The S-15 with the LT1

 A little while ago I made a snap decision to buy an S-15 with a small block Chevy in it. I drove it and found that it had a hell of a time putting the power to the ground. Needless to say,I decided to pull the 350 out of it and through the original 305 from our Firebird project into it and fix it up a bit then give it to my mom. Now my mother is not exactly a spring chicken so the 305 with a mild work over like headers,a mild cam and a decent stereo will suit her just fine. and of course,putting the interior back together is a must. And as you can see from the pictures below it does leave a little to be desired.

When I first had a look at this truck I noticed that there was lots of things done that gave me the impression that it was slapped together,namely how the plug wires were a mix match of a few different sets and the zip tires to keep all the extra wires out of the way of moving parts. The truck has twin electric fans,one of which was hooked up to a switch and the other directly to ignition power as well as a flex fan attached to the water pump. I don't know about you but,I am not a fan of flex fans because when they grenade they have a habit of chewing up vital hoses and wires. Anyway, it was a simple fix to get the twin electric fans on the same ignition power with a slightly larger fuse and some heavier wire. The brake lights didn't work when I pulled it into the garage and a quick look at the brake light switch told me why. After replacing that and changing the rear tail light bulbs to the correct ones all the lights worked and no warning lights were on.

 Now,this truck was on Kijiji for about 3 months,it's easy to see why. The owner that had it before the guy I got it from decided that having the truck in primer was going to help sell it. Including the mirrors and bumpers,and the rubber window seals,the grill,headlight bezels...pretty much the entire truck was done in rattle can primer. The body work was a mix of bondo and fiberglass. About the only thing that was done right on this truck was the exhaust system,everything else was basically slapped together with the expectation that some young kid that doesn't know better would shell out a few grand to buy it. Needless to say,when it sees the road again it will actually resemble something that had some time spent on it and it will be ready for a half decent paint job with the body work done right.

 Judging by the amount of extra wire,it seams like the stereo that was in it may have been bigger than what was under the hood. Then there was all the sawdust and little flakes of hay. There was no rear seats so I'm thinking that someone used the back seat for a hay wagon.

As it turns out there was just going to be too much work to go into this truck to have it ready for my mother. So I stroked a deal with a neighbour for a truck he was selling for my mom. I decided to refresh the 350 a bit and stuff it back in and ggive it to my daughter for her first vehicle. While the engine was out I did a pretty decent port matching job and smoothed out the area behind where the valve sticks into the chamber. Other than that,simply put new moder gaskets through out the engine and cleaned it up. A little tuning and this truck lit up the tires extremely easy. It still needs some body work and some more work into the interior but,it's well on it's way to being a nice little street truck for my little girl.