My 96 k1500 centurion crew cab

[96-1500-crew]

I originally bought this truck back in early 2010, bone stock, 5.7, 4l60, push button 4x4, few flaws but overall a good looking truck. Soon after stuck a body lift on it.

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Prolly one of the worst things I ever did to the truck, body lifts just tear things up IMO.

Found a set of wheels with tires that were too small..

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And then drove the piss outta it, which resulted in the already-rebuilt 4l60 in the truck to die. I didn't have enough $ back then to have it rebuilt so I wandered around the local junkyards looking for transmissions and came across a 5 speed (nv3500) with all the goods (32 spline tcase, pedal, master, slave and line) and got it all for around $200 if I remember right. Bought a new clutch and flywheel, and tore into it.
Like I said before I didn't have alot of money, or knowledge on obd2 systems so I was kind of winging it on doing this to my dd.
So I put the Trans in the truck, mounted the pedal (hardest part IMO), and swapped the tcase to the 32 spline one.
I was out of money after buying all that, so I took the shifter position box off of the 4l60s shift linkage, put it in the park position so that the truck would start and left it at that. Worked up until now (as I refurbish the truck now that I have it back I am going to finish it all the right way)

So after that I had the truck for another 8-10 months, added a few things and some 33s.

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I came on some hard times and was forced to sell the truck, I hated doing it bc I had a bond with the truck, but you gota do what ya gota do.
About 8-10 months after that I started looking for it, I searched Craigslist, hoosiertopics, eBay, just plain google and came up with nothing but from 2010 on I searched the Internet every few weeks. Finally a few weeks ago I found it, unfortunately it's in terrible shape..

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Believe me it's alot worse in person. One guy had a light bar on the roof (fastened with self-tappers of course) and water got underneath, and caused the paint to flake off the roof. He also thought 36" swampers with just a body lift would fly, and they destroyed the front fenders and inner fender-wells. To add insult to injury to the poor truck he gave it a new black rattle-can paint job on the inside. Even the carpet material on the door panels!
And to top it all off a big ass tach with a shift light!

The ad the guy I bought it off of said the engine had a "slight miss", well it was far from that.. I drove 3 hours to get the truck and when I got there it barely ran, smoked like a freight train, and sounded awful! But I had to have it back so I talked him down from 5500 to 3000, and started the longest drive home ever lol. My poor fiancé was in a cloud of smoke the whole way home, we had to stop every 45 minutes to clean the oil and gas off of her windshield lol. 3-4 hours and 3 quarts of oil later we made it home. The next day I started tearing it down.

There wasn't much holding the driver side fender on (I was replaced at some point because 90% of the bolts were missing).

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And the front bumper had 3 bolts holding it on as well.

Few more tear down pics

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And out came the tired old 350

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And then that terrible dollar store paint interior

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I have everything for a oem grey interior now except the carpet, new fenders and fender-wells, and a new bumper.
So I started tearing down the engine. The last owner told me he put new gaskets in the top end and he did, but NOTHING was torqued to spec, so go figure there were leaks.. I'm surprised we made it home!

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Right now I think I'm going to stick a used motor in the truck while I take my time building this one. I want to build a 383, but we will see. And I'm also gathering parts for a sas, idk if I will go with a ford dana 44 with Chevy knuckles, and a 14 bolt sf 6 lug or go with the 8 lug front and rear. I'm just not sure if 8 lugs would ruin the uniqueness of the 1/2 ton crew cab or not? When the sas happens the body lift is DEFINATELY coming off.

 

[98chevyz71]

awesome!

 

[thz71]

awesome build man cant wait to see progress id eventually like to manual swap my truck

 

[96-1500-crew]

It's not very hard to do, hardest part was the pedal lol. I'm searching for a nv4500 because I plan on towing alot with this truck and the tall 1st gear of this 3500 just doesn't seem suited for it

 

[dowsewashere]

Wow this things going to be awesome.

 

[94Sierra4x4]

Bad ass story on how you got it back, shame it's been beat to piss! Still a nice rig though none the less
Strengthen the frame on that thing if possible, apparently they all sag.. and that one hasn't yet from the looks of it.

 

[96-1500-crew]

It used to the first time I had it, everyone swore that it was the frame but they reinforced the center where it was cut.. Turns out it was the way they put the floor together. Ile try to get some pics while its still apart but when they put the new floor in (which is what the cab mounts are mounted to) it was on top of the cab shell, so the shell hangs from the floor instead of sitting on top of it. Over time the spot welds fatigued and failed, causing the cab to sag just enough where it looked like the truck was folding in half. So I drilled out the spot welds and replaced them with 1/4" bolts along the back side where it was the worst, and its been fine ever since!

 

[94Sierra4x4]

It used to the first time I had it, everyone swore that it was the frame but they reinforced the center where it was cut.. Turns out it was the way they put the floor together. Ile try to get some pics while its still apart but when they put the new floor in (which is what the cab mounts are mounted to) it was on top of the cab shell, so the shell hangs from the floor instead of sitting on top of it. Over time the spot welds fatigued and failed, causing the cab to sag just enough where it looked like the truck was folding in half. So I drilled out the spot welds and replaced them with 1/4" bolts along the back side where it was the worst, and its been fine ever since!

Good to know! That's cool, I've only heard of them sagging where the frame was extended. So maybe the sagging centurions aren't a lost cause after all?

 

[96-1500-crew]

Nope I was very worried when it started doing it but I went all over this frame with a measuring tape, and a 4' straight level and that's how I found the seperated body seam. It's hard to see from underneath but the torn silicone that they ran along it gave it away. My rclb 92 had cab sag and I always thought the mounts were just wearing out, but now I wonder if this may be the cause for other 400s cab sag? Except the rust buckets of course..

 

[94Sierra4x4]

Hell you never know, I'll have a look on a couple saggers around here, they are hard to find here lol.