It started as a brake upgrade
I've been lurking on here for a while and did a few upgrades I thought I should share. I have been driving it for over 10 years with minimal maintenace required but it is starting to show.
I started having some brake issues. The brake lights stopped working and I could see some leaking from the passenger rear brake cylinder. There was a pressure switch plumbed into the rear brake lines on a union bolted to the frame. The Master wasn't stock and while troubleshooting I realized there was no fluid for the rear and the front had rust in it. I decided to replace it, except I had no idea what it came out of. Not sure if the master cylinder/brake booster came from the donor vehicle. When I bought the truck, I was told it was a Chevy 350 but the block numbers show it’s a 305. Turns out that didn’t help me figure out what parts to order so I just decided to upgrade everything.
Master and booster before:
The plan is to eventually drop in a Cummins (a 10-year-old plan at this point…) so I upgraded to a hydro boost system with Wilwood master to give me the option of using it in the future. I also upgraded all the hard and soft brake lines and changed out all the brake cylinders to make sure it was safe. The power steering pump provides the hydraulic power to the hydro boost and it had been whining for a while. Might as well upgrade that too, right?
The hydro boost lines up with the brake pedal and was relatively painless to install. In this pic I was waiting on a brass bushing to adapt the hydro boost push rod to the smaller pin diameter on the brake pedal assembly.
The truck had already been converted to power steering and a radiator had been hacked in during the engine swap. This gave me some clearance issues with the new fittings at the steering gear. I also noticed the radiator was leaking and the bracket was broken so I went overboard again and upgraded the radiator as well. I wasn’t able to retrofit a new radiator like others have done here. Some of the structure had been cut out. I made a cradle and supported the radiator off some angle iron using some premade aluminum brackets designed to support the radiator. This bracket was bolted to new body mounts that I welded to the front end.
Cradle mocked up to the frame
Some pretty weak sheet metal work on my part. Wanted to make sure the air flowed through the radiator.
Painted with the vertical angle iron welded in place. It's hard to see in the pic.
Radiator mounted
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