92 K2500 Revival

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Komet

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Looks good. It part the frame missing?
Uhh, yeah maybe. I forget if he said he had to gas axe something out of the lower front area k-member ish type situation. Or maybe that had to happen on the suburban when he was doing the lift. I wasn't paying attention at the time; I was elbows deep in the IROC-Z. The front diff is missing (it was bad), and it's got like, half axle shafts or something like that so the front wheel doesn't fall off again. Also he said something about one of the steering components ripping off the frame when he hit a bump and there's like, a bonus plate sandwiched into something to keep it all together.

Still lots of GMT400s at the junkyards around here so I just tell myself it can all be rebuilt. In the meantime, I've been wasting time on cosmetics. I'll go take some pics.
 

Komet

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Ok well maybe it's not too impressive but I'm doing my thing over here. Rear facing light filled with water and not actually electrically connected has been removed. Steel wool and acetone on the bumper got the overspray off, I also hit the towing hitch with the last of my DE1635. Probably needs another coat:
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Ripped the smoker vents off the doors, did the steel wool acetone combo on the fender trim. Will remove these for paint:
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Also did the front bumper, deleted the front license plate holder because she's a classic now and they only issue rear plates for those here. Restored some dignity to the front badge, even if it's temporary I couldn't bear to see it all grossly flat black:
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Jonathanhicks

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Uhh, yeah maybe. I forget if he said he had to gas axe something out of the lower front area k-member ish type situation. Or maybe that had to happen on the suburban when he was doing the lift. I wasn't paying attention at the time; I was elbows deep in the IROC-Z. The front diff is missing (it was bad), and it's got like, half axle shafts or something like that so the front wheel doesn't fall off again. Also he said something about one of the steering components ripping off the frame when he hit a bump and there's like, a bonus plate sandwiched into something to keep it all together.

Still lots of GMT400s at the junkyards around here so I just tell myself it can all be rebuilt. In the meantime, I've been wasting time on cosmetics. I'll go take some pics.
 

Komet

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Wife had to go into work on our day off yesterday and the sun was out, so I took advantage of it and started actually making progress on the required tasks to get this unit moving again.

Wobble pops and wobble extensions are are dangerous combo, I had a spicy level medium moment taking off the forward tank strap nuts:

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I see why dudes like the swivel sockets for jamming off nuts under the car for the ease of access. But, I pounded the deep socket back on there and got it off anyhow.

Got myself into a jam on the last two fuel connections to the pump; I had no swing arc for my normal length wrenches to fit on the fittings. The back sides were always bumping into the body or parts of the frame, so I bought some stubby wrenches and had plenty of room after that.

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Tank is now out, soon we will delve into its mysterious diesely contents. Overall most of the connections were in really good shape, I was expecting more of a fight.
 

Komet

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I don't know how this pump was getting a ground, but my buddy said he could hear it running when he flipped the toggle switch custom breaker thing I deleted on:

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The gunk on top of the pump was thicker than a dairy queen blizzard and I ain't kiddin ya. I went through the three stages of grief cleaning it:
1. "Well maybe I can do it cheap with simple green and a brush!" - No.
2. "OK I'll hit it with brake clean, throw some money at it." - Negative
3. "Fine I'll break out the pressure washer."

Got it clean, fortunately the inside looks pretty good:
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The crunching noise I heard was the plastic baffle cracking when I put the jack directly underneath with no support. It's still in one piece so I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that and reuse the tank. There was hardly any diesel left, maybe a quart or two, so my siphon deal was mostly successful.

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Pump hanger assembly looks ok, so I'm going to reuse it. This was the pump that was in there:

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Next steps are ordering a turbine style pump to support my pwm power supply, I reckon 255lph should be sufficient for anything TPI based. I also need to figure out where that power is going to integrate into the harness, I can create my own weatherpack terminals but I forget how many amps a single terminal supports on them, if it's 15a that should be ok but if it's 10a then maybe I split the feed wire over 2 terminals and change the 3pin to a 4pin.

Perhaps I should decide on a location for the ecm and run some wires. I was just peeking under the truck bed after having the tank out and there was like a feather attached to fishing line on a thing hanging?? Probably a dreamcatcher to filter out my ghosts or something. I'll take a closer look later, it was dark down there and I had to get to work.
 

Komet

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This was the dreamcatcher:
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My wife said they're reflectors for a fishing line setup. What's interesting is my buddy has had this truck for like five years and he doesn't fish, so it's been there a pretty long time. It's tangled on some antenna extensions that are mounted to the back of the bed. I'll probably delete on that situation before the tank goes back in.

Also look at that minty undercarriage! See what I mean, it's super nice down there.

So I got to figuring on the ecm location and decided to have a visit with the stock unit:
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Behold! For there is none! This is part of why I love this era of cars; the chassis harness is basically independent from the engine which makes swaps super convenient. My fuel pump wire splits off the FiTech harness very early so I can choose to run it through the cab or down the firewall. The ecm will fit great in the stock location and there's a fist sized fusebox / relay assembly that should also fit in this area fine.

My last conundrum was to figure out what to do with our friend GT101, the ecm bulkhead pass through deal on the lower passenger side. It's not exclusive to the ecm and more components pass through there, about three of which I need so I can't just rip and tear my way out of it. Since I had a bad experience with C100 and GT101 appears to be siliconed together, I was really concerned about splitting it up to get it off. Fortunately, the entire assembly flops forward after the two 7mm screws in the engine bay are removed:

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Here's what I'm thinking: cram the whole thing through the hole somehow and tuck it up under the dash. Put a plate over the square hole, drill a hole big enough to pass through my FiTech harness plus the three wires I need from GT101 (with grommet), and nobody's the wiser. Boom, sorted. Maybe I can get a square grommet and skip the plate? Probably not.
 

Komet

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I sent a mail to Racetronix asking if the stuff I selected was right for my application, no response. So I did the right thing and ordered it anyway with an extra fuel sock because I don't know. I took a bunch of pictures of my fuel pump and hanger, pretty sure the pictures match up so we'll see how that goes next week.

Spent a little time on the bed side getting it smoothed out after blasting previous dude's primer off. 120 grit was very aggressive, 320 grit might be too mellow but does adequately rough a smooth surface for primer adhesion. Rustoleum black automotive primer seems like a direct match for the old paint so that was an unexpected win.

Busted out the wiring harness and the digital calipers to find the nominal hole diameter that will allow the whole harness to be snaked through. 1 1/2" was what I came up with, which was larger than my current ability to make holes with a step bit so I ordered up a hole saw kit and got some fancy grommets from fastener_depot on ebay. They even sent me an extra grommet for free:

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You can also see the license plate cover I've got going on with some measurements. I hammered it flat, worked pretty well.

It was a tight fit. I measured the OD of the largest connector and added 1/8" but I neglected to measure the OD of a fairly large connector plus the width of the harness at that point because they must pass through together. I was able to sneak the grommet all the way on though:

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I think this would be difficult in the car, so I'm going to leave the grommet on there, pass it and the harness through from the cabin side, then hopefully sneak the plate back over the harness from the engine bay side. The ID of the plate hole is 1 1/2" which is greater than the ID of the rubber grommet so I hope I can cram that connector + harness choke point through it. It's going to be tight but possible I think.
 

Komet

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My Racetronix stuff came in, they were the correct parts but the universal kit came with a center outlet rubber grommet instead of an offset one so I reused the old one.

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One of the ribs in the pump was misaligned for the old rubber grommet but with a little cutting that needed to happen anyway for the valve flow hole or whatever and it was fitting flush.

So I've got it physically installed, I disassembled the new connector with the hopes I could put new spades on the stock wires, but the stock wires will be just barely too short:

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I'm a crimp and heatshrink kind of guy, but I'm concerned about polyolefin being submerged in gasoline so I'm going to get some PTFE heatshrink appropriate for 14ga wire and then the pump can go back in.

Decided to clamp down on the budget and reuse the fans that came with the truck that I left in the truck bed this whole time in the rain and snow:

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I can confirm they are the cheapest fans on ebay, red flavor though so they must spin faster. They do work when exposed to 12v. Got some radiator zip ties on ebay for $7 shipped.

Check out my fancy TPI fuel rail to -AN 6 adapters:

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They're steel, and came with viton o-rings, very deluxe. Also found the cheapest -AN 6 end caps on ebay because I'd hate to mar the mating surface of these while I'm bumping around in the engine bay.

I also have spec'd out the -AN conversion for the lines coming from the tank, going to flare them after the bendy line with inverted flares because I don't have 37 degree flare stuff, then I'll use an inverted flare to -AN 6 male adapter and we'll be good to simply run some PTFE -AN lines from there to the rails and boom, fuel system complete.
 

Kens1990K2500

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Well fellers, the wins just keep coming. I put the 'ol razzle dazzle (brass brush, random wad of sandpaper, excessive qd electronic cleaner) on the contacts going to the digical hvac machine and she came right back around:
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We got all three fan modes, we got blend doors blendalating, we even got power to the equalizer screen and I'll be dipped, the tape deck works.

Interestingly, the hvac controller is getting constant 12v. I can turn it on with the key out and the screen is always lit. My buddy told me to try hitting the bonus switch under the dash, but it's already gone. So there's one weirdness with this circuit where it needs to be corrected to switched 12v but that's not too bad.

I think the hazard flasher has somehow escaped from the vehicle; I couldn't find it under the dash and there's a convenient empty clip where it looks like it should be. I jumped the loose connector there and all four marker lights lit up so I'm pretty sure I'll have turn signals after I acquire a flasher. Also took a video on my phone and confirmed brake lights work. I think I'm down to just wipers and the switched 12v issue?
I like those digital HVAC controls. My truck has the same one. Mine had a flickering display. It worked, sort of, although you couldn't tell what mode or temp setting it was on.

I replaced it with a unit from eBay, not too difficult to swap. 'New' unit has been good. Gives the truck an old-school, 80s vibe.
 
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