Irishman's '85 K1500

[Irishman999]

After getting everything back together and filled with oil I started the truck to find problems with the exhaust manifolds leaking around the donut but most importantly a good steady drip of oil from the front of the pan I just installed. So after reading I discovered they make 2 different styles of the gasket I thought was correct. One has a thin front seal and the other has a slightly thinker front seal. So this is the first I have herd of this bullshit, as well as plenty others who have never herd of this so when I did find the oil pan gasket listed as a thicker front seal I was very shocked.

The difference was so small had I not been drinking that day I would have said no effin way I am going to go through all that to put the exact same gasket back in just to have the same leak.

Well we changed it and the leak stopped both were installed the same way, I made sure of that.

 

[Irishman999]

Next was a clusterfuck with my exhaust manifold. As I was tightening them I could tell they where going to snap, I just about had the last one as tight as it would go and hopefully hold and POP. I went to take the second one loose so I could fix it and POP, ohh **** was I pissed. To add salt to this wound I did the exact same repair on both of my manifolds the previous fall and ended up drilling out all the snapped studs and using helicoil to fix the threads. Hotrodpc told me to use brass nuts but I used some kits I found in the "HELP" section at the parts store instead because I was not planning on doing this again.

Well all this led to hours of frusterating beating stuff with hammers, breaking shit, bending wrenches, ruining drill bits, breaking easy outs and lots of cussing.

 

[Irishman999]

So shortly after this repair I used the truck to move again and consolidated everything we own into one pickup load shown here. She ran great the whole 1,000 miles through the Nevada desert, only problem we ran into was a end link on the drag link making a bad pop when I would turn. 40 bucks and about half an hour and we where rollin again, Orilleys even loaned me tools since all mine where packed up.

 

[Irishman999]

The 305 started to develop a good little rod knock so I put an ad on craigslist for a post 87 350 I could start working on. I found this one still in the truck about an hour south west of Tuscon.

I got it torn down to the point of pulling the rotating assembly and stopped until I could get some better cash flow. Cylinder #5 had a piece of piston break at the top and chew up the bore pretty good. Im going to get some decent measuring instruments before I continue on with this project.

Piston:

 

[Irishman999]

More stupid stuff:

I closed my door one day and the window randomly shattered. A few days I arrived to work with a wet ass and pretty soon the seat foam was disintegrating.

One day my wife accidently took my keys with her to work and I was trying to get to work myself. I tried to Mcgeiver a steering wheel puller that failed several times.

I did not know you could pull really hard and they popped off so after choice words with my former employer and a trip to Orileys to rent a puller the 85 now starts with a pair of pliers. I also managed to install the steering wheel in the wrong position so it blocks my view of the spedometer, DAMN IT

 

[Irishman999]

So I was driving this thing on an 80 mile round trip in the Arizona sun every day and it was getting unbearably hot with the dark gray primer. This is just a temporary paint job until I could get everything mechanically sound again. 50 bucks and a weekend of work:

 

[Irishman999]

For now im just driving it around hauling garbage and in this case some weeds, getting groceries and running errands. hopefully in the near future I will have some better updates.

 

[Texas Jim]

Just reading over the latest entries in your thread.
The manifold stuff sounds like the kind of stuff I get into when doing a job...

It's coming along... I like it better white..

 

[buRRp]

Looks good white. You put some good work into.

 

[davbell22602]

Looks good white.