G-body cousin S truck "Barn find"
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Hey, to each, his/her preference. I dig fossils (ROTG/LMFAO, the pun was not intentional but .........) They are simple to play with, no ECUS or weird EPA Bs to contend with. I tolerate the cats on my S-10) because the O-2 sensors need them to function and the ECU needs the sensors or it has a nervous breakdown!
Nick
Nick
Updates:
Good news on the paperwork, I have it back from Karen and have an appointment at the DMV tomorrow to get it registered. I'm pretty excited to start legally driving it around town.
Spent a couple hours yesterday replacing all the vacuum lines, all of them were gushy and/or cracked. I found the vacuum advance on the distributor had deteriorated enough that it had broken off and wasn't even connected. After they were all replaced I sprayed some brake cleaner on the running engine to test for anything I may have missed*. Looks like it may have a slight leak at the carb baseplate. Considering that the gas in the clear filter I installed is a dark reddish color and that the tank is very likely full of residue, in the spring along with cleaning out the tank, replacing the pick up sock and the rubber lines I'll rebuild /clean up the carb too. One of the vacuum lines is between the distributor and the firewall so I had to pull the cap to get to it, it was pretty crusty inside. I didn't have time to run to the auto parts store so when I do the fuel system I'll do a full tune up at the same time. It's expected to get cold next week, pretty typical timing for southern Utah. It starts to get warm again around late February so it'll be on hold for only a couple months. That'll give me time to drive it and get a feel for anything else it'll need done so I can knock it all out at once.
After new vacuum lines I drove it around the neighborhood again. There was a bit of a stumble off idle before but it was nice and smooth now. Despite crappy fuel and needing a tune up, for as small an engine it is and what I expected based on what people said about the 2.8 I expected it to be pretty gutless. Honestly I'm more than impressed. Stabbing the throttle from a stop it'll spin the right tire for about a car length and it scoots fairly well. It'll do burnouts with ease too. This is much better than what I anticipated and as cool as a V8 would be I'm totally fine with leaving the 2.8 in there for a while. Later this afternoon I plan to run the first G-Tech run.
* I mentioned above I used brake cleaner to test for vacuum leaks. Well, don't do be stupid like me and do that. I guess I hosed it down pretty well and at one point while the truck was running the whole top of the engine caught on fire. As I ran to shut it off I thought "Great! I have a 35,000 mile barn find I'm going to kill it because all the wires are going to melt and it may very well burn to the ground!" The fire extinguisher was too far away and in the time it would take me to run and get it things could get ugly so I blew on it over and over as hard as I could, it was like having a 90th birthday party and blowing out all the candles, lol. That actually worked and doused all of it on the manifold and valve covers. There was stll some flames down on the back of the engine near the bell housing I just couldn't get to so I grabbed a close by bottle of simple green and dumped it back there, luckily that did the job. I restarted the engine and for a couple minutes rinsed it down with the garden hose. Looks like there was no damage, apparently at this point it was only burning off the cleaner. I got lucky, it could've gotten real ugly real fast. There's got to be a better method to test for vacuum leaks, but at least for now I learned what not to do. Derrrr.
More coming soon...
Good news on the paperwork, I have it back from Karen and have an appointment at the DMV tomorrow to get it registered. I'm pretty excited to start legally driving it around town.
Spent a couple hours yesterday replacing all the vacuum lines, all of them were gushy and/or cracked. I found the vacuum advance on the distributor had deteriorated enough that it had broken off and wasn't even connected. After they were all replaced I sprayed some brake cleaner on the running engine to test for anything I may have missed*. Looks like it may have a slight leak at the carb baseplate. Considering that the gas in the clear filter I installed is a dark reddish color and that the tank is very likely full of residue, in the spring along with cleaning out the tank, replacing the pick up sock and the rubber lines I'll rebuild /clean up the carb too. One of the vacuum lines is between the distributor and the firewall so I had to pull the cap to get to it, it was pretty crusty inside. I didn't have time to run to the auto parts store so when I do the fuel system I'll do a full tune up at the same time. It's expected to get cold next week, pretty typical timing for southern Utah. It starts to get warm again around late February so it'll be on hold for only a couple months. That'll give me time to drive it and get a feel for anything else it'll need done so I can knock it all out at once.
After new vacuum lines I drove it around the neighborhood again. There was a bit of a stumble off idle before but it was nice and smooth now. Despite crappy fuel and needing a tune up, for as small an engine it is and what I expected based on what people said about the 2.8 I expected it to be pretty gutless. Honestly I'm more than impressed. Stabbing the throttle from a stop it'll spin the right tire for about a car length and it scoots fairly well. It'll do burnouts with ease too. This is much better than what I anticipated and as cool as a V8 would be I'm totally fine with leaving the 2.8 in there for a while. Later this afternoon I plan to run the first G-Tech run.
* I mentioned above I used brake cleaner to test for vacuum leaks. Well, don't do be stupid like me and do that. I guess I hosed it down pretty well and at one point while the truck was running the whole top of the engine caught on fire. As I ran to shut it off I thought "Great! I have a 35,000 mile barn find I'm going to kill it because all the wires are going to melt and it may very well burn to the ground!" The fire extinguisher was too far away and in the time it would take me to run and get it things could get ugly so I blew on it over and over as hard as I could, it was like having a 90th birthday party and blowing out all the candles, lol. That actually worked and doused all of it on the manifold and valve covers. There was stll some flames down on the back of the engine near the bell housing I just couldn't get to so I grabbed a close by bottle of simple green and dumped it back there, luckily that did the job. I restarted the engine and for a couple minutes rinsed it down with the garden hose. Looks like there was no damage, apparently at this point it was only burning off the cleaner. I got lucky, it could've gotten real ugly real fast. There's got to be a better method to test for vacuum leaks, but at least for now I learned what not to do. Derrrr.
More coming soon...
You have no idea how bad the ugly could get. Brake Cleaners come in two versions CFC and Non-CFC. The cans themselves can be differentiated based on the labelling; CFC based uses a Red Label, Non CFC based has a green label. "Usually".
Chloro-Fluro-Carbon based brake cleaner, in the presence of heat, can catalyse and generate chlorine gas fumes. Normally this would be some kind of exposure post spray to high heat like a torch but if you managed to set the mixture of grease/crud and spray on fire and, then got close enough to blow on it, and escaped inhaling the fumes, then count yourself extremely lucky. Knew a tech writer named "BrewDude' who ran afoul of CFC and a big red wrench. To this day his lungs are scarred and he has other issues. At the time he thought that he had gotten away without issues but less than 24 hours later he ended up in the hospital. The take-away from that for me was to Never Mix brake cleaner, either version, and heat. My lungs don't work so well as it is.
On other matters,
As for deleting the ECU and cats and sensors. That is an exercise I will offer no opinion on. There are too many factors to consider, such as what your state requires for a safety check, how frequently they do "sniffer" tests, what rules and limits they place on "performance" repairs or upgrades, and how far you, the owner, are prepared to go in executing the conversion.
Thing here is, Zymurgy's Theorem, "the only way you can repackage a can of worms once you have opened the container is to get a larger container." In your case, eliminating the ECU, O-2 sensors and the cat, mean you also may have to swap out the carb and distributor if they are driven by the ECU. If, as mentioned above, the timer has a vacuum advance still in place and active, then the ECU/
ECM/EEE/??? may not have any influence or input into how the vehicle starts and runs. There may not even be one, if the vehicle is old enough; I can't speak to when the first gen ECM first appeared in the S-10s. My own truck has OBD II so essentially everything talks to the ECU and vice versa. That is why, for me, removing any single component in isolation still would produce a cascading effect that would influence everything else.
Nick
Chloro-Fluro-Carbon based brake cleaner, in the presence of heat, can catalyse and generate chlorine gas fumes. Normally this would be some kind of exposure post spray to high heat like a torch but if you managed to set the mixture of grease/crud and spray on fire and, then got close enough to blow on it, and escaped inhaling the fumes, then count yourself extremely lucky. Knew a tech writer named "BrewDude' who ran afoul of CFC and a big red wrench. To this day his lungs are scarred and he has other issues. At the time he thought that he had gotten away without issues but less than 24 hours later he ended up in the hospital. The take-away from that for me was to Never Mix brake cleaner, either version, and heat. My lungs don't work so well as it is.
On other matters,
As for deleting the ECU and cats and sensors. That is an exercise I will offer no opinion on. There are too many factors to consider, such as what your state requires for a safety check, how frequently they do "sniffer" tests, what rules and limits they place on "performance" repairs or upgrades, and how far you, the owner, are prepared to go in executing the conversion.
Thing here is, Zymurgy's Theorem, "the only way you can repackage a can of worms once you have opened the container is to get a larger container." In your case, eliminating the ECU, O-2 sensors and the cat, mean you also may have to swap out the carb and distributor if they are driven by the ECU. If, as mentioned above, the timer has a vacuum advance still in place and active, then the ECU/
ECM/EEE/??? may not have any influence or input into how the vehicle starts and runs. There may not even be one, if the vehicle is old enough; I can't speak to when the first gen ECM first appeared in the S-10s. My own truck has OBD II so essentially everything talks to the ECU and vice versa. That is why, for me, removing any single component in isolation still would produce a cascading effect that would influence everything else.
Nick
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SMH. The title has both the gentleman's name and his wife's name on it so when I filled out the deceased owner's form I put both names on it. I waited in line for 50 minutes at the DMV and in the first 5 seconds the attendant said we need one form signed and notarized for each name, you can't put both on the same form. SMH again... on the counter... several times. Of course the original gentleman I spoke to on the phone who was looking at a digital copy of the title while we were conversing and told me what form to look up, print and fill out said nothing about needing a copy for both names. Well, I can't say I've never been on the other side and accidently misguided customers in past jobs so it is what it is. Now I have to mail two forms to Karen and her husband in Vegas and wait for them to be notarized and sent back to me before I can title it in my name. As my son reassured me once it's done it'll seem like a small delay.
Careful running the engine on that varnish that's in the tank. You're risking causing intake valves to stick and end up with bent pushrods. I'd drop the tank or not run it.
Awesome find. My first vehicle was an 84 S10 Blazer 2.8, 5-Speed.
Awesome find. My first vehicle was an 84 S10 Blazer 2.8, 5-Speed.
Hmmm hadn't thought of that. There was only a couple gallons in the tank I think, it was at about 1/8 tank on the gauge. I put in near 6 gallons which brought it up closer to half a tank. So far so good driving for maybe 5-10 minuites around the neighborhood. I was thinking once it's registered to run it around town enough to run out what's in it then put in another maybe 5 or so gallons and repeat and continue to dilute and flush it out. 🤔
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