'88 RCLB C3500 "Roscoe P. Coltrane"

Gasket, friction plate, whatever. What I was worried about is the LMC notches aren't deep enough to allow them, so I ground the notches deeper and they fit.

GrimsterGMC said:

I think they should more accurately be called friction plates, so that when the bolts are tightened they help stop the bumper moving back on impact. The bolt holes are oval to allow for alignment and this allows the bumper to move when impacted on.

Click to expand...

Interesting, I never would have guessed that. I wonder if my truck had them originally and the body shop left them off.

I spent an hour this afternoon swapping the new fender onto Roscoe. The faded Rustoleum matches the Rustoleum on the passenger fender really well. I swapped the good-condition chrome trim piece from the old fender.

The hood lines up with the hood latch much better, but the bumper still doesn't bolt up. Don't care.

If you need to swap fenders, the early fenders do not have all the attachments for the later ECU and other stuff. The later fenders do have the holes for the early windshield washer pump and wire harness clips. This is a late fender on an early truck, so score!

Because the fender's straighter, now I can't open the driver's door but about 6". I'll have to hammer the front lip on the door down a bit until I can replace the door. The door latches well, but I can see that I need new door bushings. I already have a cart filled at Cunningham Machine, and I'm planning on placing my order next week.

Erik the Awful said:

I spent an hour this afternoon swapping the new fender onto Roscoe. The faded Rustoleum matches the Rustoleum on the passenger fender really well. I swapped the good-condition chrome trim piece from the old fender.

The hood lines up with the hood latch much better, but the bumper still doesn't bolt up. Don't care.

If you need to swap fenders, the early fenders do not have all the attachments for the later ECU and other stuff. The later fenders do have the holes for the early windshield washer pump and wire harness clips. This is a late fender on an early truck, so score!

Because the fender's straighter, now I can't open the driver's door but about 6". I'll have to hammer the front lip on the door down a bit until I can replace the door. The door latches well, but I can see that I need new door bushings. I already have a cart filled at Cunningham Machine, and I'm planning on placing my order next week.

You must be registered for see images attach

Click to expand...

I didn't realize that Roscoe is a 1-ton, until now.

This last week I welded up a large parts shelf for the shop. I was hoping to get some work done on getting the shelf into the shop, and today I realized just how big the job is going to be. I have a literal ton of crap in the way.

Burned up 700R4
Junkyard-fresh 4L60E for my son's truck
Early GMT400 HVAC box, refreshed
Good Crown Vic 8.8
Mustang 8.8 that needs rebuilt
Junkyard fresh Explorer 8.8 + spare short axle
NV3500 + flywheel + clutch + pressure plate + hydraulics + shifter
Shade tree rebuilt 472 Cadillac + spare oil pan
My lawnmower chassis "door tool"
Empty RX-7 rearend housing
Small shelf completely full of parts
Roscoe's FB marketplace 4L80 + new harness + new filter and gasket + dipstick tube seal + 200k miles of road grime + cast flexplate cover

Of course, the front item is Roscoe's 4L80, and I realized I could easily get rid of all the boxes piled on it if I scrubbed it clean and bolted the parts into it. Three hours later I had the outside of the case scrubbed mostly clean, the new Rostra harness in the pan, the new filter and filter seal in it, the pan scrubbed clean and bolted on with a fresh gasket, and the new dipstick seal in place. The flexplate cover is in the solvent tank, and I'll probably finish cleaning it tomorrow.

The innards were very nice and clean. The fluid looked good. There was only a hint of water, and it looked like it was from the transmission sitting. No metal bits in the pan, nothing on the magnet, and not much friction material at all. I think I got a score!

I still need to get a dipstick tube and a torque converter for it.

I finally got the box out of the shop and into the bed. I considered centering it, but then I'd have a funky bit of space on each side. I offset it to the passenger side, and I set it so that I'd have 1/4" gap between the lid and side of the bed when opening it. Either the bed's crooked or the box is crooked, because it hits the bed lip when I open the box. Most likely they're both bent. I can probably loosen the mounting bolts and turn it a tiny bit to fix that.

Someday soon I'll start throwing bits back into the interior.

It's been a crazy week. The dryer died, and it's a 40 year old Kenmore so the timer's no longer available. Then the A/C died. I replaced the condensor fan motor myself, but I got the wires to the motor swapped up. I didn't know you could have polarity wrong on an AC motor, but since it has a start capacitor and start windings, it does matter. I found an honest AC guy who fixed it for $75 - I paid him $100 because I appreciate the honesty. Then I had to have the plumber out to fix a leak at the backyard faucet.

It's also been hot, so I mostly focused on tasks inside the house. Yesterday morning it actually started out cool, so I got out in the shop and tackled some tasks. I got the torque converter bolts into the 500 Caddy in the Jaguar and installed the starter. I sanded down the sub box that's going in WCJr and stained it. I got my new refrigerant recovery machine and went to put a vacuum on my new 30# refrigerant tank. The fittings on the equipment is all R12/R22/R410A and my gauges are R134, so I've hit a wall until my adapter fittings come in.

Then I went to install the new rear seal in the 4L80 that I have sitting, waiting for installation in Roscoe. The tailshaft has .075" slop. Ugh. I'm gonna have to rebuild it.