Sinking Creek 4WD Association

Just picked me up a TRUCK, like a REAL MAN The Skinny: Needs a CV, and possibly a transmission. Already have both.
The bed is pretty beat up and rusty, normal Chevy rust in rocker panels, rust on old cab light holes, cab is otherwise straight. needs new shocks and some other small things.

Just picked it up today, so I'll update as I find more things need attention.

USEFUL comments/suggestions welcome (... @Alec...)

Rip off that snow plow attachment, scrap.
Get it running right and beat the piss out of it... <-- Things I should have done, learn from me.

Mr.WJ wrote: ↑Fri Jun 29, 2018 1:53 pm Rip off that snow plow attachment, scrap.
Get it running right and beat the piss out of it... <-- Things I should have done, learn from me.

Snowplow crap is already gone as well as the dumb plastic deflector on the hood

First some conspiracy theories: People I bought it from had recently put a bunch of new parts on the truck to get it to pass inspection as it was his daily. Fast forward, trans starts slipping, he limps it home, they don't want to keep pouring money into it, buy new truck. Need to sell old truck to liquidate some assets.

MY ASSUMPTION is that they put $700 (their asking price) into it to get it inspected, and so they just wanted to recoup that money. Why I got it so cheap. Also there is snowplow equipment so transmission and front driveshaft probably broke 'cuz of that, right? right??

Now for the interesting stuff. Among those new parts they installed, they listed exhaust, fuel pump, water pump, and maybe a couple other things I cant remember. Crawling around under the truck I found new brake lines, TRANSMISSION LINES, and potentially a new axle seal on the rear.

Trans lines had been replaced and weren't sitting in factory location, rubbing against a skid plate mounting bracket. Outcome, a small hole in the trans line where almost all the trans fluid leaked out from. I say almost because its still dripping in my driveway (fluid level was nonexistent on dipstick when initially looked at the truck). Anyways, although the fluid was gone, they didn't continue to drive the truck (according to them), and so I'm hoping patch the hole in the line, fill it up and away I will go.

There's also the issue with 4x4 which was claimed to be just a bad CV, and they didn't need 4x4 enough to replace it, so they just pulled the axle and "disabled" the transfer case. So while inspecting the third member output, i noticed the flange had an unprecedented amount of movement, so I'm suspicious of a bearing having gone bad (or maybe the output shaft itself maybe broken? idk), so I'll have to take that apart and check it out. As for the t-case, I'm waiting for the seller to get in contact with their mechanic to see what he did to disable it. The symptoms are no lights on the selector switch and there's no response from the t-case when I press the buttons. If anyone has any ideas let me know. I already checked the fuses and all the plugs i could find/know where to find. More to come on that.

Other than that the 5.3 runs like a top, has plenty of power and no discernible ticks, knocks, or rattles.

All of the aforementioned work and looking over has occurred in the dark so i don't have any pictures, but once I start working on it again I'll be keeping photo record.

Also i cant seem to figure out how to post quality photos so if anyone has suggestions on that it'd be great.

Peace out

Just found the issue on the t-case. There is a fuse for the selector buttons and the tccm, and a separate fuse for the tcase shifter motor and the encoder located in the fuse box under the hood labeled atc. replaced that all the lights came on, but when i pressed the button, it shifted but blew the fuse again so i got a short somewhere, no big deal whatsoever, wiring is kind of my forte.

Did a tad more late night wrenching, got as far as i could without an impact. Removed the front diff skid plate, the one CV that was on it, and the front DS. Was gonna patch trans line, got some rubber hose, but i need more itty-bitty hose clamps, gotta get those in the morning.

Also pretty sure somethings fucked up in the front diff, so plan is swap it with the spare and fix it later. Again, working by myself and in the dark so no photos, but they are coming.

Still gotta find the short in the transfer case shift motor but that's another thing that is better done during the day.

Patched trans line, started leaking at fitting on trans itself, just gonna replace them, local auto parts store had them for $30 for the whole set. If I end up replacing the trans I'll just have replacements

Transmission swap begins in t-minus 8 hours

Maybe instead of fixing the 4x4 you should just slap some coil overs and a LT suspension on da bitch and go full baja. Mt lake can be done in 10 min if you do it right.

What was the deal with the original transmission? It still slipped and wouldn't shift to third gear after you fixed the leaks and topped the ATF off?

Did they leave the CV out? cuz the outer spline shaft is what holds your unit bearing together.

YellowDodgeBrian wrote: ↑Mon Jul 16, 2018 9:56 pm Maybe instead of fixing the 4x4 you should just slap some coil overs and a LT suspension on da bitch and go full baja. Mt lake can be done in 10 min if you do it right.

Tempting but I'm gonna do tons and leaf springs

BadAssEddie wrote: ↑Tue Jul 17, 2018 8:00 am What was the deal with the original transmission? It still slipped and wouldn't shift to third gear after you fixed the leaks and topped the ATF off?

Old transmission tried to shift into third and would slip immediately, even after fixing leak and adding fluid

FJCcrawler wrote: ↑Tue Jul 17, 2018 12:10 pm Did they leave the CV out? cuz the outer spline shaft is what holds your unit bearing together.

The CV was left out, I am sure that didn't help the issue.

Update time.

Transmission: done
Front diff: done
Rear ds ujoints: done
Brakelines: blown then fixed
interior: stripped
Shocks: replaced

All a pain in the ass, nothing particularly interesting or spectacular, just gonna post some pics