92 K2500 Revival

I love the early IROC ground effects. The later ones got too goofy with all the little fake ducts.

Today was a day of solutions. Oil pressure sensor installed:


Timing tape attached:


EGR feed hole plugged:


And the biggest win of the day, IAT fitment right beside the fuel return (hoses are not assembled, just mocked together). It's tight, but it's going to work:




I used a piston stop to find true TDC. There was some slop in the threads on my Summit Racing brand stop, so it was hard to be very precise but my TDC mark might be as much as 3 degrees retarded. Not a huge deal, I've read vortec heads like conservative timing anyway so I'll keep that in mind while tuning but applied the timing tape on 0 anyway.

Not pictured: thermostat rtv'd and outlet bolts torqued, confirmed hose clearance with throttle body is good. Valve covers swapped to put the oil fill on the passenger side where it won't potentially interfere with the water outlet hose. Scraped the old gaskets out of the covers, I didn't know it was possible to make cork gaskets worse but Victor Reinz managed to slide sheet metal between this one, because what I really want to do is grip the equivalent of a dull hacksaw blade while I chisel the fossilized and molecularly fused cork from the valve cover. Anyhow, some nice Fel-Pro permadry silicone gaskets took their place. Also installed the power steering pulley and torqued all related accessory drive bolts. Getting closer.

I got mostly everything as dialed in as it needs to be out of the vehicle on the engine:


I was doing a bit of post-swap cleanup when I had a hard look at that beefy vortec coil and (possibly ICM?) assembly when I had an idea:


Rivets can no longer stop me, for I have a drill press.




Boom, coil and MAP sensor mount sorted. I can simply bolt some angled steel wherever I need to on the firewall, and this can easily attach to that with two big bolts.

I kept the heatsink because it looks bangin.

Got the summer fleet maintenance out of the way, my half bay can now be blocked by the black truck whenever I can get some help moving it. Turns out the oil pressure gauge was reading infinity PSI in the IROC-Z because the sender was bad, finally have all my gauges in that thing. I found the vortec fresh air tube I lost, it's totally wrong for a TPI application but Hawks reproduces the 90-92 style tube so I picked one of those up:



It seems slightly too long, but is otherwise the perfect shape. I'll wait for all the electrical connections to be attached before I make the cut so it won't interfere with everything else going on. PCV system sorted.

Did a bunch of boring harness disassembly to extract the pigtails I need for everything related to starting, charging, grounding, and gauges:



It was a surprisingly filthy job, the black plastic wire sheathing gets very nasty over time but it did keep the wires clean and undamaged so I guess I should re-sheath my setup after I finalize all my lengths. I kept a few choice sections that weren't heat damaged, might wash them first or something.

The vortec battery cables appear to be in good shape. I'm switching to a top post battery style, did some research about switching connection styles and these compression fittings seem nice:

http://www.fastronixsolutions.com/Battery Power Accessories/bat comp end.htm

I have a nice thick red wire with enough length to travel from the battery to the junction block on the firewall. Need to decide if I'm doing it that way, or coming up off the starter. I'm guessing directly from battery is technically superior, but does it really matter when I only need to support vehicle subsystem power? The FiTech will be getting its own direct to battery connection as per the instructions. Just thinking I don't want a million wires running to the battery.

It occurs to me that I've just about run out of things I claim to know about, so I'm back to being an idiot to make the rest of this happen. There are a couple unfortunate setbacks;

1. I finally figured out what that guy was saying about pieces missing in my engine bay after being confused about where that last bolt goes with the engine mounts:


Little tough to see, but the lower part of the chassis where the one bolt from the engine mount goes is gone on both sides. This was done to accommodate the Cummins, I found the procedure on a swap site. I think I'm just going to live with it, don't have a good way around this one right now. Will think twice before jumping the truck.

2. I just don't have the right combination of transfer case and driveshafts to hook it all up. Mechanically, that is. My rear axle ratio doesn't match the front I'm installing so I'll get this far and not be able to pull the lever until I get a 14 bolt 3.73 4x4 unit but the facts remain. A transcription of my personal truck notes follows, to the best of my understanding:

I have:
NP241C
-probably 32 spline
-slip yoke rear output
-4" bell front output yoke, Dodge style?
&
NP243
-27 spline
-slip yoke rear output
-fixed front output yoke

what exists:
NP241C (early 4L60e floor shift)
-27 spline
-slip yoke rear output
-4" bell front output yoke

NP241C (late 4L60e floor shift)
-27 spline
-SYE rear output
-fixed front output yoke

-when GM went to fixed, they went SYE on the rear output
--need the matching rear driveshaft for an ECSB ideally 14 bolt.
--OR need matching front driveshaft with 4" bell.

The slip yoke is mega rusty on my driveshaft and since it needs a conversion u joint anyway for the 14 bolt, I might be better off getting a late np241c so I can use the green truck's front driveshaft and just have a shop fix up my rear driveshaft for what I need.

Learning is a process and it's not always fun.

That's the chunk I had to splice back in when I un-Cummins swapped a truck myself. If the engine is out go nab that bit from the junkyard. It'll be impossible to get at once the motor is in. Check the other side too.

Supercharged111 said:

That's the chunk I had to splice back in when I un-Cummins swapped a truck myself. If the engine is out go nab that bit from the junkyard. It'll be impossible to get at once the motor is in. Check the other side too.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me just leaving it.

So I took a trip and visited an old friend:


M18 Fuel Hackzall with a Torch blade made quick work of the 3/16" steel, very recommended. I also had a moment of incredible fortune, and found myself a 27 spline NP241C out of a 92' 6 lug K2500, already pulled sitting right on the gastank. I found the front driveshaft under the truck as well.



The transfer case seems to be leaking from the part that connects the tailshaft to the main case, I'm going to need to look into that but at least I've got one.

Meeting with a guy on Tuesday for the final piece of the puzzle. Did you know just a bottle of argon/co2 shielding gas costs $332.61 from the welding supply store? Whew, hoping to do a bit better than that.

It's Miller time:


Picked up this lightly used unit with a half full bottle, regulator, cart, and extra spools of flux wire for $550 from a retired machinist up the road. Took a trip to the local tractor supply to pick up a helmet and some steel and I've started practicing butt welding on 3/16". It's the upper limit of my machine and I've got it running almost flat out on .023" wire but five welds in I've got something that is seemingly demonstrating metal fusion as I can't bust it with my foot leveraging against a pair of vise grips:


The smell of argon and hot metal takes me back to my highschool Ag Tech classes. I got an A in both classes, really liked metalwork. Wanted to be a mechanic. Every mechanic I talked to back then told me I'd be injured by 40 and that the vocation wasn't worth it. Oh well, it's my hobby now.

Komet said:

Every mechanic I talked to back then told me I'd be injured by 40 and that the vocation wasn't worth it.

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This^^ lol I’m almost 35, pinched a nerve in my back, slinging tires all day in a quick lube at 21, I’m at the chiropractor ATLEAST twice a month since then.

For me, working at a dealership, running flag time isn’t worth it. You only get paid for what “the book” says you should. For example, a rear main seal would call for say 8 hours. If you’ve never done one, it’s probably going to take you a lot longer than that but you only get the 8 hours… unless it’s warranty work, then you get usually half that. 60-70 hour work weeks with a 24 hour check takes the fun out of your favorite hobby and it gets old very fast.

Komet said:

Yeah, the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me just leaving it.

So I took a trip and visited an old friend:

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M18 Fuel Hackzall with a Torch blade made quick work of the 3/16" steel, very recommended. I also had a moment of incredible fortune, and found myself a 27 spline NP241C out of a 92' 6 lug K2500, already pulled sitting right on the gastank. I found the front driveshaft under the truck as well.

You must be registered for see images attach

The transfer case seems to be leaking from the part that connects the tailshaft to the main case, I'm going to need to look into that but at least I've got one.

Meeting with a guy on Tuesday for the final piece of the puzzle. Did you know just a bottle of argon/co2 shielding gas costs $332.61 from the welding supply store? Whew, hoping to do a bit better than that.

Click to expand...

That's a lot of money for gas, I pay equivilant of US$145.00 for an F size bottle (5 cubic mtrs) of straight argon here in NZ and I thought that was high.