1998 Chevy Silverado Repair and Restore

[Nad_Yvalhosert]

BTW that’s the original spare tire with the blue coating still on the “Tiger Paw” lettering.

Not to "one-up", more to empathize...
Growing up, my neighbor bought an '89 1500 4x4 new. I loved that truck, I idolized that truck. And now I own that truck. 5.7, manual tranny, 38k, and Whipple supercharger.
Here's my point. The original spare is included. Goodyear Wrangler TD. I havent seen one of those tires in 20 years

 

[thegawd]

BTW that’s the original spare tire with the blue coating still on the “Tiger Paw” lettering.

Do not use that spare tire! it doesn't matter how nice it looks it is still a 25 year old tire and it will come apart. I would simply replace it before you need it.

I had my Burbs original spare in perfect shape on the Burb when my wife was driving one of our daughters to a baseball game from our cottage...

halfway there the tire looses its tread and it rips off all the rear AC and coolant lines, spewing coolant and refrigerant all over the hot exhaust..... it also just destroyed all the sheet metal back there.

without a spare in the truck, without an extra vehicle and being far away from home, I called everyone I could think that might have one of these tires and nope.... they all drive new vehicles.

A buddy lent me his car and I was finally able to get to my wife and meet the tire guy...

she was on the side of the road for about 2 hours AND not one damn person stopped to help her!

it cost me $200 to have a tire shop replace the tire on the side of the road.

YEAH.... get rid of that old spare before it creates a headache for you.

 

[GMTMark]

Good advice. I wouldn’t want my wife and kids to have that problem. Sounds scary. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[thegawd]

Yeah NP. the spare was on for a couple days and about 200KMS. it was so my fault for not changing it back asap but we were broke and couldnt do much about it.... It was risky running without a spare in the truck and a hard, expensive lesson learned. the tire was perfect and I really didnt think anything negative about it.

 

[Jesse_Wenting]

I don't even keep my spare on the truck any more. Running bigger tires anyways, but the big problem with the spares on these trucks up in Ontario is the salt we use on our roads in the winter. If I even find a parts truck with a spare wheel hoist that's not rusted solid I'm grabbing it lol

 

[454cid]

Wow, I've never seen a dash so bad it needed a jackstand to hold it up!

My spare tires are like my old man's, they're round and were once made out of rubber. I have no idea what happened to my original spare. Maybe I used it up when I pulled out in front of a Toyota after being to the dentist, and made the young girl driver cry. That was a great day :-/

 

[thegawd]

Man, my buddy rebuilt the spare hoist on my sierra before I bought it. it came down like it was supposed to....

I never knew but I removed the spare from it anyways as I have fought and lost removing a spare from a gmt800 truck and knew this was a terrible design for our salty roads....

Apparently if you maintain the hoist like once or twice a year you wont ever have problems with it but who remembers to do that?

 

[df2x4]

You guys are making me want to go lube up my spare hoist on the red truck... Knock on wood but I've never had issues with it.

Last year I finally replaced the spare on that truck with a matching BFG KO2. I thought about keeping the original Uniroyal Tiger Paw spare as a trophy but decided against it.

 

[454cid]

Man, my buddy rebuilt the spare hoist on my sierra before I bought it. it came down like it was supposed to....

I never knew but I removed the spare from it anyways as I have fought and lost removing a spare from a gmt800 truck and knew this was a terrible design for our salty roads....

Apparently if you maintain the hoist like once or twice a year you wont ever have problems with it but who remembers to do that?

The time I had to fight with one, it was a GMT-610.... which is the GMT-800 redesign of the G-van. I bet it was the same hoist design you fought with. It was at work, and I kept spraying it with WD-40 and working the piece of crap back and forth, throughout the day. I don't remember why I was trying to get the tire down.

You guys are making me want to go lube up my spare hoist on the red truck... Knock on wood but I've never had issues with it.

Last year I finally replaced the spare on that truck with a matching BFG KO2. I thought about keeping the original Uniroyal Tiger Paw spare as a trophy but decided against it.

You're probably far enough south that you don't get all the salt dropped like we do up north. When I lived in Springfield, I was amazed at all the old cars I saw running around. That's were I bought my 69 LeSabre.

 

[GMTMark]

Update: The transmission is out and I finished building it today except for some new solenoid switches I'm waiting for. . I put a lot of expensive parts inside so it better hold up. 4L80 might have been cheaper but they're so heavy plus this 4L60 is the original tranny that came in the truck. It had a badly burnt OD clutch pack, 3rd gear clutches and band but it was still going. Also have a new Yank 3200 stall converter. While I have it out I'm replacing the rear main seal due to a small leak. I also installed a long beside the frame cooler with -AN fittings and lines. the Solenoids should be here tomorrow so I'll install those and put it back in while praying for it to work. Then some new u-joints and that should complete the drive train behind the engine. I've built lots of transmissions but it has been a little while.

Any suggestions for the engine? The injection seems to be the difficult part far as building real power but I'm going to keep it. I want a mostly factory look and definitely won't go to a carburetor. A few pics of the transmission process.