misterp

Agree we need to go to Crandall again So you're thinking some time in October?? Mr. P.

Love how you guys routed the exhaust, superbly done. The crossmember looks a little more "utilitarian" than I thought it would, but I can see why it was done that way. I love those collectors - and changing that trans filter next time will be a dream, now that the exhaust and crossmember are located out of the way. :thumbs: Mr. P.

I compared the colored GM diagram against the wiring schematic I use in my own efan control boxes, and paulguy is right that center relay was mislabeled in the diagram (I mislabeled the 87 and 87a pins) - I have corrected the diagram and re-posted it. It does sound like you currently have the 87 and 87a wired backwards, everything else sounds fine from your description but frankly at this point I would have to actually see what you have done with your truck to know for sure. Mr. P. PS - sorry that I could not take your call yesterday, you were calling while I was at work.

OK sorry no pic, but driving to work today a black 2000 GM SLT extended-cab pulled up beside me, it had both SS and Vortec Max badges on the doors. He turned-off before I could grab a pic with my cel phone. Mr. P.

Not trying to sound like a smartass, but that doesn't do anything on an EFI engine! Flooring the pedal will actually instruct the PCM to NOT fire the injectors because it thinks you want it to clear a flooded engine. Mr. P.

Mike does currently own the SSS originally purchased by r8rs4life, the truck that was parted-out was the previous SSS he purchased from moog5050 which two weeks later caught fire with his wife and two young daughters inside; his wife said that she barely had enough time to steer the truck out of traffic and get their two girls unbuckled from their car seats before the dash, headliner, and driver's seat were completely involved - I took pics, the truck was a total loss. It was the remains of Moog5050's truck that was parted-out to recover from the loss. The sad thing is that the exact same situation which caused the vehicle fire in Moog5050's truck (large amplifier power lead shorting-out) was also found in r8r4life's truck, the 4-AWG wire to the amp was draped on the exhaust collector and needed to be replaced and re-run along the OUTSIDE of the frame rail. Mr. P.

Man that's a lot more work than I initially thought. A more accurate statement is that 4130 has no tolerance for thermal shock, I MIG welded 4130 cages all the time years ago and never had a failure. The trick with that material is you just can't immediately hit it with thousands of degrees of heat, or instantly cool it, it'll stress-crack on you; that steel must be preheated to at least where it begins to become deep red before actually creating the molten weld puddle, and you must let it slowly cool back to room temp so it won't become embrittled or outright crack. If TIG welding, you initialize the arc for a moment and "ramp-in to the heat" to do the preheating step, then weld, lastly hold the arc afterwards and "back out of the heat" to relieve shrinkage stress. When MIG welding, we would achieve the same by preheating the area with an oxy-acetylene rosebud until it was cherry red, then MIG weld, and while still hot we again would hold the torch on the fresh weld and allow it to cool slowly; it was a 2-man job, but welding a cage with lots of joints the process wasn't time-consuming we just had to hop around each other! Mr. P.

IMO the difference between this being a fair idea and a great idea will depend completely on where you live; you will have no problem selling some parts, like the engine, mirrors, or even the wheels - but if you live more than 90-mins from a major metropolitan area then parts like the transmission will only fetch you 1/2 their worth, and other major parts (like the seats, or rear axle, hood for example) may not sell at all. Watching Mike (gasemall) part-out his truck I was surprised just how much it became literally a second job in the amount of time dedicated to phone calls, communication, meeting people, and boxing things as well as the expense in shipping. You will spend A LOT of time also researching your pricing, as much time as stripping the truck itself. If you decide to do this, get yourself a FedEx account, because you may be doing so much business with them they will give you a further discount! IMO I would estimate the retail parts value of the truck to be about $8500-9500, so you have hit that price tipping-point where parting-out the truck is financially viable however you would be doing many hours of work for free in the process. If you live in a major metro area and can find a buyer for the frame, cab itself, windows (maybe tell body shops that you are parting out the truck and see if they need any for collision repair??) then you might be able to get another $1500 more than that. In Gasemall's case the entire rolling frame, cab, front seats, hood, some interior panels, and tonneau cover had to be thrown away to the crusher, he could not find buyers after a year of advertising. Mr. P.

Brian - what's your feedback comparing to Zaino coatings? Truck looks fantastic man Mr. P.

Swap the tires on the driver's side; if the issue moves to the rear axle then it's a tire with a broken belt or bent rim. Mr. P.

Sounds like a good fix for the rental car! Mr. P.

20% film looks best on the front windows because it matches the existing factory tinting on the rear windows, but it's not lawful here in Texas because the front windows are already OE tinted, very lightly but still they are not "clear" - if you put 20% on the front side windows the end-result is 13% light transmission, and that is illegal here in Texas where the front side windows must meter at 20% or more. That being said, I had my windows tinted with 20% film over 7-years ago and in all the times I've been pulled over the tint has never been mentioned by the authorities, but once I did have an inspection guy refuse to approve the tint, so I took the truck to another station where the truck was passed. What exactly is the tint law in your area? Mr. P.

Wow, tight fit. BUT IT FITS!! Mr. P.

I wish I knew! Use different bushings. Cheap polyurethane bushings will always make noise, eventually; they have to be continually lubricated. The only replacement for polyurethane bushings are the stock (rubber) ones, or extremely expensive Delrin bushings (like the custom ones that Global West makes). As a workaround, some manufacturers will groove the outside of the bushing and then install a zerk fitting so that you can grease them regularly. This is what Hotchkiss does on their swaybar kits. Another cheap/quick thing you can do to diagnose where the sound is coming from, is to temporarily remove the little dogbone links from the front swaybar and tie it up out of the way to the frame rail with a zip tie or wire and drive the truck, if you continue hearing the squeaking then the sway bar bushings are not the problem. FWIW I have used aftermarket swaybars for 70K-miles and they still don't make a peep of noise, so not all polyurethane bushings 'complain'; but on past project cars I have had polyurethane bushings make terrible amounts of noise, my fiance's Mustang right now has the problem really bad in the rear sway bar bushings. Tire-rub at full lock problem - I had that issue too, finally after 75K-miles on my drop the inside edges of both front tires wore a couple little spots completely through the plastic front wheel wells; I just accepted that as part of the lowered-life, if the inner fenders were metal then I would have just beat on those areas with a hammer for more clearance, but I don't know if you can do the same with the plastic fender wells (maybe one could soften those spots with a heat gun and reshape them to give 3/8" more tire clearance???). Mr. P.

Removing the cats will not gain very much, on a supercharged truck it will gain about 1+ tenths in the 1/4-m. It will make a definite difference in the exhaust, not very much louder but raspier. If you run forced induction, nitrous, or high octane fuel they must be removed or you risk melting them down; on N/A vehicles I would encourage you leave them on for legal reasons, especially if you ever resell the truck the new owner can force you to have to reinstall them (and any other emissions equipment) as a condition of sale. So if you really want to remove them, what I would do is to unbolt the factory Y-pipe and replace with a catless Y-pipe, that way for inspection or resale you can easily return the truck to original condition. Mr. P.

BADASS!! Mr. P.

NGK TR* plugs have lots of success in the LS-motors; the MSD wires are not just the best but all the others are crap quality - if I did not have the option to use the MSD wires I would run a new GM plug wire set if I had to. Mr. P.

Hahaha good story

It doesn't help. I'll say that differently, I've not seen a single treated truck where it made a difference. I've worked on a couple trucks from the northeast that had been "treated" with POR-15, and was NOT impressed. There is nothing wrong with the coating, it's fine - the issue is that there is no possible way to cover what you have to. Examples - One truck still rusted internally inside the rocker sills, rust trails were pouring out because water spray can get inside the rockers & other substantial floor areas and this truck had only 45K-miles on it and the owner sweared it was garaged in the winter but still there was rust trails from innards of the rocker sills. We took the bed off one truck to do a major project, and discovered all the fuel lines were rusted after 3-years - even worse, because the fuel tank has a sump where the pump retaining ring is it catches road deicer and holds it long-term, everything metallic at the top of the tank was corroded/rusted to hell, it was just shot. This is an area you cannot apply protectant to unless you remove the bed. We disassembled the front suspension and broke fastners, because road deicer had worked it's way into the threads - the prior owner had not coated any fastner with POR-15. Anything made of cast iron (spindles, suspension) were rusted worse than a 15-year old BBQ grate. My point is - going to the effort to apply POR-15 or similar will not help at all unless you do a thorough job, the kind of job that is almost a complete vehicle teardown. Just taking a weekend and slapping the paint on the wheel bearing caps and rear wheel wells does nothing. Deicing spray crawls everywhere, it gets up inside the inner structure of the bed (where the stake pockets are), it gets behind the bumpers, it gets between the cladding and body, it seeps in between spot welded panels, it gets all over the motor, all over the suspension, that crap is insidious. The magnesium chloride deicer used today is bad bad bad stuff - if you drive in it, you can just assume the car will have to be thrown away, it won't last beyond 12-years. Get a beater, don't drive the truck through the deicer, and even in the spring until the rains wash that from the roads I would avoid driving in the wet road spray. And spend lots of time on your belly at the carwash with the high pressure hose rinsing all that crap off when you do have to drive through it. Mr. P.

I thought you were so broke you were eating ramen and roadkill

Barney - I just had a random thought last night: I had no idea that you had recently gone through so much physical change, is it possible that your body chemistry is way out of whack, and contributing or outright causing your depression? i.e. hormone levels, endocrine change, or God knows what else... Mr. P.

Totally.

Yes - only surpassed by Infinity QX owners, which my experience has proved are inconsiderate jerks. Mr. P.

Should I do that on my truck too?!

WTF is right - your post (#10) and my post (#11) are out of order, I posted right after you said that you had made the purchase, yet these two posts are now backwards in the thread. ??? PT.NET: how many times have I said nobody can trust *anything* said or done over there. IMO that is just a site of modern-day "horse traders". If lying, double-dealing, and favoritism were outlawed then PT.NET would die. PT.NET is even worse than Craigslist. Mr. P.