Last week I disassembled the entire rotating assembly to see what kind of wear was on main bearings and rod bearings. When I purchased this motor i was told that it was rebuilt 150,000km ago and i had no idea what kind of condition the motor was in. Turns out that the motor had normal wear and didn't need to be rebuilt. How ever as i had never rebuilt a motor before I decided that i would rebuild and learn something along the way. This will also give me a chance to build it up a little bit more and get some more horse power.
Two weeks ago I started taking everything apart so that I could get this rebuild started and hopefully have it finished by spring time next year.
I removed the wiring harness and transmission and put the engine on a stand so that it would be easy to work on.
Now that winter was coming along it was time to get the winter projects underway. I found a 350 lt1 and t56 tranny out of a 94 Camaro that I will be swapping into this truck. I drove 2.5 hours each way to pick this up and let me tell you the drive home was very bumpy.
Drove the truck back from the shop and couldn't wait to put my new rims on it. I then started putting everything else back on the truck. Door handles, grill, locks and bumper were all ordered brand new from
LMC Truck. New
Street Scene mirrors were also installed.
While the truck was in the shop I took the time to order some new rims and tire's for the truck. I purchased 18'' chrome iroc replicas all the way around. The price was close to 200$ a rim and I ordered them from summit racing.
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| Southern box |
I purchased a southern box to replace my old one that was no longer usable and prepped it for paint as well before driving it down to a local auto shop to get it painted. The box cost around 600$, it came with a tonneau cover, roll pan and extra tail gate.
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| New cowl hood and painted frame |
I installed the whole front clip, fenders/food and put down some primer and started to block the truck to get it ready for paint. I also painted the whole frame black to help prevent rust and give it a nice clean look. When driving it back to the garage from where I panted the primer, a gust of wind came and flipped my hood up and smashed it into the windshield, This happened because I didn't have it latched. Luckily there was no damage to the windshield only the hood. So I decided that this was the perfect time to replace the truck's hood for a Cowl hood.
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| Sunfire seats mocked up. |
Once the doors were installed and working, I figured it would be a great time to get everything setup for my Cavalier seat swap as the carpet was still out of the truck. I marked the extra bolt locations on the floor and drilled them out. I then welded in the extra bolts needed(swapping for the factory bench), and made sure everything fit properly.
How To from my blog
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| Doors with power windows/locks installed. |
The box on the back of the truck also had rust damage and was not usable so it was removed because it had to be replaced. I replaced the original doors with power lock/window doors that came off of a 1991 Chevy Blazer. The power lock/window harness from the 1991 Blazer plugged into the factory fuse box without any modification. This was a great help as it allowed me to added power windows/locks without having to do any additional wiring.
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| Rockers and cab corners fixed. |
I drove the truck through the winter and the cab corners and rocker's rusted out. This is when the project really started. I cut out the rusted rockers and cab corners and welded new ones in place. The body mounts on the the front passenger and driver side were also rotten and there were holes in the floor so they were also replaced and the floor was repaired
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| Changed to one piece grill |
One of the first things that I decided to do to my truck was swap the 3 piece grill to a one piece as I preferred that style of grill. I've posed a
How To on my blog.
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| My S10 in Blue |
So this is my first post and I will be starting at the beginning of my project. This truck was originally my brother's until I purchased it from him for 1500$. I was 18 when I purchased this truck and it was my very first vehicle. When I purchased it there was no rear end as my brother had removed it for his new truck. This left me with a truck sitting on blocks that wasn't drive able. So the first thing I did was go to the junkyard and find a rear end that would fit. I ended up finding a 3.08 limited slip rear end and have been using it since. I drove the truck the way it currently looked for one summer and winter. After the winter the body on the truck was toast. There were holes in the floor and the cab corners and rockers were rusted out so I decided to take it upon myself to rebuild the truck. Since then I have done a lot of modifications to make this truck mine and to make it unique.
Two weeks ago I started taking everything apart so that I could get this rebuild started and hopefully have it finished by spring time next year.
Drove the truck back from the shop and couldn't wait to put my new rims on it. I then started putting everything else back on the truck. Door handles, grill, locks and bumper were all ordered brand new from LMC Truck. New Street Scene mirrors were also installed.
