1986 GMC S-15

[Andrew_S]

A little off topic but I did a ton of work to my '84 s10 this summer as well.

Picked up some really nice sticky bridgestone z71R's for it.

Fixed the rear diff, rear brakes and set up the e-brake finally.

Also got the wideband 02 set up.

Been driving it a ton.

Went to a couple autocross events and threw it around the course a few times.

Blew a head gasket and hydrolocked it shortly after one event...

I love how easy these old 60* v6's are to work on. Had it blown apart, cleaned up, and back together in a few hours.

Good as new.

The wife's ''98 civic is getting a little tired and I've been searching and trying to find her one of these AE95's. Too bad this one was far to rusted out to bother with.

I've been tinkering with the new motor a bit. Picked up some parts for the build.

Nicole found a bunch of lobster mushrooms.

I've been on a bit of a dewalt kick lately, getting so spoiled with all the wireless stuff.

 

[Andrew_S]

On another outing, pear shaped puff balls.

Nicole's saying "yeah lets not do this"

Been finding the limit of the trucks current tires/suspension quite a bit lately. Could use a couple dana 44's and lockers.

Managed to find a couple of pine mushrooms.

Also a bunch more shaggies

Nicole also found a roque apple tree on crown land. We've picked 200+ apples from this tree.

Picked up a new vortex scope for my .308

Been taking the truck into lots of skinny little roads to get away from everyone else. This has been very rewarding.

Puffballs!

First rabbit of the year! That's as many as I shot all last year!

Some really nice corals,

Shaggy's at just about every stage of their life cycle

Lost a center cap this day,

It was totally worth it

Huge haul of shaggies and puffballs

Shaggy mane soup

 

[Andrew_S]

One more tine on the left side and this guy would have been mine.

A few more great hunts

Filling the freezer

more mushrooms,

As you can see snow shoe hare and grouse are really plentiful this year. Nicole went out one evening and came back with these by herself in a couple hours. We had a bit more rain and cooler weather then usual this summer and I'm sure that's attributing the population spike. Maybe it's just the 4 year cycle everyone talks about.

Been putting this vacuum sealer to good use.

We've been finding fields of shaggies.

Can't remember the name of these, some type of coral I believe.

A flock of grouse on the road. Spotted these 5, then two more popped out right in front of us. When we went to stalk to the five down the road we spooked out another 4 in the bushes. Almost a dozen grouse in 50', unreal action.

Nicole is saying something like "i'm the best shot". First time we've both limited out on grouse ever.

 

[Andrew_S]

Last weekend I believe,

Nice little spruce grouse

Been making it a habit of driving quad roads far to often...

Another day, almost a limit again,

Some good eats, grouse with shaggies on mash potatoes w/ sour cream and fresh beans from the garden.

All the back roads loosened up the 4 main bolts in the steering column finally. It's a fairly easy job requires a couple special tools; pivot pin puller, thrust spring plate whatchamacallit compressor, and a steering wheel puller. So $100 later in tools and the steering column is tight again.

Thank god for youtube tutorials, would have been totally lost without the one I watched.

The canopy has seen some better days. 20,000 km's of back roads have beaten just about all the rivets to a fine powder. The ones that held the rear window onto the hinge disappeared recently. So I went to repair it.

Welp... that escalated quickly...

Drilling out one of the rivets I went a touch to deep hahaha. Rigged up this sheet of aluminum in place of the window to make due until I can get a new piece of glass cut.

Out for another quick hunt this afternoon,

Connected with this big hen right away,

Soooo many shaggies,

Also got our first snow!

It won't be long and we'll be out on the hardwater again. I cannot wait.

Well all caught up for now. Have a couple repairs I'm hoping to tackle tomorrow.

 

[lilkia]

Hows your wife feeling? Any relief fr9m the Lymes?

 

[ZWilson07]

YESS. Was beginning to think you had stopped posting. Good to see all the updates.

Any build thread on the 2wd? Crazy that it blew the headgasket and hydrolocked it in such a quick fashion.

Ive almost bought a square body like yours a few times over but im just not able to free up enough time to do builds anymore. Unfortunately they dont really make great daily drivers for a good distance anymore without at least modifying.

I guess i will have to continue to live vicariously through your build lol.

 

[ZMagic97]

Just took a couple days of reading this when I had some spare time.

Awesome truck and awesome adventures. I love seeing classic, smaller trucks that aren't high dollar builds.

I loved reading what you've been up to as well as the scenic photos of your adventures. You and your wife go on some great adventures. I can't wait to see more.

 

[chilliwak]

Thanks for posting all those cool pics Andrew. You make me so want to go back to B.C. I had so much work to do at my place I hardly had time for anything else. I look forward to seeing your next post. Cheers, Chilli.. ?

 

[Andrew_S]

Hows your wife feeling? Any relief fr9m the Lymes?

Still about the same unfortunately. This is why we have only been doing day trips and no camping at all.

YESS. Was beginning to think you had stopped posting. Good to see all the updates.

Any build thread on the 2wd? Crazy that it blew the headgasket and hydrolocked it in such a quick fashion.

Ive almost bought a square body like yours a few times over but im just not able to free up enough time to do builds anymore. Unfortunately they dont really make great daily drivers for a good distance anymore without at least modifying.

I guess i will have to continue to live vicariously through your build lol.

I had one a long time ago but photobucket pretty well ruined it. Short story is my dad bought the '84 brand new and passed it down to me when I got my license. Over the last 15 years I've been restoring it and road racing/autocrossing it. I've done a bit to the suspension and engine to make it bit more fun to drive. I was getting some really bad detonation (bad gas) and that's what killed the head gasket so quickly. Once the gasket blew I parked it at work and at the end of the day the combustion chamber was full of coolant as well as the oil pan... Quick video of draining the oil/coolant.

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Just took a couple days of reading this when I had some spare time.

Awesome truck and awesome adventures. I love seeing classic, smaller trucks that aren't high dollar builds.

I loved reading what you've been up to as well as the scenic photos of your adventures. You and your wife go on some great adventures. I can't wait to see more.

Right on, glad someone else is enjoying the thread.

Thanks for posting all those cool pics Andrew. You make me so want to go back to B.C. I had so much work to do at my place I hardly had time for anything else. I look forward to seeing your next post. Cheers, Chilli.. ?

BC really is such a beautiful province. I've been here 6 years now and I still find hidden gems right in my backyard all the time.

Is that a Kenne Bell blower on a 2.8?

I wish haha. It's a fageol roots blower. This guy mark fageol made a kit for the 2.8's in s10's and jeeps for a number of years. I believe he makes them for motorcycles now. I got it for a steal of a deal and it was a fun project making it work with the 4 barrel. I have no idea what kind of the #'s the truck runs, maybe mid 200 hp, pretty tame. The whine from the blower is super fun though and it makes about 6psi.



Another day out looking for deer.

The '86 has seen a lot of bush roads in the last month or so. There have been a few maintenance items pop up that I need to address asap.

I drove through this innocent looking puddle on the way home. It was well over 3' deep in the middle. Couldn't believe it.

Almost lost my plate the water hit it so hard.

Snow has been starting to stick more and more up in the hills.

Got a few rabbits that night.

Also found a cool new mushroom, elfin saddle.

These giants are growing everywhere but we haven't been able to figure out what they are yet.

Found a nice new lake with a beautiful campsite.

Lastly I picked up this new toy. Vortex 20-60 x85mm spotting scope.

Scored this for $1000 with the tripod. Brand new never used and man is it a beauty.

 

[Andrew_S]

The next day I threw the canoe on the truck for the first time since the spring.

On our way to the lake we stopped to look for some mushrooms in the most beautiful forest. The entire floor was covered in moss every step of the way.

Immediately found this cool bolete.

Then a couple of chanterelles

Pictures don't do this justice,

Better pic of an elfin saddle, such a unique mushroom

We found a few lobsters past due,

Then we hit the jackpot and started finding a bunch of chanterelles

No idea what these are but it was cool how they were taking over the entire log.

Stopped in at this old trappers cabin

Then we hit the water.

The rainbows were super aggressive.

Couldn't have asked for a nicer night. The fish were biting and water was like glass. Only one other sole on the other side of the lake fly fishing from shore and us.

I finally decided to stop being lazy and swapped out my power steering pump. The front seal was leaking on this one.

Grabbed a good one from picknpull for $16 and swapped it in, good as new. I'll probably change the front seal on the old one and keep it as a spare.

I've got an order of parts and some new goodies in the mail and hope to tackle those small projects next week.

 

[Andrew_S]

Had an awesome weekend hunting/fishing, here some pics.

Friggin beauty drive into a somewhat local lake (Mable Lake) 50km's of FSR right along the lake the whole way.

I don't know how we manage to find this over and over again but we were literally the only ones as far as the eye could see on an absolute beauty of a day.

Caught about 12 in 2 hours and kept 1 for supper.

Hunting the next day for some dusky and rough grouse,

Some of these grouse are legitimate chickens

The snowshoe hare are just starting to turn white.

Nicole looking for some moose on the other side of the range.

Friggin beautiful

a couple more grouse for the freezer

I got my buck!!!

Have him hanging in the garage at the moment. I needed to pick up a bigger freezer asap and found a smoking deal on this electrolux icon standup the very next morning.

out fishing again the next day

walked this super nice road looking for some rabbit

No brookies but managed to bring home a grouse for dinner

I've got to apologize this has been more of an "experiences" thread then a build thread lately. The trucks just been running like a champ (knocks on wood) and I haven't really had much to do to it. If it ain't broke don't fix it? Some steering components were starting to get worn out though, thank god for proforged's lifetime warranty. New lower balljoint, inner/outer tie rod, idler arm and CV came in the mail today. Also some KC daylighter's. I gave this a lot of thought and even considered going with the ARB super duper expensive lights. These should really improve the lighting as it sits now and should also match the vintage of the truck alot better then arb's or a light bar. Picked the stainless housings to match the rest of the chrome on the truck. Really looking forward to trying these out soon, hope they make a difference because they certainly were not cheap!

Also stocked up on filters to try and save some money.

I've got some plans for this truck over the winter. Hopefully I can make some time for it because the way things have been going lately I can barely make time to do the laundry and clean up the garage....

 

[ober27]

I would hope that every build thread should turn into an experience thread at some point. You live a in a beautiful part of the world, I'm glad you're out there taking advantage of all it has to offer.

 

[Frogprince]

I love the experiences part of the thread. Building a rig is one thing but getting to enjoy and use it is another.

I miss hunting for Grouse. Moved to Oregon and haven't been able to locate a good pool of them. So out of practice with a shotgun missed the only one I have seen so far this hunting season. Maybe this weekend I can find some...

 

[Buddha.]

Just read the thread, surprised I didn't see it earlier. I've had a few of the s10's, those steering components don't last too long.
As for the light upgrade, I wonder if those LED truck light style sealed beam replacements are worth the money?

EDIT:
My present truck looks a lot like your old GMC, black truck, grey/silver topper. Other pics show a black topper. Did you repaint the topper yourself? What kind of paint did you use?

 

[tennesseewj]

I love the build, but the experiences are my favorite part of this thread. It's so much better than reading a "money cannon" style build that never sees dirt. The thoughtful placement of upgrades really shines when we see how you use the truck.

I forget how much bulkier deer are in that area, awesome harvest!

Do you know how long your canoe is and how much it weighs by chance? I've always liked the durability of those, but I've not used them enough to have a feel for how unwieldy they are compared to a fiberglass one.

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