$800 97 K1500

[HerpDerp1919]

Stumbled across one heck of a deal on market place. Guy was asking $1500 for this fairly straight 97 K1500 (this will make my fourth 97 I've owned, seems like my year apparently). Been looking for a replacement since my K2500 got stolen. Figured I'd at least go check it out and see how firm he was. Needs head gaskets, and possibly a trans but it was sitting so im hoping maybe just some gunk has settled in the pan.
Truck is completely rhino lined which was a huge turn off for me. I told him I wasn't interested and he said "Look, you're the first person to actually show up, look at it, and not low ball me off the bat. Just throw me an offer, I need it gone." So I offered $800 and he gladly accepted. Seems to have great oil pressure, no odd noises and the trans goes into first good at least. I'm pretty ecstatic to have another OBS and was able to get a sort of running and driving 4x4 for $800 in south Texas. This is the only picture I have of it right now. But will post more. Holding off on diving into the head gasket repair until I get the title transferred. But then if that goes through alright, it's game on!

 

[MaqTruck]

Nice find man! It is amazing how many people don't show up. I also got my 89 K1500 for $800. Good luck with it! I hope to see updates.

 

[HerpDerp1919]

Got around to getting some pictures of the truck. I can get my hand behind the dent in the bed so hopefully that will be easy to push out, that's the only real major body damage to the truck

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Interior is a little rough but hopefully a good deep cleaning will straighten most of it out. Overall this truck is a much better starting point than my white one. At least this one actually fits in the garage so I can keep it from getting messed with. Thieves love stealing wheels off trucks around me.

 

[HerpDerp1919]

After spending a day re-organizing my garage to get this to fit I started digging into the head gasket replacement. Got it all torn down in about two afternoons.

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Heads are off to the machine shop to get checked and decked as well as a valve job. However I'm at a loss on which HG went as I didn't see anything that would be an obvious failure point unless the breakage on the bottom right of head #1 would be a failure point but im not sure if that would dump coolant into the cylinders.
Head #1 (the bending is from the removal)

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Head #2

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Tomorrows plan is to go out and scrape off all the old material and get everything cleaned up and ready for re-install. Depending on how much time that takes and how long the machine shop takes I might get bold and do my oil pan gasket, rear main, front main, timing cover gasket, and remove the oil cooler lines since the whole bottom of this truck is coated in oil.

 

[tpass]

nice, that would be a $2000 truck in Massachusetts.. usually the cylinders that have coolant leaks are real clean compared to the others.. those valves do look slightly different than the others... but that could just be lighting

 

[HerpDerp1919]

Boy oh boy did this head gasket repair turn out to be a lot more than I bargained for. For starters the machine shop I took my original heads to waited until I called as I hadn't heard anything in two weeks to inform me that my cylinder heads were cracked. Luckily I found a set of good Vortec heads near me, tried a different machine shop and got em back in about a day and a half. Issue was they had aftermarket valve springs on one head but not the other. Guy I bought them from left the box with the other springs outside so they were rusty as all get out. Went to the junkyard and snagged a set of valve springs off a truck there as I can't figure out when the machine shop that has my bad heads is going to be open since they don't actually follow their posted business hours.

Figured that since I'm that far into the cylinder heads I'll do valve seals just as a CYA. Well it turns out that someone milled the valve guides on one cylinder head but not the other so the replacement ones from Fel-Pro wouldn't fit. Got lucky as hell and found a CarQuest with an attached machine shop that had the valve seals I needed. Keep in mind I'm looking for all these parts on Christmas Eve, call it a Christmas miracle if you will.

After getting everything installed on the truck, the plastic clip of doom got me good. I'm talking about the plastic clip on the heater core hose. The housing on it was messed up so it was leaking but all the coolant ran down the valve cover and down the back of the engine making me think I messed up my intake gasket. After about 15 minutes of cussing and checking and double checking, my wife pointed out that was leaking. Cleaned it all up, swapped it with a barb fitting into the intake and no more coolant leaks.
On first start up it absolutely REFUSED to idle but would run if you gave it light throttle and kept it around 1k RPM. Figured it has to be something simple since it runs good at 1k RPM. Not sure exactly what the issue was as I replaced the battery, fuel filter, and cleaned the MAF today and now it runs good. Little bit of a rough idle but the engine runs quiet, holds about 30 psi of oil pressure at idle when warm so I'm happy. So far the head gasket seems to be holding so far (knocks on wood) so I'm calling this a success. I've replaced a lot of things over the years to include swapping transmissions/engines but this is the first time I've torn an engine down this far and had it work correctly after reassembly.

Went to go try and bleed the brakes today as well since I have zero brake pedal. This led me to discover that the locking lug nuts on the front left are different than the locking lugs on the other three wheels to which I do not have the key. Figured I'll play key roulette a different day and proceeded to just bleed front passenger since that would give me an idea on the condition of the brakes. While bleeding it I noticed that it was pushing air back INTO the reservoir which I have never seen. I'm not talking a few air bubbles, im talking like volcanic eruption in my reservoir. So I'm not sure if the master cylinder is savable or not, but this might be a good time to do the NBS master cylinder swap.

Apologies for the wall of text, I tried to format it as well as I could but I'm known for rambling. But TL;DR truck runs now, no brakes, I have Krakatoa equivalent for master cylinder.

 

[HerpDerp1919]

Got the truck out for its first drive today after bringing it home. Runs and drives pretty well. Steering is pretty loose and it has absolutely no brakes.
Replaced the MC and bench bled it as well, proceeded to bleed the rest of the system starting at the farthest wheel and working my way closer, still no change. I've got a guy I'm going to hit up on Monday and see if his computer has the ability to perform the ABS unit bleed.
Trans seems okayish, shifts aren't as crisp as id like but its a 200k mile truck that's sat for 10 months. Hoping a filter change and some drive time will clear it up a little bit. At least this one will hold overdrive!
Has little wisps of white smoke that come out of the exhaust even once its warmed up, wondering if that could be a PCV issue. But I'm just happy the HG seems to be holding and it goes down the road!

 

[frito-bandito]

Sounds like you’re having a blast lol. But I can’t wait to see more!

 

[HerpDerp1919]

Got to working on the truck again trying to track down this soft brake pedal issue. Everyone around me wants $300 to an ABS module bleed so I'm trying to eliminate all possibilities before I pay for that.
Figured I'd take a look at the rear brakes as I've read that these can cause the soft brake pedal and found this

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As well as two shot wheel cylinders.
I now remember why I hate drum brakes, but got everything replaced back there and still having a soft brake pedal issue. Starting to wonder if I maybe got a faulty replacement MC from O'Reillys.

 

[frito-bandito]

Trust me on this, have you tried going over 35mph on a gravel or dirt road and slammed on the brakes? It makes the ABS module cycle and purge.