FULL BUILD: Converting a Silverado Work Horse Into a Mean Street Truck - "Senior Silverado"

today we're starting a new project we're making over a 93 Silverado into an awesome Street truck but with more than a quarter million miles on this trucks clock there's a lot of work to do it's all today here on truck tech hey guys welcome to truck tech well today we're getting started on a brand new project that we picked up for cheap this is a regular cab short box 93 Chevy with a 350 under the hood and over a quarter of a million miles on it now normally we kind of give you guys a tour around the vehicle when we kick off a project isolate some of the problem areas and plan out some cool modifications but before we modify anything on this turd we're gonna make sure that it's roadworthy reliable and safe [Music] okay now you got kind of a game of name your fluids here obviously engine oil here and that well its transmission fluid there's seven of the major components that are leaking so we're gonna address a one by one walk you through it so we systematically attack the leaks and started with probably the most obviously and the easiest one to get to which is the rear differential seal okay so the first thing you see here is that some kind of fluid has been seeping around the wheel studs pull the drum off take a quick look the surface area is really nice there's no grooves in it and there's plenty of material left on the drum itself the pads in good shape so the brakes are basically functional something seeping out and if you look right up in here it's an axle seal all right while we let the gear oil drain out of the differential I went ahead and pulled the drum off the driver's side beside Kevin pulled off looked at be in good shape and the shoes did as well this side not so much it looks like the shoes were worn so bad that the rivets holding the friction material in place actually wore into the drum surface and it looks like the grooves are too deep to be machined out so these drums are gonna have to be replaced the shoes well they need to be replaced as well but it's for a couple of reasons not just because they have a weird wear pattern because of the grooves in the drum but because it looks like we've got some gear oil leaking on here from a bad axle seal and it looks like maybe some brake fluid from a bad wheel cylinder let's check it out and upon closer inspection we definitely have some leaking seals in the wheel cylinder and this fuzzy stuff you see on top is the shoe material mixing with the gear oil and the brake fluid you need to get rid of it cuz nobody wants that in their lungs so quick wash down with brake clean gets it done let that dry and when you pull the axle shaft out pulling the axles is pretty simple it starts with the differential Center pin retaining bolt which comes out and then the center pin typically just falls right out in your hand from this point the spider gears walk out quite easily and then a simple push of the axle shaft inward releases the c-clip which you can retrieve with a magnet pretty simple then the axle shafts can easily be extracted from the axle housing without affecting the rest of the carrier now they do make special brake drum pliers and tools just for this job but you can typically get by with just some common hand tools that you probably already own if you're not too familiar with working on drum brakes we'll just leave the other side completely assembled that way you have a reference and these wheel cylinders while they are rebuildable but it's usually not cost or time effective to do so that is unless you've got some rare vehicle where a rebuilt ones not available still got a bunch of nasty in there all right now it's a good idea to loosen up the brake line connection to the wheel cylinder before you unbolt it from the backing plate so it doesn't try to spin on you we also plug the end of the brake line to make sure all the fluid didn't drain out of the line we just make bleeding the brakes take that much longer a little bit of water neutralizes the brake fluid and a little bit of brake clean washes everything down and dries quick so we have a clean dry surface to work with add a new wheel cylinder obviously fits right in place and just retained by two bolts tighten them down then attach your brake line reassembling the shoes is somewhat straightforward but these little coil springs that keep the shoes pinned down to the backing plate can be a pain in the neck they've got to be compressed I'm good a little bit and then rotated 90 degrees until the retainer clip seats they said hold it in position then you just repeat the process on the other brake shoe and then we just completed the installation with all the springs and small parts that came in our hardware kit again using the passenger side drum as a reference now the axle seal was leaking so we used our seal puller to remove it and it was pretty happy where it was you can also use a pry bar or even a screwdriver if you have to to remove these things just takes a little bit of work you know Wooyoung and be prepared to lose a little bit of gear oil in the process and if I was a little bit smarter I would replace the axle seal first before I did the brake shoes but oh well no harm no foul now tapping in the seal you just want to be careful and not damage the seal in the process using a little plastic based hammer and a little bit of gear oil on the seal will prevent damage during reassembly just make sure you don't catch the sharp splines of the end of the axle shaft on the seal causing damage with the axle shaft pushed a little further than its normal seated position it easily exposes the grooves for the c clips which can be inserted again with a magnet and the axle is pulled back into place ready for the spider gears now this can be kind of a trick in a tongue twister you've got to time them to where they're parallel and line up with the bore for the center shaft a couple of stabs usually gets it right then you just insert the retaining bolt snug it up do your rocket with the diff cover sealed up you've got a couple of choices on how to refill it with gear oil we chose to let compressed air do the work rather than the forearm squeeze of the quart jugs into the dip itself the mode of products powerful makes it easy hey welcome back now that we've got the rear axle refurbished and new brakes on we threw coat of paint on the raw casting drums just to keep the rust off and since there's no shortage of issues and problems on this truck let's move on to the next one all right now like Kevin said this truck has no shortage of issues and up front we've got play in the steering and either the ball joints or the wheel bank probably just a wheel bearing adjustment but I look through the wheel looks like we might have some brake issues as well all right now there's rotors got more grooves in it than our camera guy Rob's favorite BG's record on the outer lip looks pretty worn there - meaning this rotor is probably well past its minimum thickness specification now the pads looked like they're about half life left but they probably worn to match the grooves in the rotor so we're gonna be replacing both plus it'll give us a chance to adjust these wheel bearings all right now this brake pad is obviously wearing to match the rotor the inside edge and the outside edge are wearing on the lip as the pad eats into the face of the rotor now the face of the pad is grooved just like the rotor is so this one brake pad it's not staying alive now it's kind of hard to see but the minimum thickness is cast into the rotor so we can measure the face of the rotor and determine if it can be turned or machined or if it's scrap now minimum spec is thirty point eight six and in our case we're obviously well below that and that's before removing any material from the machining process so these are scrapping we need new rotors now before we install our new rotors we're gonna be installing some new wheel bearings that we picked up from lMC Truck and they do make a bearing packer tool that makes this job a little bit quicker but I like doing it by hand and it frankly doesn't take that long we install our freshly pakad bearing into the rotor followed by the spindle seal and it just gets lightly tapped into place when installing it on the spindle make sure you're careful not to tear the edge of the spindle seal on the threads of the end of the spindle now to set the bearing preload I like to spin the rotor while tightening it down once you're happy with the bearing preload back off the castle elated nut until the cotter key lines up stab it bend over one leg and add the dust cap all right with our wheel bearings all adjusted we can top off our new Duralast rotors with some Duralast brake pads okay so the steering linkage assembly it looks about as bad as it is start over here outer tie rod end worn out inner tie rod end worn out same on the other side so obviously that stuff has to be replaced but look a little deeper the pitman arm well it doesn't feel like it's sloppy the idler same thing doesn't feel like it's sloppy however two hundred sixty thousand miles chances are by the looks of this stuff it has not been replaced and one thing I learned in collision repair is that you cannot get an accurate wheel alignment if your pitman arm and if your idler are sloppy if they had even a little bit of play in them it needs to be replaced and you owe it to yourself and your new set of tires to do that so we're gonna do today now Kate schmutz covering the joints actually helps with teardown because it stops things from rusting so this actually came apart pretty easily your goal here is to mock up the tie rod to approximately the same length as the original we're using a new adjustment sleeve just because they're inexpensive and it makes it easier exposing the threads helps you dial in the length and this is pretty much self-explanatory but will help you in aligning your truck once it's on the ground that it's pretty close you may need to use a little persuasion to get the idler and the pitman arm out of the main center wing but it also serves us a little bit of therapy whooping up on it now after a bath in the parts washer the blast cabinet really cleans up the center link and allows for a coat of paint just to make it look good help a little bit of the corrosion from there your idler and your pitman arm just get bolted in place and the rest of the assembly mocked up ready for reinstallation hey welcome back well the new steering linkage back up and in place and adjusted to just about exactly the same length as it was when we disassembled it from the vehicle so it should be pretty good for a tow and go once the vehicle is on its own away take a closer look up here something else we replaced another thing that was causing sloppy steering in the wandering truck syndrome was this steering shaft right here in the rag joint it was completely worn out so call up LMC and had them send us one of their replacements for this truck that should just about take care of the steering now you may have noticed one thing we're not replacing is the steering box itself since it wasn't leaking and it wasn't sloppy it stays all right now every time we move this truck around the shop after it's been sitting for anything more than just a few minutes and it leaves a little red spot of transmission fluid and at first we're thinking great there's gonna be a hassle and it's gonna be messy but it turns out we may be getting lucky so you can see it's dripping out of the transmission tail housing but I think it's coming from the speed sensor here and if that's the case it should be a pretty cheap and easy fix the first thing we need to do is disconnect the electrical pigtail and then remove the retaining bolt that keeps the speed sensor locked in place and we do have a good bit of oil all over the tail housing but it looks like it's probably all coming from this leaky speed sensor oh ring it's not the easiest thing to remove like it's been there for quite a while and it's kind of comfortable there it is come on baby and make sure that you have a catch pan ready because you are gonna lose a little bit of ATF looks like we just need a new o-ring now after cleaning off our speed sensor we could easily see the hardened Oh ring that needed to be replaced you know a pocket screwdriver dug it out of the channel that's living in so it can be replaced with a new one that we picked up from the parts store for just a couple of bucks so make sure you'll wipe off the speed sensor before reinstallation you don't want to get any of that nasty gunk inside of your transmission a little bit of a clean ATF that's coming out of this thing lubricate the o-ring seal so it slides into place a little bit more easily although it probably will take a couple of taps from a little plastic hammer to make it happen there's no get tear it away and simply reinstall the bolt [Music] attach your electrical harness clean off the area and test for leaks sometimes repairs don't get cheaper or easier than that hey guys welcome back to the shop well we've done a bunch of chassis maintenance on this old truck but now we want to focus our attention on some of the under hood stuff like we've told you this thing's got over 260,000 miles on it so it's safe to assume that anything that's gonna wear out probably is worn out so we're gonna do some freshening up to do that we picked up a new serpentine belt and tensioner a new oil filter air filter some fresh III spark plugs excel cap and rotor and plug wires from Summit Racing and we're gonna replace this tiny little baby battery that's only got 525 called cranking amps with this Duralast battery with a little bit more vehicle appropriate 700 cold cranking amps now the first thing we're gonna do is remove the spark plugs and you can take a look at the old spark plugs and it'll give you an idea of the condition of that cylinder and honestly ours look like it was burning a little bit of oil but you'd expect that from a truck with this kind of mileage on it our Matco spark plug swivel socket makes installation easy all right now before you take all your old plug wires and toss them in the trash do yourself a favor and find the longest one coil it up and put it in the glove box or the console that way in case any of the new plug wires get burned on the exhaust manifold or something you'll have a spare that'll get you home now when replacing the distributor cap or replacing plug wires it's always a good idea to mark the location of the plug wires and which cylinder they go to before you disassemble you're not too familiar with the engine you never know the previous owner may have installed the distributor backwards or something crazy like that and on GM distributors of this year range there's two electrical connectors as well and the plug washing tend to make sure the new plug wires don't fuse themselves to the spark plug insulators but add a little bit of dielectric grease well make sure they come on and off without tearing now at first glance this distributor cap seems to be in decent shape it's not that old and it's been replaced at some time but upon further inspection it's clear we've had some moisture down in here and there's corrosion on all of the terminals not good for spark energy now the serpentine belt is just starting to show signs of wear so in the spirit of basic maintenance we're gonna replace it and the pulley for the tensioner it's a little sloppy so we're just gonna go ahead and replace the whole tensioner since it was available as a unit but just like what Ryan said spares not a bad idea especially with a serpentine belt because you got one shot if it breaks so this is going behind the seat of the truck the next time you see this truck it gets a lowering kit today we're lowering our 1993 Silverado to get the right stance then we're shooing it with some larger and more modern wheels and tires this is there is eNOS FK line it's all today here on truck Tech [Music] hey thanks for watching truck tech well this is our 1993 full-size 1500 series two-wheel drive short bed Chevy pickup with 260 thousand miles on the clock and although it might look exactly the same as the last time you saw it we've actually been working hard on it making sure that the brakes work when we hit the pedal making sure that it doesn't pee out fluids every time it's parked and making sure that it runs good enough so that where we can get some more miles out of it now this body style stayed virtually the same from 1988 right up until about 1999 making it arguably the next current classic and although we think it's a good-looking body style there's always room for improvement now aesthetically speaking there's a couple of things this truck is screaming for a paint job and an improved stance now we've done some lowering kits before but they've always been in the moderate range so this time we're gonna get a little bit more aggressive because why would we lift up a two-wheel drive truck and throw some big old mud tires on it we want to make a nice clean street truck now to get our truck sitting closer to the pavement we just went to the Summit Racing website entered in our make and model and took a look at some of the options they had available we settled on a five six lowering kit which is going to give us five inches of drop up front and six inches at the back of the truck now to get that done up front it uses a combination of lowering springs and drop spindles out back since we want six inches of drop we have to do something aggressive so we went with a flip kit which is gonna move the leaf springs from the top of the axle where they are now to the bottom of the axle and that necessitates a C notch of the frame just so you can maintain a little bit of suspension travel and these suckers will bolt in we also went to Summit and picked up four new shocks that'll match our soon-to-be lowered ride height [Music] now even being able to throw a socket onto the ball joint Castle nuts well it was like an archaeological dig at a hunt-and-peck to even find the cotter pins hey there's my guess is this truck spent some time on a cattle ranch despite the miles on this truck the ball joints are still in pretty good shape so we didn't want to use the pickle fork in the impact gun on them we wanted to keep the boots intact so we use the tried old true method of whomping it with a BF h1 brought duties now if you're just doing a mild drop with just Springs you still have to take the spindles off ours is pretty aggressive so the spindles get replaced as well as the spring to allow the control arm to swing down far enough to have access to the coil springs we're removing the sway bar end links I'm also disconnecting the bottom half of the shock so I can climb up in the engine bay and remove the scud nut and remove the shock all together tuck loosen up that Chuck but sometimes these parts store shocks don't come off like you expect them to that shock just came apart didn't it yeah that's hilarious so you wanted a $19 jack something missing here something's missing all right [Music] well I guess there's more than one way to remove a shot all right now the only thing we've got left to do is to remove the coil spring and we can do that by lowering this Jack now I've done this enough on this particular model of truck to know that this spring isn't under that much of a compression load and I'd probably be okay just keeping a firm hand on it and using a pry bar to pry the bottom of the spring out but just to be safe we've got a length of chain run down through the spring and the lower control arm so can't go very far and won't become a temporary part of my face or ribcage and with the jack out of the way we use a pry bar to gently pry the spring out of its seat Jane worked [Music] now to make sure our little rubber coil-spring isolator doesn't go anywhere during installation a couple pieces of masking tape ought to keep it pinned down once you have the spring in place make sure you index it correctly so that the end of the spring sits in the little recess from the bottom of the control arm pocket then you can use the jack and put a little bit of pressure on the spring and compress it enough so you can install the spindle and shock good now our replacement shock is one of these fancy newfangled one-piece shocks [Music] now we did have a captured nut break free on the inside of the control arm so we just use a nut and bolt to replace it good thing this isn't a show truck you can follow that with the installation of the new drop spindle for McCoys just tighten down the castle aided nuts and secure them with Cotter pants [Music] now the drop spindle provides about two inches of drop and if you take a look and compare them to the original the spindle pin height is about two inches higher letting the truck sit lower to the ground after a quick cleanup and a little bit of paint we reinstall the brake dust shield and our new rotors [Music] then installed the outer wheel bearing set the preload on the rotors secure it with a cotter pin and covered everything up with the dust cap [Music] then we reinstalled our high mileage but still functioning brake calipers secured the bolts then finally added the tie rod end and locked it down into place but we stopped short of adding two sway bar end links because we've got another upgrade in mind we'll get to that later coming up how to lower the rear end by SI notching the frame and later you joint rebuilding tips hey welcome back we are in the middle of dropping the suspension on our full-size Chevy pickup doing a pretty aggressive five six drop now out front you'd think with all the steering and geometry business going on that it would be a lot more work to drop it in the front well not so much it may be more complicated but certainly not more work in the back we're doing essentially what is known as a flip kit which is putting the axle over top of the leaf spring pack quite simple operation however it creates another problem which is suspension travel here so we have to do some sort of a relief on the frame rail it's a dual parallel section of frame rail not too bad but we have to have access to it so we're gonna essentially blow everything apart get access to everything all at once and do the kit the smart way now picking ahead we want to fix the rusty cab corners in the bed has to be off for that so loosening all the hardware well it just makes sense and it saves us time down the road breasts to tear down it's fairly simple and even though there's 260 thousand miles on this truck it has been worked on in the past so these fasteners aren't rusted or frozen in those of you Chevy truck eagle-eyes out there you've probably noticed that we've got mismatched u-bolts and non stock rear shackles so this trucks been into before and it may give us too much drop in the back we'll just have to figure it out later here you can clearly see the non stock shackles that are obviously a couple of inches longer than they should be but the multiple bolt locations may solve the problem before it's even a problem all right but the axle out of the way and the frame rail cleaned up a little bit went ahead marked the holes for the CE nosh now to do that I just used the C notch plates as a template mark the holes that need to be drilled eight of them plus mark the C notch where it's gonna go before we start cutting the C notch we're gonna drill a couple of holes on these inside corners just for a little extra strength now just like anytime you drill into a frame rail you need to check the backside of it to make sure you're not gonna run into any wiring harnesses fuel lines or brake lines now the purpose of the holes on the inside of these corners is to prevent a stress location where two straight edges meet it could potentially lead to a stress crack or fatigue crack the drilled hole provides a nice smooth radius and hopefully prevent that now we're using a forty thousand thick cut off wheel that we picked up from industrial default on a four and a half inch angle grinder but you can use a reciprocating saw and achieve the same results our cutoff wheel got us through both frame rails now if you're doing this at home make sure you support the back end of the frame rails before you make your cut to make sure that the frame rail doesn't move around on you once you remove half the metal that way you can bolt the see notch back in place and lock it into position nice and straight and with the frame rail carved up go ahead and go the C notch plate back in position and verify that the holes you mark are in the right spot we're good I did it drill kiha start it out with eight inch pilot holes just to make sure the hole is centered and makes things easier for us to drill then we jumped up to about a 5/16 bit followed by a half-inch bit you can go straight to the half inch bit if you want to for me it's a little bit easier and a little bit quicker to step it up then I just knock the birds down on the end of the holes so the C notch plate fit nice and flush and since we don't want this raw steel rusting and more than the steel that's around it we wiped it down with a little acetone it got rid of any last remaining metal splinters and hit it with a coat of paint just to make sure corrosion stayed at bay now the plate gets bolted in place with eight grade eight fasteners on the face of it along with two of them on the bottom side of the frame rail one on either side of the notch got a little bit of work to do on that one and for you guys that are concerned with cutting into the frame rail this much well don't worry about it too much does this plate build a lot of that strength back into it see not complete hey guys welcome back to the shop well we're just about done installing the lowering kit on our 93 Chevy and since we had the drive shaft out to install the rear axle flip kit we figured now would be a good time to replace some of these high mileage and worn-out u-joints now we've shown you you joint replacement in the past but I don't think we've shown you this GM style that isn't held in place by circlips but held in place by nylon that takes a little bit of heat to remove now you can use an oxy-acetylene torch if you want the job to go a little bit quicker but these propane torches are about 15 bucks but the flame does is heat up the yoke which in turn heats up the nylon or plastic that locks the u-joint caps in place forcing it to expand and forcing it out of the hole or chamber that is locked into now a little wd-40 will help lubricate the caps so they slide out of position a little easier there we go I guess is it's a little warm now you might have noticed I'm using a nut from one of the old rear axle u-bolts to drive on the bottom of the u-joint and help push the top cap out here we go just better than using a chrome socket that's kind of ridiculous just like a new one that with the old in with the new now you can see the location of the groove and the stock cap versus the replacement it's in a different spot and it's made to fit this replacement c-clip now to install the joint first carefully remove new joint taps on either side and slide one half at a time of the u-joint into the yoke then with the u-joint cross protruding from the yoke install one of the caps making sure the needle bearings are all still in the correct position then flip the joint over and slightly tap on the yoke to make sure that the cap starts eating in the yoke and once it's tapped in a little bit then you can flip it over and repeat the process again making sure that the needle bearings all stay in position if one falls out of position and ends up in the bottom of the cap well you're never going to get the clips to seat and the u-joints gonna fail prematurely if you do somehow manage to now there's grease pre-installed from the factory that helps hold the needle bearings in place which is always good to keep an eye on it I'm just using one of the old caps to help drive the new cap into position once I've got it seated then break out the noise maker then slowly vibrate it into place it might take a few seconds but better than whooping on it with a big hammer now once you get one you joint cap fully into position go ahead and install one of the c clips that way you can drive against that cap and the clip to make sure everything's installed correctly and all the way then flip it over press the other side cap all the way in position making sure that the groove for the c-clip is fully exposed install the c-clip and you're done [Music] hey guys welcome back to the shop now our recently lowered Chevy is back on all fours and looking pretty good now we can't do anything immediately about this old two-tone paint job but one thing we can do right now to improve the looks of this truck is swap out the rolling stock now take a look at what we're gonna replace those tired old wheels with these are from KMC we picked him up at Summit Racing it's a matte black finish they call it their addict wheel and it's a 20-inch diameter nine inches wide with a five and three-quarter inch back space this is a cast aluminum wheel that's gonna really bring the look of this truck into the 21st century and look a whole lot better we've got them wrapped in Falcon tires that are equally as cool check it out I would seems to have a mind of its own so I'll show you this guy instead this is there is eNOS FK line in a 295 40 series 20-inch diameter wheel this is Falcon's answered to today's growing market a performance luxury crossovers and suv's full-size truck tires available in a wide variety of diameters from 17 to 20 inches including staggered now this tire features a performance-oriented asymmetric tread design for great traction and handling now falcon claims to have a silica enhanced formula in the rubber that improves performance and eliminates some of the road noise we're gonna test him out on our truck see how they perform alright with our wheels installed well this truck is just a paint job away from looking like something we would actually want to drive but before we paint it we got to get rid of some more of this trim and do a little rust repair that's right so the next time you see this truck we'll take care of some of the tin worm issues that plagued this body style today we're tackling the bodywork on our 1993 Silverado we're repairing the rusted rockers and adding a roll pan before topping it all off with a new cowl induction hood it's all today here on truck Tech [Music] hey welcome to truck Tech well check out the new hyper lowest ance of our 93 full-sized chevy pickup thanks to an aggressive five six drop kit that's not only gonna change the way this truck looks but also the way it handles but we're not done yet that's a major styling change to do like it rid of all these gaudy and worn outside moldings and the horrible two-tone paint job not to mention the cavernous holes in the sheet metal now along with the rust repair we've also got a bullet hole to fix in the hood yes that's right a bullet hole so we're gonna be taking care of those things and we're gonna be making a couple of body modifications now like Kevin said the truck looks a lot better sitting closer to the ground but with the two-tone paint job and all the worn-out trim well it kind of looks like a grandpa trucking it's just not what we're after there are certain areas in this particular body style that are prone to rust primarily the rockers and the cab corners let's take a closer look and see how bad it is the pry bar serves as a test not only to test to see what is rusted but also to test the integrity the metal that's not rusted and will give me a determination as to where I can actually start the repair which is right about here now the cab corner well obviously there's a hole in it but sometimes your metal can talk to you here's what I mean listen solid metal well that's the same pressure right there and it goes away there's the metal solid again so again way past the actual rust hole is the actual corrosion from the backside so we obviously have to replace this cab corner and some surrounding metal around the actual hole but here's where you run into a challenge as well to properly do this you have to have access to the back side of this because there's a seam right there I can feel it but you can't see it so that means the bits got to come off to properly fix this cab corner with everything out of the way I'm starting to trim the cab corner out I'm cutting the middle pass where my hammer tap sounded solid just to make sure I'm cutting into good metal but not past where my patch panel will sit sometimes you can get lucky and the whole rusty patch comes off and you can use it as a template but not this time this is wasted look at that typically rust goes way past where it's visible from the outside it's no different here so we're lucky be cut all of that out using a permanent marker I'm marking my cut lines along the rocker panel where I know the metal is good but I can take advantage of some strength in the real estate at the corner orange cut up will get the job done and we get our cutout wheels from our buddies at Industrial Depot now if the rest was bad enough in this truck we'd be taking advantage of the entire patch panel but then we'd have to remove all the weather seals the sill plates the fender the door to get access to everything fortunately we can scab into what's already there now here it's not really what it looks like I'm not trying to tear the metal apart with my bare hands what I'm doing is strength testing what I haven't cut I know where the rust is but sometimes you can get a feel for what's still good and what you can still well - all right now I'm gonna get a vacuum a vacuum cleaner is a great tool to have around the body shop because it keeps you from having to blow that rusty dust up in your lungs at the same time as you get a nice look at the two pinched pieces of metal and you can make a determination as to what's savable and what's not [Music] we got our sheetmetal patches from classic parts of America and if you take a closer look at these you get a glimpse into how this vehicle was constructed on the assembly line the outer rocker which is actually the unified from the factory goes on first and then followed by the cab corner that's how it was assembled you have the opportunity to put the entire patch panel in if your truck is a trustee or if your truck is like ours and you've still got some good metal to weld to you can use your cutouts as a template which is exactly what we're gonna do using a rusty part is the template I want to draw out and make my first cut [Music] even though I'm using the piece that I cut off of our pickup truck as the template I'm making my marks past the cut line that way I can sneak up on it just in case there's some alignment issues due to differences in the stampings the fine line tape gives me a perfect crisp and straight edge to work off of now sometimes the heat from the cutting wheel will actually release the adhesive on the masking tape so I'm making a permanent marker line just for insurance want to pull the tape off that a permanent marker line will melt if I've got a flat sheet metal and I want a nice straight cut I like to use the larger four inch diameter wheels if you let the blade eat properly and don't force it you can get a very straight and very precise cut a bench vise is nice to lock down your workpiece so you can use both hands to cut but you could also do this with a set of locking pliers cool that fits to dress up the area before we lock in the rocker panel using a combination of wire brushes and abrasive wheels to trim down and make sure that our mating surfaces are exactly what we need the Loctite extend coating converts the rust that's left behind to a zinc phosphate which is primal we're following it with weld through primer which will seal the rest in and make sure that it doesn't grow a macro panel punch takes the place of factory electric rosette welds and allows us put this piece in and mimic the factory I'm gonna lock the upper corner in place with a self drilling Phillips head screw because I've still got another cut to do on that end then we can tack it in place and get ready for a test fit against the bottom of the door [Music] all right everything's looking pretty darn good except for it's a little tight here but if you check this out you'll notice that our alignment is a little off from the door to the actual cab corner so we'll make a slight adjustment on that latch and kick this back up into alignment and we're ready for that cab corner then we can burn it all in coming up how to weld in a steel roll pan and later welding in the cab corner patch hey guys welcome back to truck tech well while Kevin does some rust repair I figured I ought to do some work as well now like we showed you our factory hood has a bullet hole in it and we're gonna take the easy way out when it comes to fixing it we're just gonna replace it with this much cooler steel cowl hood that we picked up from classic parts of America now this is a really nice stamping and it's gonna take minimal effort to get it prepped for paint and like we told you up front we're trying to get rid of some of the grandpa styling in this truck and that means we're gonna ditch the factory step bumper and replace it with a smoother and much cooler steel roll pan so I've got some work to do now the first thing we're doing is using the stripping disc to get rid of the paint and get down to bare steel so we can weld this in and we're gonna get rid of the tailgate to give us a little bit more room to work all right now here's the steel roll pan from classic parts of America that we're gonna be welding in now they had a couple of different options available both with and without the license plate recess we obviously went with now I've got the paint cleaned up on the edges but I've also got a mark about a half dozen holes so we can make some rosette welds now one thing the roll pan didn't come with was some sort of provision for any kind of license plate or tag light so what we did was just drill a couple of holes used a die grinder with a carbide bit to make the contour match the OE tag lights that way we can stay legal recycle some parts and they'll plug right into the factory wiring harness and since it's kind of hard to weld to paint using a little die grinder and a sanding disc to buzz down to bare steel I'm also buzzing down the edges of the roll pan just to get rid of some of the coating there's some nice clean welt after lining things up I'm gonna temporarily hold the pan in place with some sheet metal screws so I can work the ends of the roll pan without having to hold the thing up once we're happy with how it sits and how it lines up we'll add a few tack welds lock it down but we're not gonna finish weld it just yet make sure it doesn't hit before I get too far committed [Music] now to welding our roll pan using our Miller Matic 140 auto set welder it's a 120 volt MIG now the auto set all you got to do is select your wire thickness diameter and your material thickness diameter and it sets the Machine up for you now if you want to you can still set your wire speed and material thickness independently but sometimes it's just nice little machine do the work for you so if you guys are worried about welding on thin sheet metal take a look at the auto set what ride is doing is sheet metal welding 101 since these are single walled sheet metal panels you've got to space out your tags and allow the metal to cool this reduces both blow through and warping he's also using a simple screwdriver to press the metal panels together for his rosettes alright this thing all welded in all I've got to do is grind it down and prep it for filler now I'm not a body man you guys know that but I think I did a pretty decent job of welding this thing into position and it's something you guys can do at home now these roll pants are available in Bolton versions now we prefer the welding just because it's smooth and seamless now these roll pants only cost about a hundred bucks and I'm not sure what else you could do to a truck to make it custom for any cheaper the welds is pretty much straightforward using a 24 grit disc ride is using a rotary grinder to level the weld pool down to the level of sheet metal surrounding fairly simple just remember that you can generate a lot of heat and cause warpage with the grinder itself for the rosette welds it just requires a brushing since the weld pool is low and flat all right now if you're doing this job at home and some time is gonna pass in between metalwork and paintwork make sure you hit this bare steel with some sort of corrosion inhibitor for now we're gonna throw the tailgate back on this thing so we can see what it looks like here in a minute when we come back how to safely remove glued on badges oh that works pretty good hey welcome back to truck tech well we're knee deep and fixing up our 93 Chevy pickup doing some rust repair and custom sheetmetal work now in addition to that sheet metal work we told you right up front we want to get rid of some of the excess trim on this truck and this aluminum Chevy badge runs end-to-end on the tailgate and we want to get rid of it now they do make wedge type tools like this to get in behind things like this and pry them away from the sheet metal but you run the risk of damaging the metal underneath the piece of trim you're trying to remove now if you had an old truck with good thick sheet metal you'd probably be okay but the newer the truck the thinner the sheet metal and the greater the risk so we figured we'd give this windshield wire try and see how it works now the abrasive wire just kind of cuts through the adhesive backing as I work it back and forth seems to be doing a pretty good job and I bet we could reuse this emblem if we had to well that worked pretty good now the rocker section we've got in here it's fully welded ready for grinding and then filling we've utilized the corner up for strength and it actually fits pretty darn good right here so now it's time to fit the cab corner now it's always a good idea to use as much of the original sheet metal especially along style lines as possible they give you more here for this patch panel but it's not a perfect pressing it's more of a suggestion of a cab corner so what we're gonna do is utilize this seam this right about here and kind of sneak up on it you sort have to make adjustments as you go because you have to also consider the panel gap here let's get started [Music] I'm drawing in lines with a contrasting color to give myself a guide or a reference to cut too but at the same time I'm not using the exact line I'm over cutting just to make sure that I've got enough room to trim get used to the fact that you're gonna be test-fitting over and over and over again this is primarily to recreate the panel gap that the factory had established again I'm using reference marks as a guide setting it into place I'm holding it with my hand rather than screws and clamping it into place on the backside edge a self curling sheet metal screw locates it and holds it on the bottom when I can make my cut through both panels on the cab corner this establishes a line with a 1/16 inch gap that makes it perfect for welding and quite easy to fit since the same blade cut both panels [Music] now before I commit to welding I'm gonna double-check my reference marks against the closed door just to be sure of my precise placement yep there we are I'm crying about a quarter-inch of the paint off on each side of the well that way I get a nice clean weld without contamination now here's the tip that'll really help control blow through on welding sheet metal prep the backside and get rid of the birds you'd be surprised how much it helps another tip is using a paint stirrer stick as an established guide to control your panel gap it does a great job as a shim and allows you to focus on the welding as usual you know the drill space your tacks apart and sneak up on it don't try and build too much heat in the punch holes help with your rosette welds and to establish the look of the factory spot weld the end result is a repair that once it's finished puttied primer Dan block is going to be a perfect cat corner all right let's close the doors see what we got the gaps great down to here gets a little wide here back to perfect right here that's okay I can live with that that's what fillers are for skim coat will fix that what's more important than this gap being a little wide is the relationship from this panel to this panel and we are bang on right there so I am happy with this CAD Corner repair hey guys welcome back to the shop well here in front of me is all that stainless steel trim badging bumper hood and body cladding that we pulled off of our high mileage Chevy now we simplify things cleaned it up and made it look better but we also lost a few pounds in the process and we had a chance to replace our mortally wounded hood and for my money the way we fix this hood is the easiest bodywork I've ever done thanks to classic parts of America this bolt on replacement cowl induction hood not only fits pretty darn good but it really updates the look of this truck fits right in with his custom sport truck theme what we're working on save me some bodywork and looks killer alright now with the bumper gone and replaced with this roll pan and with this giant emblem gone it's just a cleaner back into the truck now you can see behind the emblem well it was trapping moisture causing corrosion allowing the paintin kind of flake off now I'm glad we caught this now and not when it was too late this had rusted through this is something we could save so with the direction for styling on this pickup truck clearly defined it begs the question what's next well it's obvious what's next with the impact strip gone off this bumper we can see the Chrome's worn out it's dented and these holes look ugly the marker lights and headlights are worn out and the grille will help its beat-up and typical of this vintage truck the chrome is delaminating and without a whole lot of work this girl's gonna be very difficult to paint so what we're gonna do is clean up the nose of this thing throw a new grille in and eliminate this turbocharged paper cut from ever happening again that's coming up on truck tech today it's front-end upgrades on our low buck Street truck upgrade then we're showing you how to stop rust and its tracks and finally moving the tailgate handle from the outside to the inside it's all today here on truck Tech [Music] hey guys thanks for watching truck tech well today we're back on our 1993 full-size two-wheel drive short bed pickup that we're calling our low buck street truck and so far we think we've made a dramatic difference in the appearance of this truck with an aggressive drop kit brand new wheels and tires and a cool sexy cowl induction hood now since you've seen it we've filled in a couple of the pop knots down the side as well as wipe some filler on the replaced cab corners and rocker panels and that sets it up for a nice coat of paint with some primer surfacer a couple hundred hours of blocking but one of the things we're gonna do today is take care of the looks of this nasty front end now the front ends in decent shape it's not broken or missing anything but the chrome is peeling the emblems missing the headlights are all fogged up and cloudy the bumpers got about two dozen holes in it from the removed impact strip it's dented and misaligned generally the front end of this truck looks like it's got a quarter a million miles on it and that's something we want to change so today we're gonna give this thing a little bit of a catalog facelift now the front end upgrade comes to as courtesy of LMC truck and consists of a brand new textured black lower valance it's gonna stay like that as well as a painted steel bumper without the impact strip that's really gonna clean up the front end of this truck now those of you Chevy guys that have a keen eye will you've already noticed that this is an updated newer year model grille and we're gonna leave it like that and have a monochromatic look and give us a custom effect without having to do a bunch of custom body work on the fenders so the point is with lMC Truck you've got all kinds of options when it comes to styling now to complement our new grille we picked up some new lights these are new high and low beam assemblies new marker lighter parking light assemblies we picked up a bunch of new bulbs and some new corner markers or reflectors now even though kevin said we were gonna go with a monochromatic look on this truck we are gonna keep a little bit of chrome in the form of this brand new bow-tie emblem and since we're working on a sport truck well it makes sense that we go with some sport mirrors that ought to look a little bit more at home on this truck than these chromed and dented up om ears when you take it stuff apart it really pays dividends to keep track of your fasteners keep them in organized piles because you're probably gonna have to reuse some later there's subtle differences between these two grilles and we're gonna need to borrow bits and pieces as we reassemble with the new parts replacing the headlights with the new ones from lMC is as much aesthetic as it is a safety upgrade and we're gonna gain a bunch of lumens back to be able to see at night now if these bumper brackets weren't tweaked a little bit we could go ahead and start reinstalling our new parts but the old bumper was misaligned and beat up a little bit so I'm gonna go ahead and loosen up these bracket mounting bolts install the new bumper and all the grille make sure everything's lined up and where we want it then we can tighten things down and everything will be lined up now like we told you we're not reusing the bumper or the air dam but we are gonna reuse some of the hardware [Music] most of it was in good shape but a few pieces we're a little too rusted or corroded for reuse luckily Industrial Depot keeps us pretty well stocked with replacement hardware assembly obviously pretty straightforward we are using a light clutch setting on our electric drill so we don't crush the plastic as we tighten the bolts down too much pressure or torque can cause the plastic to split and ruin your day [Music] [Music] now on the plumper itself we're replacing all the hardware all eight bolts with a hardware kit that we picked up with the bumper from lMC Truck now what I'm doing is going ahead and tightening down all eight bolts on the bumper and leaving the bumper brackets loose don't everything gets lined up we can tighten the brackets down and be in good shape that'll be good for now [Music] when you're doing a simple swap out like this it's a good idea to have one beside the other the old grill beside the new grill in this case that way you can take the lights individually and swap them over saving all your hardware these fasteners commonly known as speed nuts are specifically sized for the pegs on these marker lights which incidentally are a different shape and size on the grill and the newer ones won't they just flat-out look better the hardware goes on the same way but take a little care tightening them up don't over tighten them because you're cutting threads as you tighten them down just use a little bit of finesse and Snug them the lower filler panel is specific to the newer grill we could not reuse the other one here we go so LMC you helped us out again and shipped us this one that matches the grill it just clips into place and stays that way being installed as an assembly the super sexy bowtie well it goes away in favor of the brand-new super sexier bowtie that's chrome which will probably be the only piece of chrome in the whole vehicle so it doesn't look gaudy and it still might get us home [Music] that's better yeah I like it keep in mind just because your headlights are brand-new doesn't mean they're aimed properly they're aimed to fit inside the box that's about it but here's a tip to get you close so you're not illegal or blinding oncoming traffic just turn the lights off in the garage turn your headlights on and aim them against the door or the wall and that'll get you close or at least in the ballpark to where you can see at night from there if you need to you can go to a qualified or certified service center and they can finish a job for you upgrade up next it's how to remove and prevent rust and later moving the tailgate handle to inside the bed hey welcome back to truck tech well as you guys know rust can present itself in many different ways the rust in the cab corners and the rocker panels that we've already cut out and replaced with good metal while it manifests from the backside and rusts through the sheet metal presents itself in the forms of bubbles and holes the other way rust manifests on a vehicle especially with original paint is from the top down by the clear coat coming off and exposing unprotected base coats sealers and finally the metal to where it oxidizes and succumbs to the elements so we're gonna show you how to fix this type of surface rust so how does surface rust happen out in the middle of a panel from the top down well let me show you this tells the forensics story believe it or not right here you have clear coat this is original paint so it's a base coat clear coat system from the factory you've got clear coat here the white area around here is the clear coat that's weak and has been damaged by the Sun and is flaking off flaking off to the point where the base color has no UV protection and flakes off again to the gray sealer underneath the base color which eventually will succumb to the effect of UV rays and expose the steel eventually ending up just like this for the sheet metal rusts from the top down but if you catch it soon enough you don't have to replace this panel now your knee-jerk reaction might be that well since you can scrape the top of the rust off Mazal just sand it off here's the problem with that the rusts [Music] kills the pad to where it's now almost an ineffective against the rest of the paint so you're gonna go through an entire roll of 80 grit pads on a da while you're trying to knock the surface rust down there's better ways to do that check these tools out i've got wire brushes both manual and on a pneumatic rotary tool this nylon bristle disc is very effective against surface rust as well as mill scale and we've got these stripping discs both one that fits into a Jacob's Chuck on a drill and one that goes on to an angle grinder I like these a lot because it's not a flat contact patch and it's gonna keep your surface area cool which is very important in a large piece of sheet metal like this I don't want warpage and it constantly renews the sharp edges as it wears down so this in my opinion is one of the best ways to get rid of surface rust this guy is an 80 grit rotary tool this is a monster and although it's not going to work great on the surface rust because it's gonna kill that pad like I said on this painted surface we're gonna go to town with that once we get rid of the rust oh and by the way if you're dancing around back here with the bed of your truck off please keep in mind that this won't these tubes and these are returned and send lines for fuel are easy to break and they're expensive to replace ask me how I know protect this stuff so with a wood platform to stand on protecting the fuel sending unit Kevin can get to work removing the surface rug I'm just letting the weight of the tool press down on the stripping disc he's not pushing down on it introducing heat into the thin and flat sheet metal and notice that he's focusing on the rusted areas only for the painted surfaces he'll go back and sand that down with an 80 grit sanding disc and you never know once you remove the rust like you'll find without a dent haha you know they're now using an 8 inch rotary sander in that 80 grit disc Kevin can finish off the rest of the room and notice that he's using light pressure not just to minimize heat input onto the sheet metal but it also makes the pad last longer and remember whenever you're standing next to rubber trim that's not gonna get replaced make sure you heed Kevin's poorly spelled windshield warning and be careful it'll only take a second for that rotary sander to mess up the rubber trim cool okay now this may be hard to see from a distance it looks like clean bare steel but these dark spots in here that is still iron oxide that's still rust in the pores of the steel and if you pry them over top of that it's gonna come back through your paint so here's what to do there's a lot of different rust converters out there but the one that's on our shelves is locked tights extend which converts the rust and stops the oxidation [Music] when we come back we'll flip the tailgate handle to the other side hey guys welcome back to truck tech well with the front end of the truck facelifted and with the surface rust taken care of on the roof we've got a little bit of work to do to this tailgate now it's not something we have to do it's something that we want to do now the last time you guys saw this thing we pulled the Chevrolet emblem off the back and it revealed a little bit of a mess but before we get to work blocking and filling and sanding and all that bodywork nonsense what we're gonna do a fun little project and that's just relocate this tailgate handle from the outside to the inside now I have to get the plastic tailgate cover out of the way we can get to work removing the latch which is pretty straightforward three bolts hold it in from the backside then you can disconnect the rods that work the actual tailgate latch and remove it now make sure not to break these plastic clips they get reused this kit comes with a handle bracket a support plate as well as a filler plate for the front side which we'll show you later assembly is very straightforward but mock up is necessary in order to realign your rods and the clips to go in there now this kit comes from lMC Truck and doesn't reinvent the latch it just flips it over it's pretty cool the support bracket is necessary to add rigidity to the handle if that support bracket wasn't there to handle my flex and be prone to fatigue and eventually breaking now these plastic clips we told you about earlier like get flipped over to the other side of the latch assembly that way the linked rods can stay in their current orientation and everything will work correctly these do have a few years on them so be careful when handling them you don't want to break it now the tailgate handle gets relocated to the inside of the tailgate and it needs to be centered the kit also includes a template to line up with a new Center mark to locate the outer edges of the hole to be cut we're using a punch to mark the corners and a silver marker to connect the dots and with our sheet metal square out of the way I'm going to go ahead and dress the edges through move any razor sharp bursts nobody likes stitches then we can test fit our tailgate handle relocation panel and mark the holes for the screws that hold it down don't get tempted to weld this panel in place if you do you won't have access to the link rods or any of the mechanism if it breaks you're screwed now with the new handle screwed into the backside of the tailgate we can reattach the link rods that operate the latches like we've stressed before these plastic clips are old so be careful it may take some needlenose pliers and a little bit of patience to get the job done but a little care now might save you scrambling for a replacement later once you verify that your latch is working correctly we can weld in the supplied cover plate just grind off the paint make a few tack welds a little bit of grinding and some of that bodywork that everybody loves you'll be done hey guys welcome back to the shop well we've just about worked our way through our pile of parts but we dub one little project left and that's swapping out these original mirrors with something a little bit uh sleeker pretty easy thanks alright now with the door panel removed what you're after is the nuts that attach through the three mounting studs that hold a mirror to the door pretty straightforward these mirrors were actually designed for a newer model truck but these doors are stamped the same for so many years that they will fit be careful not to lose your fasteners there's an internal brace at the front of that door that will keep those nuts and your tools forever done you know rumor has it objects in mirror closer than they appear now if you step back and take a look at some of the improvements that we've made well it really is an upgrade if you think about it in Cal induction hood the smooth bumper and the updated newer style grille along with some custom lights and the beauty of it all is that it's DIY stuff it's a bolt-on project if you've ever questioned what a few bucks where the bolt on parts can do to make a dramatic difference in your truck well just take a look at the mirrors now what we did back here wasn't necessarily Bolton but it is a DIY project if you've got access to a welder and don't mind doing a little bit of paint and bodywork now the smooth tailgate blends great with our roll pan just makes the back of the truck look nice and clean now it's not just for aesthetics if you've got a locking tonneau cover while flipping the tailgate latch to the inside can also be a theft deterrent as well today we're doing perfect paint trap the guys are showing you how and why pre-paint bodywork and surface prep are the two secrets to achieving a killer paint job it's all today here on truck tech I'm sure you'll agree that we made quite the transformation on this truck hey guys welcome to truck Tech today we've got our 93 Chevy 1500 back in the shop now this truck has come a long way from where we started with it we've done a lot of maintenance work lowered it down put it on some nice tires and wheels done some rust repair fix a couple of dozen dents and dings and we've done some body work in preparation for a paint job now typically when Kevin does a paint job all the prep work is done he's in the booth and spraying the actual paint and as important as it is to have good spray technique the truth is putting the paint on spraying the paint is this much of this much work when it comes to getting a really nice good solid laser straight paint job so today we're going to show you more about what it takes to get it into the booth then actually doing the fun stuff and spraying the paint so let's see what we got now obviously we've done some work since the last time we showed you this truck primarily in fixing some dents what I call whiskey Nicks down the side and this filler is specifically designed to stick and go over top of paint as long as the paint is in good shape and properly adhered which brings me to a point we're not doing a restoration on this truck we're doing a paint job and there's a distinct difference so we're not stripping to bare metal we're fixing what's there and we're gonna build a coating on top of that so speaking of that we found some other dents there's a hole drilled here we've welded it up filled it in this stripe that divided at the factory two-tone well we had to grind it off because it was original it was crusty and rotted on which brings you to another point if unless you want to see that wave down the side you got a level that so we're gonna be using a primer surfacer on top of that as well as all of these places that we found and fixed now the rocker panel and the cab corner obviously we did some filler work in there to get that to where it looks like there hasn't been a repair at all and that will fix nicely over here we've got the hood check it out now the hood fits the opening pretty good the gaps are okay and it looks great because it's a nice cowl induction hood but we looked at it a little bit closer and even though out of the box it looked perfect when you look hard at it you can see a little bit of ripples right around the edges that's just a part of the stamping process it's not a fault of the manufacturer and sits we're going with a dark blue color it's gonna reflect those ripples so we've got to pay attention to that do a little bit of prep work block it and then it'll be ready for painting and even though I got my hands dirty doing a little bit of bodywork on this thing i smoothed out the transition in between the welded on roll pan and the bed I even did a little bit of dent repair on the bed side I got to tell you it was kind of satisfying doing a little bit of sheetmetal work and getting that bed size back in shape it also took a little bit of filler and filled in the seam around the license plate recess we could have left it alone and it probably would have been okay but it looks smoother and more finished this way and where the spot welds are holding that recess in place well they would show through the final paint job if we didn't do a little bit more bodywork so we spread on some finishing putty wiped it sanded it and ground it down smooth so it looks nice and finished now over here on the bedside what we stripped the molding off ground off all the stubborn adhesive and now it's prepped for some primer surfacer so before we get to work let's talk about paint because after all before you get into booth you got to know what color you're gonna paint and you got to know how much paint you're gonna need and this is after all our low bucks for trucks so we're keeping to a budget now we thought our way through this and went to Summit Racing because they're paid is cost-effective and it looks really good we decided on this bomber blue color why well because it's almost an exact match to the dark blue color on our truck which is the dominant color on the truck which means that the door jams are dark blue behind the bed is dark blue inside the tailgaters dark blue so we're not gonna have to blow this whole thing apart and do a complete color change paint job which by the way at least double zero and probably doubles if not more your materials cost so this is gonna save us money and get us the result that we want on the cheap so if you're asking yourself this is a show about a paint job why are you tearing the truck apart well the reason why is because you have to consider that this truck was painted from the factory with none of this stuff on so we're disassembling to create the illusion and yes I talked about creating illusions a lot but to create the illusion that this is a factory an original paint job and not just something that somebody has masked up all the seams okay the magnet helps you keep from dropping this faster in behind that brace because if it does we'll get wedged in there you'll never get it back [Music] stripping off the beltline weather strip and the weather seal itself gives you access to the painted areas behind them and it's easy to do now this class guide well it's a different story it's riveted in place but here's a trick to where you can fool the paint into going in behind it just take and put a little pressure on it and pry it open and some of these tricks come from a career of auto body repair some of them you can figure out on your own just through common sense now the back end of the channel run comes out of the channel this allows you to raise the window and not have the weather seal in the way and again you can get to all the painted surfaces easily and when you're done messing with the power windows go ahead and disconnect the battery with the door panel off and the doors open let's just gonna drain the battery with the dome light stain on removing things like mirrors and door handles don't cost any more than time and give you a more professional job okay here's a time-saving tip on these trucks if you just take the bolts out leave the rods attached when you're masking you can have it stand out like that the paint will blow in around it it won't bridge into look professional like you remove that handle but you didn't have to go through all that time taking the handle off and the whole inner assembly it stays in now if you've invested like we have on brand new wheels and tires the last thing you want on them is overspray so do yourself a favor and remove them it'll also allow you to pull the bed back since we've got to get primer surfacer on the backside of those cab corners perfect give you some room yeah well when we come back it's more surface prep and then we're applying the primer hey guys welcome back to truck tech well we've got our Chevy 1500 disassembled enough so where we have access to all the hard-to-reach areas and we've done some prep work to our new plastic parts like our sport mirrors and a replacement grille now rather than spend about an hour with a scuffing pad wearing out my fingertips trying to get in all these hard-to-reach areas prepping it for paint well I kind of took the easy way out and took advantage of our extra capacity media blasting cabinet our blast at all now I just turned the air pressure down enough to profile the plastic and give the paint something to stick to so these parts are ready and our trucks just about ready for primer but we're not quite ready to spray just yet now the first type of primer we're going to be using on this truck is a high build sandable primer but the word primer itself gets misused all the time so we're going to show you something that gives you a pretty good explanation of the different types of primer and how they're used check it out substrate is the technical name for the service that you're working whether it's aluminum or steel which is typically bathed in an etch primer in our case we're using an epoxy primer after the epoxy is a high build primer surfacer which is designed to be sanded and leveled to a flat surface once you've achieved that a primer sealer gives you a single smooth coat for your color coats to sit on which in our case are followed by a clear coat which gives you all the shininess all the paint protection and all the UV screening in a base coat clear coat system now we're going to deviate from that just a little bit by instead of epoxy on the metal we're gonna go with the DTM or a direct to metal high build primer surfacer since we've got some bare metal areas here next to the filler work and the bodywork but you know we've also got his unprepped areas shiny pate and as you know it ain't gonna stick unless it's prepped by the way these are the pee sheets that you can download from the Summit Racing website that show you everything you need to know about how to use these products even proper prep techniques so these are a great idea to have and a must-have resource so before we can spray on that high-build primer surfacer get a little more work to do [Music] I've said many times there are only two types of adhesion with paint and primers mechanical versus chemical here we're dealing with mechanical adhesion so we have to sand it and even the areas that aren't gonna come into direct contact with the main coats of primer surfacer flow PUE have to prep them our flaking paint on our edges well it gets feathered out we can get away with this because we've done enough tests on it to realize that it's stuck good enough to feather in gradual taper between the layers let you know it's stuck and it's safe to prime over top of when you're prepping the prime of vehicle you have to think like the overspray so renegade you got to think past your damage so your primer has something to stick on that you can feather out into the paint now before you spray anything everything's got to be cleaned off starting with compressed air blowing the dust out of the crevices and then following up with a solvent wipe down we're using dupli-color spree painting prep and it works great to not only get the rest of the dust on the surface out but also to ensure that we have no other types of contamination before we spray our expensive coatings down the might cause delamination now that everything is clean and dry you still have some masking to do even though some disassembly has happened we're covering up areas that we don't want the overspray to sit on just because we don't wanna clean it up later now you don't necessarily need a masking car to get this job done but if you plan on doing this more than once it may be something you might want to invest in we got ours from Matco tools now masking under the hood and of course things like the windshield it just keeps you from having a clean overspray off down the road once your overspray drives and cures it's really difficult to remove if you don't have a paint shaker have your job restore shake the paint for you especially with primer surfacer x' because the solids or the talc that's in the primer surfacer can settle to the bottom and it's very difficult to stir up even with the stir stick pay close attention to your mix ratios and cross-reference your numbers making sure that you're using the correct catalyst for the material you're using because it'll break your heart when you don't it won't cure it won't dry and you got to wipe it off and start all over again that's no fun at all once you've strained your primer into the cup now comes the fun part we can spray we're using a Matco spray gun with a 1.6 fluid tip which is typical for a high build primer surfacer if you're using polyesters you might need to go with the larger orifice but this gun works great for this DTM or direct to metal primer surfacer now what that means is that it'll stick very well if we send it through the bare metal that it will also stick well to our properly prep surfaces like our paint transitions in our bodywork after the break its guide coding 101 stay tuned hey guys welcome back to truck tech well our low bucks for truck is shaping up and the high build primer surfacer that we spray it on our bodywork is ready for the next step which is blocking and then finally getting it ready for the final paint job but before we get started there's a few tools I want to talk to you about when you're blocking it really helps to have a variety of sanding boards to fit into the different crevices and contours of the body that you're working on for instance this long guy is perfect for flat panels it's got a nice hard foot and it's very firm we've got a teardrop shape the smaller block is firm this one's flexible got a round block we've got these soft Sanders that have a variety of different shapes molded into them that you can use on the different style lines of the vehicle for instance this style line here you don't want to block it flat you want to retain it you want to recreate it as closely as possible to the factory panels now when we're blocking this is the last stage of bodywork we're still shaping so we're going to go pretty aggressive on our sandpaper we're gonna use 180 grit on all of our sanding books before we start sanding we've got to do some guide coating and I'll show you what that's about a guide coat does what it says it guides you into creating a flat surface by providing a contrasting color that you sand through and reveals imperfections underneath it I like the dry guide coat although a lot of people use the spray guide coats in the spray cans personally the dry guide coat doesn't interfere it doesn't introduce another chemical into the paint system and thereby for me at least in my preference and in my mind it's a little bit safer to do I prefer to sand and block drive so this goes hand-in-hand with the way that I figured out how to do this best now safety first remember these chemicals are still active for 90 days in ours wasn't sprayed that long ago I'm gonna start out with 180 grit on a longboard soft sander using a linear technique with a slight X pattern in my sanding I'm traveling with the sanding board so I don't dig holes your surface to a certain extent dictates how fast you could send okay right away you see the value of the guide coat the dark spots are low spots where it's lighter well it's leveled and it's flat so you simply lock your guide coat until it's gone and theoretically your panel is perfectly flat when you're standing as aggressively as we are with a 180 grit once your guide coat is gone if you haven't burned through well then you can move up to the next grit of sandpaper to do that you just re guide coat and move on to the next step but we've got an awful lot of flat surfaces to block before were at that stage yet here you can clearly see the X pattern that I'm using to sand this allows me to use the leading edge of the block which I know is true in flat to lead the sandpaper and to help create a flat surface for the paint to go on guys this is the important step this is what makes your paint job slick smooth and shiny so don't compromise on the time that you spend blocking it's very very important now I'm guide coating again because I'm happy with the bodywork I've got enough primer surfacer on there oh I haven't blocked through with 180 which tells me that it's ready the final scent move up to 320 grit which is our final sand and prep for paint so all we do is repeat this process times the rest of the 10 panels from the truck hey welcome back well now that all the hard prep work is done guess what more hard work the paint job yes it's the fun part but don't kid yourself it's hard work we're doing this in two sessions the main part of the truck body is in the booth the bed's pulled back for access the tailgate slang flat so once we get that up to color and clear coated we'll pull that out of the booth get this other session in cowl induction hood the bumper and the grille and once we're done have a nice professional job we'll put it back together finally see what it looks like but first we got a little bit of housecleaning to do make sure our surface is perfect for that paint a final wipe down with solvent gives you one last opportunity to check your work follow that with a tack rag and then finally we can get to shoot some color starting with sealer and make this truck look new again and after all of that I'm sure you'll agree that we made quite the transformation on this truck between the Lord Stan's new wheels and tires shave tailgate roll pan sport mirrors cowl induction hood monochromatic look on the front with the updated grille and painted bumper man this thing truly does look like a sport truck and speaking of low buck that's the name of the project and we've got less than six hundred dollars in all the materials to create this paint job now keep in mind we didn't add in our labor just like you guys wouldn't if you were doing this project at home so now as cool as this cowl induction hood looks it's up to us to create a sport truck or something under it today our senior Silverado is getting a heart transplant we're yanking the tired old 350 in our low buck sport truck and building up a 383 stroker crate short block with a hot cam a new EFI it's all today here on truck Tech [Music] hey guys welcome to truck Tech we're back working on our 93 full-sized Chevy short bed truck that we've named our low buck sport truck and as you can see well it certainly doesn't look low buck anymore with its brand new paint job updated front end new wheels and tires lowered stance and a cowl induction hood since we've taken care of the show part it stopped it look into the go part and as you can see there's something missing now the engine we pulled out of there has 260 thousand miles on it but it ran okay but at that point it's safe to assume that it's well worn and you've gotten your money's worth now like I mentioned it started right up didn't make any weird noises but it was burning oil and you could smell it through the exhaust and one of the biggest indicators that he's got some excess blow by well he took the time to convert his oil fill cap into a breather element to help expel some of these excess fumes not good now he could strip this engine down send it off to the machine shop and do a bunch of work and build the engine that way we've got a short block sitting around we've got our eye on now this short block started out life as a 5.7 liter or a 350 thanks to Summit Racing it's now a 383 stroker or for you guys that are really sharp the 40,000 stamp in the top makes it a 385 technically but that's not that important more is more what's really important are the components in this short block one piece rear main seal Keith like Pistons ARP rod bolts four bolt main caps and a scat crank making this a very stout short block with tons of potential now this is a factory roller cam block making an upgrade to a roller cam shaft a snap with no extra parts to buy but as you can see well there's a lot of stuff missing including that roller cam now to turn our short block into a complete engine we've got a table full of parts now our summit 383 shipped with a flex plate that's matched to the balance of our rotating assembly but we've also got a new harmonic balancer quality ARP balancer and head bolts a new timing pointer mr. gasket timing covering some hardware a new comp timing set and a cup hydraulic roller camshaft along with a set of new hydraulic roller lifters with the necessary guides hold downs push rods and some new one point five two to one ratio comp roller rocker arms that will be held down by some posi locks now when it came time to topping off our engine but we wanted a budget-friendly cylinder head so we picked up a pair of Summit Racing iron vortex style heads that are a big improvement over the stock castings now they feature 67 CC combustion chambers 1.94 intake valves and inch and a half exhaust valves and these things as shipped can handle a max valve lift of 520 thousands and the cam we've got Specht out is within that range [Music] now our extreme energy cam has a gross valve lift of 0.495 on the intake side and point 502 on the exhaust side we're definitely safe with that five hundred and twenty thousand smacks lift number that's also got a duration at 50 thousands of two hundred and eighteen degrees on the intake side and two hundred and twenty four degrees on the exhaust side and like usual make sure you don't nip the cam bearings during installation slow and steady is a way to go with a cam and placed we can install the cam retainer plate then we can move on to installing the crankshaft sprocket and make sure that the keyway in the crank gear lines up with the keyway in the crankshaft and that the reference mark at the top of the gear for cam timing is at the 12 o'clock position then we're gonna press the crank gear into place by using pieces of our harmonic ballots our installer and a small piece of exhaust tubing heating up the gear and smacking it on with a hammer just isn't the smart way to do it pressing it on is definitely the recommended way to install this thing with that done then we can install our true double roller timing chain and sprocket for the camp making sure to line up the previously mentioned reference marks so your cam timing is correct they need to be lined up straight up and down also don't forget to line up the dowel on the front of the cam with the corresponding hole in the sprocket then we can install some new bolts with a little bit of red loctite applied to make sure the sprocket always stays attached to the cam then we torque everything to 20 foot-pounds [Music] all right now if you're putting together a stroker like this one thing you need to look out for is connecting rod to camshaft clearance what happens is the big end of the rod swings awfully close to the cam lobe if you're running a traditional rod bolt with the bolt head at the top and a nut at the bottom it's even more of an issue and even tighter we're running a RP cap screws so that eliminates that problem plus they've beveled the top edge of this rod to create even more clearance now our cam is kind of mild and not that much lift so we're in good shape but you're running a big lift cam let's suddenly definitely want to check for it up next see how modeling clay can show you piston to valve clearance stay tuned hey guys welcome back to truck tech well we're in the middle of our 383 small block build up for a 93 Chevy pickup now so far we've shown you a few interference or clearance issues in between the rotating assembly and our block but there's one more thing we want to check that's piston to valve clearance using this modeling clay I'm just a tiny little bit of oil keep the clay I'm sticking to the mouse now you need to use the head gasket but it will flatten out if you torque down the bolts now most manufacturers will give you a compressed gasket thickness and that difference needs to be taken into consideration the bolts just to hold it in place you don't want to compress the gas now in doing this procedure you need to use solid lifters or some type of lifter that won't compress otherwise the heavy valve springs will override and compress our hydraulic rollers will get inaccurate results now in our case we've temporarily modified the lifters so they won't compress that way we get a good reading another way to do it would be to swap out the heavy valve springs for some really light springs and do the test that way [Music] all right now just like we expected with such a mild camp we don't have any clearance issues but it's always good to check you can see the intake valve we had the slightest little bit of compression here we've got over a quarter inch gap and that's forever in engine building terms on the exhaust side it didn't even make a mark we're in good shape then it was time for a new timing cover gasket and our new chrome timing cover these bolts only get snugged up you don't want to over tighten them and warp the cover then there's the installation of our harmonic balancer now you don't want to use the original harmonic balancer bolt or anything like that to pull the balancer onto the crankshaft it puts a lot of stress on the threads of the bolt and the threads in the crankshaft so if you're gonna be tackling a job like this that might be a worthwhile investment to pick up a matte kill harmonic balancer installer then we can install our new timing pointer all right now our timing pointer is adjustable and we want it pointing at the top dead center location or mark on the harmonic balancer so we're gonna use this bridge tool and a dial indicator to find TDC and lock down our pointer in the right location now never mind the actual numbers on the gauge we're not after a particular reading just the peak measurement to indicate the piston at the top of its travel with that found well we can lock in our adjustable timing pointer and know that we have a 100% accurate timing indicator then after giving the lifters a quick bath in engine oil we add the lifter guides and the lifter hold down [Music] then after one final wipe down of the block deck and the cylinder head mating surface we can drop the new head gasket and cylinder head in place for good now these bolts go through a water jacket so we applied some Loctite thread sealant to make sure we don't get any coolant leaks through the bolt holes now to tighten down the head bolts I'm just running them in loosely with the impact then I'll get out the torque wrench and torque everything to spec make sure to follow the correct torque sequence and procedure when tightening the bolts to spread out the load evenly then we can torque the bolts in three different stages finally ending up at 70 foot-pounds then it was time to drop in the push rods which we coated on either end with a little assembly Lube same with the top of the valve stem then we dropped our new roller rockers in place getting everything ready for a valve adjustment take this from the zero lash take all the slack now you can feel it alright then we'll take our lash adjuster and go half a turn and tighten down the lock [Music] and with our crank pulley in place we can install our new balancer bolt and torque it to 80 foot pounds cool now the guys next door who build engines all the time told me to check out this comp cams valve train spray sprays on get sticky and will protect the valve train on first startup even if the engine sits for a little while hey guys welcome back to truck tech well we're in the middle of prepping and cleaning up some parts from our old 350 getting them ready for installation on our new 383 now are blasted all media cabinet gets used fairly often and you can see why it's doing a great job of cleaning up these old parts at oxidized old dirty aluminum comes out looking like new [Music] so after blowing the dust off of this thing Kevin hits it with a couple of coats of dupli-color high heat paint first a light brown coat followed by a heavier second coat [Music] I guess we could have gone with Chevy Orange but the stood out against that blue paint so with all of that stuff out of the way we were getting ready to reinstall all the painted parts and get ready for it the super trick intake manifold and EFI system to go down in the valley ran into a slight problem with the stock valve covers because of the roller rockers well we've got an interference issue so we took these supports out took them completely away and still even though the cover will go down and make the surface there's still gonna be an interference issue with the rocker arm so Plan B we gotta wait on the brown truck and get a new set of aftermarket valve covers that will clear the rocker arm setup so no harm no foul we didn't waste any money we just have to spend a little bit more now so far there's one thing we haven't talked about on our new 383 and that's the fuel injection system now the efi on our old 350 here was just a TBI system with two injectors here in the throttle body and while it's a decent system it got this truck to two hundred and sixty thousand miles it's just not that receptive to performance modifications while you can make it work with a few modifications well it can kind of be finicky and rather than try to make this somewhat antiquated system work on our 383 well we're just going to jump up to the modern era of multi-port fuel injection now the system we're going with is a self-learning system from fast or fuel air spark technologies and it's their easy EFI 2.0 system good for up to 550 horsepower on small-block Chevy's now this is a pretty comprehensive kit it includes the wiring harness a plug-and-play distributor the fast ECU and handheld display a couple of wideband o2 sensors an in-tank fuel pump kit with pump regulator engage and the fuel hose to hook everything up and of course all the fittings and clamps necessary it also includes a nice aluminum intake manifold a four-barrel thirteen hundred and seventy-five CFM throttle body 8:39 pounding our injectors and all the fuel rails and sensors you're going to need for this system to run also picked up on the optional fast East six CD ignition boxes and one of their coils now in looking at the giant cavernous hole of the empty engine bait we wanted to bring your attention to a couple of the systems that we left connected the first one being the air conditioner we did not discharge it didn't Diskin the lines for a couple of different reasons we don't have to go through the expense of having it recharge and we don't have the equipment to discharge it environmentally safely and responsibly in the first place so it stays it can be cleaned up just like it is the other system is the power steering system where we just disconnected the pump from the accessory drive what this says is keep me from having that fountain of schmutz happen when you do a hard left turn or a right turn and you keep your shop floor clean and keep the stuff off here close one more thing I wanted to talk about look at this this is a finely polished hardened steel fastener now we don't know exactly what it's for or what its intended purpose was but I think we may have found that inherent rattle that the previous owner found out about or was telling us about when we bought the truck but with the engine out we've got the opportunity here even if we're not gonna paint anything to take and clean this truck so we're gonna load it up on a trailer take it to the local coin up and get rid of some of that massive ugly layer of greasy greasy dirt hey welcome back to truck tech well the engine while it's looking great and we know it's gonna run every bit as good as it looks if not better we got a head start on the accessory drive the water pump the cooling is in place as well as the fast EFI and those of you guys that are paying attention well you know the disc is the water neck it's not a vent tube like in the old style v8 engines and there's no place here on either valve cover for crankcase ventilation we got to have a vent in it because the pressurized air is gonna find a way out either through a gasket or a seal so we've got a little project to do now got some options for real estate right here we've got all kinds of flat area on the top of the cover and right about here it looks like there's plenty of room to where we can get it up high enough and in between these two rocker arms and have the real estate and the location that we want so basically we'll go right about here so x marks the spot a little bit of tape measure to confirm rock and roll project the measuring off the end of the cylinder head we can find a spot for the breather that's not gonna interfere with some moving rocker arms starting with an eighth inch pilot hole and stepping up to the medium-size step fit and we can go for the big boy to create the inch and 3/8 hole now the last thing you need on your freshly built engine is metal shavings so a hand file in a little bit of sandpaper make sure that doesn't happen nobody wants aluminum shards floating around in their oil so this breather adapter is baffled and that will prevent hot oil from splashing directly into the breather but it will let the vapors out and these breather adapters can be used for open element breathers or for PCV systems when they end up installing another one on the other side to do just that and since we don't have an oil fill cap this will be a convenient spot to fill the engine with oil so the engine is this close to being ready to be stabbed in between the frame rails but we're obviously gonna put it in as an assembly bolted to a transmission and since we're way beyond stock power levels with this stroker it doesn't make any sense to bolt up the stock transmission to it nevermind the two hundred plus thousand miles that are on this one so a rebuild in an upgrade is in order and that's next project on truck tech today we're giving you an insider's look into what it takes to rebuild an upgrade GM's 4l60e we're going to the guys that do this work for a living to take some of the mystery out of what happens when an automatic transmission gets rebuilt it's all today here on truck tech hey guys welcome to truck tech today we've got our 93 Chevy 1500 back in the shop of our low buck sport truck and we're doing a little bit of work in the engine bay cleaning things up and making it ready for the installation of our newly assembled and mildly built 383 engine now it started out as a stroker short block that we added a decent pair of cylinder heads to along with a performance camshaft another upgrade we decided to throw on was a fast multi-port efi top-end kit and we also opted for fast performance coil and ignition box the fast ECU is in behind on the firewall with wiring harness running through making everything see each other with one big happy family of components now the plugs are all multi-pin professional all looking plugs and it's a relatively simple bolt on performance upgrade so while Ryan's tackling another project I'm going to take care of some of this wiring slept over now that project kevin is talking about is the freshening up of our 4l60e 4-speed automatic transmission now rebuilding one of these things isn't rocket science but it does take a few special tools and a little bit of know-how so rather than try to tear into this thing ourselves buy some special tools spend a couple of days rebuilding it we're gonna take it to a local expert who can knock it out get it done quickly and correctly so we can get this thing back on the road but we are gonna take you guys along for the ride just show you what happens so we made it down to our local coleman taylor transmission shop just a few miles from our place now these guys rebuild and replace transmissions all day long in fact this shop knocks out about 60 a month now the guy we bought our truck from said that transmission had been gone through at one time but we're not sure what that means or how long ago it was maybe these guys can help us out now most people car guys included what do you think about tackling a job like this because automatic transmissions are complicated and they can be difficult to understand really the biggest misconception is what we actually do you know inside the transmission you know it's not something people can see as far as rebuilding the pieces inside our lead tech Jamie wise obviously likes what he does I love doing this because of being able to take something apart and put it back together and making it work the Challenger tear down happens quick and he keeps organized by putting the hard parts on his transmission internals Christmas tree looking Iraq because the majority of these hard parts get cleaned inspected and reused while things like clutches and seals they'll play hit the trash pile [Music] Jaime's been doing this a while in fact he's been at it for about 30 years and he's rebuilt hundreds if not thousands of these transmissions heck he could probably do it with his eyes closed [Music] now we didn't tell him that somebody had overhauled this transmission sometime in its prior life but it only took him a few seconds for him to realize somebody's cracked into it before and there was more than one clue that gave it away Wow buddy boats in the wrong place and the parking pawl rod one boat missing out of it and just laying in the bottom of the pan so that's it tells me somebody's been messing with it now with all our internal parts on a rack that are possibly going to get reused Jamie slides them into a heavy-duty industrial steam cleaner that'll make inspection that much easier now obviously these guys have built their fair share of 4l60 s and I doubt there's any parts inside of those transmissions that you can't find in this back room full of parts awaiting the rebuild process but for now let's go check out the parts that are going inside our transmission now their master rebuild kit that's going in our transmission came through TCI and it includes everything we need new filters seals gaskets o rings all the small parts we need along with new frictions and steals a new band a few small parts to improve the shifting we also picked up a new servo and a boost valve to bump line pressure and a 10 vane billet pump rotor upgrade along with enough fluid to get us up and running now for most people a stock rebuild is all they're after but we want to back up our built engine with a built transmission and Stewart in the guys we're accommodating normally we furnish all the parts in your case you had some specialty stuff from TCI that's performance stuff you know and we do performance upgrades and do and and that kind of work also but normally on the vehicles we're working on it's back to the factory specifications now the transmission internals got cleaned in the steam cleaner but the transmission case was a little bit too large so Cory cleaned it up by hand in the solvent tank and with all the internals cleaned when that was time for inspection and reassembly hey guys welcome back to truck tech now here at our local transmission shop Jamie our lead tech is rebuilding our 4l60e using our kit from TCI now we're also going to be throwing some new parts of this sink new solenoids bushings bearings valves Spragg clutches and a new speed sensor but we're also upgrading to five pinion front and rear planetary sets which is obviously stronger than the factory for pinion version we're also going with a new Sun shell this thing's called the beast if you compare it to the factory piece you can see why there's a lot more material here in this hub area and that will prevent this from happening where the hub gets ripped right out of the center of the Sun shell and that's a common failure point especially in higher horsepower applications after installing new seals on the low and reverse clutch piston Jamie installs it into the transmission case that's the first part that gets installed looking up from the bottom of the case provides a unique perspective he follows that with our five pinion rear planetary upgrade then installs clutches and steals now the Steel's get locked into the case by the tabs and the alternates the Steel's with the friction disks or clutches [Music] then he just keeps on stacking parts building up the transmission layer by layer by adding things like the Sun gear and our upgraded Sun shell and just like when building an engine and using assembly loop while transmissions get the same treatment this is automatic transmission assembly loop and what it does is prevent metal to metal contact punch first startup before the oil pump has a chance to circulate fluid then installs the front five pinion planetary upgrade after that the output shaft gets installed from the bottom of the case up this takes a little persuasion next he loads the input shaft and drum assembly with more new clutches in Steel's but before he installs the assembly he does a little pressure check and he's using compressed air to do what fluid would normally do under normal operating conditions that way he can verify that there's no damaged seals or anything and all the circuits are working correctly he Tory installs it he also performs a vacuum test on the valve body to verify that individual circuits of the valve body are working correctly and after sealing the plate to the valve body he simply turns the pump on and checks to see how much vacuum it will hold and twelve inches of vacuum he just wasn't happy with so after a quick repair he does a retest this time it's spot on and with all that done he can install the new wiring harness the valve body the pan and start buttoning this thing up he's coming down the homestretch now the guys at coal retailer were great to work with we all got to see what was involved in a transmission overhaul and they got a little insight into the sometimes slow and tedious world of TV production and I'm thinking Jamie's glad we're not there every day to slow down his progress [Music] let's sit for just a few hours you haven't done without you today we're showing you how to swap in and dial in a street performance automatic transmission we're showing you how a torque converter works the turbine is acted on by the impeller and programing the transmission and engine controllers before firing up our new 383 it's all today here on truck tech [Music] hey guys welcome to truck Tech now the last time we had our 93 Chevy 1500 in the shop the engine was out and on an engine stand and we are hauling the transmission off to have it freshened up and beefed up and since then we've had a chance to stab the engine down in between the frame rails and do some of the wiring and plumbing necessary to get this thing up and running now one of the reasons we wanted to rebuild this engine was for more power and I guess we could have gone with the ever-popular LS engine swap but sometimes when you do an engine swap it has the domino effect and you've got to make a bunch of changes to get everything to work so that's why we wanted to keep it simple and keep this engine plus there's nothing wrong with the warmed up 350 or 383 in our case but even just changing to a multi-port EFI system there were some changes that we had to make that's what we want to show you now so we could use our original throttle cable well I just removed the original throttle cable and cruise control bracket off the original engine cut it up and modified it so it'll work with our new throttle body that way we can keep our original cable I've also been up some stainless steel line and attached him to vacuum sources here on the intake manifold one going to a PCV valve I've added to the valve cover the other going to our brake booster on the firewall we've got a grommet and some wiring going through our standalone wiring harness for the transmission controller and we've added an adjustable fuel pressure regulator that we're gonna be setting to 43 psi we've also installed our ignition coil here on the firewall and put the digital CD ignition box here on the fender well now wiring this thing up was a little bit of a challenge because we were dealing with three different harnesses the engine harness a standalone transmission harness and the original truck harness now the original truck wiring but just cut it up and got rid of a lot of the unnecessary wires but we did keep the wiring and sensors for things like the oil pressure sensor and the engine coolant temp sensor that way our instrument cluster will work correctly we also kept enough wiring around to control the AC compressor and the alternator it wasn't super difficult to do but it did take some time to blend those three harnesses together and make it look somewhat neat now our transmission is a 4l60e that if you guys remember we just had freshened up at the local transmission shop but if you're feeling froggy and you want to tackle a rebuild job yourself well they do make a pretty comprehensive manual that ought to help you through the process now before we install this thing it's going to need a torque converter but we're not going to go back with the stock converter its stall speed was just too low probably around 1500 to 1600 rpm when we're respecting our camshaft they also recommended the Saturday night special 1800 rpm stall speed converter and what that increase in stall speed is going to do is allow the engine to get up into the power band or the torque curve a little bit more helping the truck come off the line a little bit quicker now that cam and torque converter respect together along with the rear gear ratio and the tire size and the intended use of the truck now if you guys were ever wondering what goes on inside a torque converter and what makes this thing work check this out alright now we're gonna pretend that this fan is the impeller attached to the back of the engine and it's plugged in and under power while this fan is the turbine attached to the transmission and it is not plugged in now with a low fan speed or an idle type rpm you can see the impeller starts to drive the turbine but with your foot on the brake you can easily stop the fan from spinning wants to release the brake and pick up engine rpm but the turbine is acted on by the impeller even though there's no mechanical connection between the two then once you return to idle speed well the engine can sit there and run while you're not going anywhere now with this cool animation you can get a better idea of what's going on inside the converter without cutting one open now the impeller or the blue fan is attached to the engine directly it's welded to the torque converter case while the impeller is attached to the transmission through a splined input shaft the faster the impeller spins the faster the turbine spins and it does this just by moving fluid around and it's pretty amazing that you can get a 2 or 3 ton vehicle moving by using just fluid and no mechanical connection before installing the converter I'm filling it with a quarter 2 of transmission fluid and trying to work out the air bubbles and get this thing filled up now installing the converter is pretty straightforward but it's not simply just a matter of slamming it up here and calling it done you actually have three components to engage you have the input shaft splines the stator splines and deep in here is these tabs for the oil pump and one more thing you want to do is that a little bit of lubrication to the o-ring into this front seal a little on the convertor hub as well [Music] now if you're reusing the original converter it's a good idea to have it flushed out before installing it same with the transmission cooler and lines you want those flushed out as well so you're not contaminating your new transmission with all dirty fluid just slight pressure against the converter I'll rotate in it make sure it fully engages those oil pump tabs I think we're good now we're lucky enough to have a lift and a transmission jack to get this job done but if you're doing it in a driveway while a pair of tall jack stands and a floor jack will net you the same results just a little bit more work if the transmission bolted up the converter should spin freely if it's binding up against the flex plate and you didn't install the converter correctly and with the transmission bolted in place we can add things like our standalone wiring harness connector a cross member heat shields and transmission cooler lines then we can attach the three flex plate bolts I'd like to just finger tighten these one at a time while rotating the engine using the harmonic balancer bolt you don't want to install one and then tighten it down and risk the other two holes not lining up perfectly so I installed all three loosely then go back and tighten them up and finally torque them down and on all three bolts using a little bit of blue loctite make sure they don't vibrate loose [Music] please flexplate moult's get to work 260 foot-pounds and does it up next we'll get our new exhaust install and later we'll get our engine controller programmed into our 383 hey guys welcome back to truck tech now with our transmission installed and wired up we're ready to move on to other things like the exhaust system you guys probably notice we've already got a set of headers on this thing and there's a v8 titanium ceramic coated shorty headers with inch and a half primary tubes and they come with all the hardware and gaskets necessary to install these things which was pretty straightforward since they bolt right in place of the factory manifolds and they ought to help our stroker breathe a little bit easier now we also picked up a JB a stainless steel Y pipe that we're going to install underneath the truck right now [Music] the y-pipe is a two-piece design with the driver side going on first and it's a gasket list connection which is nice now our wideband o2 sensor already had some anti-seize on the threads but if you're reusing an old sensor you may want to add some before installing it the rest of the installation is pretty straightforward and a u-bolt clamp connects the two sides now for a catback system we wanted a dual exhaust setup so we checked out flow techs and ordered up one of their three inch Inlet dual two and a half inch outlet straight out of the back of the truck systems it's got nice mandrel bent tubing and a kind of small high performance high flow muffler so there shouldn't be any lack of sound coming out of the back of this truck now it's a clamp together system designed to bolt onto the factory hangers except for on the driver's side tail pipe of course because the factory system was only a single outlet setup so what does use the provided hanger will be in good shape we're gonna start with the muffler and then work our way rearward now our trucks been modified pretty heavily it's been lowered about five inches in the back plus we've got a roll pan instead of a bumper so we may have to make a couple of slight modifications to the system like cutting off that extra sections of the tailpipe alright now we've got our catback exhaust system and our Y pipe where they need to be but there's nothing connecting the two because this is where the catalytic converter went and when we purchased this truck somebody had already hacked off and removed the old and rather inefficient pellet style converter we want this truck to be emissions compliant and we don't want to unnecessarily pump fumes and smog out the tailpipe so we're going to be installing a high flow honeycomb style catalytic converter now what I'm gonna try to do is weld it directly to the Y pipe then just use a small section of tubing to connect the converter to the catback exhaust system that way we can just have one single clamp attaching the two that means get a little welding to do now our converter was designed to be used with two and a half inch tubing but our three and a half inch tubing can be made to work we just have to cut the end of it off so it can be butt welded directly to the converter and since it's stainless we decided to TIG weld it for a cleaner look all right with everything completely welded we've got a nice stainless steel catalytic converter and y-pipe assembly that doesn't require any additional clamps or straps to keep it all assembled and once we wrestle this thing into position and attach to our catback well our exhaust system will be just about done a stainless steel strap or band clamp connects the two without distorting the metal now these tailpipes look a little funny sticking out of the back of the truck but there's nothing wrong with the exhaust system it's just that it was designed for a truck that had a bumper sticking off the back of it about six or eight inches that we ditched in favor of the smoother roll pan so all we've got to do is trim these tailpipes to fit and we'll be in good shape after the break we'll fire up our 383 for the first time stick around hey guys welcome back to the shop now over the break we had a chance to finalize our exhaust system and the positioning of the tailpipes we even added a couple of nice stainless steel exhaust tips that we've had laying around the shop for a while and just looking pretty good and with this done well we're one step closer to firing this thing up all right now here in the cab we've got a little bit of setup work to do before those tailpipes can actually start making some noise like we told you guys we've got standalone controllers from both the engine and the transmission we've got two mounted here on a little metal panel at the front of the trans tunnel now we did that for a few reasons one we wanted them inside the cab to isolate them from other electrically noisy components like a coil or ignition wires plus you need to hook them up to the handheld controllers every once in a while and they've got indicator and diagnostic LEDs on the front of the control units which is nice to see all right now with all our connections made all we've got to do is walk through the setup wizard for both of these control units and that'll provide some information to the ECU to make sure everything functions correctly we'll start with the transmission obviously our trans is a 4l60 but the system will cover many others our tire size is 29 point 3 inches our gear ratio is 373 to 1 and there's probably no reason to spend this 383 past 6000 rpm now floral position is one of the things the computer uses to determine when to apply the torque converter clutch and it needs to know its minimum and maximum position hey Kevin uh floor it for me will you just hold it wide open just hold it there do not move the throttle closed throttle turn key off for 10 seconds to save the tune that takes care of the transmission time to move on to the engine standalone controller and it wants to know the engines displacement the target idle rpm and the rev limit it also wants to know what kind of fuel will be burning gasoline where we have a return style fuel system and it wants to know what kind of crank trigger it's going to see we went with the fast distributor you can also make adjustments to the base timing curve we left ours alone but did select the multi-port EFI system our system is running 39 pound in our injectors we're gonna be running them at 43 psi and just like we did for the transmission well the engine controller it needs to note the throttle position both at idle and wide-open throttle alright go wide open ok now the fuel system pressure we're after is 43 psi we have both an electrical and analog reading of that pressure once we've got it dialed in we'll just lock down the adjuster there's 43 right there and after a quick double check to verify the fuel rail pressure sensor it matches the gauge so we can move on go we're gonna get Jake alright now this device is prompting us to fire up the engine and let it hit 170 degrees so we can move on to the next couple of steps now this is a fresh engine so we've triple checked everything and make sure it's good to go I think we're ready to start this thing go for [Music] quick peek underneath for leaks oh no leaks [Music] no weird sound [Music] we'll let that run for a few minutes hit one seventy enough move on I'm happy welcome back to the shop well the engines got some heat in it we got just a couple of steps to take care of to finish up the setup on our new EFI the next thing we got to do is verify the timing now with this efi system you have the option of letting the computer control the timing or having a distributor control the timing with traditional vacuum and mechanical advance curves we're gonna let computer control ours basically syncing up the computer and the ignition making sure that everything's completely accurate all we had to do was line up the timing mark using the timing light set at 20 degrees of advance all right looks like we're dialed in and good shake all right next step is doing an IAC or idle air control calibration what we want to do is get this slider here in this target area we do that with the idle screw all we had to do was loosen or tighten the set screw until we reached the target area that was pretty evident because the indicator bar in the handheld turned green when that happened we just tighten down the jam nut move on all right one final calibration of the TPS with the throttle closed we're done whether that idol good air/fuel ratios good pretty good shape now this thing's in learning mode and the more we let it run in the more we drive it we finally get it out on the road the more it'll dial itself in it tune itself which is really nice so far so good [Music] that openly Pippi all right [Music] hey guys welcome to truck Tech well a lo box port truck here is this close to being ready to take it out and flog it and see if all the work and time that we put into this truck with all the great upgrades of underpinnings the 383 fuel-injected stroker if everything matches the way this thing looks which I gotta say is pretty smokin everything shiny polished up and well almost everything these guys well they're legal barely and they're functional barely but the lens is all chalky the backup light is yellowed and frankly it just doesn't match the rest of the appearance of the truck so we can do better and thanks to LMC truck we're gonna show you how now our 93 Chevy's turned into quite the little hotrod it's got a fuel-injected 383 a built transmission 373 rear gears it's been lowered and it's sitting on decent rubber making you think that it's a well-rounded performance vehicle but when we matte the accelerator well the right rear tire is gonna spin while the left rear tire just sits there not exactly high performance so today we're gonna fix that and turn our one wheel wonder into a two tire friar with the help of a limited slip differential that we picked up from Summit Racing this Albarn gear high performance series differential replaces the factory installed open differential it's got a cone clutch design that is said to outperform traditional plate style clutches now this will allow both rear tires to turn independently of each other going around a corner but during hard launches and aggressive driving both rear tires will receive power and we also picked up a couple of different so we can complete the install all right now to demonstrate the open diff in this truck we don't even have to go outside and do a big smoky burnout and waste a bunch of good rubber a little bit of water on our concrete shop floor will show that all the power is gonna get pumped through one wheel as soon as it loses traction [Music] there here we go so with the truck up on the lift well we can get to work replacing the open differential removing the diff cover letting all the gear oil drain out and rotating the differential around so we can get access to the pinion shaft retaining bolt and with the bolt out of the way we can slide out the pinion shaft or cross panel now before we go any further we're gonna measure the backlash between the ring gear and the pinion now we measured it in three or four different spots around the ring gear and got an average rating of about 12 thousandths now these are used gears so you need to match up that number when installing the new differential this Eclipse out of the way we remove the axle shafts and the spider gears then we can remove the bearing caps which are machined as an assembly so they need to go back in the exact position they came out a sharp Center punch and a hammer put two marks on the bearing cap matching dots up here slight interference fit keep track of what shims came on what side all right now we've run the differential through the solvent tank but we need to remove the ring gear before we scrap the carrier now if you look at this open differential well you can see it's kind of thin it not very much material there in the casting and it's why it's one of the weak links in the ten bolt rear axle assembly but this albarn differential that we picked up from Summit has a lot more material in it so it's going to eliminate that weak link along with sending power to both rear tires now these ring gears sometimes act like they're pressed on even with all the bolts out it's still difficult to remove so if soft-faced hammer and a little bit of prying get the job done we go clean this off you never want to leave gear oil in these holes they're blind holes and ball tight make sure it's good and flat and you're getting the ring gear run-out good shape all right now we got the ring gear soaking in some hot water looks like we're at about 145 degrees or so and that'll hopefully let the ring gear expand enough to slide over the carrier and into position [Music] just like you don't want to leave your oil in the fault holes but you don't want to leave any water in there either it doesn't compress and could cause corrosion on the bolt threads believe it or not that's hot [Music] hopefully it's warm enough slide over top [Music] look at that now here's our new ring gear bolts it's always a good idea to replace them these are left hand thread bolts and they've already got thread Locker applied so we're in good shape now you don't want to use the ring gear bolts to pull the gear into place and when tightening them down do it in a crisscross pattern torque wrench now for a torque spec well I found different numbers looking at different sources but the manufacturer the diff calls for 80 foot pounds so that's what we went with then we pressed on the side bearings using an old inner race to press on the bearing and not damage it you don't have a hydraulic press or access to one we could just take the dip in the bearings to a machine shop and they'll press them on for you for a minimal charge there's really not a whole lot to the job after one final cleaning of the dip we can reinstall it and check our backlash measurement [Music] all right with the carrier reinstalled I gotta say we lucked out the original shims in their original locations not only gave us good carrier bearing preload but our backlash measurement of 12,000 matches up with our before measurement we're in good shape up next our low Bucksport truck finally hits the streets stay tuned hey guys welcome back to truck tech well now that our limited slip differential is installed we can take care of this one last minor detail which is letting people know that we're gonna stop these lights are factory replacements from lMC Truck which means that the factory hardware and the plugs all work they go in in seconds just because it's an easy job doesn't mean it's not an important job letting people know what your intentions are whether it's stopping or turning is vital and it's very critical on the road so yes it's a simple installation but it's just as important now that's quite a difference and it's not just the difference in the way it lets people know what we're gonna do on the road it also just really improves the look of this vehicle just a subtle little thing it's all in the details and since everything else is painted and fresh and new it just makes sense to put new taillights in there we go especially since they're pretty affordable from lMC Truck [Music] now our low Bucksport truck has come a long way since we first dragged this thing back into the shop it was a cheap pickup that we decided had some potential these trucks are relatively plentiful and inexpensive and it's a v8 rear wheel drive platform so you can't go wrong now this thing did need a lot of work one of the first things we did was lower it down her just a pretty basic lowering kit with some shocks on it doesn't do too bad I expected it to wallow a little bit more now aren't 385 with the multi-port fuel injection has been a huge improvement over the throttle body injected worn out 350 that we started with and it's difference you could feel alright so kick it into passing gear I sent you back pretty good yeah I mean that's a heck of a lot better than what it was when we got out probably a lot better than what it was it was both stop feels good and solid now there's no two ways about it when you're rebuilding and upgrading an entire truck inclusive of a paint job and a drivetrain overhaul you're going to spend some money we call that the low buck sport truck because we tried to take the paycheck by paycheck approach similar to the way you would probably do it at home but instead of spreading the build out over a couple of years we condense it down to a couple of months and we did drop about 15 grand in the sink but we both think it's worth it looks uh pretty good yep yeah really does it plant the power well yeah it's not like scooting all over the road and you know peg legging it yeah you're not wasting rubber you're accelerating yep now the seat of the pants dyno tells me we're making between 350 and 400 horsepower and it sounds good too now the wide 295 40 series tires on all four corners really help this truck handle and give it a sporty feel on that note we'd call our low buck sport truck a success got a couple of thumbs up it looks good going down the road eating up it wasn't a restoration job it's just a paint job but it's still it just woke it up and brought it into this century then with the a/c on in the middle of the summer it's still running cool yep we like this yes oh yeah hey what's that smell

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 3,684,247

Rating: 4.7496748 out of 5

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, chevy, chevy silverado, silverado, street truck, building a street truck, full build, truck full build, chevrolet, truck, chevrolet silverado, short block, engine

Id: wHjp4O8keqc

Length: 136min 15sec (8175 seconds)

Published: Sat May 16 2020