1978 K10 Suburban

FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
This is my build thread. I am starting with a 1978 K10 Suburban, dubbed "Big 'Ol Piece A' ********".
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I bought the suburban August 31, 2013 for $2,300 off of craigslist. At the time of purchase, it started, ran like crap, and had some rear wobble that I needed to resolve before driving it as my daily driver. The kid I bought it from said it was in excellent condition but just needed a sway-bar put in the rear. He also said the previous owner was trying to set it up for an African safari and had the engine reworked already. He used it as a mud truck and put a couple of serious dents down the passenger side trying to fit between some trees or at least that is what he said. I think the kid was dumb redneck.
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I drove it two hours to my parents place and changed the front wheel bearings. That fixed the wobble. It still ran like crap, but it ran fairly reliable so I just let it go for a while. Then as I was headed home from work (another two hour drive) shortly after I fixed the wobble and as I was in the middle of a town, my rear driver side tire actually rolled past me and into oncoming traffic. Can you say Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I sure did. The tire was launched back across the road behind me after it hit an Explorer head on. I called for reinforcements and assessed the situation. Turns out the all the lugs had sheared off. The holes in the rim were almost completely connected too. The bead of the rim was caved in well beyond any road side repair so I couldn't use it. Luckily an auto store was only a block ahead of where I pulled over and was still open. When the tire did come off, the Suburban dropped on the brake and it had grenade. Found the drum next to the parts store. I ended up limping the Suburban on the tire to the parts store and leaving it for the night. Went home for the night and came back with another tire/wheel, put it on and drove home. The brakes were frozen apparently, so I just left the brakes off. Got home, rebuilt the brakes, and put some matching wheels on it. After that it drove like crap still, but it stopped better and no more wheels have fallen off. Good times, seriously.
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Now, I'm trying to make it run better and everything I do is making it worse. I have zero money and I've troubleshot it for days and have come to the conclusion that my biggest gremlin are the valves. Luckily I have an extra set of head from another build. I've started to tear down my engine to swap heads and this is what I found.
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Driver side
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Passenger side
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Worst of the valves #7
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FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
I got the heads off the block today and cleaned one of the heads from Green Eggs & Ham for the swap. I've tapped all the threads, chased the rocker studs, wire wheeled the gasket surfaces, and cleaned up the rest in the parts wash with a wire brush.
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Green Eggs & Ham is an old truck of mine that I wrecked in high school.
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FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
I forgot to mention that I've already swapped the clutch, transmission, and transfer case. Pulled the original SM465/NP205 and put a SM465/NP205 from another truck I had in the back yard. The clutch was just an auto parts store clutch. Nothing great, just something to keep it running after the throw-out bearing took a dump.
 

FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
Tonight I was putting the heads back on then realized that one of the head bolts was an 1/2" bolt as opposed to the 3/8" that the rest were. I started to freak out, but luckily my dad was outside working as well and said it wasn't a bid deal. He pulled out the drill and an 1/2" bit and drill the head bolt hole. I got some fine sandpaper and sanded the lip off flush and washed the shavings off in the parts washer. I'm letting the head dry overnight.
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What is the deal with this bolt? Looks like it lines up hole in the hood, but what is the purpose?
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Larry

Bigassgas Explorer
Yeah, that pin and hood catcher prevents the hood from going through the windshield in the event of an accident.

Without the pin and hood catcher the hood bounces up and back into the windshield. Not all 73-80 GM trucks had this piece. I believe it was added in 1977 or so. You can see how the pin and catcher are designed to work here where the rear of the hood stayed down and didn’t move backwards into the windshield.
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FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
Today I finished putting all the new gaskets on and bolted everything up. Started the engine and not a darn thing changed. It still idles just fine but has no power in gear, sputters/coughs, and is absolutely gutless. I've set the initial timing to eight degrees BTDC, so my timing should be close but I'm going to hook up the engine analyzer tomorrow to set total timing to thirty-six degrees at 3000 RPMs. Timing is the only thing that makes sense. Regardless, I've swapped wires and cap for another set I had out back, disconnected the in-line electric fuel pump in favor of just using the mechanical pump, replaced the timing chain with another from my other build, checked for vacuum leaks, disassembled/cleaned the carburetor, switched from ported to manifold vacuum, and probably a few other things I forgot about already.
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The way I figure it, if I can make it idle, then I can make it run. Just need to make the right adjustments to make it run right.
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Quick story. I was testing my thermostat by putting it a pot of water a boiling it and decided to record it for fun. I set my camera on a mini tripod and had to hold it to keep it from tipping over and when the water started to boil I let go of the tripod to turn the gas off and my camera fell right into the water. Damn the bad luck.
 

FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
This weather is making it hard to work, but that's not the point. I got outside for little while and found that I couldn't actually hit three thousand without seriously advancing the initial timing. Played with it for a bit and came to the conclusion that the centrifugal advance is stuck in the "in" position. I'll get back to it tomorrow and see if I can't grease it up or something. Hopefully it won't drizzle all day while I'm working with the dizzy.
 

BBslider001

Diesel Head
I gotta say one thing...I laughed my ***** off reading this thread. I wish I had some other words to help, but stick with it! You'll get it going. And please....keep the storytelling coming!! No one knows how to tell stories like Texans do. I should know. MY Father-In-Law always has me drooling from laughing so hard at his stories.
 
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chilliwak

Expedition Leader
FCM, what can I say? I admire your dedication! Personally I think you payed to much for the truck considering the condition, but at leat with your effort I am sure you will get it running right. Have you taken the truck for a long run and then pulled a couple of spark plugs? If the plug is black (oil burning) or dark brown (rich mixture) or white (too lean a fuel mixture) then you can actually source your motor problem. After reading about all the things you have looked at it might be a fuel problem, as in a fuel pump or faulty carburetor, or perhaps the electronic ignition modual that has gone south. A modual is like 20 bucks, so replace it for piece of mind, and if you have a spare carb, try throwing it on. You said that you already looked into the fuel pump so I guess you can scratch that one. Good luck and let us know how you do. Cheers, Chilli...:)
 

FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
The centrifugal advance looked good when I took the distributor out, so I went ahead and swapped the ignition module with one from an old distributor in the garage since it is right there. Installed the distributor and reset the timing to 36 degrees total mechanical advance which left my initial sitting at 14 degrees. One thing to note when replacing the ignition module, the Haynes manual says to put dielectric grease on the "distributor pad" which is where the module bolts to. I spent three hours scrounging the shelves and piles of randomness in the garage looking for dielectric grease. Finally remembered that new spark plug wires usually have a little pouch of it and there are two sets of them in the garage. Now all of a sudden I have an engine that is back to what I initially started with; it starts but runs like crap.
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Did another compression test just to make sure I wasn't fighting another set of problems.
1 - 0 psi, 50 psi with oil
2 - 140 psi
3 - 140 psi
4 - 145 psi
5 - 140 psi
6 - 140 psi
7 - 140 psi
8 - 140 psi
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Yup. New problem, but at least I know it's a bad set of rings.
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I have another story to tell. Since I took the engine down, I've had about an eighth of an tank of fuel that I've been working off of. I know I was getting low, but I've never run out of fuel so I didn't know where empty really was on the fuel gauge. Since I had the engine to a point where a test drive was in order, so I took off down our street. The dirt road drive was satisfactory so a high speed run was the next step. I'm trying to see how fast I can get BOPAS which means sixty if I'm lucky. Then I hear the dreaded cough of fuel starvation. Yup I was out of fuel. Well I know from previous experiences that the first cough is not the last, so I pulled off and was in the middle of a three point turn on a two lane road when it finally did die. And it was dark. Nine miles from town, two from my parents house. So with no power steering or power brakes, I just let her roll backwards into the wet, soggy ditch. It was a nice walk home since the moon was partially out. I had my dad drive me back out with a five gallons of fuel and a set of jumper cables. Five gallons apparently isn't enough to raise the level when your parked on about a 35 degree slope. Actually the second five gallons wouldn't even go down because of the angle. Since it was dark and getting late, I decided to leave her unitl morning. Of course as we are pulling away, the fuzz show up. That was fun. The high school kids around here have been tearing up the ditches lately and I apparently can still pull off the high school look. I had a little bit of an explanation to give, but all was good. I started this morning with not being able to drive and ended the day in a ditch. Good times.
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I also made a really lame video of me taking apart the donor distributor.
 
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In the beginning of our vid, the "little black box" is called an "electronic control module" (ECM) and most Napa or other parts place can test them for you.

Keep it coming!
 

FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
I got my income taxes back which means that I can now continue working on BOPAS.
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Today I've reassessed the parts that I have and will be making a call to my local machine shop (Arrow Machine) to get the engine block, main caps, crank shaft, heads, and intake manifold checked for tolerance, machined if necessary, cleaned, and painted.
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It feels good to be able start up on the suburban again.
 

Halligan

Adventurer
20+ years ago when I was in high school I had a 1980 Monte Carlo with a V-6. Overall the car ran good then one day it started to run like crap. It sputtered on acceleration and couldn't get out of it's own way. I tried a bunch of different "fixes" including intake gaskets, plug's, wires, etc…. Nothing fixes seemed to work. I drove like this for a couple of week's then one day I filled the car up with gas because it was empty and within 10 minutes of leaving the gas station it ran fine.

Fast forward a couple of months and one night on my way home from work I stopped at the "other" gas station in town because it was still open and put a few dollars of gas in my car. The very next morning my car was running like total crap again. I pondered for awhile and then recalled the first time I had the problem with the car I had stopped at the same gas station and filled the tank. I never gave it a though until the second occurrence. Apparently my car really hated that gas. I mean it went from running fine to barely running. I limped to my regular gas station and filled the car up and it ran fine after that.

Moral of the story is sometimes the fix is so simple we overlook it. I see you have low compression on 1 cylinder so that may be your issue. However, is your fuel filter new/clean? How's the carburetor?
 

FCM

Not Lost, Finding Another Way
I did get the GE&H engine parts to the Arrow Machine this morning. I'm expecting a phone call in about two weeks to pick up my parts. In the mean time, I am helping my dad a little with his build; 1975 Chevy C20 3+3.
 

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