1986 GMC S-15

[Andrew_S]

Quick little fab project for a buddy's boat.

Another small project. These were the OE wheel caps from '86 on this truck. I've held onto them forever and finally found a good use for them

These were originally intended to clip onto 5x4.75 bolt pattern lugs

After some "machining" with a grinder & die grinder, they clear a 5x4.5 pattern.

Before

After

It completely changes the look of the wheels. It looks much more original and intentional now.

 

[Todd n Natalie]

Nice finishing touch.

 

[ITTOG]

You are killing it on this build.

Sent from my Pixel 7 Pro using Tapatalk

 

[YetiX]

After

It completely changes the look of the wheels. It looks much more original and intentional now.

My OCD would need the 4x4 and tire writing to be aligned!

 

[Andrew_S]

^^ thanks guys,

YetiX, thanks... that's all I see now LOL. I have to pull them back off to add some stainless fasteners now that I have a proof of concept. At that time I'll definitely be orienting them correctly.
Quick project for a buddy, new perches on this 14 bolt.

Don't ask why he's using trailer perches...

Started on another one, Confirmed the 9.5 warn fits between the front frame rails.

CAD

Everything will get hidden by the front valance. Not done, but getting in the ballpark.

Finally got around to widening out my hdpe for 2 canoes.

This thing attracts quite a bit of attention now.

Cue the canoe pics. Took my folks out on the Shuswap river for a 38km trip.

Stopped for lunch at this beauty swim hole.

Almost at the end, absolutely awesome day,

More pics coming soon, having about 2 weeks to catch up on.

 

[Andrew_S]

Finally getting around to repairing the damaged rear e-brake shoe.

Replaced the spring clips with some OE versions this go around.

OE on the right. Easy to see how much more range the spring has in a static position. The aftermarket clip literally fell off and chewed up the shoe... Replaced all 4 while I was at it. The pin is a much nicer design as well. The aftermarket pin can rotate and fall out of place.

Inspired by our recent river outting, the wife and I went out again on the Kettle this time.

This river has some shallow sections with some white water which made this pretty technical.

beautiful scenery the entire paddle

Bad photo of this beautiful swimming hole,

This was about 35km long, enjoyed the entire thing.

On the home stretch

We are getting completely spoiled by not having to paddle all of the time,

Spotted this newly emerged dragonfly at one of our stops.

Love passing under these huge structures, tickling my civil side.

Quick break before the next white water section

One last swim at this beauty spot

annnnd the finish line!

Can't beat this view on the drive home.

Drove through a hatch on the way home, could barely even see through the windshield at one point.

 

[Andrew_S]

finally got my pinion shims welded into place, this is essentially a small lift block with a 2* angle.

Just in time for a trip to the Slocan lake area,

We stayed at upper little Slocan the first night. This was definitely the most populated snake habitat I've seen in BC.

Exploring the lake a little bit on the first night.

We went up the inlet a fair way, super pretty area. No shortage of mosquitoes.

Next to our site, there was an old cabin slowly being taken back by the forest.

The next am. When we pulled into this rec site the night before there were about 30 folks celebrating a birthday party, loud, music, etc. We were quite pleased when they all vacated around 8 that night. Left us with the place to ourselves this day.

Hitting the big lake on the 2nd day.

Tough slog into the campsite, headwind and 2' swells at one point. We were very thankful for the 17' eagle on this trip, now nicknamed leaky.

Fishing was great, rainbows & bulls. We were both pleased to be back on some calm water.

Tenting this evening at Evan's creek

Small waterfall upstream of camp

The wife was happy to be picking berries again

Aborted beatrice lake hike due to heat

Some awesome butterflies kicking around camp

 

[Andrew_S]

The paddle back towards the truck, and a few pictographs along the way were pretty neat to see.

These trees growing off this sheer rock face was really neat. They took hold in moss and somehow found a way to stick.

Camp #2, caught a nice rainbow right off the shore.

Checked out the old hwy while we were in town. How they built these old roads blows my mind.

Sticking with the insect theme, we found this massive ant hill during the hike.

On our way to Sandon,

Somehow managed to find this awesome beach in Silverton and had it all to ourselves. Swimming was a constant theme with these high temps & no ac...

 

[Andrew_S]

Next stop was the old Sandon silver mine, now dubbed a ghost town.

Surprisingly quite busy with folks though...
I really enjoyed seeing the old iron, whether it was relevant to the mine or not.
These units sure make the Freightliners I used to run look like Cadillacs.

the wife was pretty impressed when I told her this was an engine lol

The coolest part of the entire area was this power/air-generating station that was still operating.

The old engine they drug up the hill for tourists.

Some more old iron,

Running these old open cab units must have been a treat...

Exploring the Cody area, some more old ruins.

One of a few old controls,

Random old stave pipe everywhere in this area,

More old structures,

Pretty cool to see some residents still living in these areas,

 

[Andrew_S]

Drove up to the last operational part of the mine,

The guys running these places were not idiots, not by a long shot. The system in place with these rail cars and dumping off the side of the hill was genius.

It started to rain pretty well so we took off for camp.

This is the last part of the operation still going by the looks of it.

We had intended to stay out another 2 nights but we experienced the first major mechanical failure with the camper as we got to camp. Actuator #4 failed to chooch.

We weren't too far from home so instead of trying to fix it in the field we called it a trip.
I 100% wanted to know what the failure point was in case I had 3 others to address as well.

You get what you pay for holds true in this scenario, these things are pretty cheaply made. It's amazing they've held up this long.

Found the culprit. This little red wire connects to the upper limit switch and it was likely 3/4" short and that caused it to break off. It also looks like it was barely soldered in place.

Fixed and ready to go back together,

Reassembled, back in the camper and working perfectly again. Think I may order a spare to have on hand. It would suck to cut a longer trip short for a $200 part.

 

[Todd n Natalie]

Fantastic pics as always! You def get good use out of that canoe. Looks like a fun trip. You may have me wanting a canoe now, haha

 

[paulforeman]

Man, I got some reading to do... I read the first page and this page. Gotta go read through when I have time!

 

[Andrew_S]

^^ love the canoe, so simple and durable. All you need is a couple of paddles and you're on the water, albeit on the water in many places boats can't usually access.

^ Thanks Paul, yeah it's becoming a bit of a tome. Friggin love your build by the way. The area you're in and the trips you go on are an inspiration. Looks like I have some catching up to do as well.

A couple of things to get up on here.

Wrapped the Y-pipe, with it being quite a bit closer to the trans I figured this can't hurt.

Replaced the ball seat on the double cardan front shaft.

The old one was wallered right out. Expensive pieces, $145... That's like 3x what I have into the entire front driveshaft.

Replaced the front pinion seal while I was at it. Must have knocked it when installing the yoke at some point as I had a small leak.

A retiring mechanic was selling off some stuff, made out like a bandit on this package.

Replaced the rear diff hardware. The OE bolts were barely engaging with the thicker diff cover.

I need to drain both of these soon, inspect and replace with some proper gaskets.

A couple of weeks ago the truck starting getting a bit louder...

Quality Dorman manifold, 1 year old. At least this is only like a 30 min job and warrantied.

Picked all of the pieces I needed to finish off the e-brake install.

Decided to adopt the explorer-style e-brake system.

I put wayyy too much time into this, literally hours, and... it was a total fail. I completely forgot to account for the amount of droop this setup has and the explorer cables are way too short. So back to the S10 cables and modifying them. Failure is a part of the process sometimes I guess.

On a happier note, I found another set of 33x10.5's brand new for 1/3 of the price of new.

I'm going to replace my 2 rears & spare with these new ones and still have another spare left over. By the time I sell the rims and the old rears I'll only have about $400 into these 4 new tires. Only 200km's on this set before the vehicle was stolen, later recovered and the guy was just selling what he could to get some additional value out of the wreck.

I had an annoying squeak develop a couple of weeks ago. Turns out one of the cab mounts collapsed, this is going to be a fun one...

This isn't even because of rust, just brute force abuse on back roads. I can think of a couple of high-speed impacts with drainage ditches that may have caused this haha.

I'll have to wait for a donor truck to come into the yard to cut the mounts out of it. Until then I've redistributed the load with this plate to prevent it from getting worse.

We just got back from an amazing 8 day trip, big photo dump to come shortly.

 

[paulforeman]

Dang dorman manifolds are garbage - went through several myself before going with headers and custom cats to avoid having to replace them every 6 months to a year. Oh well. It is what it is.

 

[givemethewillys]

^^ love the canoe, so simple and durable. All you need is a couple of paddles and you're on the water, albeit on the water in many places boats can't usually access.

^ Thanks Paul, yeah it's becoming a bit of a tome. Friggin love your build by the way. The area you're in and the trips you go on are an inspiration. Looks like I have some catching up to do as well.

A couple of things to get up on here.

Wrapped the Y-pipe, with it being quite a bit closer to the trans I figured this can't hurt.

Replaced the ball seat on the double cardan front shaft.

The old one was wallered right out. Expensive pieces, $145... That's like 3x what I have into the entire front driveshaft.

Replaced the front pinion seal while I was at it. Must have knocked it when installing the yoke at some point as I had a small leak.

A retiring mechanic was selling off some stuff, made out like a bandit on this package.

Replaced the rear diff hardware. The OE bolts were barely engaging with the thicker diff cover.

I need to drain both of these soon, inspect and replace with some proper gaskets.

A couple of weeks ago the truck starting getting a bit louder...

Quality Dorman manifold, 1 year old. At least this is only like a 30 min job and warrantied.

Picked all of the pieces I needed to finish off the e-brake install.

Decided to adopt the explorer-style e-brake system.

I put wayyy too much time into this, literally hours, and... it was a total fail. I completely forgot to account for the amount of droop this setup has and the explorer cables are way too short. So back to the S10 cables and modifying them. Failure is a part of the process sometimes I guess.

On a happier note, I found another set of 33x10.5's brand new for 1/3 of the price of new.

I'm going to replace my 2 rears & spare with these new ones and still have another spare left over. By the time I sell the rims and the old rears I'll only have about $400 into these 4 new tires. Only 200km's on this set before the vehicle was stolen, later recovered and the guy was just selling what he could to get some additional value out of the wreck.

I had an annoying squeak develop a couple of weeks ago. Turns out one of the cab mounts collapsed, this is going to be a fun one...

This isn't even because of rust, just brute force abuse on back roads. I can think of a couple of high-speed impacts with drainage ditches that may have caused this haha.

I'll have to wait for a donor truck to come into the yard to cut the mounts out of it. Until then I've redistributed the load with this plate to prevent it from getting worse.

We just got back from an amazing 8 day trip, big photo dump to come shortly.

What's your pinion seal replacement method? Do you count the threads, remove, and replace to the same place? Or, do you do something different? I'm getting ready to replace the seal in my Jeep's Dana 30 and dana 44, and would love any advice.

Great work as usual by the way!