Das Red Baron

So immediately the next day the trigger finger was itchy on the paypal account and I began making a list of everything it needed. So far the list compiled:
1) Steering column surround (broken held together with tape)
2) Dash face (cracked and ugly with random holes drilled in various places)
3) E-brake release lever (missing for some reason, ebrake still functions lol)
4) Serpentine belt (this old one looked like one of the Gates brand poster examples of completed screwed.)
5) Washer cap (bottle still good, cap peaced out)
6) brake fluid reservoir (old one looks melted from the outside as if someone placed something hot onto it briefly and almost melted through! wtf...)
7) headlight/foglight/dimmer cluster (sort of wonky, doesn't quite work perfectly)
8) Bench-seat center console (truck has buckets but I hate that stupid 90's shit plastic arm-rest console)
9) Core "Hurst" short shifter (the throw on this NV3500 is insane, I punch the dash and hammer fist my knee between 1st and 2nd, that's gotta change)
10) tach cluster from another 98 GMC (why did they make a 5 speed with a non-tach cluster? retarded GM)
11) new headlamp housings (old ones are completely broken and clouded up)
12) air box (pepboys is a bad influence on the previous owner...)
13) 15x8 Aero steel racing wheels (this truck is proudly owned by an auto-xer)
14) 225/60/15 falken ziex ze512's for daily tires
15) aluminum lugs (common size to the other cars I've accumulated for torque settings and interchangability)
16) Full belltech street/track suspension setup with a 3" drop (shocks, springs, blocks ... explanation needed?)


Sorry for duplicating what I've got in the new members area but I realize that isn't the proper place for builds and I'd like to continue with whatever I've got going on here.

The truck doesn't show it much in the pictures but the front and rear bumpers are terribly spray painted, but at least the same color as the truck. It's not a factory color, looks more like a ferarri red than the GM paint it should be. A couple of paint chips in discrete places show the difference but the new color actually looks better in my opinion... just needs to be done right. That will come later.

The grill, headlights and front bumper were clearly the result of some sort of front end damage that broke a lot of plastic tabs or caused several to go missing. The headlights had a bunch of what looks to be overspray from the PO's horrible spray painting hobby, where he sprayed the grill and emblems with tons of drips and streaks. The new headlamps just arrived and I've begun restoration of the grill, sanding it down, priming and painting.


I'll post some after pics of the grill once it's cured and everything. The emblems were something I planned to ebay but it turns out they're like $70.00 new so I'll take some nail polish remover to these little guys until I make a junkyard run and horde some newer looking ones off of other GMC vehicles. I'm really striving for a clean OEM body on this thing with a tasteful lowering job that will also give a decent handling performance. Not into the bagged and shaved thing.

Additionally, the wheels arrived two days early, but my tire supplier was out of stock and they couldn't get them here on time. Fortunately they upgraded my order from Falken Ziex ZE512's to ZE912's which would have been a $25/tire additional cost, but they ate the cost for me. Good fortune, I'll forget about the delay!


These are 15x9 -19 AERO Racing steelies, most of you are familiar with these I'm sure. I went with 4" backspacing to be a little conservative on the fitment.

so here's a better pic of the tire, as you can see nothing structural got destroyed. It rolled right off the freeway on some frayed sidewalls and that's about it.


Here's some damage caused by the previous owner and his trigger happy spray paint addiction:


some engine bay shots, I swear the underhood insulation looks like a car fire happened lol. I know it's just rotten and disintegrating so I'll just replace it or remove it:



More stuff in the mail, always a nice thing to see after work!



And here's the end result of the grill paint job. The emblem is still in the works (i.e. I haven't really had time to sit on my ass and rub nailpolish remover into the little cracks on the things for hours)


and then some interior shots. All the bad stuff is on the dash. A "bench seat" model console is on the way to clean up the floor a bit and leave some room for aftermarket seats of whatever style I decide to go with. The carpet will probably get replaced too if the new console doesn't cover the weird paint-looking stains on the floor.

Oh I forgot to post that a new vehicle is never fully reliable without finding a marine grade deep cycle optima battery where a car battery should go. Damn desert people...


and finally here's a shot of the two two-seaters side by side. I swear this is like the "Miata" of trucks. If it's got more than 2 seats, it isn't worth racing!

Came home to a bunch of new stuff today:




Decided to stick with the fog lights instead of the no fog headlight housings. Here's how well the front end cleaned up with fresh paint on the grill and some brand new headlights:


O2 sensors will go in tomorrow along with wheels and tires if I can get to the shop on time. Hopefully I can clear the CEL for the bad O2 with all monitors run by next weekend and get it smogged and registered. I know my Miata took some intense witchcraft to get all the monitors to pass when I ripped all the forced induction out for smog a few months back. Hopefully the run cycles are simpler on the truck.

Cleaned up the GMC badge as well, will put it on the grill in the morning.

So I dropped off the tires to a shop downtown and had an hour to kill so I went and installed this:


I freaking love it. The throw is perfect and it feels so damn solid compared to that foam-filled tube and crappy chevy rubber knob that was on there before. Shifts more like a car than a truck now and that's what I was going for. The entire swap took maybe 10 minutes because I had to looke for some RTV for the gasket surface.

Managed to slap the polished emblems on the front of the truck as well:


Soon after, got the wheels and tires back, mounted up and here's how she sits:


There isn't as much rake as it looks, I just have it parked on a hill. This is pre-drop too so It'll be a little lower than this when I'm finished. The old tires were 3 different sizes and to my surprise the alignment was straight as an arrow once the new wheels and tires were slapped on there. I had a good feeling it owuld need an alignment anyway but since it drives straight I'll wait until I finish the suspension work to align it.

did some junkyarding this weekend. I'm having some issues with the parking brake pedal. First it was missing the release cable and handle assembly which I yanked from another S10/Sonoma in the yard, but then the pedal wouldn't raise up when disengaged with the cable. A spring somewhere isn't under tension or the cable has some serious internal resistance. Replaced the spring under the driver's door and that didn't help at all. I decided to pull a handbrake from a similar-colored interior from a 1990 accord and I'll be retrofitting that with some new cables in between the seats for some JDM car goodness lol. I prefer a handbrake to a pedal any day for simplicity and accessibility. I plan to use buckets anyway so this will work fine.

Additionally I pulled a rear sway from a 4x4 and will be upgrading the front to something much stiffer very soon. Currently riding with no sway and it feels like the thing will likely roll in a corner which is no bueno.

I'm eyeballing the rear end out of a 60's vette for IRS and the LSD, lateral leaf spring with coilovers, seems like a decent idea. Not sure how much will be involved in swapping it in as it's a complete subframe so it would likely require heavy mods to the truck frame and possibly the bed altered. Ideally I still want to keep the bed usable but I would love some independent rear end action.

I found out that the Y-pipe was nearly crushed entirely from a thorough underbody check of the truck so a new 2WD Y-pipe is on the way, and I'm hunting down some headers but learning that I know less and less about this truck as I get deeper in. I've got to figure out whether or not it has air injection or not and what header option will work with my compnents. I'd like to stay within CARB regulations for the CA smog Nazis, but I'd like some better headers and I'll be doing a full 2.5 or 3" depending on the design. If anyone might know off the top of their head about the air injection for this model that would be some easy help otherwise I'll just take a look under the hood when I'm home.

Picture dump will be coming soon when I start getting my hands dirty again.