[rkn463]

A few other odds and ends had happened along the way, adapted a real air cleaner off of an 84 Chevy school bus 366 4 barrel to the 2 barrel carb. I fabbed a replacement battery tray starting with an LMC piece made for a 73 c10.

I continued collecting parts:
1970 model GMC 5500 front sheet metal for parts
grabbed the frame from that same GMC as the diff had higher gears than mine
Got some stepside fenders to finish of the dually bed

By now a front wheel cylinder was leaking bad and I had to do something about the brakes. Research had shown that the stock drums were not a reasonable option as it cost a fortune to put together a system out of bits and pieces and still come out with mediocre brakes. Plus best guess is 1000.00 to 1500.00 to get to that point. I also had widow maker rims to deal with, a gear ratio that worked out to 4200 RPM at 60 mph and manual steering. Time to plan the next step. Back to craigslist and I located a 1989 c60 box truck with 4 wheel disk hydraboost brakes, power steering, 5 speed trans, 2 speed diff. The ruck was alos a 366 4 barrel carb. We checked it out and it ran and drove great, bought it cheap. This was November 2012. I started taking measurements and discovered that the cab from the 68 would just bolt on to the 89 frame but there were issues I needed to address:

- 89 front axle was 6 inches wider, so I either need to narrow the axle, or find the wide front fenders
- 89 wheelbase is 18 inches loner so I'm back to the frame cutting dilemma or move everything to the 68 frame
- 89 frame is way heavier material plus it is reinforced so I prefer it
- not sure if the power steering box will bolt to the 68 frame
- and what seemed like a thousand reasons why I should use the 68 frame plus a thousand reasons why I should use the 89 frame

So I put it on the back burner. Meanwhile I figured out that some 3x5 inch box tubing that I had would make the perfect spacer to raise the bed to match up body lines so I built and installed that and continued to drive the truck around on the farm and loved every second of it. The brakes continued to degenerate to the point that adding fluid became pointless and I just downshifted a lot and used the hand brake.

Here are pics of the 89 truck with the box removed along with the box sitting on the ground, I use the box for extra storage.