a pair of fans from a VW Jetta this afternoon, so when I get around to it I'm going to see how well they blow. If they're fairly stout, they'll go on the truck. If not they'll go on the Jaguar and I'll put the Volvo fans from it on the truck.

I also got a pair of axles today to take to the local drivetrain shop and have redrilled for the 5x4.75 Corvette bolt pattern. At some point in the future I'd like to swap out the Centerlines for my black Corvette Grand Sport wheels. Front discs from an '89 Camaro 1LE use the same wheel bearings as our truck rotors, are just a hair larger, and have the smaller bolt pattern. For the rears I'll cut a bracket out of 3/16 plate and mount 1LE rear calipers and rotors. I don't know for sure if this will fit yet, but it's my plan to try. I should be in for about $300 plus whatever the drivetrain shop charges.

Last Friday I drove over to Montoya Wheel Repair with two of the GS wheels - when I had them on the Jag the ball joint sat too close and gouged them. I also took the Centerline that fell off a few months back. They said they could repair the lug holes. All three wheels are being repaired for under $150.

Erik the Awful said:

I also got a pair of axles today to take to the local drivetrain shop and have redrilled for the 5x4.75 Corvette bolt pattern. At some point in the future I'd like to swap out the Centerlines for my black Corvette Grand Sport wheels.

Click to expand...

Have you mocked up those wheels on your truck yet? They usually have about 2"+ more backspacing than a stock wheel for our trucks. That'll bring the wheels way in toward the frame.

I mocked a Vette wheel up this morning, and as much as I dislike spacers, I'll need one. The tire hits the leaf springs and inner bedsides about 1/4" before the wheel seats. Also, nobody in town re-drills axles any more. I'll go with 1" adapter/spacers that bolt to the hubs.

I took the Mark VIII fan out and mocked up the '08 Jetta cooling fans. They fit nearly perfect on my 28" radiator. If anybody else tries these, there's a couple notes if you keep the Jetta plug. 1) Wire the black to hot, brown to ground, and the white/red wire is your fan on/off. When you apply power to the white/red wire, it takes about ten seconds for the controller to start the fans. I just hope they flow enough air for August in Oklahoma.

I also started pulling the transmission this morning and have it ready to drop, but while working I discovered the main power wire to the starter has a 2" long bare section that was wrapped in disintegrating corrugated plastic. I'm yanking the entire wire and replacing it with a thick cable that came from another project.

I also discovered the pinion seal is leaking enough to put a puddle on the floor. Ugh.

The other day I was dorking around with the original motor and managed to get the #8 piston to loosen up. I got the motor apart and took the block and 193 heads to the machine shop. They're salvageable, so I decided to do a low-buck rebuild on them. Once I know if they're boring .030 or .060 I'll order some flat-top pistons and take the crank, rods, and pistons to them for installation and balancing. I found a $50 mild performance cam on RockAuto, and since I don't have roller provisions in this block, and I also have a spare set of hydraulic flat-tappet lifters on the shelf, that's my target. I spotted a DJ-5 locally that would run really nice with the motor, but I need to get the truck running if I want to tow another project home.

Finally, I submitted the truck for the Virtual Concourse d'Lemons in the Rust Belt American Junk - GM Class. Stop by Hagerty's site, peruse the junk, and give me an up-vote!
https://community.hagerty.com/t5/concours-d-lemons/bd-p/concours-dlemons

Lunch time's over. Time to get back to wrenching.

While I've taken some time away from the truck I started working on this:


I figure I probably won't have a spare fifty grand laying around to blow on a Morgan three-wheeler, so I decided to build my own. I'm using a 48v 1000w electric motor. The frame is all metal I had laying around. The backbone of the frame is 3" square tubing left over when my wife's shop was built. The scooter bits are from a Razor a friend gave me. The rear suspension is metal bits I had laying around with the spring/shock off a mountain bike. It's further along now - the steering is done, the brake is fabbed, I have four 12v 7ah batteries on it, and everything is wired up. It turns on, but I think I have my on/off switch and battery indicator connectors swapped. I'll have to repin them.


I haven't been able to read the build tag on my truck to figure out which rearend I have, so today I took a pic in hopes of being able to photoshop it into readability. As soon as I uploaded it to my computer I was able to read "GU6". I have 3.42 gears on an open differential. So, hot tip of the day. If your build tag is unreadable, take a photo.

Edit: Ugh. Can't get the pics to work.

Fix the pics or else...ics-****:

Yeah, I've run out of local storage. I tried linking to the google photos pic. Got someone test driving the Beetle TDI right now, so I'll have to fix it later.

It was a slow day at work for me so I sat down and read the entire thread. The amount of time and energy you have put in this truck is insane. I'm enjoying reading the thread and seeing the progression! I have lost a little motivation to work on my truck as its stuck an hour away from me and its about 100 degrees in south Texas which is a little warm for this northern transplant. However it has kicked me into gear to research my transmission issue and get the parts together to hopefully get it mechanically sound when it cools off!