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This is our 1971 Chevrolet pick up truck with 105k miles on the odometer. This was my wife’s Grandfather’s truck he bought new. As we dated I admired this truck and told her that if he ever decided to sell the truck I was going to buy it. Originally it is a long wheel base Cheyenne model and came with a 350 Engine with Q-jet and a TH350 along with 3.73 rear end. Front Disc brakes with Drums in the rear. For the past 10+ years the truck has been used in different capacities. Sometimes it was just a truck to take the trash off in, others it was my daily driver. It has always been reliable, it would sit for long periods of times and fire right up when needed. I always enjoy driving it. I have always wanted to pull the engine and rebuild it but now I want to use it to pull my 97 Z28 to the drag strips so after much consideration I have decided to pull the 350/350 combo in favor of a 6.0/4L80 set up. I am hoping the fuel injection will offer a nice MPG increase and the extra HP/TQ that this will offer should pull what I need it to. Also being added is a brake booster from Pirate Jack plus replacing rear coil springs with air bags.

side of truck

 

sweet1
rear of Truck

After 30+ years some things need replacing. The passenger side door handle has broke and I picked these up to replace the handles.

new door handle
Door handles

These are the motor mounts I am hoping will work with the stock motor perches, if not, we will make our own. I will be getting some poly mounts for the motor and transmission. I plan on using the stock cross member. *I should have used 4572 because I could not use the motor mounts, just needed the plates.*

driverside mtr mt1
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Here are some pix of pulling the motor. I will next clean the engine bay and some of the other areas that have multiple years of grime and dirt dobber nests.

Front hoist
71 as is
Old 350
on the chain
pulling out almost out

These markings are on the firewall and radiator support

Rad support
Firewall

Setting motor and trans into the truck. It’s not always easy, the load leveler bit me the day before while making sure it was going to work properly. It worked pretty well but the thumb has a chunk out of it and very tender. That’s my brother enjoying the view.

puttin 60 in
60 in
blood

Test fitting of fuel filter (580) and fuel pump (E2000). I will be removing stock fuel line and running a new line. I was able to use predrilled holes in frame to mount everything. I would have thought GM engineers in 1970’s thought of this swap, things are falling into place. Notice the same 997 on the frame as on the firewall....

fuel fitler

I am using the stock motor mounts with adaptor plates shown above and new poly engine mounts. *Note: the adaptor plates are not on correctly, this was corrected and the A/C bracket shown is not going to fit without modifications, that will come later.

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The Doug Thorley headers arrived today and within 30 min had them installed. They look great and fit awesome! The only thing to note is there is a tab on the transmission that should be cut before installing. I have made pix of that here so maybe others can take of this before installing headers.

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Here is where the tab interferes with the headers. And a picture after that tab has been cut out of the way.

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Found out today that the stock truck wires will not work. I had a partial set of F-body MSD wires laying around that I test fitted, looks like they will work.

MSD Wires
stock wires

The truck is now in daily driver mode. Working out a few bug but for the most part things are doing well. Cruises at 194*. Still working on tune.

Pix below is from Alan’s ‘mod party’ for his CTS-V.

birdseyeview
passsidemotor
sideatjeffs

In the picture above you can tell the wheels and most of the other truck has not been kept up so me and my boys got out with some steal wool and rubbed on the rims some. I think they did a very good job!

cleaned wheels
cleaned wheels 2
dirty rims
wheel
burnoutdriveway
cleaned rims

Installed the engine covers. I think it cleans up the mess of wires pretty good. Later I will remove the ‘power max’ and possibly paint the covers to match the truck. Just not sure yet.

driver side cover
engine cover on

 

pass side cover

Had the seat recovered too. I have to remove the seat and install the middle seat belt and hope that the speakers fit under there.

seat recovered

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