my 88 k1500, tons of pics

[Swims350]

This is what I'm working on now and have been building for a little over a year and half now. I got it last year from my uncle, it had been wrecked and he threw on a new fender, grille and front bumper, but did nothing to the radiator support, bumper brackets, hood, and inner fender which were all bent or tweaked. He said it smoked kinda bad and wouldn't come out of first(700r4). He had it up for sale starting at like $800 or so, and dropped it to $600 and no bites, so we talked about it and I got it from him. it did smoke but not terrible, and it shifted, but took awhile. I did a fluid and filter change, and it seemed to work but had a leak, and I aint a fan of 700r4's. Plus we had a brand new freshly rebuilt th350 that has a cut down tail shaft and spacer that makes it a direct bolt in for a 700r4. Well enough talkin' for now here's pics....

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Those were all from when I first brought it home last march. It drove home fine, about 2-3 miles if that. He said it had a 305 in it, and I decided to tear it down and do a valve job, thinking it had a burn valve and needed valve seals. I found out it was a 350 when I pulled the heads off and then confirmed by running the numbers. However it's not an 88 block I guess because I could not find the suffix code listed anywhere for it. I think it's a VE2 and I couldn't find it anywhere online. The trans had been changed because it had a spacer on it, like they had got a 2wd 700 and put the spacer on it to take up the slack in the tailshaft to make it a 4wd 700. That and the amount of rtv squeezed out from every part of it made my mind up for sure on putting the th350 in it. I also decided since it was down that far to just rebuild the motor that way it's all brand new.

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The motor was a little dirty since it had been back in for a few weeks at this point, and I did a little interior work.

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It didn't have any floor mats when I got it, had those gave to me, and bought the seat cover, the seat is in great shape but red, and I more wanted to try and protect it then anything.

 

[Swims350]

You can see my uncle's paint job on the fender lol not the best.

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I got some cheap black roll carpet and glued it over the nasty looking red one that was in it. I also painted the things you see black, gonna do it all black eventually.

The beginning of this year I got a billet grille to install and wanted to try and straighten the front bumper out better and work on the door to fender gap.

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snapped some pics of the th350 and spacer, everytime I mentioned it everybody would be like huh? You sure you don't mean a 700r4 being an 88?
I removed the impact strips on the bumpers, the rest was already gone from the body. The only rust spots were the 2 cab corners.

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I went ahead, cleaned and painted while the grille was off.
I also bought some clear parklights to replace the ugly yellow ones.

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I painted the bowtie black too.
I know alot of ppl don't care for chrome but I like it, and i got some stainless fender trim for it for christmas the year before.

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Yea my tires are way too small, but hey I got a set of 4, cost me $50 and they had well over 75 percent tread left.
I got a hood scoop on it(temp.) it's a teardrop, had it laying around, it's different, and coming off when I make myself a cowl hood.

When I put the motor back in I noticed the manfiold cracked so I ordered some cheap ebay stainless shorties. The truck had duals on it and I did not want to pay for exhaust work so I got shorties..

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had to do an uncapped header video.

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A little better(clean) pic of the door panels, I recovered the carpet areas with new black carpet, same as the floor, but I ripped the old off and put on the black.

At this point I started to polish the wheels, or at least the center caps.

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I also did the diamond plate bed rails caps too. As well as put on some skull valve caps and hitch cover to match the seat cover.

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That's with mufflers.

 

[Irishman999]

Great job man that truck looks good.

 

[Swims350]

Now we're more up to date, around the beginning of this month I had to pull the bed to replace the cab corners. Up until this point nothing had been done, just drove it daily and worked it. Except for some new matching taillights, got em for $11 shipped, brand new from ebay.

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I forgot about my cab visor, alot of ppl hate them too, but I like em.

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So on the rotted corners I ground them down to find good metal..

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cut em out

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cut my patch to fit..

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I riveted them on just to hold them in place. I went back once done and welded them on, then ground it all donw and body worked them. Not a bad fit for left over 73-87 cab corners huh? lol.

I cleaned the frame and rear end and removed unwanted/needed stuff..

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[Swims350]

thanks man I aint done yet lol...

I wasn't sure how many pics you can do in a post so I made replies.

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I painted the whole frame and rear end..

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cab corners painted..

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I wire brushed and cleaned the bumper, undercoated the backside and painted the brackets..

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cleaned, sanded and painted the bottom of the bed too and undercoated the wheel wells.

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Then I got it put back on, washed and waxed the truck.

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[Swims350]

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I started polishing the wheels got that one done tonight. I have to redo the center since it aint been touched in forever, and looks bad compared to the wheel. These others are just the recesses painted and clear coat stripped off them.

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I have stainless rocker trim to go on it, that's why the DS fender trim is off, have to remove the rest, install the rocker trim, then put the fender trim back on it. That's all for now, more pics when I get done. I gotta redo the black on the wheels polishing messed them up. Yea the tires need cleaned good too, gonna wait until polishng is done though.

 

[82chevy350]

Looking Good Man Keep Up The Work

 

[Swims350]

will do, gotta talk myself and my arms into polishing the other 3, install the rocker trim, put the fender trim back on, level it out, clean the inside good, and then who knows what lol.

 

[Old77]

You've made a lot of progress! Looking good so far.

 

[crazy4offroad]

Hell yeah looks damn good!

 

[Swims350]

thanks guys, working on polishing the other wheels not, got the PS front almost done, started sanding the DS 2, gotta do all the wet sanding on them still. Also gotta respray the black reccess areas on them.

 

[Swims350]

I gotta get new pics up this weekend. The wheels are done, sanding polishing repainting the black areas, and the center caps, all done. Also thanks to my dad's help got the stainless trim on tonight as well. Need to clean the inside up, get pics of the sub box I built a while back, also scrub and black my tires.

 

[Swims350]

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[Swims350]

I got hit and run the day after my birthday, truck was parked across the road from my house, over at dad's guy backed out of the alley and slammed it and took off. More to fix come spring.

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[Swims350]

I ordered some chrome underhood goodies last month, gonna order some more soon.

I got a ....
mr. gasket competition air cleanr assembly part no. 9790
spectre power steering dipstick part no. 1798
spectre valve covers part no. 5260

Going to order some valve cover bolts in chrome
pcv in chrome spectre #4284
grommets #5333
chrome breather #4277 or one with a tube fitting depends on if I can remove the tbi spacer or not.
master cylinder cover #9635
oil fill cap #4320
radiator cap #4338
air cleaner nut #1768
FP block off plate with bolts #42463

I'll have to get pics of what I have and what I order once they get here.