'65 GMC 1500 project. From the Netherlands

[James]

Originally Posted by Prowbar

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No troubles with cold start/cold engine hesitation etc?

Not really. With the choke it run just fine.

[Prowbar]

Here's a video of the dual exhaust rumble:



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Edit: regarding the 'knock' you hear, I believe it is piston slap, it goes away quickly when the engine warms up some. Also wired the heat riser open, however will try to tighten up the bimetal spring to get it to work properly. Otherwise it will be deleted.

Finally took apart and cleaned up the rocker arms. They had a layer of sludge in them. Luckily all the parts were in good shape, seems they got lubrication from somewhere. All the oil passages are clear now.

A top tip for someone running one of these for the first time is to clean these out first!

[Ed Snyder]

[QUOTE=Prowbar;75675]Here's a video of the dual exhaust rumble:



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Your truck reminds me a lot of one I used to have -- another black 3/4 ton. It had a 351 in it.

[Prowbar]

[QUOTE=Ed Snyder;75676]

Originally Posted by Prowbar

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Here's a video of the dual exhaust rumble:



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Your truck reminds me a lot of one I used to have -- another black 3/4 ton. It had a 351 in it.

Yours is indeed very similar! Wish mine had the 351 though. The shifter in your truck had some odd bends to it?

[Ed Snyder]

[QUOTE=Prowbar;75678]

Originally Posted by Ed Snyder

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Yours is indeed very similar! Wish mine had the 351 though. The shifter in your truck had some odd bends to it?

I don't recall any odd bends in the shifter. I owned that truck about 20 years ago.

[Prowbar]

[QUOTE=Ed Snyder;75685]

Originally Posted by Prowbar

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I don't recall any odd bends in the shifter. I owned that truck about 20 years ago.

The picture had me fooled, never mind.

[Prowbar]

Here's a picture of the IPE bed mock-up. Finally started working on it, so far I'm 2 days in. A real learning experience, to be honest, I'm glad when the bed floor is done. Some of the square holes in the new bed strips are not located where they should be, meaning I will have to oblong the holes in the cross sills to get everything to fit... the glory of repro parts.

Luckily I can use the car lift, which saves me from having to crawl underneath every time to fasten the bolts.

I've treated the IPE board with 2 coats of hardwood oil, and more coats on the ends. The bed strip grooves were cut in the boards, and I added water gutters every 10 inches so the water can run out of the grooves. See picture.

The oil really makes the wood come alive, as you can see in the last picture. As you may have noticed I had to make the 7 7/16" and 6 3/8" boards out of 2 pieces, which and glued together with tongue and groove. I tried to match them as good as I could, and I really like the sheer difference there is in the wood texture and colors. Makes it come alive to me.

Hopefully, I can finish the bed floor next week. Then I'm going to start on the propane conversion.

If you want to create a bed floor that is long-lasting, and something that is different than plain oak, I would definitely recommend IPE. One thing though, if you're working with the wood, I recommend working outside or inside with proper ventilation. There's this yellow dust in the wood, it is nasty stuff.

[Prowbar]

The bed wood is finished!
Having built the bed on the back of the truck, it made getting to some fasteners a little more difficult. For example the fasteners underneath the 3rd (wide) crossmember are blocked off by a chassis crossmember. To remedy this, I lifted up the bed using axle stands. This worked out fine and allowed me to fasten the bolts.

I'm glad that it is finished, and definitely worth the results.

Now onto the propane conversion..

But first I'll have to replace a leaking axle seal in the Dana 60. I reused the original seals, and one started leaking, unfortunately.

Also, the engine consumes some oil. Unfortunately, it started to get worse yesterday. Constant blue haze at idle from one cylinder bank... I believe it comes from the cylinder heads. That guy that I bought the transmission from has a good set of 305 heads. I hope to install these for the time being, and in the meanwhile, I can rebuild my own cylinder heads.

Bronze valve guides, hardened seats, positive valve seals, and some decking to increase the compression ratio is the plan, possibly with some light porting work to clean up the casting.

[James]

Originally Posted by Prowbar

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But first I'll have to replace a leaking axle seal in the Dana 60. I reused the original seals, and one started leaking, unfortunately.

If the original seals was made of leather, as oppose to neoprene, and hard they can be softened up using saddle soap. If there a groove in the spindle it can be filled with Devcon Titanium epoxy and sanded smooth. This is what I had done to mine.

Here is a couple of location and not the only ones.

Saddle Soap:

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Epoxy:

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[Prowbar]

Originally Posted by James

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If the original seals was made of leather, as oppose to neoprene, and hard they can be softened up using saddle soap. If there a groove in the spindle it can be filled with Devcon Titanium epoxy and sanded smooth. This is what I had done to mine.

Here is a couple of location and not the only ones.

Saddle Soap:

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Epoxy:

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Thanks for the reply James. The seals that were installed on mine were made of rubber, with a steel housing. There used to be a pretty severe groove on both spindles, but I repaired those with SKF Speedi Sleeves, as described in a previous post.

By the way, here is something for people that are wanting to build up a bed:
The 1/4'' bolts are secured in the cross sills with a washer, then a lock washer and a nut. When working from underneath it is a severe pain to fumble around with the two washers are also having to install a nut while keeping the bolt from coming out of the hole.

I made an adapter for the 7/16" socket that holds the lock washer and washer in place. Makes installing these much easier! See pictures.

Also, to keep the bolts from coming out of the bed strips when installing the nuts I used two cutoff pieces from the board to support the strip on one side. I can then reach around and support the bolt from underneath. See picture.
Of course this does not work for the last board, so you need a helper for the last one.