bkahler

I'm getting near the point where the truck has to be assembled from all the various body panels. Currently both of my spare bedrooms are filled with painted body panels and so is my living room. Only the cab is in place at the moment. So, the question is what's the best assembly order? Front grille panel Front fenders Doors OR Front fenders Front grille panel Doors Or Doors Front fenders Grille Panel What about the hood assembly. Does the hood go on before the fenders? So many questions, so little time Suggestions welcome.

I might actually have two issues causing the throttle linkage to stick. The first is the seal but the second might be caused by the rubber cab mounts. I didn't tighten down the cab bolts until after I completed the throttle linkage installation. I know for a fact the pedal was sticking slightly from day one, but what I found last night was the pivot shaft that runs across the back of the block is now rubbing the bottom of the floorboard where the pivot arm points up. I never checked the linkage actuation after that tightening the cab bolts. I didn't get a picture of the rubbing but it's not just a slight rubbing, the arm actually gets stuck against the floorboard. The rubber mounts are new and were purchased from Vic's. I don't remember if I compared them new mounts to the old mounts for height difference. Before tightening the bolts I'm sure I had at least 1/8" to 1/4" clearance on the pivot arm. Currently my plan is to loosen the cab mounting bolts to see if the rubber relaxes enough to eliminate the interference. If it does, then I need to decide whether to use steel washers to increase the height or use the old rubber mounts. Currently I'm leaning towards steel washers. Brad

Last night I browsed several Chevy parts sites and couldn't find any reference to gas pedal floorboard seals. I was actually quite surprised to find parts coverage wasn't much if any better than what we have available for our Pilothouse trucks. It's quite possible I just didn't know what to look for.

I think in this case I'll start with minimal interference which would be just a big hole. Later if it bugs me enough I'll pop a hole in a rubber sheet and fasten it to the floorboard. Thanks for the feedback.

Interesting but not surprising. So there was just a 1-1/2" hole in the floorboard for the pedal stem to pass through?

I purchased and installed a Gas Pedal Stem Seal from DCM Classics. I believe this seal is one of the reasons my gas pedal is sticking after being pushed down. Prior to installing the gas pedal stem and seal the rod stem easily slides through the rubber/aluminum bushing but once installed the angle of the stem as it passes through the seal is not very good. This causes binding and rubbing loud enough to hear (when the engine isn't running that is). Based on the size of the floorboard opening there needs to be something there but I'm not convinced this seal is the answer. Am I missing something?

I'm sorry to say I won't be able to make it this year either. Too much happening at work and the cost of diesel is just insane. Maybe next year....

VPW is where I bought my High Volume oil pump for $50 in 1998. I don't remember how much lower the cheaper option was but my engine builder recommended the HV pump so that's what I went with. Edit: Just checked VPWs price for the high volume pump...$249 Ouch!

The trip is still a week or two away. He's finishing up the rear fenders and then needs to reorganize his shop to fit the truck inside. Seat belt installation is now at the top of the list of things to get done. Back in the 80s when I had my CJ5 I don't remember ever using seat belts even with the top down and no doors. However, back then I was invincible, now not so much

I'm relieved to say I had good oil pressure. After reading all of the oil pump problems last year it made me somewhat nervous. I bought the pump 22 years ago and it was the high volume high dollar pump. Money well spent

This turned out to be one strange day. Rolled the truck outside, got things organized and waited for a friend to show up, I figured it would be good to have someone watching things as I pressed the starter pedal. Well to make a long story short, it wouldn't start. Not even a pop. At that point we started looking things over by checking for spark on the first plug wire, nothing, not even a small spark. Pulled the distributor cap and verified the rotor was turning, yep it was. Next we checked for spark by pulling the coil wire from the distributor cap and still got nothing. Started looking inside the distributor and noticed that the wire from the terminal on the outside of the distributor to the points was missing. Naturally this was the problem, right? Well, I made up a small jumper wire with terminals and installed it and figured it would start now. Nope, not even a pop Pulled the points and sanded them and reinstalled and although you could see a really small spark when opening the points the engine still wouldn't fire. At this point we gave up and pushed the truck back into the garage. After stewing on things for an hour or so I went looking for my spare OEM coil. I found it and it had the remnants of the old coil wire stuck in the top so I pulled it out. Looking closer at the coil I realized the opening is rather deep. At this point the light bulb went off and I went and looked at the coil in the truck. Surprise, surprise, I was able to push the coil wire about 3/8" deeper into the coil So at this point I pushed the truck back outside, turned the ignition and and hit the starter. You can probably guess the rest by now. The engine started right up and sounded great. It was actually running at around 2300 rpm which is what I wanted in order to break-in the cam. Let it run for 20 minutes and then started backing the idle screws off on the carburetors. Here's a video of the engine start after I got the idle down to around 1100 rpm. Engine Start Video Running temp at 2300 rpm was 170 using a laser gun. Oil pressure on the gauge was reading around 45-50 psi. The water temp on the gauge was slightly over half way. The numbers were the same after I backed the idle off to 1100 rpm. The overflow tube was dribbling out a little bit of coolant while it was running so I don't know if I over filled the radiator or what might be causing that. That's a problem for another day. I couldn't really tell if the generator was working or not. The battery maintained 12.71 volts the whole time it was running so it might be producing some current but not much. I definitely have to do some adjusting on the carburetor linkage. I couldn't get the idle below 1100 and I'm not sure why. I suspect the dual carburetor setup is going to be interesting to try and get adjusted properly. I've got a few other video snippets I'll be uploading but I have to do some editing because they are not that great. I wasn't expecting the engine to start so I didn't have the camera ready when it did! Ok, on to the next problem.....

Radiator is now installed. Picked it up Friday, painted that afternoon and installed it Saturday morning. So far I don't seem to have any coolant system leaks so it looks like it's a go to try and start the engine later this morning. Assuming I get it started I'll spend the afternoon getting the seatbelts installed. Wish me luck....

Progress towards starting the engine ground to a halt last May due to a small leak in the newly re-cored radiator. So, it's been a long time with no real progress made other than the repainting of the doors, fenders, hoods, etc. Still to paint are the cab and the bed sides. Everything else has now been repainted and ready to install. The only thing keeping the cab from being re-painted is transporting the truck to the paint shop. The goal had been and still is to drive the truck from my garage to the paint shop about 8 miles away. Before discovering the coolant leak I was just hours away from trying to start the engine for the first time. The leak meant I had to remove the radiator for repairs. Recently I tried resoldering the seam myself but failed miserably. What had been a very small leak was now a small waterfall Sadly, the shop that did the re-core has since closed which meant I had to find a new shop. Yesterday I dropped the radiator off at a new shop and if they hold to their promise, I should be able to pick up the radiator Friday. I'll paint it this weekend and with luck install it before the weekend is over. The only other thing that needs to occur before driving to the paint shop is installing the seat belts. The truck doesn't have doors yet, so I'd feel more comfortable if I had something keeping me inside the cab ? The trip will be on winding twisty back roads so staying inside the cab could be difficult. More to come.....

I have a couple of those fuse holders in my truck.

I consider trucks like this to be unmolested examples Nice looking truck.

That sucks. Any indication as to why?

I got mine off of ebay years ago. I doubt the phone number on the label is valid anymore

Ditto....

Wow, that is tight! Out of curiosity how rigid are your motor mounts? My only concern would be on a hard stop while driving on the fast side. Any chance of the engine moving forward in a situation like that?

Does it have to be Lucky Charms? How about Cheerios or Wheaties?

I'll have to look closer at mine. They came from Roberts 20+ years ago so maybe I just haven't looked close enough to see if they are there.

Jocko, from who did you buy the gaskets and when did you buy them?

I don't see a problem here....

Back in 1998 when I bought mine from Roberts they did not have the metal guides in them. I salvaged the little sleeves from the old rubbers.

I should have said I had downloaded some documents a few years ago. Nothing recently