Gorilla: Part 4

Today on trucks, we're starting a new project. How to turn a Nest 10 into a fire breathing street truck on a budget.

Welcome to trucks. Now, you've seen some pretty wild stuff on our show before and we've got some projects coming up that are gonna knock your socks off. But

we also live in the real world and the B word budget rears its ugly head sometimes.

So

Kevin and I came up with this great plan,

we call it the S

10-K project S

10-K. Now that stands for a budget of $10,000

where we have to transform this truck into a reliable street

project that not only looks good but comes within reach of the average enthusiast. So why? An S 10? Well, it had a 22 year production run and as the world's most popular compact truck,

some plentiful and cheap

guys have been building wild S tens for years and there are tons of custom and performance parts available

since they came from the factory with a V6 which is pretty much a V8 with two cylinders sawed off. Why not take the cylinders back and shoe horn in a 350 in fact, S tens dominated on the drag

and they certainly had V eights in them.

So

we're gonna build the low slung sport truck that GM should have built.

But like we said,

we live in the real world and we can't just start throwing money in parts of this project.

So

we're gonna take an honest look at what we've got to start with.

Yep. So let's look at this thing, make our own plan.

Now, first, the body, the rest of it looks pretty good. But check this out. Both these cab corners are rusty and this one's rotted all the way through.

Looks like crap, man. We're definitely gonna have to deal with that.

Well, while he's working on old rusty,

I'm gonna do something about this stance

because the way it sits now, something my grandma would drive. But

when I get done lowering this thing all the way to the ground and put some tires and wheels on it,

it's gonna look real nice. It's gonna handle a lot better too. Well, it's because the roll center is gonna be, uh, lower. That's what I'm talking about.

Yikes

and we could do a lot better than this beat up bumper and hitch. There's plenty of roll pans and ground effects. We can throw on this to really tweak the styling.

I know one thing you gotta do something about this paint job that's about as boring as watching golf.

Yeah, it's boring. But you know, it's in a really pretty good shape.

I've been thinking about something like this. It's gonna look cool, but it ain't gonna bust our budget,

man. We are gonna wake up the styling in the front end of this truck. There are tons of aftermarket options for this. For instance, we could put a front Facia on here that incorporates a spoiler, lower air damp, maybe some fog lights, even a ground effects package for the rest of the truck and this grill, this thing is beat. We gotta get rid of this stock or maybe put a billet grill in here, maybe even a painted body color grill. The sky is the limit.

We got some issues here, man.

That thing runs like crap. You know what, this 4.3 V6, we can rebuild these and get some decent numbers with a little bit of help.

It's a waste of time.

Let's face it. There's not a six cylinder out there. That sounds as good as a V8 with,

I'm with you there. Instead of going with a boneyard motor. Let's get a crate engine. That way we'll have a warranty in case Bigfoot over here gets us in trouble. We don't need a warranty.

Let's let the fun begin. You got it.

All right. Before we start tearing stuff apart. Here's some tips that will help you put your project back together. We all know that you got a bag and label your fasteners as they're coming off the vehicle. But instead of writing your label on the bag, write it on an index card and throw it down in the bag. That way there's no chance of your label getting rubbed off a digital camera or any camera is a great reference tool. What this will allow you to do is to take reference photos and document your project as it goes along.

I like to use masking tape for electrical connections. This way it'll guide you putting things back together again and get you on the road faster.

So, penetrating oil on the fasters beforehand is a great way to save you some busted knuckles and broken bolts.

Come on, get it out of here. Hold your horses.

All right. Now that we're on jack stands, here's a plan. We're gonna get this bumper and this hitch Oper here, then we'll take the bed off the frame.

You're talking to me.

You must be talking to me because there's nobody else here.

All right, that'll get us sweeps on that side.

All right. Go for it.

One hitch gone.

One thing you don't want to do

is try and remove the bed with the wiring harness still attached.

Don't forget your fuel filler neck because if you do, it's gonna be like stepping on your own shoelaces.

All right, we got everything unhooked. All the bolts are out and that's time to get that bed off of it.

All right. Watch out, Kev. I got the perfect tool,

the old bed lifter.

The cool thing about this bed lift is that it'll work on almost any pickup bed if you're a one man show and you've got an engine hoist. This is the ticket

you in,

I'm

in. All right. Let's get this thing off of here. We've got to remove the bed to fix those rusty cab corners, but this also gives us great access to the frame, rear axle and fuel system.

Oh, man,

this thing is so ugly. You gotta sneak up on it to start it.

But you know, we're gonna show them how to clean this up and make it look awesome. When we come back from the break, we're gonna head up front, finish tearing this truck down, stick around

up next.

The sheet metal comes up and the motor comes out

later. It's a tranny upgrade that'll handle the power new V8.

Hey, welcome back to trucks and our S

10-K project where we have only $10,000 to turn this boring 95 S 10 into one mean street machine.

Now, we've already got the bed off. Now, let's get the front end off and this old mill out

before we blow this front end apart,

we're gonna get rid of this battery.

All right,

normally we throw this grill out, but because we're on a budget, we're gonna hold on to it

and I'll let you know why later.

Yeah. Like Paul said, we're not throwing anything away with this project, but trust us,

we got a good reason

when we're moving the hood off an S 10.

Make sure you keep up with your shoulder bolts. Do not let them drop down the fenders. Like

Kevin did

bag them, tag them that way. You know where they're at all the time. You ready? I'm waiting for you.

Come on,

when you finally put your truck back together, you're really gonna be glad that you labeled your wiring connections.

Here's a quick tip. If you care about your paint job, a couple of layers of masking tape in between your tight fitting panels will stop you from chipping them

during disassembly or reasses.

Our truck's paint is actually in pretty good shape,

so we'll save a ton of money by keeping it that way. The reason we're stripping our truck down to the cab is to get access to the areas we'll be working on

like the rear axle suspension brakes and especially the engine bay

since we're stuffing a V8 into it,

when you come across these body shims,

leave them there

because when you put this thing back together,

it's gonna line up just right

there we go.

Nice and easy.

A nice thing about our factory 4.3 V6

is that we'll be able to reuse the stock radiator and condenser.

Now,

this is a two man job and it's gonna take you all day to tear your truck down.

It's always easier to work under a truck with it raised up. Well placed. Jacksons were great and are cheap insurance.

Rs 10 has a two piece drive shaft with it out.

We're able to check the U joints and the support bearing

and our four L 60 E transmission

will use its original mounts and it bolts right up to our new small box V8.

Now, the entire serpentine belt system will bolt right under the front of a 350. And that means more money we can put into other places. But the stock exhaust has got to go

with everything unbolted. Make absolutely sure you've got all your electrical transmission and fuel lines disconnected before you start to yank the engine out.

I'll bet you'll forget something

he always does. Let's get this thing out of here.

You have to come up a little bit more.

Hi, pal, clear silence. We're good.

I think there's more oil on it than in it.

All right. Now, we've got this old tired six out. Let's put it aside. And when we come back,

we're gonna put that lowering kit on and then we're gonna drop it to the ground.

When we come back,

it's up on the lift to get lower to the ground

and we'll prep the entire frame for less than 100 bucks.

Hey, welcome back to trucks in the project. We're calling S

10-K. Now it's time to start spending some of that 10 grand we got bingo. Give that man a cigar with the bed off and the motor out. Now it's time to put that drop kit on.

Keep going slick.

Factory front knuckles, they're fine.

But everything changes when you add weight and power to the vehicle. So he's gotta go.

This is the stock knuckle that Paul just yanked off the front.

It's got a single piston caliper and a 10 inch rotor. This goes on our parts pile and this goes on our truck.

This is Bear's track system and it comes with braided stainless lines. And these 13 inch cross drilled invented rotors that are pinched together with twin piston calipers

to get a slower up front, we

belts

two inch drop spindle, a va conversion in your S 10 is gonna add as much as 200 pounds to the front end.

Now, stock rear brakes will work,

but you really want to beef up that front end brake system

when you get to the back of the truck and you find out your shocks are frozen with the studs. Here's a hot tip

with the fire extinguisher close by, apply a little heat to the backside of the stud

heat it until the rubber bushing starts to smoke. When you see the smoke, it should fry right off.

Now, if you're gonna use your truck like a truck, you wanna stay with the leaf spring system,

we drop the front two inches with spindles and we'll drop four inches out back with three inch drop springs and one inch lowering blocks. This will level the truck out and give us that cool stance. We're after,

hey, check this out.

This is the back end of our Bell tech lowering kit comes complete with the springs blocks, U bolts and all the hardware to drop this thing straight to the ground.

Now, with this kit, you don't have to buy new shocks, but

we got into our project. And, uh, as you can see,

hey, we decided to go with these mid grade gas stocks from our local parts store

three inches a drop in the springs along with our one inch lowering blocks will give us a four inch total drop out back.

Great thing about lowering blocks is that as easy as they are to put in,

they're that easy to remove if you want to change your ride height

and with only one inch block like ours,

you're not gonna give up that much ground clearance.

Now, before we paint our frame, we've gotta clean it. A wire brush and some stuff pads will take care of that rust. Some brake cleaner will take care of those greasy spots without leaving a residue.

Finally got him working.

Look,

we don't have to get this perfectly clean because we're using Por 15.

Now, por stands for paint over rust,

this stuff actually seals the rust in permanently. I mean,

it actually works better on a rusty surface than it does. Bare metal.

All it needs is the loose scale knocked off and a clean dry surface.

It's a moisture cured urethane, which means it uses the humidity in the air to cure and it dries nearly bulletproof.

Now, make sure you're wearing gloves when you use this stuff because it'll stick to your skin as well as it sticks to this frame. Now, stick around, don't go anywhere because when we come back, we're gonna beef up our transmission, get it ready for all that horsepower. We're gonna throw at it

next. It's hardcore how to, that's not as hard as you think,

affordable tranny upgrades that yes,

you can do yourself.

Welcome back to trucks and our project S

10-K while Picasso is back there, finishing up painting the frame. I'm gonna wake up the $700 transmission, try and get a little more power to the ground,

especially since we've divorced it from old

Lama over there. Now to do this, we're gonna use the B and M trans pack shift improvement kit. It comes with all the gaskets, spacers, drill bits, springs, everything you need to do the job, right.

We also asked him to send us this deep sump pen that's gonna give us extra capacity,

all the brackets and all the cables that we need to make our new crate motor up to our stock transmission.

Then we're gonna finish it off with this whole shot converter that's gonna give us a 3000 RPM style speed.

When we drove our truck, the engine was crap but the transmission shifted. Ok.

So when we took the pan off, we find that there's no signs of any problems. It's nice and clean and the fluid looks good.

Don't be intimidated by this shift kit. It comes with detailed instructions. Plus you've got B and M's tech support, just keep your work area clean and keep up with your parts

with the valve body removed. Your accumulator housing comes off, followed by the separator plate with all the check balls in the proper locations.

As you transfer the check balls into the valve body,

use petroleum jelly to keep them in place during reassembly,

a new filter board seal comes with a kit to replace the old one.

A snapper ring holds in the pressure regulator which is removed to access the regulator's spring.

A heavier green colored spring will replace the stock one, giving us a much firmer shift.

Don't reuse the stock snap ring, use the B and M ring that's provided

your 12 accumulator piston comes out,

the pin is replaced to hold the kit's blue spacer.

Now, if you're installing this kit with your trans in the truck, petroleum jelly will hold things in place while you're working upside down.

The first thing you would do with the separator plate is to get rid of these old solenoid filters.

You're also going to need to enlarge a couple of holes in your separated plate using the 18 and 3 32nd drills that come with the hardware

on the back side of the plate. Be sure to deer

the holes and clean any dirt and debris from the plate.

You'll have to install an aluminum plug in your plate as well.

Steady the plug with the separator plate and strike it squarely with the hammer flattening it just enough to hold it in place.

Now you can install the new solenoid filters.

The piston needs to be pushed out of the accumulator housing

with the pin back in place. You'll use the white and violet spacers.

And since we're using the street level version, the stock springs can be completely left out,

install your new gaskets along with your modified separator plate,

followed by the valve body

and the electrical harness.

And finally everything is torque back to spec.

A stock transmission is designed to have a smooth, comfortable shift.

But along with that comfort, you have slippage from one gear to the next and with the extra power of a V8, that just means more wear in a clutch place. What a shift kit does is allow firmer, more efficient shifts and that will extend the life of tranny.

Our new torque converter has a higher stall speed than the stock unit. And that means that the engine is actually higher up in the power band when it finally hooks up with the rear wheels

for now, we're gonna leave this old torque converter in place because with more than 100 30,000 miles on this transmission, that front seal is probably gonna need to be replaced.

Now, that'll have to happen in another show

when we can finally bolt up our beefed up tranny to our 350 crate engine.

The new heart and soul of project S

10-K.

If you've ever been frustrated, blindly stabbing your rig into your trailer tongue, this is for you. This is the snap hitch from the quick hitch company and here's how it works. First take your appropriate hitch ball, drop it at a place, twist it, lock it,

then install this king pin into your trailer. Tongue.

Next take your snap hitch

and light it into your receiver and secure it with a pin.

Now with your trailer adjusted at the correct height back your rig in

and it all just locks into place, pull the pin

and you're locked in.

This snap pitch will set you back about 365 bucks. We'll see you guys next week.