My 88 Daily Driver Restoration RCSB

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Happy New Year everyone!

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Haven't posted in a while cause of school, so here's some of what we've been up to.

My engine has always had a rough idle and i never paid much attention to it. Liz mentioned that the truck was getting worse, I didn't notice it as i was driving it daily. On my way to school one morning I felt the engine buck hard. Putting it in reverse, it started jumping like I was pumping the gas. When I put it in drive, it jumped like if I was about to do a burn out. When I got back I told my wife what happened and she told me that its probably gonna get worse. We were on our way to my mom's house that night when it got really bad. She told me to drive back home and to take her mom's car and to start calling around and get estimates. Alot of the shops I called wanted to much money for a half overhauled engine (they were just gonna fix the problem). I called one and they told me they had a GM rebuilt 305, and asked if it would be okay.... I said no...... Why would I give them a 350 small block and get a 305 in return. So we went back and forth about pros and cons with downgrading the block. I told him I'd go elsewhere and he mentioned that the only 350 block he had was a vortec. He said he'd leave it at the same price since it would have tbi heads and intake. The insides of the block were all vortec. Liz and I agreed to take it and drove in to give the down payment. After a lengthy wait we got our baby back. The power the new engine has is a night and day difference... I need to take new pictures of the engine bay.

192,490 miles on odometer we dropped off Baby to get a new engine.

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Edit: I also had my tires rotated when we got her back lol

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Well my steering had almost 2 inch slop on both sides, I did the XJ mod to minimize it and its already installed. It helped it a bit... now I gotta adjust many steering box to get the last of the slop out.

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Here's a pic of the new engine. They painted my manifold, engine block along with the fan pulley and some other things.

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I need to re-hook up my tachometer, i think i found out where it goes connected. I found a pic online and there's a wire taped off where it goes. Fingers crossed.

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Well i rehooked up my tachometer already, also took of my door panel since it makes noise when i close the door. It sounds like there is something loose in the door. Well it looks like it was the coiled spring from the regulator... the window stop goes up tho... any info on that?

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Self note: I changed the oil at 194,388 Miles on the odometer. Also went ahead and did the fuel filter (Fram G3727) also.

 

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I was looking on the internet for people with the 4 corner mod.... and found MSCustoms LED's. Now i like the idea, but i had one of my own. What if i were to buy some of the led strips? I could cut them, wire them in series and make like 2 or 3 rows of leds. Just throwing that out there, i would need to buy some used corner lights and practice with those. Maybe it would be worth a shot, who knows.

 

[MYT HI]

Did you ever wire your fog light? I'm in progress in doing that and having troubles with it


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I haven't started with them, i put them on the back burner. I dont have enough money for the fog light assemblies. What kind of problems are you having? Maybe i can help you while helping myself, in case i run into problems when they do come around. So far I've bought the switch, switch harness, and dash bezel... still gots lots to buy.

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Well its been a while since I've posted anything, schools got me really busy, and I'm almost done with my 2nd year(Commercial) certificate. I didn't mention it before ,but when I connected the tachometer I found where the connector is in the engine bay. I had it rigged before and now its connected properly with a female insulated connector (I'll take a picture later).

I also had my K-9 alarm give out on me recently so I purchased a new one on Amazon. Wife and I called around some shops and they said they would charge to remove the old alarm system; we asked if we didn't have an alarm if it would be cheaper, their answer was yes. We decided to carefully pull out the old alarm and have the new one professionally installed. I was going to a friends sons shop and he said that installed would be about $100+. He does an excellent job and hes a very kind person but I'm ridiculously tight on cash. We decided to just do it at home, I would read forums, watch videos, look for pdfs all over the internet making sure I wouldn't mess it up. The alarm is now installed and works perfectly. The 5-wire relay mod for power locks I had was installed using female connectors, I didn't like the way they were connected so I used some relays with sockets that connect to each other.

Those relay/sockets are the ones I'm going to be using to try and make my own HD relay headlight harness (also the fog light relay harness for later use). I also wanted to try and mount some lights to the back bumper, but not visible. In school I walked over to the welding instructor and asked him if they could make me some basic looking brackets to hold the lights under. I told him I wanted 2 L shaped brackets, I wanted to drill and bolt them to the rear bumper bracket. I don't want some random person walking up to my truck and breaking the backup lights. I wanted to see if I could possibly wire them to a cargo light switch to give it an OEM look, or maybe just put a 3 position switch for Off On Auto functions.

My dash battery gauge always dances around with the blinkers, dips with the headlights and A/C. Not knowing the accuracy of volt gauge is unsettling for me so I bought a 3-wire green small LCD Volt meter to wire into the system. I'm going to have the red wire go to a ignition controlled 12v + so it turns off when the truck is off, the white wire will be going to the battery to measure the voltage of my battery, and the black wire will be grounded (possibly at the battery to get the best reading. I wanted to get another junction block and use it as a 12v+ junction block so I wouldn't have too many connections at the battery terminal. I will be taking off the grille one of these days to continue getting measurements for the fog/headlight harness and start trying to fabricate it. I will be using the stock headlight connectors as I don't have enough money for 2 H4703 and 2 H4701 mini bulb connectors. I will also be trying to get those brackets painted and mounted under the bed or where they would best work for me.