Speed

Not sure this 400 engine is gonna be a runner. I turned the engine stand to one side,so the pistons are leveled,and gave that bank a good dose of PB Blaster,put the plugs back in and snugged them,and left it that way for 48 hours,then did the other bank the same way, but it still doesn't feel inclined to turn. I have another engine stand with a longer "standoff",so if I swap it to that one,I think there's room for me to leave the flexplate on it that way I can use a couple of big screwdrivers on the ring gear and the arms of the engine stand to rock it back and forth and hopefully free it up to turn If I can get it freed up,I'll hook up a starter and battery and crank it that way,with plugs out,and see how it sounds turning over. If it's not gonna be a runner,I'm looking for a 292 six cylinder for the one Ton. I think that with a three single throat carb set up with progressive linkage and a set of headers,2-1/2" pipes,turbo mufflers and stacks,it'll do pretty well. It'll get an HEI ignition too. What year did they start setting the sixes up for no-lead gas? I wanna make sure it's new enough to run fine on what they're calling gas these days. What do you think? Speed BTW-If I buy a Detroit Locker for this truck,would you be able to install it for me? That way I'll know it's done right and I wouldn't have to worry about it.

Snowpack is pretty good,but I don't hold out much hope it'll be here for long. Glad your Clan is doing well. Safe Travels!

I replied to it once,but it apparently didn't transfer. Okay-The cab I have is a 1978 C-10 cab with no papers,but the frame had a Title that matched the Frame number. That number shows the truck to be a 1974 K-30 Crew Cab,but the truck is NOW a 1 1974 Chevy C-30 standard cab with a 13 foot flatbed. I never thought about looking at the crossmember attachment method. That'll explain a lot. Thanks Moses. Hope you and yours are healthy and happy. Speed

This truck is a '78 standard cab one ton dually,2 wheel drive,but the VIN from the frame,which it's Registered by,shows it to be a 1974 Chevy one ton crew cab 4WD. I'd like to settle,once and for all,how hard is it to make a K-30 into a C-30? I ve heard everything from "Piece of cake-just slide the front suspension under the frame,bolt it in and change the steering box to the C-30 version and you're good to go." to "It can't be done without cutting,welding,lots of measuring,etc. etc. etc. So I don't know how this was accomplished. Its a good truck,and it has a 13 foot flatbed on it. Currently awaiting a 400 smallblock that I wanna change the timing chain to a new double roller set,a one piece oil pan gasket and a Holley square bore 4 barrel carb. The engine is from a '78 Motor home. It has an A/C compressor,so it'll be set up with on-board Air. The truck already has a 7 gallon air tank and most of the plumbing,which I intend to start fresh on,but I'll keep the air tank. Future inteny is an NV-4500and better seat,new windshield,a grille and more exterior lights.

Sold,to a Man with a yard full of Land Cruisers. He also wants to buy the frame,cab and bed of the '81 "Rolling Wreck as soon as his car trailer is done.

Needs rings-N-bearings, but ran okay. Head is off but the engine is all there. Has recent double-row timing set and sliders Includes a new ceramic disc clutch, carbs, distributors, extra timing cover, exhaust manifold. Other parts from '81 Toyota 4X4 available cheap. $100.00 cash can load it. Call James at (775)-934-4760 Located in Elko,Nevada

Well,I got the module swapped to a GM one-no joy. Pulled the module and went to EVERY shop in town to get it tested-no luck. Nobody is equipped to terst one. Finally found Konakis Automotive has the official tester,and my used module was toast. bought a new one at NAPA,installed it,still no spark. RE-checked my wiring,it is all correct. I've concluded my problem is either the 2 wire harness from my module to the distributor is damaged,the plug at the distributor isn't connecting or the pick up IN the distributor is smoked. I'm going to disconnect that harness at both ends and check it for damaged wire,then replace the plug with different connections and swap in the distributor from my '82 engine. I believe that'll cover all the likely culprits,and it should be a runner. That'll be a good thing-I have at least two truckloads of trash to haul. BTW-I decided the axle swap won't be an option until Spring,if then. Once I have this truck operable,I'll bring my '74 Chevy one ton flatbed in to swap a small block 400 into it,that'll take a while for a variety of reasons. (Broken finger,Flu,Taking care of my 77 year old housebound Sister with Dementia) In the meantime,I'll change the alternator on the '54 GMC and put some 100W headlights on it,and install an under-bed box below the Left Front corner of the deck,and,if I can get the materials I need,I'll build a truck crane a bit bigger than the one on my Chevy one ton,lift capacity of 1/2 ton extended,reach of maybe 12 feet extended,8 feet collapsed. Every day's a new adventure.➰ Speed

I think whatever parts I get will have to be from a Ranger,since many of them were equipped with the drivetrain I want,while I OWN the only Explorer I've ever seen with a manual transmission and I've never found one that didn't have electronic Four Wheel Drive/automatic hubs. Speed

I originally found the conversion on Marlin Crawler's website,seems several people have also done it and there's quite a lot of diversity on the methods and the parts used. I'd been looking for a discussion that covered some other conversions as well,the one I wanted was the Ford Blue-Grommet module,but I didn't find that one. The GM one is pretty simple-the two wires from the Distributor go to one end of the module,the terminals marked W and G. (If there's no spark,I can reverse these two wires and all should be fine.) The other two wires to the module,one of which is marked B,for Battery,goes to keyed 12V, (I'm going to use the same wire as the ignitor did,out of the OEM plug.) and will also connect to the + side of the coil,and C,for Chassis ground, would go to the - side of the coil and any other grounds I want to use. They say I can ground the Module case through one of the mounting screws,plenty of good grounds makes everything happy. I got some di-electric grease and built a heat sink/bracket from aluminum. For the mount,I screwed the module to the beam of an aluminum air compressor connecting rod with a heat sink sandwiched in,and plenty of grease in between. The rod was bolted to the inner fender,with the rod cap on the outside of the inner fender.;I've seen some people use the original Toyota coil and the ignitor bracket to simplify the mounting. So it's only four wires and a mounting plate to make it work,if you don't mind using used parts. ====================================================================================================================== On that carb,I think I'll just drive it awhile and see how it acts-I MIGHT not even have to change anything. ====================================================================================================================== This cab is the same one that got tumbled down a mountain. It wasn't too straight when they put the new windshield in it-it already had a half circle crack in it right behind where the rear view mirror would have been if it was still there. ====================================================================================================================== The proportioning valve is still there and connected-not sure of the adjustment,I don't know what the link is supposed to look like-it looks to ME like it's all pulled out of shape. It has a shallow "S" bend in it,but it must be close to where it should be or it wouldn't reach from here to there. I feel like the "mechanic" didn't adjust anything before calling it DONE. ====================================================================================================================== I have the tools,sort of a place to work (Outdoors,slanted driveway that looks like it was used to test explosives),a book (An 80's vintage Haynes repair manual-and some internet) etc. I mostly don't do a lot of the work anymore because my health has been screwing me up. Messed up shoulder,Arthritis in my hands,lower back damage,etc. All were the residuals of doing stuff I shouldn't have done,back when I was young and invincible...There's also the feeling that I don't know as much now as I did back when I knew ALL about EVERYTHING. 🤡 I wouldn't have been so upset with the half-assed brake work if I hadn't paid a premium price for it. When I have someone doing work for free,or for a six pack,I know I'll be getting pretty much what I paid for,but there's no way,by ANY stretch of the imagination,THIS would be worth $600.00! THIS was supposed to last for a pretty long while. I shoulda taken it right back and worked 'em over about it,but like I said,I was without a running vehicle and with a lot of stuff still to move,so I made a (BAD) executive decision. THEY made a BAD decision by releasing my truck without so much as test driving it across their parking lot to see if the brakes even WORKED.😠 I probably coulda OWNED their shop,but they were already closing and retiring-would it have even been worth the fight?

The Toyota developed a NEW issue-no spark. It died on the road,suddenly,just like I turned off the ignition. Plenty of cranking power,but NO spark. After having the coil tested and found okay,popular opinion is that the ignitor is the problem. I now have the parts to convert to a GM ignition module,I just need to make an aluminum base plate to mount the module to and get some di-electric grease,and grow some warm weather to do the install and it should be a runner again. I bought a fuel pressure regulator and installed it,set to 2-1/2 psi to start with,then I went through and re-set the carb to the specs listed in the installation papers. Once I have it running again I can go through and fine-tune it a bit. Following that,my only urgent task will be figuring out where the water is getting into the cab and dripping onto the stereo,the CB and the seat on both sides. It's getting pretty annoying. Now that you mention the brake booster,it reminds me-the brakes have never felt completely right since the "Car Doctors" shop "rebuilt" them. I had to extend the push rod between the master cylinder and the booster about an inch to even HAVE brakes. The truck stops well enough,but I suspect the rear brakes aren't playing. As I stop,the brakes are quite good,but as I roll down to a stop,it feels like the front brakes grab hard enough that it feels like the axle "winds up",bouncing the truck backwards slightly. I think the rear brakes just need adjusting. I have 2 of the 3 cables needed to fix the E-brake,so I'd like to try fixing that,if I can sort out their weird cable routing. That also was supposed to be done in the brake "rebuild". Since it wasn't possible at the time for me to do without the truck,I fixed what I had to,to be able to drive it,and by the time I had alternate transportation it was too late to claim their shoddy workmanship in a Court case. Speed

The Clark is a heavier gearbox than a 465,and is completely non-synchro. The MAIN attraction I have for a 465 is it's QUIET,and having some synchronized gears is also a good thing. I feel like the powertrain through the 465 is probably more efficient than the Clark,so less power is lost and better gas mileage is likely. I'm okay with no synchros,but the gear noise of a Clark (I'm pretty sure it's straight-cut gears,which are inherently noisy.) is pretty deafening at road speed,especially when it's singing in harmony with a 3 speed Brownie,which I WON'T give up. (I suspect there are some tired bearings in the Clark too,as it seems inclined to drop out of 5th under light compression braking. The main BENEFIT of the Clark is the strength of it and how unlikely it is that I could overload it. I also kinda like the weird shift pattern. I hope this shows up as I drew it. 2 5 1 3 4 R Speed

What's the market looking like for a Clark 5 speed w/Overdrive? Maybe there's a full sized rock crawler out there that can use a break-proof box with a built-in "higher gear".I'm REALLY not sure it's worth the expense to convert it just for a set of synchro's... Speed.

Yeah,the instructions for the carb conversion say SEVERAL times to try to keep the fuel pressure below 3.5 psi,and I figured the stock fuel pump wasn't likely to run significantly more than that. Saturday I had a guy at the Garage (working on his own truck,off the clock) make some adjustments, and while I don't think it runs BETTER,it certainly runs differently. I KNOW I need to re-adjust the choke,he messed with it a lot,and he found a couple of adjusters (?) that don't show on any pictures/diagrams I've seen. I'll set the low speed mixture screw back to specs and try to get the idle screw adjusted again. It WAS idling a little fast,even with the adjustment screw backed all the way off,which indicates an issue according to the instructions. I was going to try another couple of degrees of advance and see where THAT leaves it. Running it as it was delivered,it initially ran right up to 70 mph,but then developed a miss;I kept backing out of the throttle,but it didn't improve much,so I stopped. it idled okay so I drove on over to Carlin,trying different speeds,but was marginal at best. Coming back to Elko,I discovered it'd run pretty good at about 60 in 4th. I upshifted to 5th and EASED it up to 70,which it ran fine at,but any more throttle and it'd start to act up again. Even with all that,it gor 20.7 mpg. This carb seems pretty touchy,but I hope it'll tune in without re-jetting it. So it'll be: re-set the choke blades re-set the fast idle set the low speed mix within specs, set the idle speed to around 750 rpm if possible-if it won't idle down enough,advance the ignition timing a couple of degrees. THEORETICALLY,that'll make it run well again,right? Speed

I'm told the 700R4 was GM's first 4 speed OD automatic,meant to replace the old T350,and eventually replaced the T400 too,then came the 4L60 and the Heavy Duty 4L80 series. Since it's a '90 Heavy Half,it was,I think,the first year of the 700R4 replacing the T400 in the heavy duty half ton models. I agree,the mechanics of the conversion,while likely expensive ,won't be that hard,but the electrics will be a nightmare. Speed

As it stands,I've installed a Weber carb on the engine,which seems to have improved the running markedly,though it still has the "tugboat" sounding idle,to a lesser degree. I'm looking at checking the compression next (I can't believe I haven't checked it yet-maybe I DID and it was okay....)followed by adjusting the valves. I ALSO changed both 22R engines over to 10si one wire alternators that make 105 amps,though the kits I used require mods to the adjustment brackets. The one on the '82 truck I'll be eventually swapping my axles into required offsetting the "J-bracket" outward an inch away from the alternator to clear the cooling fan,but works fine otherwise,and the one on the '81,which I'm driving now,would have the adjuster running into the power steering pump,so I engineered an a spring loaded arrangement that connects to the fenderwell. Both alternators/mounts work fine. Next project is installing new 100W. H-4 headlights,as I'm getting tired of driving by feel at night. Speed