The Wonderer said:

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Silvy, are you just trying to collect every model of Chevy trucks?

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Perhaps

Purchased this one with a running 350 and somewhat working AC. Not sure if I'll be able to stand the close resemblance of burnt orange.

It's.... beautiful

that back seat

That's a nice find

Still have this

Same day I brought it home, I was messing around with transfer case shifter and it got stuck in neutral.

I've finally found some time to work on it and removed the NP203 shifter assembly. I found it to be externally caked in oil and found it to be packed full of a marine grease and more caked on oil. Even removed, I couldn't work the shift levers by hand.

The research I've done indicates that these shifters are quite finicky and definitely seem intricate with all their plates. I'm going to use a much lighter lubricant during reassembly.

Yeah the rattles are no longer a priority, I just want to drive it around at this point. I've done a lot of research on big block and LS swaps for these, but it's going to stay SBC for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the current block is up to the task.

My friend's dad initially bought the K5 so that his son and I had something to cruise around in Jamaica Beach. My friend suddenly passed in January so this will be a tribute type deal, just needs to be able to do a burnout & have a Dixie and/or War Hymn horn.

I did some thorough cleaning of the shifter assembly and then began to put it back together. I found that one of the linkages would have no more than 1/2" of throw no matter how I flipped/sequenced the plates of the shifter.

I gave up on trying to make the OE mechanism work and decided to make it a very simple twin stick. I bought some 3/16" x 1.25" flat bar and 1/2" rod stock and got to cutting/grinding. One of the OE shift plates got cut and welded to flat bar that I bent. The other shift plate was just welded to the OE shift arm.

It's not perfect, but it seems to be working damn well. Next up is u-joint for front driveshaft and reinstalling the DS.








I offer a blue star to poster that guesses the numbers of the pool balls I plan for shift knobs.

6 and 9?

Nice.

Some of the very first parts that were ordered for the K5 were various door/window seals. When I drove the K5 from Galveston to my house, the amount of wind noise was atrocious. The vent window seals were essentially completely rotten away, so naturally, that's what I went after first.

In hindsight, I should've conferred with Centerpole90 prior to starting the replacement of vent window seals. I removed the DS vent window and began working to removed the glass from the vent window assembly. Almost instantly, the stud of the glass frame snapped and I was dead in the water. I then had a video conference with CP90 who started howling with laughter when I told him what I did. Turns out these vent windows are notoriously difficult to replace/reseal and of course, it was the first thing I went after. I did some further research and found that companies charge $300 (in labor alone) to rebuild each vent window and that amount of money for such a seemingly simple task just flies in the face of my principles.

Years pass and I finally build up the courage to tackle the DS vent window rebuild, I felt terrible seeing the K5 rest underneath a car cover of shame. I have very little free time these days, but the vent window was something I could work on a little bit at a time.

Once the vent window was rebuilt, it was time to begin making moves to actually make the K5 move without the use of starting fluid. I wanted to ditch the Quadrajet and had an intake manifold that would allow the use of a square bore carb, but I didn't have the carb. While the intake manifold swap does not appear to be a very difficult swap, I'm still quite limited on time and I don't want to expose the top end and then have to leave the project on hold for weeks or months. I took advantage of Black Friday and ordered an Edelbrock 1906 carb along with an adapter plate to utilize the existing spreadbore intake manifold. I've got the Edelbrock carb mounted on the engine, but am working to make all the connections.

I really dislike the use of rubber hose for anything and AN hose is generally pretty damn expensive. I also ordered the fuel hardline for the carb and an adapter to mate the OE hardline to the carb hardline. Once I got it all in place, I found that the hardline has a fair amount of interference with the heater core hose/fitting at the intake manifold. I ordered a 90 fitting to replace the straight fitting in hopes that the fuel hardline will now clear without interference, but have not yet had the time to get it installed.

My apologies for the yappachino

I drove an old beat up K5 in high school. It always had a rattle in the drivers door. One day I slammed the door and it didn't close. Opened it back up and a slim jim fell out the bottom of the door.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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I drove an old beat up K5 in high school. It always had a rattle in the drivers door. One day I slammed the door and it didn't close. Opened it back up and a slim jim fell out the bottom of the door.

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As I'm dealing with my father at age 88, what I wouldn't give to go back to Valdez when he was multi-engine Commercial Rated.