new... to me... dually. project betsie

Well, the day has finally come. Last night the wife surprised me with a 1993 GMC C3500 dually. Its got the big block 454, 4L80, crewcab. The body is straight as an arrow, no dents, no dings, the dually fenders are pristine, its even got a really nice bed shell, with a really nice bed rug inside, and Alcoa 5 spokes. The interior is, passable for now.

The bad, its a 93, the paint is... Well the paint resents the body so its pealing in a few areas, a lot of areas lol. The fuel pump wiring harness is messed up and the trans is in 2nd & reverse limp mode. My good buddy is a mechanic, he actually found the truck and picked it up and got it home. So he is gonna give me a hand tomorrow to get the pump working and see what we can do about the trans.

Another bad, its lifted on 35s. I'm not one for lifted 2wd trucks, so that's gonna change. Going to go with a 3/4 spindle drop in front and flip in the rear for now. Its got a spindle lift on it so that's perfect. The upper control arm bushings are, well, they are gone essentially. So I'll get some OEM replacement arms with bushigs and a new balljoint installed.

This weekends project... Get the fuel system to work so I dont have to drive it with a gas can in the back seat that has a walbro stuffed in it that is wired and plumbed to feed the engine fuel. Second... See if we can fix the trans issue. I think we are just going to build a whole new harness for the truck, front to back. There was some ghetto ass wiring done in it for sub's and a set of 12v outlets in the bed (those are gonna stay for covenience). After that, its spindle and control arm.

I want to finish my other car first, 2004 CTS-V. Its getting a Maggie mp112 blower, fuel system upgrade, and all sorts of goodies. But after the car is done, I'll get busy bagging it. Til then, at least it will be ststic dropped.

The truck is going to be my tow pig for track days, and likely going to be my daily driver 80% of the time, I only live 5 miles from work.

So a few questions... #1 looking at doing the interior later and was investigating whether or not some newer seats will bolt in, like say some leather ones out of a newer Tahoe, maybe an escalade, something nice, that the wife wouldn't mind sitting in. I was thinking like 2000 old bodystyle escalade or burb or Tahoe seats. Should I keep my search for the front 2 rows? Or will the 3rd row seats work? I'm pretty sure the 3rd row seats won't work since they are a little narrower as I recall from my 95 suburban

#2 it has a mag-hytec trans pan and diff cover. The trans pan sits below the frame... Which is less than ideal for my plans if laying frame. I don't want to lay trans pan and leave 8 quarts of dex3 in a parking lot. Anyone have any thoughts on that?

Anyways, if you haven't hit the back button from this long ass post here are some pics...













Sorry about that quadruple post. I was using my phone and shit went haywire.

Right on man! What a cool present to get from the ol lady! Best of luck getting it road worthy dood!

So a bit of an update. Still have to figure out why the teams is in limp mode. We after going to address that next weekend. Had some family stuff to do this weekend. I did get the fuel system taken care of... Hopefully. When I pulled the bucket, I immediately figured out why it was running like shit. Photo below. It's cleaned, and a new walbro 255 is mounted in place and wired. I'm getting a cheap-ish inline filter to put in to hopefully clean out some of the gunk. I have injectors to spare so not worried about that... An I'm not putting my brand new $200 6 micron fuelab filter in there... Lol screw that. I'm not sure what kind of sludge was in there, but it appeaed that a baby elephant took a rather runny poo in the gas tank.

Got it fired up today. Ordered new upper control arms with ball joints and bushings already installed, and I ordered like 10 cheap fuel pumps so I can just change them every tank to hopefully clear up stuff.

Next is a DJM 3/4 spindle drop, and some new tires. Drivers side rear outer is flat, and the passener outer is worn, along with both fronts. Getting 6 new basic OEM size tires and a drop kit is cheaper than matching the 2 inner bfg mudder's with 4 new ones.

Cant wait to see the progress looks like the tank could use a good cleaning for sure

Ended up cancelling the fuel filters. Rock auto has a brand new 34 gallon tank for $125 shipped. So I ordered it, a new filter and I'm just gonna do it right, do it once. Hoping to be able to get everything done so I can start driving it. Its going to be my daily while I put a blower on the Cadillac