gstubbz's trucks

[gstubbz]

I've had a few life changes lately, starting with an eye surgery called cross linking which I had done at the beginning of June. That went well! I also ditched the light bar on my dodge for clearance lights I pulled off a 2004 dually parts truck and I prefer them much more than the light bar.

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I didn't have a chance to stop by my other truck stuff in Cali unfortunately but I will be returning to grab some stuff in the future.

Biggest thing is... I moved to Montana! No more California for me. I have been up here a month and I love it so far.

And... I bought another GMT400 up here in Montana since I just can't get enough of them.

1993 K1500 RCLB 4.3/NV3500 251k which happens to be an ex forest service truck, so I nicknamed it OfficerPinecone. I was never too fond of the color but it grew on me since a kid named Tavish had an ex-USFS gmt400 back in high school, I actually have a photo of that truck on the old Junkyard Rescue 6.5 94 K1500 thread. But I do like the color! It's unique but also an ugly color to a lot of people!

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The other day it was listed for sale literally right down the road from where I live, and over the weekend I managed to buy it for $800. I knew I was going to come home with it so I walked the half a mile to go grab it, I can honestly say I have never in the past been able to walk to a vehicle purchase! Runs really good but needs a ton of little things fixed. The guy I bought it off of originally purchased it from the US Forest Service auction in 1999 in Missoula, MT. He said it's been dead reliable and never had a problem mechanically.

If you look at the hood closely there is a big ass hole right above the hood latch and I bet you he did that out of frustration. Of all the things on the truck, it's what annoys me most. The latch is all jacked up and the hood release in the cab is broken so my fix will be to install hood pins. It was worse before but I was able to smash it down a bit. I'd like to find a nicer fix for this or try finding a hood in this color when one pops up for sale.

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I spent all day today cleaning the outside and washing it along with removing the camper shell and plow, and my goodness it looks so much better. It was very grimy and sat for a while since the guy moved to Idaho and rarely came up to Montana so this truck just sat. Lots of things planned but it's also awesome to have a gmt400 around again! More to come with this truck now that I have shop space to work on a project long term. Playing around with the idea of a turbo 4.3 again since they sell turbo manifolds for $300 now. That wasn't a thing two years ago when I had the 93 c1500 4.3/nv3500 truck!

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[BNielsen]

Put the shell back on damnit

 

[GarrettGmc]

Well damn gavin you moved from the state an didnt let me kno, still got the same # ? You may be one of the few members that can say they own 400s in multiple states ha. Glad you like it up there

 

[gstubbz]

Made some changes to the truck! Looks a crazy ton better.

A lot of the stuff wrong with this truck was due to it sitting for so long, such as the wipers and headlights not working as they should. Between regreasing everything and cleaning up corrosion everything is all good! Still little stuff I plan to fix but I started to daily drive it to work as of yesterday and so far so good.

Awesome to see plates on a GMT400 that I can legally drive around again!

Installed hood pins and replaced the rear u joint as it was very bad. Original u joint too, I had to burn out the nylon! Truck has original ball joints as well so I will be replacing all of those.

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Also saw this ex USFS dually, and I want it!

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[GarrettGmc]

Small crank of the torsion bars and some meaty tires and that thing would be bitchin. Background almost look like susanville.

 

[gstubbz]

It's been a few months and I have some updates! At one point I bought this parts truck, a 1988 K1500 RCLB with a 350/700r4 for $200. It was missing some parts already and had a bad transmission with no paperwork on the truck. I took quite a bit from this truck, such as the grille, headlights, metal tailgate straps, some interior pieces, and I saved all the 350 stuff so I could rebuild it in the future and put it in the green truck if the 4.3 ever dies.

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Those photos above are from a few months back, over the past week or so I've been working on making this little utility trailer out of the rest of the truck frame and bed, and it's almost done. Here are some pics from tonight (11/24/19):

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This truck was an excellent purchase and it has definitely been worth every bit of the $200 I bought it for. I was able to reuse many parts and make a trailer out of it which I plan to use to haul around my new (still being shipped DuroMax XP12000EH) generator, stick welder box, and air compressor for now. Plans are to use it so I can start going around doing some welding side work or whatever the case may be.

 

[gstubbz]

So now the green truck!

I have done a lot to it lately, and I am so much happier with it now than when I bought it as it was kind of a mess. This truck has actually been very loyal to me and it's been wonderful. I have daily driven it to work for the past few months and have put probably 5,000 miles or so on it. I drive it hard I'll admit, really hard and it keeps on going. That little 4.3 has impressed me! Plans are if that 4.3 dies I'll yank it out and get the 350 I have on the engine stand rebuilt and shoved into this truck but I won't bother until the 4.3 dies.

I sourced a headache rack from a square body which I had to do some modifying to fit as the SB bed is wider however it has been super useful and I've put wood and other things over the headache rack and also I think it looks cool.

This truck needed new tires from day one, and I was able to pick up a set of 265/75/16 studded tires on chevy steelies already that had been ran for one season for $350 and this definitely helped the truck look a ton better as well!

I did some craigslist hunting a while back and found this neat guy named Brian parting out a ton of GM stuff, so for $100 I was able to pick up a set of OE tail lights, a 60/40 bench out of a 2000 OBS reg cab, 92-94 tach manual cluster, 95+ mirrors, and a bug deflector for the front of the hood (this was to cover the hole in the hood, I am not a fan of bug deflectors at all but this covered that hole so I'm okay with it).

And recently I smoked the tail lights. I still have more plans for this truck, but it's just been a slow work in progress. I still need to buy new ebrake cables as well since I don't have any ebrake.

Here's my recent photos of the truck:

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And the super dirty interior with the 95+ bench and tach cluster (ironically was out of a 93 K1500 ECSB Silverado with a 4.3/NV4500/14b SF combo truck!):

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[gstubbz]

Then there's more!

I bought this 05 GMC Sierra 2500 RCLB. It has a 6.0/4L80e/4.10s and is a base model work truck. Bummer is the engine is blown. I have to go pick it up but I've already paid for it (actually happening this time unlike other trucks of the past lol, it's a coworker's old truck). That's depending on the weather though, I need to source a car trailer and get it when there isn't snow or ice and right now we are in the middle of winter.

It's beat and I love it. Plans are to rebuild the 6.0 and then make it my toy *cough* turbo. I don't plan on doing the turbo out of the gate but I want to get it fixed up and then I'll sell the green truck when the time comes. Finally nice to start getting involved with GMT800s and I have wanted to for a while. Figured it would make a good newer work truck, or be a fast one when I modify it!

Some pics, I actually haven't seen this truck in person! Has a cool front bumper though. I definitely plan on replacing the fender flares, it needs them! I would actually really like to buy or build a flatbed for this truck.

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[gstubbz]

Long update! Merry Christmas and happy holidays to everyone out there, only a few more days and we will be in a new decade!

So I'll start with Pinecone. A few weeks back I decided to start tearing my dodge down to fix some things going on with it, to the point where I stripped out most of the interior, and also to find out that my heater core is leaking again. When I called it a night I was driving back the 150 yards back to the house in Pinecone, and something with the clutch decided to stop working and I parked the truck and drove the 05 Wrangler for three weeks since both of my trucks were all jacked up.

The dodge I pulled outside, put a tarp over it, and I'll come back to it in the future when I feel like it, it needs a ton of work and I'm just over it. Maybe it will be a summer project at this point! Last dodge pic for a while!

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Well I figured it was something to do with the clutch not being disengaged, so I was debating between the master or slave cylinder. I talked to friends about it and they all suggested the master cylinder which I replaced when the part showed up, and nothing changed. Tried the 350 pushrod trick with the slave to no avail either. So I ordered and replaced the slave cylinder next also to no avail.

My friend Geo said that his 96 6.5/nv4500 truck had similar issues so he welded a nut on the end of the slave cylinder rod. I actually ended up doing this, and to my shock it worked and my truck was back in action! Really it's just a ghetto fix so I can assume that either the clutch fork is bent or something is goofy with the throwout bearing. I've been driving it for just over a week now and it's been doing good.

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Besides that the truck has been doing great!

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Now the fun stuff! GMT800 time.


Today (Dec 21) I decided to go get the truck since up here in Montana the weather has been nice lately, zero snow and 45+ degree weather with rain (which I'm told is something my grandma has not seen in the 15 years she has been here). My coworker JD went with me on this adventure and on the way up to the guys place it was extremely icy and I made the call that I didn't want to tow it down due to so much ice and the steep roads, etc. At this point I figured I was just going up to look at the truck and not take it home.

Dennis (the now prev-owner) said he would get it to pavement for me, and sure enough that happened. His house is off grid and they are selling the property so he can move and also the reason behind offloading all of these vehicles on his property. We fought around with the truck to get it turned around, and had it hooked on Dennis's F250 and chained up.

Now it gets interesting, a guy was coming up to look at the property and since their driveway is like 4 miles long and one lane, we decided to wait for this guy to show up, and he shows up in a 05 Silverado CCSB 2500 with a dang trailer with a cool dirtski on it! But there is zero room in front of the house so it was a cluster getting everything out of there.

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Once we got to pavement I hooked it up to the nice dodge and towed it home. The amount of ice that melted between going up there and going down was insane, had I known that I probably would have towed it down their driveway myself! Side note, I've never used a tow bar before and it actually really wasn't bad at all. I'd much rather have a trailer but for now since I didn't have one this worked out perfect!

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Once I got it home I started cleaning it up a bit, and I had to remove the snow plow harness to give back to Dennis. I found out that these GMT800 work trucks dont have a flip down center console/armrest it's just fixed into place which sucks so that means I'll be finding a fold down console for it at some point. Besides that I am in love with this beater already! I can't wait to finally drive it whenever that happens.

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I also got ATF into each cylinder so hopefully I can break her free here in the next few days. Side note, I broke 7 of the 8 spark plug wires, but they probably needed to be replaced anyway.

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Here are my two inspiration photos for a single cab gmt800 although mine will never be this nice lol

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Anyway that's it for now. Thanks for reading all of my novels on here if you make it that far! It's late as I type this (2:30am) but hopefully someone enjoys my crazy adventures!

 

[letitsnow]

The non-folding center console - it is just 2 pipes holding it in the place. The guy that owned my gmt800 W/T (with the same seats as yours) had cut the pipes and laid the center piece on the seat. Nobody can tell tell the difference, and it is comfortable. Just be sure to lay it fabric (not carpet) side up.