1986 GMC S-15

[Andrew_S]

grotto, that's good to hear about the power. It's a fair bit of work so I'm hoping the reward is decent.

SHOBout, BC is beautiful but it is expensive as hell. It's like you have two choices; 1 live in a bigger city with decent job opportunities and struggle because everything is so expensive; 2 live in a small town and struggle because the job opportunities are slim to none. I guess the 3rd is work up north in a camp, did that for minute and was definitely not for me.

Ontario is truly beautiful though. I really do miss many parts of it, especially the fishing.


Thanks again for the encouragement gentlemen. I'll have to show this to the wife so she can see I'm not the only who likes this truck. She likes to tease me because of how much I enjoy it.

The last few days have been nuts. We got our first storm of the winter here. I drive truck for the city and this is definitely our busiest time of year. I got the pleasure of running around in this brand new freightliner the last couple days. Only 6000km's on it, she's a beaut. Super comfortable, very capable and just enough power. It came with a fully stainless steel sander and a extending plow, which is so nice to have.

I worked 42 hours in the last 3 days. Somehow I found the motivation to start picking away at this tonight.
I threw the mags on it just because I wanted to see how it looked before I started the tear down. Have to say I'm pretty fond of this car.

I decided instead of just having this sit in the garage for 4 months, to just tear off the bandage and get started. I'm afraid the longer I owned this car, the less I would've wanted to part it out.

Would say the filter was due. Can't believe it ran as good as it did.

Little bit easier to see the motor now.

Hopefully I can turn this pile into some cash soon.

 

[Andrew_S]

Day one of the part out was pretty successful.

Sold these items

Front bumper - $40
Fenders - $40
Doors - $150
Radio - $20
Hood - $60
Lights - $20
______________
Total $330

I paid total : 571.50

So the new total is $241.50

Still a few parts left to sell. Would be really nice to end up in the green.

Also I found this fap-off 3/8" mini breaker in the trunk, that's got to be a $30 gain?

How it looks now. Pulled a few more items that aren't sold yet. Also made some good steps towards dropping the motor out.

 

[chilliwak]

Well andrew I am glad to see you are making some money off the old Camaro. I understand your feelings. I would have put a V8 in that thing and gone rippin er up. Cheers, Chilli..

 

[Andrew_S]

^ Yeah chilli it was definitely a decent car. Shame to see it this way but it is what it is.

Got a few hours free this evening and made some good progress.

Everything unhooked, or so I thought. So I started to lift.

About as sketchy as you can get. I did have the body supported with jacks and kept lifting them incrementally.

Completely separated. What a pain. I'm sure because it was my first time but seriously there's got to be a 50 step list to complete this drop.

Untitled by Andrew Schwerdtfeger, on Flickr

 

[chilliwak]

Well Andrew thats what I call an exciting engine pull. I really dont understand why you did not just pull the motor alone alone but I guess you have your reasons. Nice job. Cheers, Chilli...

 

[1stDeuce]

I think he said he's just going to use the longblock after rebuliding it.

Our Comanche came with a 2.8 that was either missing pieces of a piston or two, or had a broken crank (though it did make it 225k miles...) It would run, but it was NOT happy...
I bought a 3.4L out of a '95 camaro for $300 and plopped it in, PMFI and all. I really wanted a TBI setup from a 2.8 S10, but I got what I got and I made it work. It runs, but I still haven't found a speed sensor that it's happy with, and the manifold only clears the hood by about a half an inch.

I've heard that the 2.4's run well with the stock 2.8 TBI setup.
I'll be rebuilding our soon, as it's pushing coolant into the overflow bottle... Head gasket, I suspect. It was pretty loose for an engine with only 100k miles on it. I think I'll take the opportunity to go scrounging for an S10 TBI setup while it's out, and get rid of the MPFI. That would make it look more period correct, and get me an accy layout that would work better in the Comanche too. Right now, I can't run the A/C pump because it wants to share space with the Comanche frame...

Still loving this thread, and your old school S10.
I think we're going to head up your way in June, actually... Probably take our kayaks and do one of the loops you posted earlier in this thread.

 

[1stDeuce]

Concerning electric fans... Before you go and put an electric on it, make sure the fan clutch is working properly. If it is, there are other things wrong (like your corroded radiator) and an electric fan isn't the answer if that's the case...

If you do go electric, either go with a 2 speed (Taurus?) fan and leave low on all the time, or use a two fan setup like on your other truck, and leave one fan on all the time. Running a street type setup where the fans are off till the engine is hot is pretty hard on underhood stuff out on the trail. We did a Jeep that way, and it didn't like it at all. We had issues with vapor lock mostly, due to the engine compartment getting much hotter than it would have with an engine fan circulating air all the time.

Good Luck!! (And send some snow our way, but not till I get the roof on my pole barn!!!)

 

[1stDeuce]

Hahaha I just caught "Fap-off". Watching AVE vids, or is that pretty common speak up there?
What are you going to school for, anyway?

 

[Andrew_S]

Well Andrew thats what I call an exciting engine pull. I really dont understand why you did not just pull the motor alone alone but I guess you have your reasons. Nice job. Cheers, Chilli...

It's the way that generation of car is designed. Dropping the k-member is the way you pull an engine/trans. It's a ton of work but in the end probably way easier than busting your knuckles trying to get to everything without doing it that way. Thanks!

Wait.....what?

Replacing low mileage engine with high mileage unit.......or did I misread somewhere?

I have to pull the 2.8 to replace the rear main seal as it's been leaking since I purchased the truck. Since I was going to all that trouble I decided to swap the motor as well. It seemed logical at the time atleast? haha
Going to rebuild the 3.4 so it will be almost like new and drop it in.

Hahaha I just caught "Fap-off". Watching AVE vids, or is that pretty common speak up there?
What are you going to school for, anyway?

^ yes I follow AVE quite religiously. He's like Mr. Wilson from home improvement. I'm just finishing up a civil tech diploma right now. I'll be done in April, can't friggin wait. I work for a municipality full-time so balancing that and full time school has been a serious grind.

I appreciate all the input. I find it interesting you want to ditch the mpfi? I was contemplating going that route but decided not to as I don't want to deal with all the rewiring. I'm already tbi, so I'm just going to hog it out a bit, swap in the 4.3 injectors and maybe a new prom if required. What did you do for your flywheel when you did the swap? I'm debating between buying a new one or just pulling one at the yard.

As far as the electric fan goes. I'm going to do the swap + newer aluminum rad and see how it performs from there. The clutch fan was/is definitely working fine ( tested it). I hadn't thought about the dead air when running through trails you would see with an electric fan. The hardwired switch sounds like a winning idea for sure.

Started stripping it down,

even managed to get wifey involved

Was quite pleased with how clean it was inside,

Spark plugs looked decent, still surprised how well it ran with that air filter

One of the dowels was frozen/corroded and I had a fun time getting the trans separated. Ended up using some heat on the aluminium housing and it did the trick beautifully, no pounding on it.

Had to get creative to pull the balancer without a puller. Ended up spinning the main center crank bolt bolt back in, and placing a large wrench in-between it and the pulley and then screwing the pulley back on with the 4 bolts slowly until it popped itself off. Kind of tough to explain.

Timing chain is super slacked,

Heads off, and not looking bad

Tough to see in pics but you can still make out the factory cross-hatching on the cylinder walls

I just left the house yesterday and I was climbing a hill in the truck when all of a sudden the exhaust became quite loud. Pulled over to find an 02 sensor had decided to become two pieces.

The timing for this to happen couldn't have been better as I had just removed the 02's from the camaro, and they were a perfect match! 15 mins later we were back on the road and on our way.

We managed to get out ice fishing yesterday after that, very early ice so we got creative.
Traded my paddle for an axe.

We made out pretty good for only getting a solid hour of fishing in,

Haven't sold much else since the last post. Definitely counting that 02 sensor towards my budget, called for a price on one and it was $30. So it wasn't necessarily a part sold as it was money not spent.

charcoal Canister - $10
Inner fenders - $10
02 sensor - $30
______________
Total $380


571.50 - $380 = 191.50

So the new total is $191.50

 

[spacer]

Just a note about the cool teardrop camper you photographed a few pages back: It's available as a kit from Chesapeake Light Craft. They're a popular outfit for boats, but came out with this fairly recently.

http://www.clcboats.com/shop/boats/recreational-vehicles/clc-teardrop-trailer.html

 

[chilliwak]

Cool looking pics Andrew. Do those old v6s have nylon timing chain gears or is that just something the old v8s had? Things are looking good. The ice fishing looks pretty cool too. Thanks for posting up. Cheers, Chilli...

 

[Andrew_S]

^^ Spacer, thanks I had no idea. Pretty neat little trailer thats for sure.

Chilli, I'll have to take a closer look but I'm fairly sure the gears are all steel.

Picked up this engine stand for $30 yesterday.

I've been avoiding getting a cherry picker because they take up so much space and I won't need one until I'm ready to pull the engine out of the truck. So I ended up tipping the 3.4 back onto the engine stand laying down and then had the wife help me tip it back up right. Sketchy indeed.

Pulled the pan and mounts off, So far everything looks good.

 

[1stDeuce]

I bought a flywheel for a '92 S10 with a 2.8L when I did my conversion. It was like $55 new from Oreilly. I imagine Princess and Napa have similar prices.

My timing chain was also WAY loose. (Vid on my build thread...) I assumed the engine saw very infrequent oil changes, or was run low on oil a lot. (Oil likely changed when the low oil light came on, or a while after...) A new timing set made it run so much smoother. I'd still like to rebuild it, but compression isn't bad, so I'll probably just toss on some new head gaskets and keep running it...

You can do some research, but I don't think you will need to do ANYTHING to the 2.8L TBI for it to work with the 3.4L.
My reasoning for this is based on my own experience... I put TBI on a 292 (4.9L) straight six in my old truck. I used a stock 4.3L setup off a '93-94. I thought going to injectors from a 5.0L was the right move, but it actually ran worse, and always had to correct from a rich condition. I went back to 4.3L injectors and it ran great.

GM was offering the 3.4L as a direct replacement for the 2.8 in the mid-90's, and dealers were just dropping them in. It makes sense, since the the A/F ratio doesn't change with engine size, and neither the 2.8L or 3.4L are high RPM engines. I believe the flow of the 2.8L TB is sufficient, and the injectors seem keep up just fine to the slight displacement increase. Worst case, it may run a bit lean at really high RPM's, but I doubt you really spend much time at 5000rpm...


Engine hoist... Find one with legs that come off and store upright... Like this one. I have the same one in black and orange, and it's been serving me well for years now, and takes up very little space when I don't need it.

 

[Andrew_S]

Thanks for the tips^ I've been eyeing a hoist like that locally but the guys asking $250 and I feel ashamed to offer him much less. I'm a couple months out from needing so I think I'll hold off for now. May borrow one from a guy at work for a flat rate.

I've read that a lot of guys use 4.3 injectors because the 2.8's lean out at higher rpms. I'll probably go that route first and see how fuel economy is.
For $55 or close that I'll likely just buy a new flywheel because it's just not worth the trouble for saving $20-$30



Small update,

Sold the entire drivetrain, trans, shaft, rear end.
So I yanked that yesterday

Did the old teeter totter and put the front end back in

I need to get a buddy to move nearby or make friends with one of the neighbours because I tell you guys sometimes it sure would be nice to have a second set of hands.

Wrecker just came and picked it up. Managed to get out fairly easily without damaging anything.

Can't believe they gave me $63 and hauled it away. Sure frees up a lot of space in the garage.

 

[Andrew_S]

Trans/shaft/rear end $200
Wrecker $63
______________
Total $643

643 - 571.50 = 71.50

So the new total is +$71.50. Stoked to be in the green already.
Still have a set of mags, front bumper, and a number of other parts I pulled off the car to sell.
My hope all along was to pay for most of the rebuild costs by selling parts. Might not get it all covered but at least the bulk of it.