"1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

It's time to jump into the pool.

Almost 3 years ago i bought "her". She was a local sale, the PO needing some money. In my excitement maybe i should have attention a little better. PO did state that the truck was 'put together from 4 other trucks...' Yeah yeah sure sure. PO said it was a driver and she did start up right then and there. $3k later and she was mine and i drove her home that afternoon.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Now the fun...Like I mentioned above, she was originally 4 trucks, or at least a '50 front clip AND a '51 chevy cab. The engine tag says its a 235 out of a 1954. I found all this out after the research i had to go through after my initial visit to DMV & CHP. The last registration and plates went back to the 1950 GMC. For what ever reason the PO popped the serial plate, but he gave it back to me when i asked for it. That's how i figured out it was a 1951 cab.

Long story short, here in CA we have licensed inspectors that will come out and inspect your vehicle as an agent of the state. I went this route because my local CHP office wouldn't return my calls. All of this happened last summer, so it took me a while. So I go to the DMV with my fresh inspection sheet and then they tell me i have to get it weighed. Ugh...how the heck am I going to do that? Because in the meantime I realize all the fun the PO did to get the truck back together, lets just say corners where cut.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

So when I said she was a driver i mean just barely. Oh well, its not like we drive them out of the fields, driveways, barns, etc. we find them in. So while i'm trying to figure out how i'm going to register her, i'm doing my research and buying parts that I think i will want &/or need. (Rear end, Seat, engine but more on that later.)

So I have a truck, I have it certified, I'm buying stuff that I think I need from my local P-n-P...I think i'm working on my truck :lol: Until my friend points out that, "no you're not, you're just buying stuff. Is it registered yet?" Damn, I hate it when he's right...

So the days before New Years, i took off with the sole intent to drag her out of my garage get her weighed and then get her registered. Jan 2nd...Success!!! :metal:

Got her registered!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

So now I have a registered truck. but what's next? Gotta have a plan...
After the almost 2.5 years on this site I've had a long time to research...without a lot of details, and based upon the research from many sources but mostly this site, here is the scope for this build.

Directional choice
a. Suspension/Chassis
i. Original frame
ii. Mustang II w/ IFS
iii. Triangulated 4 link or Leaf upgrade
iv. Ford 8.8 3.73 gears Limited slip (4x4 blazers and S10s are rare around here)

b. Drivetrain
i. 5.3L LM7 - "old school"
ii. Manual transmission
iii. Mustang fuel tank in bed

c. Body/Paint
i. Simple
ii. Fix problem areas
1) Inner cab corner
2) Toe board
iii. Patch holes in firewall
iv. Paint interior
v. New side windows and vent windows
1) Window felt
vi. Homemade bed kit
vii. Move gas filler neck
1) Fender?
viii. Polish brite work
ix. Push button door handles

d. Interior- Gray tones
i. Astro bench seat
ii. Functional Heater, maybe A/C
iii. New wiper motor
iv. New gauges
v. Wiring and fuse panel

This is just a list and there are more details that i've captured, but not called out for the sake of space.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

So I've been tinkering on her now and then but this weekend is when i finally dug in. I did this because i just did my taxes and this told me what this years budget would be.

So at the end of this weekend i got most of the front end off and built a little engine dolly from plans i found on stovebolt.com.

This was all done in between watching Iowa State win their 2nd consecutive Big 12 men BBall championship! (GO STATE!) that coupled by the ever mounting honey-do list. (I had to remind my wife yet again that we're different than the home improvement shows that she likes to watch as there are only so many hours in the day and we don't have a dedicated crew to get stuff done!)

So why Charlotte? So i'm mulling what to name the truck the other night and my 8 yr old daughter walks up to me and I ask her "What's a good name for the truck?" She looks at me with that matter-of-fact way that 8 yr olds can look at you and says, "Charlotte." I ask, "Why Charlotte?" And with that same matter-of-fact look, "because that's her name." After thinking it over for a second, i come to the realization that is indeed her name, "Charlotte"

So here she is...."Charlotte". but i will warn in advance. She is going to be a slow build, and as you can see by the scope, somewhat 'vanilla'. But she'll be mine and I couldn't be happier!!! :metal:

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Congratulations on the start of the build! I am tagging along. Have fun!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

I'll hang around and see how you do :lol::metal:...Jim

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Looks like a good start.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

As a fellow Kalifornian I feel your pain and CONGRATULATE you on getting her registered, those outside the Republic have no idea how difficult that can be here in the Golden state.

You have the great weather on your side there so just do a little bit at a time and don't waste your time on deadlines, just enjoy the process.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

I am on board. Should be a nice build.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

-Thanks! I love the work you're doing on your burb.

Sim6, Oossuuu & Oldman3 -Thanks, appreciate it!

Gregski -You know, once you figure out the steps you need to take, it really wasn't that bad. Just time and effort... The only negative aspect was my local CHP inspector not returning my calls to set up my re-inspection. That's why i went the private route...

Thanks again everyone, its been a long time coming. Hope the build doesn't disappoint. :lol:

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

That's a nice story!
Finally you can make start, doesn't matter if it's going slow, as long as you have fun doing it!!
Be sure to add a lot of pics!!
Succes!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Real quick update. Not a lot to post, spent most of the weekend getting the motor ready to pull. Thought i had everything unhooked and began to yank the motor and lifted to truck off its stands! Went back to look at the front mounts and noticed the plate you see in the pic that was welded to the front x-member. The fun thing is one the nuts is behind the balancer so looks like that will be ground down. I do like the extra access space i'll have when its time to put everything back together. Actually not too miffed about the firewall being butchered up a bit. As you can see by the holes in the second pic i already knew the toeboard and firewall would need to be addressed.
well that's it for now.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

To update from yesterday, ended up taking the day off because its my birthday! Yeah I can now go rent a car! (Just kidding, been able to do that for 17 years now :lol:) Anyway, what better way to play hookie from work, than work on your project and ended up getting the motor and transmission out! I'm also liking that little engine dolly i made off the plans i found over on stovebolt.com! Whoa, i'm getting serious about this and as frustrating as it can be its still pretty fun.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Congratulations on your birthday (little late..)!!

Going nice and steady!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

A lot of similarities here! I will follow..

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Ok, I was a little hesitant posting this week because I didn't do a lot to the truck directly but I did get some stuff done that will work out in the long run.

1.) I ended up ordering a new welder from Northern Tool. I figured i might need that going forward with the plans that i have. :lol: I ended up getting a Hobart 140. I could have went with a welder a little cheaper but man Hobart has a great warranty right now and it USA built. If my extra Benjamin means somebody has a job, so be it. Plus it was cheaper to order from Northern Tool and ship it to me direct than it was to buy from Tractor Supply and ship to a local store. Well it is still shipping ground so i guess I have to wait.

2.) I also ended up ordering my Mustang II x-member from Paul Horton's Welder Series. I just like the way his stuff 'looks', plus you can't beat the benefit of the current exchange rate w/ the Canadian dollar. It hasn't cleared the credit card yet but i bet I got 15-20% discount on his posted prices. (since he's in Canada, all his prices are Canadian dollars) I'm looking at a Fatman IFS, so i'll be calling them in a couple of weeks.

3.) Good-guys had their first show of the 4 they have here in Northern CA, the Spring Get-together, I was actually on the fence about going to this show this year. in previous years, the participation has been down, plus they don't attract that many vendors to the Get-togethers. (They usually show up to the West Coast Nationals at the end of the summer). Well I ended up going and i'm glad I did, even though there weren't a lot of ADs!

Now story time. I am happily married w/6 kids, 3 boys & 3 girls w/the youngest boy and all 3 girls still at home. (3 boys came pre-packaged w/ the marriage :lol: ). So why do i bring this up? I've been going to Good Guy shows for a while now, one of the boys and their girlfriend, the wife and 1 boy and all girls, Brother-in-law alone, (he's re-building a 69 GMC that my wife sold to him years back), Wife, with all the girls, etc...needless to say its usually an adventure.

So Saturday morning I had made the decision to head out (encouraged by the BinL as he rode out early to check it out.) I did the expected roll call to the family to see who wanted to go and the only one (surprisingly) who said she wanted to go was my youngest daughter at 7. I was a little apprehensive about this, since she's the one i have the most problems with, but hey how can i say no to my little girl. So after making sure she was dressed comfortably and still wanted to go we took off.

As we were on our way there i realized that it was a bit of a larger show as CalTrans was warning about delays at the exit for the show on the freeway. As we pulled up I noticed there were a lot more people! in fact the swap meet area spilled outside of the fairgrounds into the first section of parking. Plus the 4-Sale corral also spilled out in to a quadrant of parking...wow there's a lot of folks here!

So after i 'con' the ticket guy that my daughter is 6 and thus free and in fact didn't just turn 7 as she vehemently was arguing with me, he just shrugged and let us in. Hey that's $6! Anyway i soon realize this show is huge! There are a lot more cars and the auto-cross is hopping and there are people everywhere!

Needless to say my daughter did ok. There were a lot of cars and trucks that we did want to look at (she loves those old VW Bugs and Buses!) and I did get to check out some vendors. Briefly talked to the Sanderson Headers rep...

Did i get to pick over the vendors that showed up, nope. But i will say Scott's did make the trip up north for the show and their stuff in amazing. If i was building an auto-cross rig i'd definitely go with their suspension package. It looks amazing in real life! Did i get to walk through the swap meet...didn't even try due to an episode last year with the daughter in tow and i wasn't really looking for anything that might be there.

Like I said my daughter did great. At the end of the day, as long as i kept her fed and hydrated (as you can see by the large cup of lemonade and bag of kettle corn) she enjoyed herself. So did I. So I did find an AD for her to take her picture with because that's her favorite color! But like i said there just weren't that many there

As for today, i spent the afternoon replacing the shocks in the 90 3/4 ton Chevy beast that is our work truck cuz the youngest son "heard" something, (No he wasn't out joy-riding... :lol:). So not a lot of time to work on Charlotte, but i got some good ideas, reaffirmed some directions i want to go in and spent some time w/my daughter. So in the end, it was a good weekend!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Yep, father daughter time is a great week end! Sounds like a good show.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Just a brief update on Charlotte.
The Hobart showed up earlier this week so what am going to do with this? Weld of course, but how am I going to move it around and what not? I need a welder cart. So I'm at a big box store buying landscaping bricks with the wife, about to buy some angle iron, when the wife says, "why don't you use that old bed frame that's under the shelves in the garage?" Say that's a good idea...

So I spent the large part of the weekend cutting up the frame, putting it together with my new welder and putting on the finishing touches, like hooks for cords and hoses and some wood and paint. I did realize a couple of things while i was putting it together.

1. Its been a while since i've welded! In the end it started coming back to me but i'm going to need some practice but I already knew that. I was planning to reach out to the local steel company to see if i can buy some cut-offs and scrap to practice with, so no big surprise.

2. It was as fun as i remembered! I couple of times, i had to catch myself from saying, "I'm sure there's other stuff around here that needs welding..."

So at the end of the weekend i have one assembled welder cart from an old bed frame. I painted it red, because growing up we were an IH family and i thought it would look good. I stained the wood, because well i could. It only took me about 30 minutes in between coats on the cart. I even thought ahead and left room for the future bottle that i will need. Just using flux core for now.

That and I got a chance to dig out the rats nest of a wiring harness and all the old gauges. The only thing left in the cab are all the odds and ends, nuts and bolts.

Last but not least, my mustang x-member came in from Paul Hortons and it looks good. I'll provide pictures when its ready to get worked on.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

It sounds like Charlotte will be a lot of fun, Good luck. Nice cart!!!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

While I personally prefer JD green...I appreciate IH red too. Nice job on the cart!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

lower50- Thanks. i love your build!

Advanced- yeah farm implement brand loyalty is as bad if not worse than the whole chevy/ford debate :lol:

we were a Case IH/Farmall family so the red. but we did have an old JD "M" that we used to run PTOs and clear the driveways when it snowed.

I need to finalize who i'm going to get my suspension from and start putting the engine together. The challenge/goal with that will be a modern engine that honors the old GMC v-6 engines...back to the research!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

I learned how to disc on a John Deere A. Neighbors have it now and it still used.
We were mostly Minneapolis Moline back in the day.

Interesting thoughts on the engine. For something different that honors the GMC V6 how about a Buick turbo V6?

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

a turbo buick v-6 would be cool...

Some good news and some bad news...

Good news: I got both my front and rear suspensions ordered! :metal:

Bad news: They're back-ordered...

Stay tuned...

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Nothing really new to report, because i'm still waiting on suspension parts and real life stuff. (Gotta love working in Quality Assurance during audit season). :lol:

So as i'm driving to and from work or sitting on an airplane going to the next audit site, you've got that free time to think about the build because i want to keep going and don't want it to stall too much. I've had 2 thought running through my head on directions to go while i'm waiting for my parts:

1. Start putting the engine together... or

2. Get the rear axle into shape...

I'm starting to like #2. the axle is a f*&d 8.8 out of a wrecked 03 explorer w/ 113k mi on it. I'd still like to pop open the diff and see what condition the gears are in, and of course start taking the OE brackets off and begin to update the brake system.

Now if i do this, I'm going to need to find some space in the garage. This has become a bit of a sore spot with the lil' woman. We've been going back and forth on the direction as she wan't to have the ability to park her car. I reply then she shouldn't want all the wood projects and now the truck project too (that she found and picked out I might add). Plus the garage serves as a giant doghouse that she enjoys as well.

So I finally said, "Listen here woman, you get all the rooms in the house and this is my room and I will do as sees fit!"

Well ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you I made a good decision when I bought our current couches for my wife last mother's day. They are very comfy and cozy to sleep on... :lol:

Depending on either direction i go above, I'll post pics. Stay tuned...

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Many a night in a hotel I've planned out and dreamed of the next steps in a build. Garage space was always an issue and we parked our daily drivers outside.

Good luck with figuring out space utilization and hopefully no more nights on the couch!:)

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

So I finally said, "Listen here woman, you get all the rooms in the house and this is my room and I will do as sees fit!"

Well ladies and gentlemen, I can tell you I made a good decision when I bought our current couches for my wife last mother's day. They are very comfy and cozy to sleep on...


Love it!!! We all make sacrifices.. :bann:
I'm in the same boat for space, it's my space just not that much of it.

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Like i said before I didn't want to get too stagnant, so I decided to pop open the cover on the 8.8 I got a while back and see how it looked and if it needed work.

In the first picture is the axle when i pulled it in to the garage from the side of the house to start working on it.

The second picture is when things get interesting...The pic doesn't do it justice but it looks brand new! No visible wear, the fluid is still somewhat clear and no metal in the bottom. Even the backlash was good. This unit looks like it either wasn't ever abused or they kept up on the maintenance. Heck the brake pads even had about 3/16" left on them. So as the saying goes, we'll let this dog lie...

The third pic is the inside of the differential cover after a little cleaning.

The fourth pic is after a put everything back together with new fluid and a new gasket. Had a bit of a scare on this one as I broke one of the bolts torquing it down! Must not have seated very well because I was able to get it back out pretty easy with the bolt remover...whew...after the trip to the hardware store to get the grade 8 replacement we were back in business. I decided to paint everything to get it looking presentable. I'll get the tube and the rest of the brake assembly as they get closer to done. I thought about polishing up the rotors and having them turned as they seemed pretty good but i decided to start from scratch and get both new rotors and pads from Brakes Performance. I ended getting a decent deal on a set of drilled and slotted rotors w/pads.

The fifth pic is an homage to my daughter who named the truck Charlotte. Her favorite color is red, so i decided to paint the shaped portion of the diff cover red....hmmm, its got a bit of black widow look to it and there was a famous spider named Charlotte...Of course this has nothing to do with why i did it, but it brings everything together :lol:

Time to start getting parts for the motor (yikes its gonna be pricey, but that's what you get when you want to retro a LSx). That and still looking for my suspension parts...

Stay Tuned!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

What did you order for a front end?

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

I got a Welder's series x-member from Paul Horton's. Great turnaround and you can't beat the currency conversion right now. Its about a 15-20% exchange rate given the day. The mustang II components from Speedway. Speedway was backordered, but i'm not that concerned yet. Figure i've got about another 1-2 weeks given the delivery times on other builds.

And to be honest, it somewhat doesn't matter cuz its just another system that needs to be checked off, Need to finish the motor and get the parts to mate the tranny to the motor, etc...and that's the fun!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

That is a clean diff so nice find there. Looking like IH red?

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Yeah it was left over from the welding cart, and it is my daughter's favorite color. And I wasn't going to with her other favorite color...pink. :lol:

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Nice and clean diff. One less thing to worry about :)

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Just a small update, not much to post, but i'm still at it...sort of :lol:

Update:
Called Speedway earlier this week for a status. They said they were expecting their shipment within a week and half and I should see some activity within a week after that so fingers crossed. Wanna get this suspension!

In the meantime i've been going over the welders series instructions and setting a good ride height. Just making sure I've got a pretty good handle when i go after it. Nothing is stopping me from tacking in the x-member but I guess I'd like to have the components here as well (that's what i'm waiting for.)

Some good news. While doing some research I found this article: http://www.hotrod.com/how-to/engine/...st-comparison/

The reason i reference this article, I've been debating upgrading the cam back and forth for probably a couple of months.
Pros: More HP...duh

Cons: Too much HP for rest of drive train. Cost. Need to upgrade heads/rockers, i.e. cost

Now the whole intent is some respectable power, hence the V-8 but its going to be a daily driver, so nothing overwhelming. Going back to the article, the section that caught my eye was the area around the 6.0l cam into the 5.3. So I started to search ...So i find a used 6.0L cam w/lifters on ebay for $75 all together! what the heck, I bid on it and won and it just showed up yesterday. I confirmed the part number and its the one I want so i'm a little excited about that. Get a little more lift and little more duration but don't think i'll need to replace the springs.

So know the little hiccup...
Like a doorknob i ordered the wrong brake rotors for my rearend. For some reason I kept thinking i had a '03 vs. the '98 that I do have and ordered the '03 which are about an 1/8" too big in diameter. In post mortem, and checking all my notes from research '02 is when they changed to IRS so in my mind i kept telling my self look 03 and older...i know its weird and it stuck. So after review the axle tag i confirmed i had a 98 and sent back to Brake Performance to replace, minus shipping and restocking :banghead:

So in summary, i think i'm getting close to getting some suspension parts on the truck so the cab is gonna have to come off. That means major cleanup in the garage. Thats what ive been working on all morning before the heat shows up. I think i got it in a good place. So still tinkering, still researching still having fun!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Too much HP is limited by your right foot. As the rubber is melting off the tires LOL Nice job on the cam!!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Christmas came early!!!...or late...being that its about 6 months either way :lol:

Suspension parts came in from Speedway. Was showing the wife as I started to take inventory and she got 'excited'. I replied, "Really, that's all it takes?" and she answers "When I think what that truck will do when your done, yeah..." I can imagine what her reaction would have been if I went with the Scott's front end (cuz I think its gorgeous). :smoke:

Anyway couldn't wait and decided to weld in the gusset & spacer into the x-member that came with the Speedway parts (too bad i ordered the same from Paul Horton's...oh well...) :waah: The driver side gusset is a bit on the high side but should work. Regarding alingment, i had the A-arm bolts in the spacer and gussets when i tacked the parts in so i won't have a problem when assembling.

So...need to find some boxing plates and get some shielding gas for the welder. I don't mind welding w/ flux but get a bit bubblegummy. (is that a word?) then we'll be *ahem* cooking with gas!!! :lol:

In closing, i'm getting more impressed with Speedway. The parts they sent look really good and the customer service has been good as well, and the price was right. Kinda wish the packing was a little better but hey it got here. I'm pretty happy with the purchase.

Stay tuned!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Just a real quick update, i'm kinda beat after this weekend! After 2 1/2 days of getting my boxing plates sorted out, cut and fitted, reading all the instructions provided 3 times over and measuring at least another 4, doing all the required cuts and welding, my front suspension is in for the most part.

Still need to get the springs in but that will wait until i've got the weight of the motor in. Probably finish up all the brake stuff.
I think i'm going to need to notch the front end. Just eyeballin' it and it looks to be the case...Yeah more work to do!

Then i'll get working on the back end.....

On a side note, i yanked a hydroboost out of an astro van the other day at PnP for $30. Still thinking about what i'm going to do with that....but that's waaaaayyy down the road.

Stay Tuned!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Making good progress. Nice!

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Just a quick update...
Got rack installed. Should have been an easy job but required everything coming apart so I could 1.) install the lower A arm bolts in the right directions :lol: and 2.) so it wouldn't damage any bushings with the heat. Also made cutting and welding in the frame notches easier. Then I had to shim the rack so it would fit. Oh well that's hot rodding.

I'm a little concerned that i'll have to cut the springs but I don't want to make that decision until the weight of the engine is over the front and that will be a long time... so I can either get working on finishing the engine (going for that retro LS look) or can get working on the rear even though the front isn't done.

Meh, i'll get it sorted out :rolleyes:
Stay tuned...

Re: "1950 GMC" -Charlotte
 

Update!

I decided to tackle the rear end. Some background, decided to go with a Speedway motors bolt in triangulated 4-link. I wanted to have this done last week but as everyone knows, life gets in the way. :lol: My peach tree and tomatoes decided to explode and i'm the chief canner so...i can proudly sayI have 46 quarts and 12 half gallons of canned peaches and 18 quarts of BBQ sauce w/ 3 gallons of tomato paste to be processed later, not to mention school starts this week, but I digress...

So when I did get to work on the truck, I decided to tackle the rear end.

I went together pretty straight forward. Actually I'm positively surprised. This kit is designed to be mounted to Speedway's aftermarket frame. Not really researching their frame I wasn't sure how much it mimics the OG frame. The instructions are a bit vague and I was thinking, " great, I'm going to have to do this the old fashion way by winging and eyeballing, and drill out the holes for the kit..."

So as I'm starting to mock up the kit, I realize that it uses existing holes in the frame, or previous rivet holes....sweet! I only needed to "massage" the front lower 4 link arm bracket so it would fit in between the rear bracket of the running board and existing bracket for the parking brake. (at this time I'm going to try to use them with existing 8.8 rear and incorporate an Exploder E-brake). I also had to trim the axle brackets as their for a 3" axle and the 8.8 is 3.25", again no big whoop.

So like I've said, i'm a bit surprised by the utility of the Speedway kit. Everything goes where its supposed to and the upper and lower arms line up the axle in the original location, plus their adjustable. I have the pinion set at 4 degrees currently but can tweak if needed.

Now the bad...if you can call it that. Whoever packs for Speedway messed up and mis-id'd the upper brackets. I got sent 2 right side brackets but one was mis-packed so when it was scanned it came up correct. I've reached out to their customer services and provided pics to help explain the issue. we'll see what they say, i'm not to worried as I've had good experiences with them in the past.

So...next steps. I need to drill the brackets for the upper brackets ( hence the drill on the frame, :lol:) I need to order coil overs for the rear and place the bracket. When the upper brackets arrive they need to get tacked in. When everything looks good, all brackets need to be final welded. Then the rear will be done

Then on to the motor....:metal:
Stay tuned...