1990 K3500 454 Stick Shift

[packer0440]

With new carpet installed to replace the horribly worn out vinyl floor, it was off to the races with the new trans; it drives awesome. Much quieter, tighter, and somewhat faster shifts (probably aided by new clutch hydraulics). Couldn't be happier with the decision to swap it out. As a bonus, I did later hit the jackpot at the salvage yard and found the insulation that goes under the boot for the early NV4500, long discontinued. This made a HUGE difference in gear/road noise coming from inside.

 

[packer0440]

Next order of business was getting rid of the moonie gages for a tach cluster. Couldn't find a 91 needle cluster, so went ahead and rewired for the 92-94 style. Took some time but well worth it, as the plastic on the moonies was hard to see through. Initially had issues with the oil pressure and temperature moving with electrical load (also an issue with the old gauges), and the tach fluttering. The tach flutter ended up being a bad ICM, while cleaning up the main body ground fixed the other ones. Now everything works as it should; the fuel gauge is even accurate (although it does hop around a lot when shifting gears).

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Cool project, nice work!

 

[packer0440]

One more repair I made, which made a huge difference in how the truck ran, was changing the gasket under the TBI unit. I was fighting a vacuum leak that made the truck idle around 1100 rpm and would lope up and down after pushing in the clutch coming to a stop. Had a hard time pinpointing it until I saw a reference to that on a thread on this site. The effect was amplified due to the early big blocks having 2 gaskets; one for the TBI and one for the adapter to the intake. Here's what was left of the original:

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The adapter gasket was in similar shape and came off in several pieces. For anyone who sees this, don't forget about this gasket! Truck runs and idles like a top now.

 

[RichLo]

Wow... Those are some really red pants!

 

[packer0440]

Wow... Those are some really red pants!

Had them forever, I'll never get rid of them

 

[GoToGuy]

Which truck are you working on? It starts about a C dually, but the pics are K25 or K35 SRW ? Did I miss the jump to a diff ' truck? Yikes, does that carpet glow in the dark?

 

[packer0440]

Which truck are you working on? It starts about a C dually, but the pics are K25 or K35 SRW ? Did I miss the jump to a diff ' truck? Yikes, does that carpet glow in the dark?

This is a K3500 SRW. The C3500 is the dually in one of the pics in the background
BTW the lighting in the pics make it seem brighter than it actually is; Gramps was good with the color so we just went with it. With the floor mats in it now it matches the seat pretty well.

 

[packer0440]

Update on the project:

Decided that given the mileage, it was time for the motor to get a refresh, especially after seeing the wear on the rear main bearing earlier. Was also fighting an input shaft seal leak I neglected to think about when swapping the trans

So, out with the drivetrain

 

[packer0440]

Proceeding with the tear down, didn’t expect anything crazy since it was running pretty smooth. Things looked good, minus a couple cylinders that looked like they were running fat.