“I Just Got An Amazing Deal One Of The Greatest American Pickup Trucks Ever” I wrote earlier this week after spending under $5000 on a 129,000 mile, four-wheel drive, manual transmission, rust-free GMT400 pickup — a Chevy K1500. Now I’ve owned the truck for a couple of days, and while I love it, I also think that maybe I didn’t get as good of a deal as I thought.
The first thing that got me is something that I didn’t think would be such a huge deal. During my test drive, maybe I did notice there was a bit of input shaft bearing noise when I was off the clutch, but how expensive could a new NV3500 five-speed transmission possibly be? They’re a dime a dozen.
Unfortunately, I was mistaken. It turns out that early the NV3500 only went into GMT400 trucks in 1993; prior to that, these trucks were equipped with a dastardly Getrag five-speed — the 5LM60, also called the HM290.
Transmission Digest — a publication devoted to the transmission repair industry — has a whole page on the HM290/5LM60, and it’s bleak.
“The HM290 was by any standard an extremely complex unit that most technicians considered time consuming and difficult to work on. The unit requires some essential tools, available through Kent-Moore, without which working on it is all but impossible.”
[…]
The 5LM60 …uses the overly complicated and cumbersome four-rail shift design with its myriad number of parts. In 1993 the 5L60 went through further design changes and was designated the New Venture 3500. At long last the four-rail system was scrapped and replaced with a single-rail
Someone on Car Junky automotive forums claims to have been a trained GM transmission technician, and he/she also has very little good to say about the 5L60:
When I received training at the GM training center in Minneapolis in 1991 on this transmission. The training manual (which I still have) refers to it as a 5LM60 Formerly HM-290. At that time I was told the transmission was currently being built by New Venture gear and New Venture Gear is a joint venture between GM (Muncie transmission) and Chrysler (New Process Gear).
In 1987 it was referred to as MG-290 My guess is the G is for Getrag
In 1988 it was referred to as HM-290 HM= Hydramatic / Muncie
In 1989 it was referred to as 5LM60
In 1991 it was referred to as NVG 5LM60 NVG= New Venture GearThere are two designs for the input shaft, input shaft bearings and main shaft bearings. The first design, which documentation will show as 1988-1990, had a ball bearing and a roller bearing behind it. The second design only has a ball bearing but it was a much larger bearing. The first design bearings were more prone to fail. They were failing when these trucks were under warranty with very low miles on them.
There is no way I would suggest fixing your transmission. The bearings are very expensive. Last one I did an estimate on, it was over 2 hundred just for the GM input bearing. The input shafts are different so you can’t put the better bearing in the earlier trans. Also if you take apart the main shaft, many of the parts cannot be reused, and you need an oven and melt sticks to heat the parts to the correct temp for pressing them together during reassembly.
A large holding fixture (special tool) is used to hold everything in position when assembling the transmission.
It is almost always less expensive to replace these transmissions then it is to rebuild them. Even in parts prices alone. It is hard to find good used ones.
But that’s on me; I should have looked at that odometer when I was test-driving the truck, and I should have done a bit more research into the different transmissions of the various K1500 model-years. Alas, it’s my second recent California car-purchase blunder, and while I still don’t think it will lose me any money when I resell, it is a bummer.
The rest of the truck is in good shape. There are a few loose bolts holding the transmission crossmember to the frame, but I’ll just tighten those. The AC leaks at one of its Schrader valves, but I bought a tool to fix that without having to evacuate the refrigerant:
And the headliner is shot:
And the radio makes loads of static
The biggest issue is the odometer (which I can fix easily) and the transmission. If I can get the transmission replaced for a reasonable sum, I honestly won’t care that much about the odometer. Sure, the truck’s value took a hit, but as far as usability, this GMT400’s motor seems healthy, the frame is solid, the body is straight, and pretty much all systems are a-go except the transmission input bearing and the AC.
It’s still a good truck, but just not quite the deal I thought it was.
It’s very hard to fully evaluate a car without taking it home for a day. The 15-20 minutes we spend while the owner hovers around just aren’t enough.
Especially in the dark while he’s showing off his new AR-15.
I will recommend that if you are swapping the trans on that look for the nv4500 it is the one that was in the 2500 and up trucks and some 1500s those have a granny gear in them that when you are in 4 low will take you anywhere.
They also have a overdrive that depending on you tire and rear gear will get you 17 to 18 mpg highway. Witch is what I got with mine. The last plus is the nv4500 was the ability to add a PTO.
I 2nd this, the NV3500 is so-so for light duty, but if he’s planning on towing, this might be a blessing in disguise, the NV4500 is pretty easy to find and has a lot of aftermarket support.
I personally have a ’96 with a NV3500 with plans to swap to NV4500.
So the gmt400 ACs (and all the 80’s-90’s GM ACs) are trash. Those schraders all fail too. When that compressor fails (if it hasn’t already) there is an upgraded version with a dowel that prevents the body from rotating and breaking the seal. I’ve replaced the entire ac on multiple gmt400’s. They are great trucks!
My 96 hit just shy of 400k when I sold it on the original engine and transmission. Under stressed and overbuilt platform
Oh no! David, this is terrible! But I can make this problem go away. Sell it to me. 😉
That’s the right idea haha
And you could resell it in rust belt for 10k+ haha
Hey Mercedes! Here’s you a manual, 4×4 truck that will make DT jealous!
https://www.facebook.com/share/15RSZMCjCr/
The odo problem is likely broken teeth on an internal plastic gear.
Replacement gears are usually pretty inexpensive, but the work itself is among the harder things I’ve done myself just b/c you have to be super patient and precise to not accidentally break anything else inside while you’re at it.
It did seem too good to be true, more than it just coming from the sleepy hamlet of Temecula. The smog paper trail should give idea of real mileage as has been already suggested. LS swap and/or auto swap seem the easiest/bang for buck, but I don’t need to create content so…
“I’m a diehard stickshift guy because I find them more fun, they tend to be more reliable, and I can rebuild them easily compared to an auto.”
~DT
Also timing belts are inherently unreliable
It’s a Chevy 350. Aten’t there a great many good transmissions that’ll bolt right up?
And you should be able to find a good used replacement NV3500, or whatever it was.
As for the head unit and liner, web content! “David learns to change a head liner” might be fun. The same with “David installs way too much stereo on his truck.”
Bring it back to Michigan and sell it as is for double your money. Being able to use a ratchet to unscrew bolts on anything older than 5 years old is underrated.
*Looks out at the snow on the ground and the salt truck that just drove by… Looks over at the transmission jack parked in the corner of the garage next to the toolbox with possibly every socket size known to mankind (minus a few 10mm ones, of course)… Looks out at the rusty beater truck in the driveway…*
Yep, I’d take it. And like it.
My favorite part is when you’re done and you move the car out of the garage, there are piles of rust bits wherever you did something.
I use that as free oil dry. Just sweep it into any spills and you’re good to go.
Adding a good replacement transmission and fixing whatever other little niggles you find is still cheaper than a late-model used truck. And probably easier/cheaper to repair when other things need it down the line. And it’s a largely bulletproof design with good parts availability. Overall probably cheaper to own and run than a newer but out-of-warranty truck. Not a turn-key bargain, but still a decent deal for something that just needs some sweat equity.
Personally, I don’t consider a transmission swap in a very common, conventional Detroit truck to be a difficult job. It’s just big and heavy. And having the transmission all the way out makes any work on the clutch and flywheel child’s play.
Though I get it — a lot of folks rightfully balk at DIY transmission work. I’m just the crazy guy who pulled the complete (and very looong) ZF automatic plus the transfer case mated to it out of a classic Range Rover in order to replace the stupid O-ring on the input shaft behind the torque converter just because that one stupid O-ring is all that keeps the fluid from being pumped out of the transmission. And the drivetrain is tucked way the heck up there under the car because it’s a Land Rover… And it has to come out with the transfer case attached… and you have to take the Y-pipe out since it’s a V8 and the Y-pipe is in the way because a Land Rover is more compact than it looks… All because of one stupid O-ring! (Oh, and it was damn hard to find just that O-ring, too, because it’s usually only sold in a much more expensive rebuild kit, which this Rover, of course, didn’t need.)
Is that for real?
Oh, entirely too true. A lot of work due to a failed O-ring. Which had failed because the previous owner had bypassed the transmission cooler, thinking it was fine if it was only being used at low speeds off-road. (It wasn’t, and the O-ring took the brunt of heat-related damage. A check of the transmission’s innards showed that all the expensive stuff was, in fact, fine. But mistreating one key part can bring down an entire system.) And of course, it involves the marriage of a heavy-duty British vehicle and German drivetrain componentry. The intersection of two very different worlds.
The original “classic” Range Rover coil-sprung platform, which is also the basis for the Discovery I and the Defender, is an exercise in extremely effective packaging, putting a lot of over-built, overly-large components together in a vehicle which actually isn’t all that large. Particularly due to the minimal overhangs, everything is shoved tightly together between the front and real frame crossmembers. So removing things becomes an exercise in removing or disconnecting and shifting things to get them out of the way. And there’s no clearance or access to unbolt the transfer case from the transmission, so the whole assembly has to come out as a unit. To do that, you have to remove the Y-pipe, remove the engine fan (so it doesn’t get crushed or gouge the radiator, disconnect the engine from the bellhousing and loosen the engine mounts to rotate it slightly upward, then remove the transmission and transfer case as a unit. You’d think that part wouldn’t be too bad on a vehicle with high ground clearance, but the transmission is tucked much further up between the frame rails in a tall transmission tunnel to keep it safe from rocks and such, so you need both upward reach with a transmission jack plus a low jack profile to be able to roll it out with the axles and suspension members in the way, because it has to come forward and down, not just straight down. Which requires raising the front of the vehicle carefully on jackstands and blocking, a good bit higher than you’d think but not too high or the transmission jack won’t reach.
Swapping the O-ring out is a matter of removing the torque converter to get at it — and, actually, sliding the clutch pack out to check for any damage (there wasn’t, and the clutch pack stays together and slides out and back in very easily). Put on the new O-ring, and then re-seat the torque converter very carefully. (Otherwise the O-ring will be crushed and torn, which you won’t find out about until everything’s re-assembled and back in the car, so it’s something that has to be done gently and then you can check that all the torque converter and input shaft are rotating smoothly before doing anything else.) Finally, it’s just a matter of muscling the transmission and transfer case assembly back into place and reconnecting everything. It’s a series of simple tasks that just take a lot of time; the labor cost from a shop would be the killer. Actually replacing the O-ring and inspecting the transmission innards takes a few minutes. All the work surrounding that task, though, plus the fact that you can’t let just any shop monkey slam the torque converter back onto the shaft and call it a day is what would make the job horribly expensive.
The whole thing is insane not because any individual thing is terribly complicated, but just because the whole vehicle is just so meticulously engineered. British Aerospace participated in designing the original Range Rover, and it kind of shows in the overall efficiency of the packaging. Everything is made of carefully-put-together sub-assemblies that have to come apart and go back together in precise order. The whole is very complex, but the individual parts are simple. There’s just a lot of them. Plus, this particular job blends the extremely rugged (and heavy) chassis engineering of the Rover, which is sort of a shrunken heavy truck and farm tractor all in one, and an older ZF automatic transmission, which is fine example or very robust and meticulously precise German engineering. Two rather different but somehow complementary things that you have to manhandle about.
Everybody who wrenches on cars has, at some point, Kafkaesque tales of strange breakages and convoluted repair procedures; this is one of my personal favorites. And it stems in part from the curious mash-up of different automotive engineering cultures — on a classic Range Rover from the 1980s, the vehicle chassis, body, and electricals are all British. The Rover V8 engine is of American (Buick) descent, the transmission is German (ZF), and the transfer case is American (Borg-Warner). All brought together with engineering assistance from British Aerospace, so the history goes. Global technologies brought together by some of the nerdiest engineers imaginable. Weirdness inevitably ensues.
Minor setbacks my buddy. With how long these run on top of the replaceability of parts, mileage is irrelevant.
On a quick search of http://www.car-part.com, most local boneyards I have around me are asking about 500-800 for a used trans, and a few of them I know can be talked out of needing a core.
If you want to turn this thing into a new truck with new parts, its going to get expensive. These trucks are for the poors, think poor!
If the used truck was good enough for you, used parts are good enough for the truck! lol!
“The AC leaks at one of its Schrader valves, but I bought a tool to fix that without having to evacuate the refrigerant”
Does it still blow cold?
what makes these so desirable? Every GMT400 and 800 I dealt with was a total crapcan. Most of the time we got one for valet parking, the engine would run rough, idle all over the place, missing, smell like either burning oil, or coolant. Also, shifting into drive would make it feel like an anvil was dropped into the damn car.
I am not even going to bring the interior issues because GMs interiors of that era….
I did valet parking between 1999 and 2012, so my experiences with them are more than just one summer job or something like that
“the engine would run rough, idle all over the place, missing, smell like either burning oil, or coolant. Also, shifting into drive would make it feel like an anvil was dropped into the damn car.”
That’s considered”charm”.
Finely aged, with added character.
It’s almost a GM prime directive to run like that forever. Apex pragmatism.
If you don’t smell the oil, gas, or coolant, you won’t remember to top them up periodically. So it’s a safety feature, really.
If there ain’t oil under it, there ain’t oil in it. Handy feature to have.
Reliability, pleasant to look at, huge aftermarket, they drive well for a 90’s truck, decent on fuel for what they were, pretty comfortable, used to be very cheap to buy, and ALL THAT 90S NOSTALGIA!
Rough running on GM TBI is usually caused by a dried-out, cracked gasket between the intake and the throttle body. It’s an easy fix that a lot of people just never get taken care of. Same for the other leaks and stuff. The parts aren’t expensive. People just need to take the time to get the work done, either themselves or at a shop. But most GM products will run like cr@p for longer than other cars will run, so they’re entirely too easy to neglect and kick around forever — which is why you encounter so many old GM shitboxes. They’re like cockroaches. Nasty and hard to kill.
General Motors or Great Lemons? I think that was one of the running jokes at the time.
I believe the saying goes something like “GM vehicles will run badly for longer than others will run at all.”
Ahhhhh, old car problems!
Well, this is pretty simple to me. The odometer is a pretty common thing, really. The little gear that runs the whole show got brittle and simply barfed. I remember places selling these gears all over the place.
As for the transmission, that’s simple too. Don’t go buying a new one. Shit, David! We’ve never seen you buy NEW parts! Hop on car-part and find a nice condition used unit at the salvage recycler mecca of your choosing. Throw a new clutch kit while you’re at it, and you’re good to go!
I already found you one in Van Nuys, 132,000 miles on it, with the notation –
“TASTED – 90 DAYS WARRANTY” Five hundred bones!
Can’t go wrong if it’s tasted!
But he might be better off with a used transmission that was tested rather than one that was tasted…. LOL
“It’s disconnected, and who knows how long it’s been that way!”
Can you look up the emissions history? That should give you an idea when the odo stopped spinning and you might be able to extrapolate the true mileage from that and general condition.
https://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?userDate=1993&userModel=Chevy%20Truck-1500%20Series%20(1988-1999)&userPart=Transmission&origPart=&userPreference=zip&userZip=60657&userLat=41.9396000&userLong=-87.6568000&userVIN=&dbPart=400.1&userIntSelect=611722&userClaimer=&userClaim=&uID=&uPass=&userLocation=All+States&userSearch=int
I think the “4wd integrated bell housing” one is the one you want. Most of them look expensive but there are a few you could possibly take a risk on. Unfortunately only 1 in CA for $900 and one in Vegas for $275 sub 1K and near-ish to LA.
I may get shot for this, but is there a reliable automatic you could substitute in there? Sounds like you picked a bad year for that truck.
My mother had a Saturn Vue with a notoriously bad automatic, but I think swapping that to a manual would have been much more involved. She had to offload hers at auction. Hopefully it won’t come to that with yours.
Dude, cut your losses and sell it. No- seriously.
I (silently) figured the low miles were due to someone swapping the cluster with a junkyard one, a 10 minute process in most vehicles that don’t use anything keyed to the ECU, it being disconnected is…odd. Is that at the tranny end, perhaps the tranny was removed once already? Never trust the odometer even if it’s working. Maybe it WAS swapped and the Jame Gumb guy out in the desert did such a crappy job that they didn’t even hook it up! Never buy a car at night, grasshopper…
$2700 including no core return for a brand new transmission actually seems pretty good if the rest of the truck is mostly fine, then again I’m used to looking at 5 figures for European transmissions… You can do the labor yourself, and might as well replace the clutch while you are in there for decades of blissfull future hauling and then the upside of being able to sell with a new and GOOD transmission!
Galpin is in Van Nuys, within 2 blocks of there you will find at least a dozen places that will put a far better than stock headliner in for under $150. Heck the detail shop probably “has a guy” that’ll do it for $100. Just ask. Same with the AC for that matter. It’s winter, now’s the time to get the AC fixed, don’t wait until July.
This may be the best and most usable and useful vehicle in your fleet. At least until gas prices go up again after the tariffs hit. 🙂
NEVER BUY A CAR AT NIGHT IS 100% CORRECT
The issue of a swap may go deeper. You might have a grey market truck you will be unable to smog. I’d definitely recommend getting a smog before handing over money.
LS Swap, 4L80E.
Maybe time to “go see Cal?”
Bet you don’t get that reference without help DT.
Good luck…
that headliner scares me the most.
Nah, take that backing down and hose it off/scrub it to get the cruddy old adhesive and rotted cloth off, then hose it down some more and leave it to air-dry overnight. Get some spray adhesive and replacement headliner cloth. Just have a helper to lay it down so you don’t get wrinkles glued-in. They’re not terribly hard, just awkward, and getting the backing scrubbed down to a good surface you can put adhesive on is the most annoying part.
This. I replaced the headliner in my Accord myself with no helper. It took a few hours. The hardest part was getting the card back in. Now it looks new.
That truck headliner looks way easier.
Amazing how, when you actually live with a new acquisition for a week or two, you find a few flaws….
Hopefully “Elise” is not having buyers remorse for her latest acquisition….
may the honeymoon last forever…
A transmission swap would fix this truck up no problem.
David, you spent way too long in Michigan, as have I. You know this truck is worth every dime you put in to it. One of the best trucks ever made right here.
If the speedo works but the odo doesn’t, it’s likely a failure internal to the gauge cluster rather than something disconnected.
Is the NV3500 a wrecking yard possibility? Maybe just as a core to save some cash?