Old77's 1989 S10 tinkering project

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Old77

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1977/1990/1991
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C10 longbed/R1500 Burb/R3500 Dually
Engine Size
350/350/454

Old77

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350/350/454
Seat started putting holes in my britches so it was time for a redo.

Here’s how the seat looked a couple years ago (forgot to take a pic before I dropped her off at the shop :rolleyes: )
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Seat restored :love62: Has new foam and all. Only downside with the new foam is I now sit SOOO high up in the cab now :lol:
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animal

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Seat started putting holes in my britches so it was time for a redo.

Here’s how the seat looked a couple years ago (forgot to take a pic before I dropped her off at the shop :rolleyes: )
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Seat restored :love62: Has new foam and all. Only downside with the new foam is I now sit SOOO high up in the cab now :lol:
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And you ain't exactly a little fella to begin with :rofl:
 

DoubleDingo

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81-C20 Silverado Camper Special-TH400-4.10s
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Carb'ed Vortec 350
Seat started putting holes in my britches so it was time for a redo.

Here’s how the seat looked a couple years ago (forgot to take a pic before I dropped her off at the shop :rolleyes: )
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Seat restored :love62: Has new foam and all. Only downside with the new foam is I now sit SOOO high up in the cab now :lol:
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You now need to shrink a few inches in height to compensate
 

Old77

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So....S10 barely got me to work this morning and by the time she got here she was low on power. Temp gauge was high but she has all her coolant and nothing overflowing or bubbling. There was some smoke coming from the cap on the valve cover so I know the oil was hot but I would expect that to be pretty normal. She's been sitting out there for about an hour and a half now. She's back down to almost cold and runs normal again (I started her up in the parking lot and she sounds healthy again). When she was still hot I felt the upper rad hose and it was hot so I feel like there's circulation happening but could it possibly be a water pump going south on me? No leaks or anything and this is the first she's gotten hot on me in the almost 4 years I've owner her :hmm: I may take her out of daily driver duties for a little bit and give her a good going over with new radiator, water pump, hoses and tstat. I'm not sure the age is on those things and she may be due.
 

DoubleDingo

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Could just need a good cooling system flushing, and clean the radiator.
 

DoubleDingo

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By clean the radiator, I also meant cleaning the fins, and also checking the fins of the condenser. On my Jeep I had cooling issues for a long time, and part of it was buds lodged in the fins. Used a pick and carefully got them out, and also used water from the backside to hep dislodged them. Long process, but it worked, I then added some metal screen from the hardware store between the grille and condenser secured with screws so it didn't shift. Now the bugs stay on the screen and never get into the radiator or condenser fins.
 

Old77

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350/350/454
By clean the radiator, I also meant cleaning the fins, and also checking the fins of the condenser. On my Jeep I had cooling issues for a long time, and part of it was buds lodged in the fins. Used a pick and carefully got them out, and also used water from the backside to hep dislodged them. Long process, but it worked, I then added some metal screen from the hardware store between the grille and condenser secured with screws so it didn't shift. Now the bugs stay on the screen and never get into the radiator or condenser fins.
Not a bad idea. I hadn't thought about taking the rad out also clean it externally. I was thinking the coolant flush internally. Thanks for the idea!
 

DoubleDingo

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Not a bad idea. I hadn't thought about taking the rad out also clean it externally. I was thinking the coolant flush internally. Thanks for the idea!
I did this back 2013 or 2014 on my 81, removed the radiator after running a system flush through it for about a week. With a CLR solution and sloshing the radiator back and forth every hour or so for the day, was able to get a lot of scale out of the radiator and other crud out of the rest of the system. After many fills with just water, running the engine until top hose was hot, drain, repeat until zero scale was in the white bucket, filled with 50/50 distilled water and coolant. It would idle and never go above the first mark on the gauge, and it didn't matter how hot the ambient temperature was outside. Good luck on getting this fixed and getting the running temps where they were expected to be from the factory.
 

Old77

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350/350/454
I did this back 2013 or 2014 on my 81, removed the radiator after running a system flush through it for about a week. With a CLR solution and sloshing the radiator back and forth every hour or so for the day, was able to get a lot of scale out of the radiator and other crud out of the rest of the system. After many fills with just water, running the engine until top hose was hot, drain, repeat until zero scale was in the white bucket, filled with 50/50 distilled water and coolant. It would idle and never go above the first mark on the gauge, and it didn't matter how hot the ambient temperature was outside. Good luck on getting this fixed and getting the running temps where they were expected to be from the factory.
Per the gauge, it's always ran WAY cooler than I'd expect before today. I'm not sure if it is possible to get the running temps up to factory LOL apparently they're really cool or hotter than 90's Shania Twain LOL
 

bucket

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Per the gauge, it's always ran WAY cooler than I'd expect before today. I'm not sure if it is possible to get the running temps up to factory LOL apparently they're really cool or hotter than 90's Shania Twain LOL

Maybe the gauge reads lower than it should? In which case, warm could actually be really hot.
 

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