my 1994 silverado

[Moparmat2000]

For those of you that are into engine building, I can make a great recommendation on connecting rods. The ones shown below are Mopar small block rods made by Eagle and are a heck of a price. I perused the SBC ones for fun since eventually I will be redoing my 350 in the truck, and they are even less expensive. What you get for your money is 5140 forged steel I beam rods, bronse bushed little ends, ARP 2000 waveloc bolts, and a guaranteed matched set in weight. These are good for up to 500HP and 6,000 rpm. These are a bit overkill for a 300 hp engine that will live its life most of the time under 6,000 rpm so the margin of longevity, and reliability is pretty huge.

My machinest told me years ago, unless you have a Gee whiz set of connecting rods that you cannot replace, you are better off buying good quality replacements, as it's not worth reconditioning them anymore. Typically reconditioning a set of rods includes shot peening, mag particle inspection, check for straightness, resizing, weighing and grinding, and new bolts. If one rod fails for straightness, or mag particle inspection, then you have to scare up a replacement rod that matches. All this adds up, and if you have stock cast rods with pressed wrist pins, you could be into a set of stock junk cast V8 pressed pin rods for $500 or more.

I had to go through this process with a set of 4 forged steel floating rods for a 2.2 turbo ll Chrysler engine for a dodge daytona shelby. Nobody makes forged replacements for these. Going back 12 years ago it cost me close to $400 for those 4 factory forged rods to be reconditioned.

Without further Adieu heres pix.

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[Moparmat2000]

Tear down started. Got a bit of a good score. Someone put a good double roller timing chain on this engine. Had to have been recent since theres no slop in the chain before we took it apart. Pistons had dimples from exhaust valve smacking from the original in the engine jumping time. Its a stock bore. Going to hit the cylinders with a T gage and a caliper after I stone hone them, and see how much wear. Hardly any ridge, depending on how bad they are will determine if we go .020" , .030" , or .040" oversize. Cam bearings look great. BTW look into KevCo oil pans. They make some nice baffled oil pans mostly for circle track, but have stock "cheater" pans with built in baffles, and crank scrapers.

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[HotWheelsBurban]

Glad I could help. You can prob get rotors drilled to a chevy pattern. Or just keep them a 5 bolt 4.50" circle. If you lived closer I'd go halvsies on a fifth ave with you. Those things are a treasure trove of parts.

Yeah too bad Texas is so freaking big.....

 

[Moparmat2000]

I decided that the lighting needed an upgrade on my kids car. Im not a fan of the LED googly eye looking LEDs. I prefer stock appearing stuff. I picked Hella H4 halogen E spec. These are also available in the 7" large rectangle style for the W/T and Cheyenne truck grilles. Wish they made em for the 88-89 4 eye lights that I'm changing my 94 Silverado to.

These ran me about $70 a pair at Summit racing. The lenses are absolutely beautiful. Heres what I did differently. I picked up H4 LED drop in bulbs off evilbay. Super efficient and bright. Best of both worlds. Old skool look, modern light, almost no volt drop, no heat, probably very little amp draw. The LEDs are rated for 50,000 hours life span. That would be 5.75 years if you left them on continuously for that length of time. They will last my lifetime, probably my sons too. You can see the LED compared with the H4 halogen bulb that comes with the lights.

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[Moparmat2000]

Well during our winter storm that froze Texas almost to death on feb 14th/15th my wife slid the right side of her dodge caravan into the drop hitch on a pickup. Damn radiator support on these is fiber plastic. I temp glued the broken mess of support with wire and JB weld, but ordered up a new grille, radiator support, bumper cover, and a pair of lights as the tabs were broken off those as well.

Fixing stuff like this takes time away from other projects, but such is life when your married, and others depend on you "sigh". Insert eyeroll here. I'm into this thing for $800 in CAPA certified aftermarket parts and paint. Thank God the fenders and hood were undamaged. Nothing structural underneath was bent. Just broken plastic junk. A new steel hood alone is $600. We got lucky I guess. Shop cost on fixing this mess woulda been right around $3800 materials, parts, labor, minus my $500 deductible I woulda had to pay.Thankfully I can do this stuff myself.

Bumper cover got scuffed today, primer sealer, and 4 coats of single stage paint. Chrysler calls this Polar white. I call it fleet vehicle white or refrigerator white. Some little spots of dust in it, and 1 bug. Not too bad for painting in an outdoor environment. If I wanted to go nuts I could let it dry for a week or 2, then wet sand the dust spots, and buff. But its white, and an 8 year old minivan, plus the white paint will look better in the sunlight. Not gonna waste any more time on this thing than I need to. Wednesday evening after work I'm gonna blow the family truckster apart with my 1/4" drive air ratchet and a 10mm socket. Dont worry, I got a few of them little buggers in case I lose one.

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[letitsnow]

If I wanted to go nuts I could let it dry for a week or 2, then wet sand the dust spots, and buff.

The cool children call the scuff n buff a "paint correction" now.

 

[Moparmat2000]

As I was saying the plastic radiator support on this damn van was shattered and I glued it and the RH headlight mounting tabs back in place back in february with JB weld as a temporary repair.

First pic with duct tape doesnt look bad, but the RH eye socket is glued together in about 6 places underneath it, and all 3 RH headlight tabs are glued back on. It all had to come out. Not too bad I worked from 6:30PM to 9:30OM tonight and I am down to installing headlights and the new bumper and grille assembly. Couple small broken pieces of structure plastic I will have to repair, along with making new brackets to hold the cold air snorkel in place. Now the slow piddley fix the last of the plastic crap begins tomorrow before the bumper cover goes on.

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[Moparmat2000]

So I tell the wife this morning that in 3 hours last night I got it to the point that I'm down to headlights and a bumper cover going on. If I was at a body shop, I'd be making money on this one She said, yes, but instead of that your married to me. LoL

 

[Moparmat2000]

New radiator support came with different riv nuts. It was missing big washers to mount the headlights. I cut the old riv nuts out of the old broken support to make washers. Radiator support was CAPA certified. Well it did fit good. But was missing this one detail. Without the washers, the rivnuts would have pulled through when tightening the headlights up.

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[Moparmat2000]

Zipties is what I used for the air intake snorkel, there was also a fiber plastic bracket that holds the front edge of the fender pulled in and supports the bumper cover under the right headlight. That was broken. I made some steel brackets with mounting holes that overlap where a screw is supposed to go to hold it in place when it was 1 piece before the wreck. JB weld and 1/8" pop rivets. Fits as good as new. A little touchup paint on the paint chips on the RH fender edge, and a nice chrome lic plate frame. Paint isnt a perfect match but the original white is dirty, could use a compound and wax job to make it match. I ain't doing it. This job is done. Now I can get back to other stuff.

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