Not a wagon, Project Ellie May

Ellie May is a white 1988 Chevy R30 Cab and Chassis with a 9' flatbed, My uncle has a black 1984 C30 C&C called he calls Jethro, so I call mine Ellie May after The Beverly Hillbillies.

The truck had been sitting in storage for at least 10 years in Northeastern Ohio and ran when parked, and after a while would not start.







The air cleaner being removed may have lead to the throttle body problems that I have had.

Being off loaded in my driveway.



And the engine after sitting.





Its now got a rebuilt throttle body, new injectors, and still the injectors are not firing due to some fault I think is in the ignition system with a good module, good ignition coil and what looks like a new cap and wires.

The story behind this truck is that my granddad bought this truck about 10 years ago and it ran just fine, he bought it cheap with a low mileage Goodwrench 350 under the hood and a clean, relatively low mileage body too. As it sat it later on did not want to start up and run so I think he wanted to pull the intake and distributor and swap it for a Q-Jet and HEI but that never happened and in the last several years his health has been in rapid decline and he doesn't have much time left.

Nothing has really happened with this in months, I've been busy on my days off, or its rained, plus working second shift among other things. My grandfather passed on September 11th this year and we think he picked that day.

I've made a list of things that need to really be done.

Brakes: Master cylinder, combination valve, hydroboost leaks

Engine: Ignition, oil change, coolant replacement, new radiator hoses.

Front suspension: ball joints, bushings, alignment

Transmission: Fluid and filter

Tires

Windshield

Radio.

Stew - sorry to hear about your Grandfather... Jeff

Sorry for your loss Stew.

That looks like a fun (if not slightly frustrating) project. I got a chuckle, had that exact same seat cover in my Dad's old '78 F-150.

Thanks guys, Right now the most frustrating part is reaching the distributor, this being at a high stock height and the engine being low and to the back doesn't leave much room for me to get my hands down there.

Taking the hood off makes it easier, but its not easy to do myself. Its unbolted and latched in place. Once it runs again, I'll bolt the hood back on to the hinges.

Just a little bump on this project, I've got a new pair of inner fenders to replace the ones in here that my grandfather had cleaned up and painted at his property, so I think i'm just going to pull the fenders and core support soon. The pickup coil is bad so I'll just swap the whole distributor. I might go ahead and do a bunch of rattle canning too with it all apart.

Will be watching.

I know its not a wagon, but I still like watching the love everyone has for vehicles.
Keep it up.

stewzer55 wrote:

Thanks guys, Right now the most frustrating part is reaching the distributor, this being at a high stock height and the engine being low and to the back doesn't leave much room for me to get my hands down there.  

Taking the hood off makes it easier, but its not easy to do myself.  Its unbolted and latched in place. Once it runs again, I'll bolt the hood back on to the hinges.  

Try jacking it up under the cross member, remove the tires and then lowering down as far as possible. Makes working on the engine much easier.

Bill

Just climb up into the engine bay and sit down on the battery. It's how I do everything under the hood of my C10.

The biggest reason for pulling the front sheet metal is to paint the frame, and I have replacement inners anyway.


I read something about the later HEI and small cap HEI's being much easier to change the pickup coil, like you can do it without completely tearing down the engine, any of you know anything about this?