WhiteMike

Active Member
May 7, 2014
767
125
43
West Monroe, LA
What's better than one OBS? Two, of course! Truck is a 1990 GMC Sierra SLE, single cab, short bed, 5.7L 350
Truck belonged to my girlfriend's late grandfather, who used it to haul things across his yard, drove it back and forth to church, and drove it to the gas station for snacks. That's it. After he died, my girlfriend's mom used it to haul dirt for gardening and as a backup vehicle until it died 2 years ago, and ever since it has sat in her driveway. Body is pretty straight minus a massive dent in the passenger fender from someone kicking it, and I'll probably just beat it out with a hammer. Interior is trashed and the (broken) odometer reads 90,088, but miles are more accurately around 95k.
Before buying it, spent a couple days trying to resurrect the dirty 350 since it hasn't run in over 2 years. The first bad sign was that there wasn't a lick of coolant in the radiator. Cool. Filled that up and checked the oil. Oil looked like black tar, so I put in a couple quarts of fresh 5W30 and checked all the hoses, put fresh gas in, charged the battery, made sure everything looked ok, etc. After looking everything over numerous times, decided to try to crank it. Truck started right up despite not running in over 2 years, and all the gauges seemed to work except the temp gauge was completely stuck being spiked. Wonderful, another bad sign. Got out and walked around the truck to see this.
Truck was absolutely spraying for mosquitos. White smoke at idle and blue smoke with throttle. Then, I heard a POP under the hood to find the heater hose exploded and coolant leaking everywhere. Bingo.
Replaced the heater hose with a brand new one, and drove the truck around the block after filling up the radiator with coolant once again. Smoked like a paper mill, but engine sounded and felt healthy and powerful. Parked it again, no coolant in the oil, but bubbles and oil in the coolant. Blown head gasket no doubt. I got the registration and title today, and truck will be coming home Saturday or Sunday, where then it will be washed, put in the garage, and compression test followed by slow engine rebuild will ensue.
PLANS:
Get it running correctly
Cam/ stall
Long tube headers
3in exhaust
High flow cats
Carven R Performance muffler
Slammed 5/7
Wheels undecided
Keep og patina
Drive the hell out of it and get mean looks

TL;DR: cheap truck, ugly as sin, blown head gasket


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slonlow2000

Member
May 13, 2015
154
7
18
Love the OBS RCSB's, or any OBS really. Looks like an awesome project. All my family's old forgotten cars are never anything cool like the stories I find on forums. Good luck with the project!
 

WhiteMike

Active Member
May 7, 2014
767
125
43
West Monroe, LA
Love the OBS RCSB's, or any OBS really. Looks like an awesome project. All my family's old forgotten cars are never anything cool like the stories I find on forums. Good luck with the project!

I'm an absolute sucker for OBS. Super excited to finally have a single cab. Thanks man!


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mike.

Well-Known Member
Jan 29, 2011
8,941
1,025
113
North Mississippi
Dfw. I wouldn't paint shit on that. Update the grill and swap the mirrors out. Pull the box and slam that fucker down.
 

WhiteMike

Active Member
May 7, 2014
767
125
43
West Monroe, LA
Haven't been able to do much of anything with this heap since I got it because I'm always off at school except for on the weekends, and funds are low. Got the truck home and gave it the first wash it has experienced in 26 years. then went to the junkyard and got various little parts to make the truck seem a little bit more complete took apart the dash and removed cluster because gas gauge and temp gauge didn't work (still working on that), and I also removed the radio and graphic equalizer because neither work, and got a cubby where the old radio went and a new face plate to put a single din where the GE originally was. Dash is still in pieces currently changed spark plug wires because the old ones were taped together to keep them from disintegrating, and otherwise I haven't really touched the engine at all. Coolant and ATF leak everywhere, truck smokes blue and white, but I have driven it around the neighborhood, and it has decent power and sounds good. Just smokes a lot. Going to be a looooooong project and still not entirely sure if I'm going to LS swap it or just rebuild this 350 or who knows what...


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WhiteMike

Active Member
May 7, 2014
767
125
43
West Monroe, LA
Was finally able to get this heap in the garage this morning. After scraping this fossilized oil sludge out of the cylinder heads and cleaned them, rust...
Drained the oil out, put a new oil filter in, and put 2 quarts of oil, along with 3 quarts of ATF and then let it run for about 10 minutes. Pulled it back in the garage, drained the oil/ATF mixture out, ANOTHER new oil filter, and added new oil. I figured since the engine was so rusty it was probably already beyond the state of repair, so I added one of those bottles of Bars Leak to the radiator just to see if it helps fix the blown head gasket somewhat, but after driving it around for about 15 minutes, I'm pretty convinced the head is actually cracked. Engine hunting is my next step I believe.
 

WhiteMike

Active Member
May 7, 2014
767
125
43
West Monroe, LA
Was able to find my dream set of wheels for the single cab! 20x8.5 Centerline Tomahawk Archer 2s. They definitely need some serious TLC and a good polish, but I'm in love. Now if I could just get this piece running properly and slam it down....