'99 Silverado 4.3 to 5.3 Swap with 4L80e bonus

[Supercharged111]

Well, ONE of the leaf springs is done.

The kids are out of school, so the old girl is back to being a daily for the summer. I've actually put about 3k miles on her since the swap...not bad...

Been there, done that, not jealous. And I started with cleaner springs, so really not jealous.

 

[stutaeng]

Well, an update: I had been driving the truck on a daily basis now; just under 5k miles since the swap and will do first oil change. It's really fun to drive. I knew my speedometer was off because the guy had tune it for 4.10s and the truck still has the original 3.42. I finally decided to pay the credits and use HP Tuners to revert the tune back to 3.42. Speedo is now spot on and it turns out I've driving like 10 mph too fast. I also have come to realize that 4.10s may be too much for my use. 3.73 I think would have been perfect. Otherwise I think 3.42s are just fine and maybe should just leave it alone. Oh well.

I didn't mention it in the beginning, but the 4.3 developed an issue where it would crank but not fire in wet and humid mornings. Drove me nuts, and gave up on it, after messing and checking and testing everything. Suspected it was distributor issue, but I didn't want to sink more money with low oil pressure. Glad I don't have to deal with that anymore. I did recently had a PS hose develop a leak, so I have to fix that as maintenance.

I've even been using the truck for duties of the GMT400 K3500 long bed, because the AC on that one doesn't work (and I'm too much of wimp to drive w/o AC in this insanely hot summer). The 8' bed with headache rack sure does come in handy. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do though.

 

[stutaeng]

Forgot to add this one...

 

[Supercharged111]

I'd do the same as you, drive whatever has the AC. The fan on my 1500 is being flaky, I think it needs a new (electric) motor. If it shjts the bed I'll be rocking the dually as DD until I get my Vette back together. The AC rips in that as it has nothing to cool.

 

[stutaeng]

Replaced the leaky PS hose the other day. I'd been suspecting it was the rack and pinion all along, but finally had my son turn the steering wheel while I was under there. Turned out it was a pressure hose. Ordered it from RockAuto and was delivered in 3 days. Much cheaper than local parts store.

I replaced it and had to use some heavy weight engine oil I'd bought to run on the 4.3 to get it back together since I was out of PS fluid . The label had fallen off the bottle. I have since bought some PS fluid. Should I just leave it as is or flush it?

Also swapped seats. Truck had the fancy leather seats and console, which I've never really liked. Leather seats were worn pretty bad. I'd gotten a quote for vinyl recovering for a $1200!

I just decided to swap to the cloth seats. $150 and came with a jump seat. Just have to replace the jumpseat lid. I'm happy. and they are manual...although my brother is giving me a hard time because I got rid of the leather/console option... oh well.

Took my wife on Friday to dinner on the old Chevy (she did notice the different seat set difference, since we'd been dating) and said it was nice.

 

[HotWheelsBurban]

Replaced the leaky PS hose the other day. I'd been suspecting it was the rack and pinion all along, but finally had my son turn the steering wheel while I was under there. Turned out it was a pressure hose. Ordered it from RockAuto and was delivered in 3 days. Much cheaper than local parts store.

I replaced it and had to use some heavy weight engine oil I'd bought to run on the 4.3 to get it back together since I was out of PS fluid . The label had fallen off the bottle. I have since bought some PS fluid. Should I just leave it as is or flush it?

Also swapped seats. Truck had the fancy leather seats and console, which I've never really liked. Leather seats were worn pretty bad. I'd gotten a quote for vinyl recovering for a $1200!

I just decided to swap to the cloth seats. $150 and came with a jump seat. Just have to replace the jumpseat lid. I'm happy. and they are manual...although my brother is giving me a hard time because I got rid of the leather/console option... oh well.

Took my wife on Friday to dinner on the old Chevy (she did notice the different seat set difference, since we'd been dating) and said it was nice.

Looks good! Only thing I don't dig about the split bench seat and the middle jump seat, is No cupholders! Other than that, it feels lots nicer on a warm day, and looks way better than the tore up "leather" on the Burb seats.

 

[stutaeng]

Some of that generation truck jumpseats have the cupholders on the bottom. This setup has them into the dash: they fold down. Seems to hold my 16 oz "Jeti" tumbler well. I think this was an earlier version of the two, perhaps 99-02 generation?

I need to figure out how to swap my glovebox lid back though. The 3 pieces of the lower dash come as a set, so my RPO code sticker is now from the other truck I pulled these from...not that stuff on my original RPO code matches anyway...