88-98 Chevrolet Silverado or GMC Sierra C/K's

[350Rocket]

Didnt see a thread on this version truck. I have a 1996 Silverado K1500 with 321K miles. Original Vortec 5.7 engine. I bought several years ago. I used to drool over this exact truck when I was on the school bus waiting to be dropped off at school in the mornings. A classmate's of mines mom owned it and would drop her off at school every morning. Always loved the GMT 400 platform trucks. Runs like a top. I am the 2nd owner. After many years of being told no, they finally sold it to me. I plan to strip it down to the frame and rebuild it back up slowly with all new parts.

And of course since this is BITOG I have to mention. The original owner ran Quaker State 5W30 Syn its whole life until I purchased with 190K miles. (A woman owned it, its while life). I have since switched its diet to Mobil 1 5W30 "vanilla".

(Few pictures posted below) oil psi pics are actually some i took tonight after a long drive in Park and in Drive. They just don't make them like they used to.

What do you got? What year is yours? How many miles? Original engine?

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I have a gmt800 but when I first started working in the automotive industry (after flunking out of electronics engineering in college) these trucks were everywhere. I remember a number of high mileage examples including the used car departments technician at the Ford dealer I worked at owned a 91ish k1500 with close to 600,000kms on it. And when I worked at McDonald's in highschool the owner of the McDonald's drove a 96 almost identical to yours except it was all green with gold stripes. It had over 300,000kms on it then (in the early 2000s). Years later at a wedding I ran into him and he still drove it with almost 600,000kms, but he was concerned with the body starting to rust.

Later on I saw it parked in the McDonald's parking lot with a plow on it, looking pretty rough. Always loved these trucks though I prefer the gmt800 now.

 

[Rob_Roy]

my DD is a 1997 C2500 Suburban that my grandparents bought brand new. 5.7, 4L80E, 4.10 axle. It towed a camper for much of its life and was spared from the winter roads until a few years ago. I have it undercoated every year and it is still holding up good. 189k on the clock, engine is untouched. I did pull the valve body off the transmission last summer to correct a torque converter lockup issue.

 

[CoachRoss07]

my DD is a 1997 C2500 Suburban that my grandparents bought brand new. 5.7, 4L80E, 4.10 axle. It towed a camper for much of its life and was spared from the winter roads until a few years ago. I have it undercoated every year and it is still holding up good. 189k on the clock, engine is untouched. I did pull the valve body off the transmission last summer to correct a torque converter lockup issue.

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Nice! Man. Keep that thing. Have you seen what some 3/4 suburbans of that era are going for now? Lol. It's crazy. If only it had the L29 454...

 

[dfarr67]

Here's a picture of the rear axle of my dad's 98. This truck has 54K miles on it.

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Some vehicles are just rust magnets. As good as mine is I wish I would have hit it with oil spray years ago.

 

[350Rocket]

Those all rotted away to nothing years ago. Anything left looks like Swiss cheese now and likely has agricultural plates so it no longer gets inspections

I live in Ontario where lots of vehicles do rot away.....and I can still show you pictures of some local gmt400 trucks that are mint. Sure some people choose to watch their vehicles rust away and do nothing about it but that's a choice just like not changing the oil enough.

 

[JTK]

Definitely my favorite year range for Chevy trucks as well.

I had a teal green 1994 Chevy C1500 short bed, reg cab, 4.3L, 5MT, W/T package. Rubber floor, cloth bench, base mode. No power options. I bought it brand new. It was in the $12-13K range new, plus TTL.

I traded that one in, in 1999 for a super clean, low mileage teal green 1997 K1500, short bed, reg cab, 4.3L, automatic, manual floor shift 4x4, no power options. This one was around $16K. I financed about half of that after trade-in.

I always preferred the look of the grille style of the OP's, but the W/Ts had the nice replaceable glass headlamps.

My dad had a 1990 chevy C1500 W/T reg cab, long bed 4.3, 5MT that he bought new and drove until it was very rusty 14yrs later. It only had ~120K miles on it. It went though 2 5spds due to idler bearing issues IIRC? and had to have the fiberglass driveshaft replaced with a custom made aluminum one.

 

[mobilnissan1991]

I love the 88-98 Chevys along with the 99-07s. Those are the only trucks Ill ever drive along with the 73-79 Fords, 80-96 Fords, 97-03 Fords and the 04-14s. Dodge/Ram is not in my vocabulary.

I remember fondly back in ‘98 when I was 7, my dad was driving a ‘78 F150 with a 302 in mint condition that he had bought from my uncle. He sold it and bought a brand new ‘98 ex cab Chevy 1500 with a 350 and 5 speed MT. My mom didnt like the stick so he only kept it for a few months and traded it on a new GMT 800 ‘99 1500 ex cab with the 4.3 Vortec. That truck was flawless for 8 years and 101k miles when he sold it in ‘07

 

[Snagglefoot]

I had a 93 Suburban with a 350 TBI. I thought it was one of the best looking Suburbans. Eventually I gave it to my son as a beater and he sold it to a mechanic went it lost reverse gear. Here it is on a rental hoist when I replaced the electric 4WD actuator.

 

[CoachRoss07]

I had a 93 Suburban with a 350 TBI. I thought it was one of the best looking Suburbans. Eventually I gave it to my son as a beater and he sold it to a mechanic went it lost reverse. Here it is on a rental hoist when I replaced the electric 4WD actuator.

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I tell ya. Those old TBIs were not powerhouses but will outlive all of us if properly maintained. Good looking Burb. I bet it is still on the road if the ol L05 5.7 has any say lol.

 

[dfarr67]

I live in Ontario where lots of vehicles do rot away.....and I can still show you pictures of some local gmt400 trucks that are mint. Sure some people choose to watch their vehicles rust away and do nothing about it but that's a choice just like not changing the oil enough.

I chose to keep mine going for a few reasons- I'm from Oshawa where this was built and as a student I worked on the truck line around that year- so who knows, a little sentimental I guess. And the price of trucks is riduculous, I bought this in Vancouver for $14k cdn in 1994.

 

[350Rocket]

I tell ya. Those old TBIs were not powerhouses but will outlive all of us if properly maintained. Good looking Burb. I bet it is still on the road if the ol LO5 5.7 has any say lol.

For a few years my winter beater was an 89 Caprice with the L03 305 TBI..it had 332k miles on the original engine and started no problem at -34C. It rusted out and got replaced by a lower mileage (160k mile) rust free 83 caprice that I drove for 10+ years.

 

[CoachRoss07]

For a few years my winter beater was an 89 Caprice with the L03 305 TBI..it had 332k miles on the original engine and started no problem at -34C. It rusted out and got replaced by a lower mileage (160k mile) rust free 83 caprice that I drove for 10+ years.

Oh wow..funny story my brother had one of these with the same 305 and I was still probably 16-17 years old. He always made the mistake of leaving the keys when he would go out with his friends on weekends. Let me tell ya those old cars could burn one heck of a dogleg .

165-170 hp I believe is what those were rated for lol. Talk about dogs! But were very reliable. And floated on the highway.

Goodtimes!

 

[Snagglefoot]

Here are HP and acceleration numbers for the 93 5.7 in the Suburban. The Vortec engine that came later did better.

 

[Lawnman23]

My 98 doing stuff…

 

[Snagglefoot]

The change to the 1996 5.7 Vortec upped the HP to 255 and the torque to 330 lb-ft. That was pretty good for the day.

 

[burbguy82]

The change to the 1996 5.7 Vortec upped the HP to 255 and the torque to 330 lb-ft. That was pretty good for the day.

and 20mpg

 

[350Rocket]

Oh wow..funny story my brother had one of these with the same 305 and I was still probably 16-17 years old. He always made the mistake of leaving the keys when he would go out with his friends on weekends. Let me tell ya those old cars could burn one heck of a dogleg .

165-170 hp I believe is what those were rated for lol. Talk about dogs! But were very reliable. And floated on the highway.

Goodtimes!

I had a few of them over the years. The 86 had the best burnout performance with a 3.08 posi I could drift it a bit. The 83 305 was lower CR and only 150hp compared to the 165-170 on the later LG4 and L03.

One thing I always regretted was never owning a gmt400 truck. Other than the Cutlass I always had Caprices and one Delta 88 because I could buy them for $300 in half decent condition.

 

[350Rocket]

Here are HP and acceleration numbers for the 93 5.7 in the Suburban. The Vortec engine that came later did better.

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The earlier one was better for reliability and fuel mileage. The better performance of the vortec 350 came with the price of the spider injection and leaking intake gaskets. As long as you took care of the intake gaskets they could last as long as the older tbi.

 

[350Rocket]

I chose to keep mine going for a few reasons- I'm from Oshawa where this was built and as a student I worked on the truck line around that year- so who knows, a little sentimental I guess. And the price of trucks is riduculous, I bought this in Vancouver for $14k cdn in 1994.

I live 2 hours from Oshawa. My 05 Silverado was built there, so was my 83 Caprice I had up until recently. And the 78 K10 I still have that my dad bought when I was 6.....

I guess I'd same I'm partial to vehicles built in Oshawa. I remember years ago an ex girlfriend and I went to pick up a kitten she wanted that someone was selling...we pulled up in her Lumina (built in Oshawa). The lady immediately commented that we were driving a Chevy... pointed to her husband putting brakes on an Impala...he just retired from the Oshawa plant building those. We were immediately in the good books just for driving a Chevy.

 

[Dinoburner]

The 95 Sierra in my sig feels like riding with an old friend. It has a Lund visor and aluminum running boards which is a little rare. Not sure if they are factory or dealer installed. We have it since it was 3 years old.