1994 K3500 extended cab dually

[n8in8or]

Did I hear garage cleaning?

I like that tip!

I reacted to that with a laugh because I thought by "I like that tip!", that you meant it was a tip to clean your own garage. I'm just doing a little light cleaning right now, mostly picking up collected junk off of the workbench so I can use it again. Soon I have a week of vacation and I'll be using some of that to do a more thorough cleaning and organization of the barn so I can get back to work on Krovvy.

You can wrap the exhaust to help it some also.

My fingers hurt just thinking about that, but I'll keep it in mind.

That tip will help.

Yeah, I hope so. I haven't even fired the engine yet to see if it made any kind of a difference.

 

[Duvall]

I reacted to that with a laugh because I thought by "I like that tip!", that you meant it was a tip to clean your own garage. I'm just doing a little light cleaning right now, mostly picking up collected junk off of the workbench so I can use it again. Soon I have a week of vacation and I'll be using some of that to do a more thorough cleaning and organization of the barn so I can get back to work on Krovvy.

Its funny you mentioned that because we were just texting about garage cleaning not that long ago. Something was brought up about the mess we make and starting another project without cleaning the last one. That's about what my garage looks like now and it doesn't even have a full truck in it.

 

[Will L.]

Gotta wear gloves wrapping stuff. The finger work out is bad enough without that junk getting jammed into the skin.

why does cleaning my garage seem to be just rearranging the piles? haha

 

[n8in8or]

Started working on the mirror wiring tonight. I took stock of what I had, what was the same as what’s in the truck already and what needs to be added. Good news is that most of the body harness for the power mirrors is the same - just 1 ground wire needs to be added to the passenger side plug for the window switch light. I pulled the power mirror harness out of the Suburban harness I had so I could make a stand-alone harness to put in the truck. I did have to temporarily rob a plug from the driver side of the 2 door Tahoe harness due to a slight difference on the driver side, again for the switch illumination. Crimped a Metri Pack 150 terminal on and snapped the connector on and now it’s ready to loom. The door harnesses are a direct swap (at least 2 door to pickup, not so for Sub to pickup), but the driver harness I have is kind of messed up at the lock switch so I’m going to do some harness disassembling and splicing to make one good harness.

 

[MrMarty51]

I too need to do some garage cleaning, and as suggested, shuffling of piles. Need to make enough room for that weee little lathe now too.

 

[n8in8or]

I too need to do some garage cleaning, and as suggested, shuffling of piles. Need to make enough room for that weee little lathe now too.

I’d love to have a lathe, but it would be hard to make the space.

 

[ak diesel driver]

I only had a sub harness to work with. IIRC it is actually wired a little bit different

 

[n8in8or]

I only had a sub harness to work with. IIRC it is actually wired a little bit different

Yep, the connectors are different and more wires in each door as well. I lucked out getting 2 door stuff to work with.

 

[n8in8or]

Tomorrow I’ll try to take pictures of 2 door next to Sub stuff for comparison purposes.

 

[n8in8or]

Here are some comparison pics of the door harnesses. Hopefully the labels are self-explanatory.







And here are wire diagrams from my 1994 C/K manual.

 

[Duvall]

I strongly dislike the connectors on the door ends. Very strongly.

I don't recall, are the tow mirrors you purchased power?

 

[n8in8or]

I strongly dislike the connectors on the door ends. Very strongly.

I don't recall, are the tow mirrors you purchased power?

I REALLY hate the connectors for the switches, whenever I disconnect a switch I feel like I’m taking something apart that shouldn’t be. Worst connector design I’ve ever seen. And then after they’re disconnected, the terminals can come out of the connector so easily. Hate.

Yeah, the mirrors are power with built-in turn signal indicators front and rear and rear-facing spotlights. I’m not looking forward to digging into the wiring under the dash to tap into the turn signal circuits now that I have it all bundled up. I wish I had thought to add taps to those wires when I had it all apart last fall.

 

[spdgofast]

Hey Nate, I think you have your parts trucks covered but I found a couple of pre 1995 GMT 400's at the U pull it by my house today along with a 94 Suburban. I'm going back tomorrow to grab some interior stuff out of the Burb even though I doubt the parts I'm getting are as good as the one's in my truck since my truck has been in the garage since August of 1994. But I'm grabbing the dual heat climate control switch overhead console in the front along with the rear switches anyhow. If you think you need anything LMK.

 

[n8in8or]

Hey Nate, I think you have your parts trucks covered but I found a couple of pre 1995 GMT 400's at the U pull it by my house today along with a 94 Suburban. I'm going back tomorrow to grab some interior stuff out of the Burb even though I doubt the parts I'm getting are as good as the one's in my truck since my truck has been in the garage since August of 1994. But I'm grabbing the dual heat climate control switch overhead console in the front along with the rear switches anyhow. If you think you need anything LMK.

I appreciate it, thanks! I think I’m set at the moment.

 

[n8in8or]

Yesterday and today I worked on wiring the mirrors. After prepping/modifying factory wiring, I started working with the wiring supplied by Boost. I didn’t like the running light harnesses they supplied because the fuse holders would have ended up in the door or in the door jamb, so I extended them 14” so the fuses would be easily accessible under the dash. Here’s where the fuse holder sits on the passenger side.



Tapping into the turn signals wasn’t as bad as I expected. It was easy to tap into the wires at the turn signal switch connector (the light blue and dark blue wires). I tapped into the dash harness side even though it would have been easier to do the switch side, but if I ever have to replace the switch, I didn’t want to have to also re-do the mirror wiring at the same time.



I tapped the spotlights into the cargo lamp switch. No pic, but I just cut the existing terminal off and crimped a new one with the existing wire plus the 2 mirror wires.

Fishing the harnesses was a lot of fun, but a necessary step of course. The last hurdle was repinning the mirror plugs. When I first tried them out, the Left and Right functions were reversed. I had read of this before, so it wasn’t a total shock to me. I think it’s just an issue with the 91-94 trucks, but can’t recall for sure. I had to flip-flop the red and green wires. This is how that looked after moving them.



Success. Everything works as it should.

And here’s the factory schematic for the mirrors, just for funsies.

 

[n8in8or]

I forgot to mention: as you can see in the video, I did indeed tint the turn signals under the headlights too dark. It helps that I now have supplemental indicators on the mirrors, but still, it’s not optimal. Before I go and try sanding some of the tint off or even replace the lenses, I’m going to try getting some extra bright bulbs first and see if that works. If so, then I’ll have the best of both worlds: black lenses and lights that function as they’re supposed to.

After I got the mirrors and window switches all functioning I moved on to adding a glow plug override. I had a constant duty solenoid already in stock and bought a momentary push button the other day. I mounted the solenoid to my filter bracket and ran wires to the glow plug controller and to the switch under the dash. It starts better, but still it smokes more than it should. I’m going to try advancing my timing just a touch more and see if that cleans it up the rest of the way.



I ended today working on my cold air intake. I did some test fitting and thinking earlier this week and decided fabrication of the air box would be much simpler if the filter was oriented differently. I think you’re going to like the direction I’m going here Fellow Traveler, or Captain Cobrahead as I’ve called you in the past……that’s a genuine Donaldson cobrahead there.

 

[ak diesel driver]

So are the signal lights in the mirrors also running lights?

 

[n8in8or]

So are the signal lights in the mirrors also running lights?

Yep. They have lots of options for these mirrors.

1988 - 1998 GM Tow Mirrors

Silverado and Sierra Towing Mirrors compatible with 1988-1998 OBS GM pickup trucks. Assembled & Tested in USA, Free Shipping, Fully Customizable.

boostautoparts.com

 

[ak diesel driver]

I had to do some funky wiring to get it to work on mine

 

[FellowTraveler]

Again just AWESOME...
I am waiting on an exhaust blanket then going to use a thermal barrier on the intake cobrahead also, perhaps build an air-box until I do the snorkel then it has to be a canister filter to prevent water ingress.

My build is one step forward a few steps back, my expensive transmission build got crapped on by a failed TCC solenoid causing torque converter lockup and stall at idle "some clutch burning" changed that out. The TCC is designed to be locked in all gears however; the vehicle must be moving to engage it in 1st gear.
Now have to buy another 48RE valve body and hopefully salvage the one in the trans now, it will only shift when cold by releasing the throttle "sticking valves I suspect, hate to think it is warped" once warmed the trans shifts fine.