Carcass Featured Projects
Carcass Builds
Want more content like this?
Join the PowerNation Email NewsletterEpisode Transcript
(Jeremy)>> You're watching Powernation!
(Jimmy)>> Today on Carcass we bring our old abandoned Chevy shop truck back to give it some upgrades. We'll show you how to add a few more horsepower to your ride by adding a mild cam and a new valve spring package to our salvage yard LS swap.
(Jeremy)>> Plus two decades of wear and tear has our interior looking dilapidated. We'll show you a quick and easy way to spruce up the interior of your vehicle. [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ]
(Jeremy)>> Alright Jimmy, straight back. That's pretty good! Hey guys, welcome to Carcass. Jimmy and I decided to bring back our little shop truck here. This is a '96 Silverado. We picked this up as an abandoned project. Didn't have an engine or transmission in it when we got it, and we did a bunch of stuff to it. If you guys are interested in how we got it to this point well this is what we've done. The truck first rolled into our shop so we could show you guys how to do some basic body work, like pulling some dents... [ slide hammer banging ] ...spreading some body filler, and how to straighten everything out. Plus, we replaced the cab corners and put everything into primer. With the popularity of these o-b-s Chevys we wanted to spice things up under the hood with an LS swap. So we headed to a local junkyard, pulled a 5-3 and a 4-L-60 out of a wrecked Suburban, and headed back to the shop. That's how you pull a junkyard motor. Once we were back we stripped down the LS, added some new parts, and sealed everything back up. With the engine swap taken care of we moved back to the outside of the truck to finish the body work. We wrapped that up with a respray back to its original factory color. The last thing we did was invite the guys in from Edelbrock to help us upgrade our stock e-c-u to a more tunable Pro Flow 4 Plus setup with a T/C trans controller as well.
(Jimmy)>> And with that system we can upgrade some of the engine parts, and in this case we do want to put a different cam in this thing to wake it up a little bit, and in general some stuff we want to do to the truck to kinda spruce it up. We'd like to replace some of the exterior parts like the grille and the bumpers cause they're just worn out from over time, and also the interior is kinda beat up. So we've got some replacement parts to go in it, give it a nice stock look, but for now we do want to replace the cam. So I've got to grille off and get a bunch of stuff out of the engine bay. [ Music ] [ drill humming ]
(Jimmy)>> The main thing I'm trying to do here is just get everything out from in front of the engine. When doing a cam swap you have to have enough room to get the cam in and out. So I have to get the radiator out, all the front accessories off, and anything else out front like the a/c condenser. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> The crankshaft pulley also has to come off so we can get the timing cover off, which will give us access to the camshaft. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> I've got everything off of the front of the engine that I need out of the way minus the timing gear. Otherwise I still have a few things to take off the top, like the valve covers, that way we have access to the valve springs, but we're moving right along with our cam swap. [ drill humming ]
(Jimmy)>> Coming up, we finish our cam install and add valve springs to make it all work in harmony.
(Jimmy)>> At this point I've got the valve covers off, rocker arms off, push rods out, and the spark plugs out. Something else cool about these LS engines is that the lifter trays will actually hold the lifters once you take the tension off of the valvetrain. Right now I have to rotate the engine around a few times, line up the timing marks, and then we can start taking the cam out. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> I'm about ready to pull the cam out and I'm gonna do one thing for a little bit of extra insurance against the lifters falling out of their trays. I'm gonna put a five-sixteenths diameter rod in the oil passages next to the cam. I got this one at our local hardware store. It was about four feet long and I just cut it in half. It was about $1.30. So, I've got one in here now. I'll put this one in, and then we can pull the cam out. Using dowels is pretty common just to keep the lifters from falling back onto the camshaft and ending up somewhere in the oil pan. [ Music ] So, we've got our old cam out. Ready to put the new one in. We got this Melling cam from RockAuto dot com. It's actually a cam and spring kit, and what's nice about it is RockAuto doesn't only offer o-e parts for stuff like this. You can actually get some mild performance upgrades as well. [ Music ]
After the camshaft install I'll take the dowels out, put on the cam retainer plate, and carefully reinstall our timing gear making sure to line up the marks appropriately. [ Music ] [ torque wrenching beeping ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> Everything went really smooth with the cam install, and now we have to replace the valve springs. The cam does have a little bit higher lift. So, the stock springs will not work. To change those with the engine in the truck what we have to do is have a way to pressurize the cylinder so that the valves stay up. Then we'll use this little valve spring compressor tool, get the keepers off, take the springs off, and then reverse everything to get the new springs on. [ Music ] After pressurizing the cylinder I'll have to compress the valve springs to get the keepers out and take the old valve springs off. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> Since we're already here it's a good idea to replace the valve seals as well, and we got ours from RockAuto. [ Music ]
To install the new valve springs I'll go in reverse order. Compressing the spring, installing the keepers, and then removing the spring compressor tool. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> Once the driver's side is done, I'll repeat the process for the passenger side. [ Music ]
After all the springs are installed, I'll reinstall the rocker arms and torque them down. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ]
(Jimmy)>> Everything looks like it's working like it's supposed to. So, I'll just go in the reverse order, put everything back together, and then Jeremy can show you what we're gonna do to the interior.
(Jeremy)>> Up next, the sun burnt interior of our Silverado has seen better days. We'll start the process of giving the inside of our Chevy a fresh look.
(Jeremy)>> Well now that Jimmy has gotten the underside of the hood all buttoned up we're sitting pretty there, and the overall exterior condition of this truck is really nice only because we have done some paint and body work. Now the only thing we haven't touched on this 27 year old Silverado is the interior. The carpet showing quite a bit of wear. It's definitely faded. So we're gonna replace that, and over here on the drivers side door panel we're missing some trim pieces. Plus, the plastic is all broken away on this truck. So, we're gonna tackle that as well. We're gonna start down low here with the carpet first. So, I've got to get rid of the seat. [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ]
(Jeremy)>> To get the old carpet out we'll have to remove the seatbelts and a bunch of trim pieces, which includes a couple of screws and bolts, and then we'll be ready to go. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jeremy)>> This is unbelievable. You want to talk about the ultimate way to make the inside of a truck look good. This is the color the carpet should be. This has been covered up its whole life. If you come and look over here where the sun has been beating on this carpet it's such a drastic difference. Again, the carpet looks like it's in good shape but it's extremely faded. We're gonna get this out of here, and I can't wait to see what the new carpet's gonna look like installed. [ Music ] Alright guys, one thing to note here when you guys order your carpet. What we did is ordered it as close to an o-e style as possible. So it has this rubber backing to it, and it even has the padding already installed on the bottom. A quick little tip here. When you guys go to install your carpet take it out and let it sit on the floor for a couple of days. Get it as flat as possible. That way it goes back to its shape, or the shape to fit the vehicle, and if you can put it in the sun. What that does is it drives a bunch of heat into it and it makes it a little bit easier to mold or push into place. They come a little bit bigger than what's gonna fit your vehicle. So you'll probably have to do a little bit of trimming. We'll get this picked up, in the truck, trim it to fit, put the rest of the truck back together. [ Music ]
There's a little mark on the back of the carpet, this rubber backing here, and that looks like almost a molding line for you to follow to trim the carpet to fit. It was pretty close when we did the test fit. So, we'll see what happens here once I get done. [ Music ]
So to find your holes for your seat, and your seatbelts, and stuff the easiest way to go about doing that is pick the carpet up and put your finger on the hole. Use your other finger to center it. Take a screwdriver or something sharp, find it that way so you know you're right. And if you don't have black carpet you can mark it with a marker, and do that for all of the bolts in the floor, and then we'll come back and we'll actually melt through the carpet with a little tool and then we can install the seat. [ Music ] The torch and a piece of aluminum tubing heated up works well for this. It makes a perfect hole. Plus, it melts the carpet fibers back together so you don't get any frays. [ Music ] Moving on with the interior refresh we're gonna go ahead and get rid of these door panels. We're also gonna do a couple of things inside the door for maintenance. [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
[ drill humming ]
(Jeremy)>> Just getting this disengaged, and then getting it disengaged from the glass as well, which is always a challenge. Kinda run out of room here to move around. A little bit of pulling and they come out. [ Music ] So now that we have the door gutted and everything out of the inside we're gonna move on to the maintenance side of things. One of the things these trucks are known for is sagging doors, and that all lies here in the door hinge pins and the bushings. So we're gonna go ahead and drive the pins out of it. We're gonna take the door completely off of the truck, and then we'll work on replacing those bushings. [ air hammer vibrating ]
(Jeremy)>> That simple. Do your windows take forever to go up and down? We'll show you how to replace those worn out regulators next.
(Jeremy)>> To put our door back together we went to RockAuto dot com and we picked up some maintenance items. Now you guys know on these o-b-s trucks sometimes you push the window button and the window goes up very slowly, or you actually have to put your hand on top of the glass and help it reach all the way to the top. So we went ahead and picked up some window regulators and the motor assemblies. We got both the left and the right side. We have the upper and lower door hinge pin bushing kits, and we even picked up some door handles and the interior trim pieces. Now since the door's already off and it's gonna be really easy to get to them we're gonna start right here with the hinge pins. [ Music ]
[ Music ]
We'll keep rolling here. We'll go ahead and install the new window regulator. To do this we have to slide it into position, line up the factory holes, and install it using a heavy duty rivet gun and rivets. [ Music ]
Get this up into place here, connect everything up, screw the panel back on. [ Music ]
[ Music ]
Alright, wrap it up. We'll put on our new door panels. These also came from RockAuto. Just make this truck look really good. [ Music ] Always a little bit of a challenge to do this by yourself but good thing this is only a 60/40 seat. So, a little easier. [ drill humming ] [ Music ] That buttons up the interior. One quick tip here. When you guys install new carpet and stuff there's usually quite a bit of fuzz. If you take a piece of tape and wrap it around your hand like that, you make this handy little lint roller. Then you can get all the lint off the carpet. So, I'm gonna go ahead, clean this up a little bit, and then we'll move on to the bumpers. [ drill humming ]
(Jimmy)>> Alright we've got a couple of pieces to put on this thing. Got a new bumper and a new grille from RockAuto. Get these installed and this thing will be looking really nice. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jeremy)>> You know the front of the truck looks so good now, and the interior made this big change, but I'm really curious how this truck is gonna sound now that the cam's in it.
(Jimmy)>> Yeah, it should have a nice little grumble to it at this point.
(Jeremy)>> Fire it up and get that little cam lope to it. [ engine starting and idling ]
(Jimmy)>> Yeah, I like it. Much better than what it was. It just has a touch of a little something and it makes you go, I wonder what's in it.
(Jeremy)>> You should hear it from out here. It's nice and simple.
(Jimmy)>> We'll let it warm up.
(Jeremy)>> Once the weather clears up here a little bit we should take this thing out. We can use it as our parts truck. We'll go get a bunch of parts, fill the bed up. Sounds pretty good!
Show Full Transcript
(Jimmy)>> Today on Carcass we bring our old abandoned Chevy shop truck back to give it some upgrades. We'll show you how to add a few more horsepower to your ride by adding a mild cam and a new valve spring package to our salvage yard LS swap.
(Jeremy)>> Plus two decades of wear and tear has our interior looking dilapidated. We'll show you a quick and easy way to spruce up the interior of your vehicle. [ Music ] [ engine revving ] [ Music ]
(Jeremy)>> Alright Jimmy, straight back. That's pretty good! Hey guys, welcome to Carcass. Jimmy and I decided to bring back our little shop truck here. This is a '96 Silverado. We picked this up as an abandoned project. Didn't have an engine or transmission in it when we got it, and we did a bunch of stuff to it. If you guys are interested in how we got it to this point well this is what we've done. The truck first rolled into our shop so we could show you guys how to do some basic body work, like pulling some dents... [ slide hammer banging ] ...spreading some body filler, and how to straighten everything out. Plus, we replaced the cab corners and put everything into primer. With the popularity of these o-b-s Chevys we wanted to spice things up under the hood with an LS swap. So we headed to a local junkyard, pulled a 5-3 and a 4-L-60 out of a wrecked Suburban, and headed back to the shop. That's how you pull a junkyard motor. Once we were back we stripped down the LS, added some new parts, and sealed everything back up. With the engine swap taken care of we moved back to the outside of the truck to finish the body work. We wrapped that up with a respray back to its original factory color. The last thing we did was invite the guys in from Edelbrock to help us upgrade our stock e-c-u to a more tunable Pro Flow 4 Plus setup with a T/C trans controller as well.
(Jimmy)>> And with that system we can upgrade some of the engine parts, and in this case we do want to put a different cam in this thing to wake it up a little bit, and in general some stuff we want to do to the truck to kinda spruce it up. We'd like to replace some of the exterior parts like the grille and the bumpers cause they're just worn out from over time, and also the interior is kinda beat up. So we've got some replacement parts to go in it, give it a nice stock look, but for now we do want to replace the cam. So I've got to grille off and get a bunch of stuff out of the engine bay. [ Music ] [ drill humming ]
(Jimmy)>> The main thing I'm trying to do here is just get everything out from in front of the engine. When doing a cam swap you have to have enough room to get the cam in and out. So I have to get the radiator out, all the front accessories off, and anything else out front like the a/c condenser. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> The crankshaft pulley also has to come off so we can get the timing cover off, which will give us access to the camshaft. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> I've got everything off of the front of the engine that I need out of the way minus the timing gear. Otherwise I still have a few things to take off the top, like the valve covers, that way we have access to the valve springs, but we're moving right along with our cam swap. [ drill humming ]
(Jimmy)>> Coming up, we finish our cam install and add valve springs to make it all work in harmony.
(Jimmy)>> At this point I've got the valve covers off, rocker arms off, push rods out, and the spark plugs out. Something else cool about these LS engines is that the lifter trays will actually hold the lifters once you take the tension off of the valvetrain. Right now I have to rotate the engine around a few times, line up the timing marks, and then we can start taking the cam out. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> I'm about ready to pull the cam out and I'm gonna do one thing for a little bit of extra insurance against the lifters falling out of their trays. I'm gonna put a five-sixteenths diameter rod in the oil passages next to the cam. I got this one at our local hardware store. It was about four feet long and I just cut it in half. It was about $1.30. So, I've got one in here now. I'll put this one in, and then we can pull the cam out. Using dowels is pretty common just to keep the lifters from falling back onto the camshaft and ending up somewhere in the oil pan. [ Music ] So, we've got our old cam out. Ready to put the new one in. We got this Melling cam from RockAuto dot com. It's actually a cam and spring kit, and what's nice about it is RockAuto doesn't only offer o-e parts for stuff like this. You can actually get some mild performance upgrades as well. [ Music ]
After the camshaft install I'll take the dowels out, put on the cam retainer plate, and carefully reinstall our timing gear making sure to line up the marks appropriately. [ Music ] [ torque wrenching beeping ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> Everything went really smooth with the cam install, and now we have to replace the valve springs. The cam does have a little bit higher lift. So, the stock springs will not work. To change those with the engine in the truck what we have to do is have a way to pressurize the cylinder so that the valves stay up. Then we'll use this little valve spring compressor tool, get the keepers off, take the springs off, and then reverse everything to get the new springs on. [ Music ] After pressurizing the cylinder I'll have to compress the valve springs to get the keepers out and take the old valve springs off. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> Since we're already here it's a good idea to replace the valve seals as well, and we got ours from RockAuto. [ Music ]
To install the new valve springs I'll go in reverse order. Compressing the spring, installing the keepers, and then removing the spring compressor tool. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ]
(Jimmy)>> Once the driver's side is done, I'll repeat the process for the passenger side. [ Music ]
After all the springs are installed, I'll reinstall the rocker arms and torque them down. [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ] [ Music ] [ ratchet clicking ]
(Jimmy)>> Everything looks like it's working like it's supposed to. So, I'll just go in the reverse order, put everything back together, and then Jeremy can show you what we're gonna do to the interior.
(Jeremy)>> Up next, the sun burnt interior of our Silverado has seen better days. We'll start the process of giving the inside of our Chevy a fresh look.
(Jeremy)>> Well now that Jimmy has gotten the underside of the hood all buttoned up we're sitting pretty there, and the overall exterior condition of this truck is really nice only because we have done some paint and body work. Now the only thing we haven't touched on this 27 year old Silverado is the interior. The carpet showing quite a bit of wear. It's definitely faded. So we're gonna replace that, and over here on the drivers side door panel we're missing some trim pieces. Plus, the plastic is all broken away on this truck. So, we're gonna tackle that as well. We're gonna start down low here with the carpet first. So, I've got to get rid of the seat. [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ]
(Jeremy)>> To get the old carpet out we'll have to remove the seatbelts and a bunch of trim pieces, which includes a couple of screws and bolts, and then we'll be ready to go. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jeremy)>> This is unbelievable. You want to talk about the ultimate way to make the inside of a truck look good. This is the color the carpet should be. This has been covered up its whole life. If you come and look over here where the sun has been beating on this carpet it's such a drastic difference. Again, the carpet looks like it's in good shape but it's extremely faded. We're gonna get this out of here, and I can't wait to see what the new carpet's gonna look like installed. [ Music ] Alright guys, one thing to note here when you guys order your carpet. What we did is ordered it as close to an o-e style as possible. So it has this rubber backing to it, and it even has the padding already installed on the bottom. A quick little tip here. When you guys go to install your carpet take it out and let it sit on the floor for a couple of days. Get it as flat as possible. That way it goes back to its shape, or the shape to fit the vehicle, and if you can put it in the sun. What that does is it drives a bunch of heat into it and it makes it a little bit easier to mold or push into place. They come a little bit bigger than what's gonna fit your vehicle. So you'll probably have to do a little bit of trimming. We'll get this picked up, in the truck, trim it to fit, put the rest of the truck back together. [ Music ]
There's a little mark on the back of the carpet, this rubber backing here, and that looks like almost a molding line for you to follow to trim the carpet to fit. It was pretty close when we did the test fit. So, we'll see what happens here once I get done. [ Music ]
So to find your holes for your seat, and your seatbelts, and stuff the easiest way to go about doing that is pick the carpet up and put your finger on the hole. Use your other finger to center it. Take a screwdriver or something sharp, find it that way so you know you're right. And if you don't have black carpet you can mark it with a marker, and do that for all of the bolts in the floor, and then we'll come back and we'll actually melt through the carpet with a little tool and then we can install the seat. [ Music ] The torch and a piece of aluminum tubing heated up works well for this. It makes a perfect hole. Plus, it melts the carpet fibers back together so you don't get any frays. [ Music ] Moving on with the interior refresh we're gonna go ahead and get rid of these door panels. We're also gonna do a couple of things inside the door for maintenance. [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
[ drill humming ]
(Jeremy)>> Just getting this disengaged, and then getting it disengaged from the glass as well, which is always a challenge. Kinda run out of room here to move around. A little bit of pulling and they come out. [ Music ] So now that we have the door gutted and everything out of the inside we're gonna move on to the maintenance side of things. One of the things these trucks are known for is sagging doors, and that all lies here in the door hinge pins and the bushings. So we're gonna go ahead and drive the pins out of it. We're gonna take the door completely off of the truck, and then we'll work on replacing those bushings. [ air hammer vibrating ]
(Jeremy)>> That simple. Do your windows take forever to go up and down? We'll show you how to replace those worn out regulators next.
(Jeremy)>> To put our door back together we went to RockAuto dot com and we picked up some maintenance items. Now you guys know on these o-b-s trucks sometimes you push the window button and the window goes up very slowly, or you actually have to put your hand on top of the glass and help it reach all the way to the top. So we went ahead and picked up some window regulators and the motor assemblies. We got both the left and the right side. We have the upper and lower door hinge pin bushing kits, and we even picked up some door handles and the interior trim pieces. Now since the door's already off and it's gonna be really easy to get to them we're gonna start right here with the hinge pins. [ Music ]
[ Music ]
We'll keep rolling here. We'll go ahead and install the new window regulator. To do this we have to slide it into position, line up the factory holes, and install it using a heavy duty rivet gun and rivets. [ Music ]
Get this up into place here, connect everything up, screw the panel back on. [ Music ]
[ Music ]
Alright, wrap it up. We'll put on our new door panels. These also came from RockAuto. Just make this truck look really good. [ Music ] Always a little bit of a challenge to do this by yourself but good thing this is only a 60/40 seat. So, a little easier. [ drill humming ] [ Music ] That buttons up the interior. One quick tip here. When you guys install new carpet and stuff there's usually quite a bit of fuzz. If you take a piece of tape and wrap it around your hand like that, you make this handy little lint roller. Then you can get all the lint off the carpet. So, I'm gonna go ahead, clean this up a little bit, and then we'll move on to the bumpers. [ drill humming ]
(Jimmy)>> Alright we've got a couple of pieces to put on this thing. Got a new bumper and a new grille from RockAuto. Get these installed and this thing will be looking really nice. [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ] [ drill humming ] [ Music ]
(Jeremy)>> You know the front of the truck looks so good now, and the interior made this big change, but I'm really curious how this truck is gonna sound now that the cam's in it.
(Jimmy)>> Yeah, it should have a nice little grumble to it at this point.
(Jeremy)>> Fire it up and get that little cam lope to it. [ engine starting and idling ]
(Jimmy)>> Yeah, I like it. Much better than what it was. It just has a touch of a little something and it makes you go, I wonder what's in it.
(Jeremy)>> You should hear it from out here. It's nice and simple.
(Jimmy)>> We'll let it warm up.
(Jeremy)>> Once the weather clears up here a little bit we should take this thing out. We can use it as our parts truck. We'll go get a bunch of parts, fill the bed up. Sounds pretty good!
