Eliot Rotering
Newbie
My truck is a 1988 C2500 light duty truck. I bought this truck back in 2016. It was my first truck and I kind of fell in love with it after some time. Since then its through several changes and given me a few scares.
I wish I'd taken pictures of it when I first had it.
I bought it not running from a neighbor. They had wires and extra parts just randomly strewn about the vehicle. Once we gave it a good once over and got it running I was pretty satisfied being I was only 16 and bought it for $500. I couldn't ask for much more. Anyway so we had it running and I drove it for quite awhile. The thing had a broken exhaust and was just hanging. So me being me at 16 I decided I didn't want that silly old stock exhaust. Mind you this was before I ever had the truck close to running. So I ran out back behind our barn where I knew there was extra exhausts and parts we had for scrap or whatever. I ended up finding this old 2011 duramax exhaust that was pretty much mostly there and in very good condition considering it was hacked off only a few weeks before. So I mocked it up and welded on some hangers. Needless to say it was too short. Then I remembered this cherry bomb M80 I had from an old blazer I blew up twice. So I cut it right at its largest points and welded one side up, the other side went to the stock y pipe so I had to cone it up to the same size. It sounds pretty good for what it is really. I drove it for a while and ended up blowing a head gasket and then embarked on the whole replacement process that winter. Between school, Paintball, and other things, yes it took me most of the winter. Once it was back together I had extra bolts that I had no clue where they go, so I tossed em. I still laugh thinking about it but I haven't any issue as far as that goes.
When we had gotten it running it ran just fine until it warmed up, then it would lope at idle and stall sometimes so I would have to use 2 feet at stops. We finally figured out that a couple of ground wires weren't hooked up and the problem was easily solved.
After awhile of driving around with only one working speaker, which I later found out, and no radio at all besides the stock one that didn't work, I decided to finally replace them after my dad bought me a set of speakers for Christmas and I'd already bought a radio for it.
While at work I was taking the tires off of a lifter expedition and asked my boss if I can have them since he wasn't really going to be able to sell quick because they're 34s. So I loaded them up and took them home. About a month later I had finally saved enough money to buy the lift kit I wanted. I purchased the rough country 4in kit for a c2500 and it went on super easy just like I figured and I ended up putting the tires on the same day.
The fuel pump had went out on me and I ended up just replacing the sending unit and everything.
I wanted to start cosmetically fixing the truck as every young kid does with their vehicle so I purchased some 3" halo rings in Hope's to get a similar look to the dodge challenger with the angry eyes. Well it doesn't look anything close to what I was hoping for, I think it still looks cool with the blacked out headlights and signals.
As I drove the truck I noticed it started getting hot so I started looking for the cause and eventually found that the radiator was cracked and needed replaced. So I picked up a champion racing 2 or 3 row(I cant remember) aluminum radiator for a 72-87 truck. It fit pretty well, I just had to make brackets out of sheet metal to hold the top. While I was at it I figured I'll use the old fans from my dad's Corvette and ran a switch to the dash so I could control them.
During school I would go in the morning to vocational school for automotive and my teacher had been given some parts from an old chevy dealer that recently closed and I found a throttle body spacer which was given to me for free so of course I put it on. Seat of the pants wise I don't think you'll ever feel anything from a throttle body spacer. But I did notice a little more throttle response. Pretty much only at low rpm but still it was something.
Last year I decided to change up the interior a bit and make most of it white. I liked it initially but not so much now. Not because it's white, but because I used interior paint from SEM to dye it and it's now beginning to chip off. I would like to redo the parts that are chipping with vinyl wrap instead. This was a long process as it took all winter like most winter projects do.
To go along with the throttle body spacer I had put on I got another itch for more truck parts and bought just an Ebay short ram intake. I feel like it definitely helped breath more but I would much rather have a k&n filter rather than whoever made the Ebay one.
Me being me I wasn't satisfied with the truck so I purchased new wheels and tires last year along with some beauty rings to keep a similar look as I had before with the 34s. I ended up purchasing 15x14 bart super truckers and 31x10.5 milestar Patagonia mts for the tires. I wanted super swamper tsl's but I didn't have that kind of money. It took me awhile to figure out how to stretch the tires on as I knew they would be really hard to do. After 3 months of trial and error I bought tubes. And they worked perfectly. I tried using just regular 15/14kr tubes but those kept popping from getting overstretched. I purchased a set of 15/16 12.5 tubes from air loc and these are much better.
I left the truck pretty much the same all winter. Then that feeling came back. We all know it. So I had to buy more parts for the truck. I ended getting a wooden steering wheel from grant as I really never liked the old one. It wasn't what I was expecting when It came in, i was expecting something slimmer. Similar to the ones the late 60s mustang's came with. I think I'll change it eventually but not now.
After I had been sitting I wanted to make the truck taller so I picked up 2.5" coil spacers for the front. Those were just short of a nightmare to install but I got them in. Only problem was that my upper control arms were maxed out and I had a stupid amount of camber up front. So I did some research and decided to do a ball joint flip and install ball joint spacers.
Now again I had to scratch that old itch. My friend had contacted me about using the truck to haul his horses around in his gooseneck trailer and said he'd help pay for parts. I knew that it already needed ball joints, and a pitman and idler arm so he helped pay for that and I ordered a folding gooseneck hitch to put in.
So now here we are. I picked up a new master cylinder for the 99-06 trucks or whatever it is and put it in and the brakes are 1000xs better. I've also installed the upper ball joints and ball joint spacers. The truck looks a little silly like some of those trucks from the Carolinas that have all that squat. But I have 5" rear lift blocks on the way to fix that. I also purchased stainless steel braided extended front brake lines from jackit.com so don't destroy the stock ones or hurt myself or the truck which are already very stretched. This weekend I may put the lines on. We'll see what I have time for really. I'm sure there's more stories I've forgotten about with this truck but these are what I'm remembering as I type. I'll try to remember to keep this post updated as I continue to update the truck.
I wish I'd taken pictures of it when I first had it.
I bought it not running from a neighbor. They had wires and extra parts just randomly strewn about the vehicle. Once we gave it a good once over and got it running I was pretty satisfied being I was only 16 and bought it for $500. I couldn't ask for much more. Anyway so we had it running and I drove it for quite awhile. The thing had a broken exhaust and was just hanging. So me being me at 16 I decided I didn't want that silly old stock exhaust. Mind you this was before I ever had the truck close to running. So I ran out back behind our barn where I knew there was extra exhausts and parts we had for scrap or whatever. I ended up finding this old 2011 duramax exhaust that was pretty much mostly there and in very good condition considering it was hacked off only a few weeks before. So I mocked it up and welded on some hangers. Needless to say it was too short. Then I remembered this cherry bomb M80 I had from an old blazer I blew up twice. So I cut it right at its largest points and welded one side up, the other side went to the stock y pipe so I had to cone it up to the same size. It sounds pretty good for what it is really. I drove it for a while and ended up blowing a head gasket and then embarked on the whole replacement process that winter. Between school, Paintball, and other things, yes it took me most of the winter. Once it was back together I had extra bolts that I had no clue where they go, so I tossed em. I still laugh thinking about it but I haven't any issue as far as that goes.
When we had gotten it running it ran just fine until it warmed up, then it would lope at idle and stall sometimes so I would have to use 2 feet at stops. We finally figured out that a couple of ground wires weren't hooked up and the problem was easily solved.
After awhile of driving around with only one working speaker, which I later found out, and no radio at all besides the stock one that didn't work, I decided to finally replace them after my dad bought me a set of speakers for Christmas and I'd already bought a radio for it.
While at work I was taking the tires off of a lifter expedition and asked my boss if I can have them since he wasn't really going to be able to sell quick because they're 34s. So I loaded them up and took them home. About a month later I had finally saved enough money to buy the lift kit I wanted. I purchased the rough country 4in kit for a c2500 and it went on super easy just like I figured and I ended up putting the tires on the same day.
The fuel pump had went out on me and I ended up just replacing the sending unit and everything.
I wanted to start cosmetically fixing the truck as every young kid does with their vehicle so I purchased some 3" halo rings in Hope's to get a similar look to the dodge challenger with the angry eyes. Well it doesn't look anything close to what I was hoping for, I think it still looks cool with the blacked out headlights and signals.
As I drove the truck I noticed it started getting hot so I started looking for the cause and eventually found that the radiator was cracked and needed replaced. So I picked up a champion racing 2 or 3 row(I cant remember) aluminum radiator for a 72-87 truck. It fit pretty well, I just had to make brackets out of sheet metal to hold the top. While I was at it I figured I'll use the old fans from my dad's Corvette and ran a switch to the dash so I could control them.
During school I would go in the morning to vocational school for automotive and my teacher had been given some parts from an old chevy dealer that recently closed and I found a throttle body spacer which was given to me for free so of course I put it on. Seat of the pants wise I don't think you'll ever feel anything from a throttle body spacer. But I did notice a little more throttle response. Pretty much only at low rpm but still it was something.
Last year I decided to change up the interior a bit and make most of it white. I liked it initially but not so much now. Not because it's white, but because I used interior paint from SEM to dye it and it's now beginning to chip off. I would like to redo the parts that are chipping with vinyl wrap instead. This was a long process as it took all winter like most winter projects do.
To go along with the throttle body spacer I had put on I got another itch for more truck parts and bought just an Ebay short ram intake. I feel like it definitely helped breath more but I would much rather have a k&n filter rather than whoever made the Ebay one.
Me being me I wasn't satisfied with the truck so I purchased new wheels and tires last year along with some beauty rings to keep a similar look as I had before with the 34s. I ended up purchasing 15x14 bart super truckers and 31x10.5 milestar Patagonia mts for the tires. I wanted super swamper tsl's but I didn't have that kind of money. It took me awhile to figure out how to stretch the tires on as I knew they would be really hard to do. After 3 months of trial and error I bought tubes. And they worked perfectly. I tried using just regular 15/14kr tubes but those kept popping from getting overstretched. I purchased a set of 15/16 12.5 tubes from air loc and these are much better.
I left the truck pretty much the same all winter. Then that feeling came back. We all know it. So I had to buy more parts for the truck. I ended getting a wooden steering wheel from grant as I really never liked the old one. It wasn't what I was expecting when It came in, i was expecting something slimmer. Similar to the ones the late 60s mustang's came with. I think I'll change it eventually but not now.
After I had been sitting I wanted to make the truck taller so I picked up 2.5" coil spacers for the front. Those were just short of a nightmare to install but I got them in. Only problem was that my upper control arms were maxed out and I had a stupid amount of camber up front. So I did some research and decided to do a ball joint flip and install ball joint spacers.
Now again I had to scratch that old itch. My friend had contacted me about using the truck to haul his horses around in his gooseneck trailer and said he'd help pay for parts. I knew that it already needed ball joints, and a pitman and idler arm so he helped pay for that and I ordered a folding gooseneck hitch to put in.
So now here we are. I picked up a new master cylinder for the 99-06 trucks or whatever it is and put it in and the brakes are 1000xs better. I've also installed the upper ball joints and ball joint spacers. The truck looks a little silly like some of those trucks from the Carolinas that have all that squat. But I have 5" rear lift blocks on the way to fix that. I also purchased stainless steel braided extended front brake lines from jackit.com so don't destroy the stock ones or hurt myself or the truck which are already very stretched. This weekend I may put the lines on. We'll see what I have time for really. I'm sure there's more stories I've forgotten about with this truck but these are what I'm remembering as I type. I'll try to remember to keep this post updated as I continue to update the truck.
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