92 K2500 Revival

[Erik the Awful]

Redhead's instructions:

How do I purge air, or bleed, my steering gear box system?​

1. After installing the gearbox, fill the system with fluid.
2. Raise the front wheels off the ground, DO NOT start the vehicle.
3. Work the steering wheel back and forth, lock to lock, 15-20 times.
4. Leave the vehicle sit (overnight is best) AT LEAST 2 hours
5. Top the pump reservoir off again.
6. Work the steering wheel back and forth again 7-10 times
7. Have a person in the vehicle and another at the pump reservoir with a container of fluid & funnel ready to pour if necessary.
8. Instruct the person in the vehicle to start the engine. As soon as this happens, if the fluid level drops, be ready to pour in more fluid. The level must be kept at an almost full level or it will suck in air again.
9. If this procedure is followed properly, the air problem will be solved.

 

[Orpedcrow]

Man she sounds good! Great job!

 

[Road Trip]

It has been done.

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First weld went pretty good, I didn't hit this with the grinder much:

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Second weld was vertical with too much of a gap, even after I buttered the piece. Many weld crimes were committed. Heavy grinding hides my terrible job:

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Third weld went ok, the gap was a little much and I had to jump around, maybe preheated too much. I did a little grinding just to make sure I was getting a flush fit because the weld ended up being on the corner:

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Engine mount fitup is excellent:

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I think the best advice I got was to get a quality welder so the problem will be your technique and not the machine. This little Miller is extremely good, hardly spatters at all with the right settings.

Komet,

That was an inspirational read, somewhere between a journey and an adventure. The photo where
you are showing the fitment of the motor mounts to the area where you repaired the frame is amazing.

Listen, that Vortec + TPI setup is going to pull like a big block in it's power band. Others have
commented on how the TPI is a great truck SBC setup, and adding the modern combustion
chambers in the Vortec heads will make tuning for max driveability/efficiency all that easier. Nice!

****

Listen, you might be too young to remember the Callaway Sledgehammer Corvette, but it
shows how Mr. Callaway drove a TPI-based Corvette from his shop in CT out to Ohio, attained
254 mph on the test track...and then drove the Corvette back to CT just to prove that
it was as reliable as it was fast: (~4 minutes in length)

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One more thing -- if you don't have this book from the TPI era written by John Lingenfelter,
then I'd highly recommend you pick up a copy...from $17 used: (LINK)

I share these with you, if for no other reason than when some chump tries to goof on your
TPI setup you can enlighten them on just how cool that design is...and all the room it has for
supporting additional power generation *if* you deem it necessary. :0)

And you have a great sense of humor...which is a definite plus on a project this size. I close
with a quote from you:

"Got the wallet in the freezer since it's about ready to catch fire."

Nice job. Congrats on all that you have accomplished to date!

 

[Supercharged111]

Well not bad at all for a first start, I've had much more failure filled attempts than that. Now that you've heard it run, I imagine you're even more pumped to get it half-assed enough to go for a quick rip and then refine from there.

 

[Komet]

Redhead's instructions:

How do I purge air, or bleed, my steering gear box system?​

Thanks, having the person at the pump ready to add was where I went wrong, and I even had the extra person around at the time!

Man she sounds good! Great job!

I'll work on getting some better sound clips later because that video does it no justice, but yeah very healthy sounding which is such great news.

Komet,

That was an inspirational read, somewhere between a journey and an adventure. The photo where
you are showing the fitment of the motor mounts to the area where you repaired the frame is amazing.

Listen, that Vortec + TPI setup is going to pull like a big block in it's power band. Others have
commented on how the TPI is a great truck SBC setup, and adding the modern combustion
chambers in the Vortec heads will make tuning for max driveability/efficiency all that easier. Nice!

****

Listen, you might be too young to remember the Callaway Sledgehammer Corvette, but it
shows how Mr. Callaway drove a TPI-based Corvette from his shop in CT out to Ohio, attained
254 mph on the test track...and then drove the Corvette back to CT just to prove that
it was as reliable as it was fast: (~4 minutes in length)

One more thing -- if you don't have this book from the TPI era written by John Lingenfelter,
then I'd highly recommend you pick up a copy...from $17 used: (LINK)

I share these with you, if for no other reason than when some chump tries to goof on your
TPI setup you can enlighten them on just how cool that design is...and all the room it has for
supporting additional power generation *if* you deem it necessary. :0)

And you have a great sense of humor...which is a definite plus on a project this size. I close
with a quote from you:

"Got the wallet in the freezer since it's about ready to catch fire."

Nice job. Congrats on all that you have accomplished to date!

I appreciate the kind words. It has been a journey to equip myself with the tools and knowledge I needed to do this level of work and I feel very fortunate to finally be able to afford the investment.

I'm excited to see what the Vortec TPI combo will do. The benchmark in my head would be to hit stock 454 SS power levels while still having a truck that could do 13 mpg city / 18-20 mpg highway unloaded. I'd like to be able to tow a car on a trailer, and on paper the TPI is hitting maximum volumetric efficiency right around ideal towing RPM.

Funny you should mention the Lingenfelter book, that was the light reading novel I took with me on our camping trip this year. I acquired this trio of books off a guy on Facebook, both the Lingenfelter and TPIS books have a lot of great benchmarks and insights:

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Well not bad at all for a first start, I've had much more failure filled attempts than that. Now that you've heard it run, I imagine you're even more pumped to get it half-assed enough to go for a quick rip and then refine from there.

Oh yeah, very excited to have passed the milestone where I can (hopefully?) keep what I have installed as a foundation at this point, and hang the rest of the pieces on it to get the truck end-to-end bolted back together.

 

[Erik the Awful]

Thanks, having the person at the pump ready to add was where I went wrong, and I even had the extra person around at the time!

Glad that helped. I blew out the pitman seal in the pump I rebuilt three times, then ordered the Redhead box. Their instructions are well and above what I was doing, and it worked great right out of the box. I think the pre-bleeding process with the engine off helps a lot.

 

[Komet]

Well a guy fixed the leaks fairly quickly, and decided it was time to try out a test drive. With no active cooling, temps rise quickly to 180F (my thermostat choice), and slowly climb from there. I heat cycled everything to 205F again during the leak check, after installing the fan and the upper shroud (I'm missing the lower, it was probably destroyed in the crash that totalled the green truck) temps normalized around 180 easily.

The short drive was honestly uneventful. It drives like any old gmt400. Brakes are ok at least at low speeds, power steering was a little groany but it does work, seemingly plenty of power on tap, I didn't really hit the pedal to get up and going so I think I need to lower my in gear RPM, seems like 700 is already flashing up on the converter just a touch more than I'd like to see.

Accelerated a little and got my 1-2 shift so we are communicating with the trans. I came right home after that since my lugs aren't torqued for driving and I had loose bolts everywhere but the truck is officially movable.

I did a few things today. Hammered out the big dent in the front bumper. Now there's a bunch of smaller ones but it's about as nice looking as everything else so that's fine. I thought I was going to be a Real Smart Guy and just hook up the speedometer and tachometer real quick, but no such luck. Either the wires I picked are wrong, or I'm not manipulating the seemingly undocumented speedo/tach menu in the FiTech controller correctly. I may reach out to FiTech about that, I feel like they at least owe me descriptions of what this stuff means:

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I lack a square wave generation device to test the chassis wires, in any case there will need to be more research into this topic to achieve gaugalation. I did find the TCC unlock signal from the brake pedal and I can confirm the FiTech controller is now recieving that signal correctly. It can display tach and speed as digital gauges on the controller so while that's not optimal, I am technically gauge and logic complete with respect to the FiTech system.

I moved on to headlights and the rest of the fun things that hang off the core support. Another poorly welded nut broke loose from one of the headlight holes. Avoid aftermarket core supports at all costs. Also, I think I figured out why the running lights had a bit of a delay before they turned on:

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Oof, deep dish double crust. Cleaning out every socket is now on the menu.

 

[Komet]

Cleaned all the sockets, put the front end back together, did a bunch of little jobs, and I was ready to take it on the test loops.

The first test is down the street and back, then leak check. Passed. The second test is the same thing, again. Passed. Then a torturous five minutes of idle. Pass, no leaks, temps between 175-185F. Ok, she's approved for traffic, so I put insurance on it and hit the road. There's a gas station just a few blocks away.

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I made it, no problems. Trial 3 is the suburban loop short, a 3 mile drive between 30-40mph. That went well, and it passed the leak check at home again, so I did that loop one more time, still passing with no real failures to speak of.

Driving impressions: I'm astonished at how drivable this tune is straight out of the box. I still haven't done anything other than set the initial configuration parameters and the truck is totally drivable. Doesn't lurch or bog, never died or stalled, it shifts my trans a little firm on the 1-2. Throttle tip in could probably use a little work and the idle seems to fluctuate just a little much but it really seems like only minor tweaks are going to be needed to get this thing dialed in.

It probably helps I have a stock cam. Power seems strong, it's hard to hear the squealing of the tires over the glasspack but I'm pretty sure I was doing rolling burnouts on the highway by how greasy the rear end felt. Adequate for a daily driver truck at least.

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Brakes kinda pulse but they stop the vehicle. I've been told my torsion bars are cranked for the Cummins load so the ride might be a little rough but it's not crazy. I super do not trust these tires so that's going to be on the short list of priority items.

I'm going to go on ahead and call this truck revived. She's a going to town rig.

 

[Supercharged111]

So it appears burnouts were had, but no evidence thereof?

 

[Orpedcrow]