92 K2500 Revival

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Komet

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I couldn't handle the door pulls. I'm all for some real wood trim, but not when it's just one piece, and not orange on light grey.

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$60 pair of ebay door pulls to the rescue! They're slightly the wrong color! The fitment is so-so! I actually spent an hour looking for better quality online for 90-94 door pulls but these were all I found. Haven't encountered any grey ones at the yard yet so these will be fine until I do.

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Looking pretty together in there. Dig my steering wheel in 'drive straight' position.
 

Komet

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Working on the logistics for door removal. The artificial difficulty of my situation is formidable. There's a 33% chance of no rain this time of year and the odds of said day landing on a weekend is lower, which means I have about 4 hours to get the door off and back on. I have assembled a rig to support the door and it seems reasonable:

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Two ratchet straps to hang the door from the top to control lean, and the trans jack strapped around the door with the window down should be enough. I've got all this stuff prepped and ready in the end of my bay now for an opportunistic strike operation.

Incidentally, if your truck is littered with wrong thread pitch self tapper phillips like mine, you need one of these:
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Vessel Impacta self-rotating impact screwdriver, zips those problems right out of there with the power of science and bludgeoning.
 

GrimsterGMC

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Working on the logistics for door removal. The artificial difficulty of my situation is formidable. There's a 33% chance of no rain this time of year and the odds of said day landing on a weekend is lower, which means I have about 4 hours to get the door off and back on. I have assembled a rig to support the door and it seems reasonable:

You must be registered for see images attach


Two ratchet straps to hang the door from the top to control lean, and the trans jack strapped around the door with the window down should be enough. I've got all this stuff prepped and ready in the end of my bay now for an opportunistic strike operation.

Incidentally, if your truck is littered with wrong thread pitch self tapper phillips like mine, you need one of these:
You must be registered for see images attach


Vessel Impacta self-rotating impact screwdriver, zips those problems right out of there with the power of science and bludgeoning.
Impact drivers are an awesome tool to have handy when removing old bolts or screws that have never been moved since the initial installation too. Just one good crack and they come free, can't ask for more than that.
 

Komet

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9am. It's a brisk 36F outside, a frozen layer of dew coats my driver's side door but it's warming up. I begin the operation.

I start with the roller spring catch arm since it's the one that comes with a "good luck" from Cunningham Machine and I assume I'm gonna lose time here. Well, I sure did.

I assumed I needed to grind the head off, hard to tell if it's press fit on there or what, but I gave it the zzzzt until it was level with the hinge and started pounding it with a punch. No go. Blowtorch didnt help. I tried pressing it out but it was levering hard on the arm itself so my forces weren't going where I wanted. 90 minutes goes by and I've essentially done nothing. I bail on this part of the operation, I'll try again when the door is off and I have more room.

I hook up the prepped lift and jack, the system works well:

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I knocked the previously field repaired roller pin out, the new one bolts in easy. I didn't realize the OD of the bushings are different sizes top and bottom and bent my install tool bolt (buy the tool, you don't need it but just do it) a little trying to put a big bushing in a small hole. I didn't go too far though, and figured it out before it was too late.

I decided the only way the catch arm was coming out was with a press, so I chopped the arm part off with the hackzall so the whole assembly fit through the hole in my ball joint c-clamp press. I then chopped the head off a phillips bit to use as a pressing dowel. It worked pretty well, there was enough force on the bit to gouge through the hinge steel when it shot sideways into the next county. Didn't budge the pin though.

At this point I spent another 15 minutes drilling it, but eventually had to hang that up too because I'm on a limited time budget. This is where I left it:

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Fail, but I don't need the door to hold open as bad as I need it to close easily. So I plop the door back on and the rest of the operation goes smoothly. The jack and hoist combo was good, it was easy to manipulate the door in free space by myself. I gave the door a test:

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Very nice. But I had one more problem: the door was smacking into the fender when I opened it. I think the door was drooping so bad that it started bending the fender. No worries, I used my professional bodyworking equipment:

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And fixed that right up with some precision bendalization. Everything is nice and smooth now, mission success.
 

Komet

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Put another half hour of runtime on the truck, another 5 miles of 40mph or lower road testing. Did some moderate brake stabs, it stops in a marginally acceptable way. Not alarming but not smooth either, and the pulse seems to maybe get a bit worse as the driving continues.
I've already made up my mind that I'm going to do fresh front brakes in short order.

Power steering seems to have chased the air out of the lines, that system is working good. Don't understand why the EVO was ever needed, the truck feels just fine with the delete.

Drivability-wise, I've been trying to A-B this setup with my L98. GM's tune is 'crisper' than mine; the throttle response is more immediate. I think I'm feeling the lag from the FiTech overcompensating then adjusting to match target AFRs, so I would imagine when I get my VE tables dialed in, they will be closer in response. Honestly I'm still impressed I can cruise this thing out of the box.

I found a small weep from the back of the transfer case where I had it open. I trusted you grape jelly sealant! I'll try snugging the bolts a little.

I've got new tires on order so I took another spin on the wheels with the M18 wheel refurbishment system:
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I think I've got them looking pretty good from 5 feet. My goal was to knock the reddish staining off and get back to a glossy finish. Now I won't be slinging any crud on my fresh tires. They're supposed to show up next week but I couldn't get an install appointment until the 7th.

Don't know what I'm going to do with the two cords of firewood I bought this year. I've got my wallet in the wood stove and it's keeping my house at 87F with the windows open if you know what I mean.
 

Komet

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Unsuccessful day today. I started on the power seat harness, identified where stuff needs to go, but I thought I'd give the seat a test first before committing to routing the harness.

I hooked my test leads up to an m12 battery, nothing. That's weird, maybe the switch controller needs to be hooked up.

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Yeah, it needs to be hooked up to the motors that aren't there. Junkyard truck life. Ok, well that fix is blocked on parts. Let's do heat for the 5th time but this time I read the service manual first.

I can't really tell if the heater core has coolant moving through it with the rad cap off. Eventually the system just builds pressure and wants to send coolant out. I tried siphoning it off a few times and putting it into the overflow but it just does that over and over. Ok, how about idle it and watch with a temp gun?

Ten minutes of that, three test loop drives, my water neck is at 160F. Both heater core hoses are about 100F. Thermostat opens at 180F. I just can't get it warm when it's 40F outside. The inside air could be about 100F. Maybe my heat does work and I just can't ever get my engine warm without an extended drive, which I'm waiting on tires for. Still frustrated that's two weeks out.
 

Komet

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Y'all ever just stand there and look at the thing for a while?

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I just enjoy the novelty of seeing it all togetherish. That little toolbox is still my favorite accessory. So far I leave it empty and it fills up with tools as I get into a project so I can keep everything in one place.
 

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