George...
 

This is my first thread and my (hopefully) first build!

I was told by a smart man once that you should start from the beginning, I don’t know why? Quentin Tarantino has made allot of money intentionally breaking this rule. Anyway, I have been obsessed with these trucks since I was 12 when my dad would not let me buy a black 67 long bed for $500. Looking back, even though I hate admitting my parents know anything, I appreciate him for that because it was a POS! Throughout the years since, every time I saw a 67-72 for sale on the side of the road I always pulled over and looked, never pulling the trigger.

This frustrated and baffled my then girlfriend as to why I would stop in the middle of a trip just to look at an old crappy truck; I am a little obsessive about stuff. Back on track, in April last year I was dropping off a check to a used car dealership (I am the Office Manager of a small lending company) and I ran across a Silver 69 GMC lwb tucked back in the corner on this lot. I immediately ran back to the office, joined this forum and started doing research on 69 gm trucks and this specific truck (reference previous obsession statement). Come to find out it had been there for months and for the next month I watched the price go down until one day I couldn’t stand it any more and I test drove it.

Now it was time for some fancy talkin! For the entire previous year my live in girlfriend of then 5 years was rightfully giving me the “S#!% or get off the pot” conversation about marriage. Even I knew I was running on borrowed time and when I brought the truck up to her she was understanding, not excited, but understanding none the less about buying a truck and not an engagement ring! This is why we are married now, that wouldn’t fly in many relationships.

So, $1700 Dollars later I had a running/driving truck, a hole in my ring fund and a girlfriend questioning her life choices. I can’t believe this is all working out!

Here are some photos from my test drive, I will go over some plans in a future post.

Re: George...
 

Much better than a ring
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Re: George...
 

I would have named it after her, just sayin

Re: George...
 

Hopped up-I told her "you cant drive a ring!" That didnt go over well.

DMWPHOTO-I cant name it after her because when I start bolting on bigger better parts I dont want her getting any ideas! :D

Re: George...
 

HAHA, "bolt ons" for her are nice at first until she gains more self esteem...:smoke:

Re: George...
 

If you name it after her it will eliminate confusion when your drivin to cuss!

Re: George...
 

The first thing people will tell you on this forum when starting your project is “get a plan!” I don’t know if they realize that is next to impossible on this forum when every build thread I read completely changes what I want. In my head my truck changes from lowered to raised, from black to two tone ochre, from carbureted to an LS, from automatic to a T56 on a daily basis. I think the chalkboard in my head that holds all of my ideas is worn out!

The things I do know is that this truck is a long bed and that will stay the same. The rear is a leaf spring set up and after much debate with myself I will convert to coils, it is cheaper and easier to lower and more comfortable for day to day use. It has drums all the way around and while they do stop better on that first push of the pedal, every push after that is the perfect reason to upgrade to disks up front. This truck is going to move in stages so I can enjoy each step as an accomplishment and decide what I want to do next. I will be keeping a tab on how much and where I purchase things along with as many pictures as I can remember to take.

First upgrade, mirrors, the passenger side head is gone, the drivers side looks like Charlotte’s Web and the rearview just looks at the floor waiting for it to be sent off to its happy hunting ground. Side mirror assemblies from LMC $60 and a screwdriver fixed the rearview. Now let’s finish taking off the trim, gravity has done half the job for us and I can see some rust issues under there.

Re: George...
 

good point....

Re: George...
 

I sold 2 of those mirrors a couple weeks ago, he didn't want the glass heads, i have both sides in fair shape if you need some.

Looks like a good start.

Re: George...
 

no moa-thanks for the offer but they are on the truck already.

Re: George...
 

Sweet!

Re: George...
 

nice find on the truck, good luck with it , are you keeping it a GMC

Re: George...
 

Good Stuff gmcc10, I like it already. I have a short bed gmc 69. I haven't done much to it since I bought it 3 months ago, but you should look at the pictures of my truck. It might just give you a few ideas of what it would look like lowered and all black.
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Re: George...
 

waiting for more pics

Re: George...
 

firethorn- thanks and I hope to keep it GMC, but I wont rule anything out. If chevy stuff is what I end up with that is what I will use

Cool69-your machine looks great, I love the color, what drop is that?

67cheby-give me a few days and I will get some more stuff up.

Re: George...
 

When I drove this truck for the first time I crawled under it, in a suit none the less, and looked for the common rust issues. All I saw was a little rust under the driver side door, some surface rust under the floor mat and I figured I should be so lucky! Well we all can see that changed in a hurry. I found a deposit of bondo on the driver cab corner, some cancer on the passenger door and that the metal below the passenger door was held together by paint, so much for surface rust. Apparently the only thing trim is good for is falling off, collecting sand and holding moisture. Upon closer inspection after the trim was off this truck you could see it was painted with a brush over the original paint, I just thought it was old and who knows what is under that! I see plenty of body work in the future and allot of little holes to fill. I am not going to focus on the body now; I can drive a truck with “patina” for a while as long as it doesn’t disintegrate on me going down the road. During this entire process I don’t want the truck to be down more than a few days.

Re: George...
 

Great looing truck and great story haha..

Re: George...
 

more pictures of of newfound rust

Re: George...
 

I think that I found a theme for this build. I live in a neighborhood of duplexes that have no room for a vehicle in the garage if you plan on putting anything larger than an 82 Honda Civic, if I only had a chance to meet the architect! Needless to say my trucks and my wife’s car sit out side and my hippie neighbors must hate me for having a smoking, oil leaking, rust bucket they get to listen to and watch me work on in the driveway. I love not having covenants! One neighbor came over the other day as I was under the hood and asked what I was doing. I replied “working on my recycling project” and explained that it would take years to complete. Unimpressed he then wandered off in his home made leather sandals. I wish I was making this stuff up! But there it is, in a joint effort to save money, help the environment and annoy my neighbor, I am going to try and search junk yards, craigslist, eBay and the forum to build the majority of this truck. Still, there are a few new parts i cant live with out!

Re: George...
 

LOL "RECYCLING" hadnt thought of it that way.....saving the enviroment !

Re: George...
 

I found the cause of the rust on the floor boards inside the cab!!!!

Driving down the road in a rain storm and I start seeing a river of water running down the a-pillars on each side onto the dash and from there redistributed throughout the entire fire wall! Under closer inspection, after the rain storm, the seam sealer has cracked and was letting the water run into the seam at the pillar. Man there is a huge seam at the top corner of the window. What a design flaw, but after 40 years I understand it having a leak or two. I need to fix this now so it doesn’t keep destroying what is left of my truck! This is the perfect opportunity to make my first major cosmetic modification, Shaving the drip rails!

I know allot of people don’t like to shave the drip rails because they say they leak, but ya know what? I already have that problem and it can’t get any worse! Besides with new door seals it shouldn’t leak much or at all, it is one of those things people like but can’t put there finger on and it looks really cool! So here is my process of going about it.

Step 1- do allot of research you can on this forum and others! Some of the info about this is difficult to find, but it is there and it is good!

Step 2-Ask you future brother-in-law, who happens to be a welding instructor and owes you a few favors, to come over and give you a hand with something in the morning. Make sure his schedule is clear for the entire day because this takes a while, 1 very full day or 2 days if pacing your self.

Step 3- Collect welder, cutting wheel, pliers, sanding disk, and wire wheel. We started with the sides of the cab and then the center section. This was logically the easiest way to start and if we ran out of time, which we did, it makes for good stopping points. We began by wire wheeling the seam sealer out, cutting 2” of the rail at a time with the cutting wheel and added a bunch of spot welds to keep it together and strong. Watch out for blowing through the metal around the doors because it is very thin due to all of the compound curves the 18 gauge metal had been put through. We repeated this process slowly so not to warp the metal and if I were to do it again, and I would, cutting 4 inches at a time would save some of the repetition and make it go a little faster, any more than that I would be afraid of misaligning the metal.

Re: George...
 

Step 4-Use the sanding disks to smooth out the welds. Don’t use a grinder to smooth out the welds! It will take too much material too fast and create lots of heat, use coarse sanding disks and step down in grit to smooth the weld safely.

One thing I thought I would do different than others I read about is I started at the front of the door opening and at the bottom of the door opening to meet at the bend in the rail. I did this because some people said they experienced separation of the sheets of metal at the corner when they rounded the bend. Attacking the process this way I did not experience any separation at the bend in the rail.

Re: George...
 

Once we got the gutters around the doors done we ran out of time to trim over the windshield and it had to be done later.

Re: George...
 

nice progress on the drip rail !

Re: George...
 

The only other piece of advice I have is take off the gutter before you trim it back. The gutter over the doors is spot welded in from the underside of the sill and if you drill out the spot welds it can easily be removed. This creates a cleaner and less cluttered process, now all you have is 2 pieces of metal to weld together instead of 3. Also if you don’t cut the gutter off the little piece of metal that is left to weld to the roof has rusts underneath it and the rust will eek through your welds if you don’t remove it. Don’t forget to replace the gutter material with a wider and new piece of metal after you spray it with weld through primer to fill in the gap that is left. I also think some small round stock could be used to fill in the gap and help create a lip to keep water form coming into the cab.

Her are some links to other posts about the subject and a few pictures I "borrowed" from another member:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=450753
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=354144
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=389735

Re: George...
 

Thanks 67 cheby, I see you every where on this forum and you realy help motivate people on there projects. I realy like the work you do with the slosh tubs, grat looking product. That dropmember thread you have is great, cant wait to see wht you do to it next.

Re: George...
 

this forum has always motivated and helped me, it's all about the whole group sharing ideas and helping one another ! the step by step that you are doing here is great, i always like to see those and Thank You !

Re: George...
 

If you do any research about shaving the drip rails you will come across several posts with pictures dedicated to the subject. In those pictures you will see that if you just cut off the rail and weld it up you are left with the world’s smallest and ugliest visor.

Re: George...
 

In order to combat that problem I went about it a little different. We kept the windshield in place because we did not want to brace the frame or take it out. It also needs a new wind shield any way and good heavy cardboard paper taped to the windshield would protect just fine. After that we cut the entire front drip rail off in one section and left it open. We then slightly lifted the roof and cut the lip that comes forward from windshield frame under the roof. This left an over hang of about 3/8” for the roof to be trimmed back to sit flush with the windshield frame minus the lip we cut off. We then began tack welding from the center out to keep any excess metal or warping to the corners where we can take it out with a pie cut.

Re: George...
 

We placed two pie cuts about 5” long in the corners of the cab so the roof would fall smooth and not buckle. Then we moved to the center section of the roof and started burning the roof to the window frame 1 random spot-weld at a time to prevent warping. This is the easiest part of the entire project be cause you are only working with two pieces of metal at full thickness. Just an FYI, the corners of the cab are a night mare there are three and sometimes four pieces of metal you are welding together at once, but if you take your time and think about it rationally it isn’t as bad as it seems.

The only thing I would have done different on the roof is make a slightly larger pie cut on the driver side. After welding the roof up there was a very small buckle at the peak of the cut that we had to heat and tap down with a hammer, the passenger side was wider and we just used the piece we cut out of the pie to fill it in and it came out real smooth.

Sorry I dont have a photo of the finished product primed, I would take one and post it, but the truck is currently sitting under 18" of fresh snow we got yesterday and last night. I will post one as soon as I can.

Re: George...
 

looking good !

Re: George...
 

Ok, I am keeping my promise, here is the photo of the finished drip rail. I think it came out good, follows the body lines well and blends right in!

Re: George...
 

wow...now i think you need to pancake that hood a little...seems to stick up

Re: George...
 

Having 2 trucks in my life caused a little confusion in my house between me and, lets call her the “Warden” for a few weeks. She would ask if we were taking the new truck, witch is confusing because the new to us truck is 43 years old and the old truck is 9, and that would spark a 5 min debate every time we left the house, so we named it George. There are simple solutions to everything and I have better things to do than go through that routine every day.

Speaking of not having enough time, George let me down for the first time! The tumblers in the ignition are so worn that you can take the key out in any position, so while it is running, when it is off, in the accessory position it doesn’t matter just pull it out and go. Well word to the wise, don’t take out the key when it is in accessory and drain the battery while you are at work. There is nothing worse than beer thirty with your friends and a dead truck! It only took 15 min and some jumper cables, but that is still frustrating.

Re: George...
 

Dude that's funny!! ,:lol: ,Move all that snow into the box for better traction!! ;)

Re: George...
 

Wade, most of the snow went into the back of my 4wd just for that reason. When I was done there was a heep in the back of the truck, snowfall alone filled the bed!

Re: George...
 

Lookin good, subscribed to this one.

Re: George...
 

I got myself a sway bar! Now I had a little bit of a dilemma on my hands when it came to choosing a bar. The originals keep the cost down, bolt right in and it gets some useless hunk of steel out some guy’s field. With a new bar that has connecting links to the arms it would cost more money, involve less work and the stock bars create some binding on the suspension that these new bars don’t produce. So I looked at the warden, realized she wouldn’t be upset over $50, but for $250 I may as well castrate myself and just hand them to her because it would hurt less. Besides, on a daily driving situation, or any other driving situation for that matter, I wont be able to tell the difference so to the bone yard I went.

In the land of 4x4s that Montana is, I thought it would be a little more difficult to find 2wd parts, but the junk yard had 2 mid 80’s 2wd 1 tons with the 1.25” sway bars each for $35. I did get the brackets and bushings from the yard, but I want Polly bushings and the bar to be tucked up under the body more so I called Early Classic. After asking them a few questions about using the lowered mount on a stock height truck and having them assure me that it would work just fine, I bought their lowered mounting bracket and hardware for $19 and the Polly bushings and straps for $29. I then gave the bar a good coat of simple green, a blast from the power washer, rubbed it with a red 3m scuffing pad, some self etching primer, 2 coats of black enamel I had laying around and for about $85 I had effectively saved the environment and had a sway bar mounted in George. It feels good to do the right thing, or that is what I tell the boys.

Re: George...
 

I need to make this truck a little more fun, reliable and safer to drive. No, that doesn’t mean I am replacing the ignition tumbler to keep me from killing the battery when I turn it off. Yes it happened again and no the wife didn’t find it as funny as I did. Besides, that would cause me to spend money on something that works, not well, but works none the less. I will converting to an HEI unit, rebuilding the Quadra jet (they are so under appreciated), convert to coils in the rear with the later wider rear end with HD 2.75” drums and disc brakes up front with 5 lugs all the way around. Also I will be adding 1.5” blocks in the rear and cutting ½ a coil from the front to hopefully give it a look that the truck could have come from the factory with a sport option. I want people to look at the truck and know something is different, but not able to tell what has changed.

With the small amount of drop I want in the rear (3” max) I thought of just taking out the over load spring and bolting in a drop shackle, but I then started to think about axle wrap wheel hop and the decrease in load capacity of doing that. I don’t want to load this truck heavy and haul stuff with it all the time, but I don’t want it riding on the bump stops if I throw a 4 wheeler in the rear or else what is 8’ of bed for? The only answer I had to these issues was cal-trac bars (because they are way better than slappers) to help it hook up during spirited driving and a set of bags to help me when I pull stuff or put manly things in the bed! When I did the math for shackles, cal-tracs, overload bags and all of the other components necessary it became obvious that it was cheaper to buy and swap to trailing arms, blocks and eventually some firestone 9000 bags in the future. So off to the local junk yards to find myself some suspension parts!

Thinking ahead (wow, never done that before!) in my project I know George is getting disks up front in the future, adding about 1.5” to the track width up front, and knowing that the rear is already narrower than the front for tracking I don’t want an awkwardly narrow rear or off set wheels to make up for it so I picked up a 1.5” wider 71 rear end for $150. I found some trailing arms, springs and lower shock mounts for $65, look at the picture and you can see the owner just cut the frame to drop out the cross member (wow!), and HD breaks for $50. Other than the axle being designed for leafs (It just couldn’t be that easy) everything else should just bolt right in, gotta love GM!