The old girl is wore out--time for a change.

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Bought this thing in 91. Over the years it has seen just about every single transformation and been in this version for many years.

My original plan was to make a ton of changes/rebuild it but after a bunch of time looking the poor thing over I chose to go another route. For the year prior I started collecting parts to do the rebuild and luckily everything will still work for my needs..

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So last year I picked up a new cab withe the intention of maybe building a newer version of mine--well that changed.

So the plan is to build a full tube chassis, upgrade the 4.3 tbi to a newer SCPI 4.3, going auto... A rough plan was in place but first I gotta tear the old girl down...

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First step--gut the old girl. I can't believe I never hurt myself with these seats. Got the inside all gutted...

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more gutting........

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Axle time--Love my tractor

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Both axles pulled, old chassis drug down to the lower portion of my property and got both axles cleaned up...

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Went and picked up the donor truck for the new motor. I got the rolled rig for a decent price and was able to hear it run--runs smooth as glass....

Got the motor pulled and shop cleaned up...

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Figured I would get the motor all ready so I can push it off to the side. Started by pulling all exterior parts and good thing it has the common failed intake gasket (done many over the years)..

Got block cleaned up and painted...

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Got all the removed parts cleaned and prepped.....

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The 4.3's in the s-10's have a remote oil cooler. So its quite simple to eliminate it by simply getting a nipple that screws into the block...

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Since the evap system will be eliminated I wanted to toss the purge solenoid. Nobody made a block off for this style which I thought was odd...

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So I came up with a plan. I cut the portion of the solenoid that sits down in the intake off and threaded it. Made a plate and screwed the nipple to it. worked like a champ..

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Motor assembled........

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Went and got material. When I built my new shop I made sure to build a tube rack--glad I did...

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My dana 300 has been a great unit. Time to tear it apart and clean it up and put the 4:1 in it and also the novak adapter input.

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I will never use the speedo cable and it started leaking as the seal. I went and modified it and basically turned it into a plug.

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I got the case modified for the 4:1 and got the case assembled and thrown on the back of my newly built th350.

I also went ahead and bought the AA shifter kit for the dana 300....

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So one thing I had over looked was the oil pan. I did a bunch of research I found the 2wd pan was lower profile. So I ordered a new pan and pickup and got it swapped on the motor.

I also chose to order new sanderson headers to replace my old ones. There is a difference in the head configuration between the tbi and scpi heads so if ya have the early headers ya will have to notch them. I chose to just replace them.

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Time to get the axles better cleaned and stripped....

Building my pro-rock 60's were one of the best choices I made a few years ago....

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Time to get the rear stripped since its the easiest diff lol. I cut all the link mounts off and removed the suspension bridge to get everything prepped........