[RobinHood]

Right when I got the truck back home, I really though about what direction I planned to head with it. The initial thing that attracted me to the truck was the tribal scroll pinstriping reminiscent of lowrider/ hotrod style muscle truck, so I planned to start tearing things apart and see what I got.

The thing you have to understand is that to this point, my mechanical skills really went about as far as regular maintenance on my Honda. I am very mechanically inclined, and I am also a Mechanical Engineering student at University of San Diego, however I have absolutely no practical experience working with cars and I was about to dive in to a frame off rebuild of this crusty old truck.

Daunting, right?

I started with the engine, actually. No, not the rusted over 265 small block that I threw in the bed of the truck for the drive down just because it was there. I mean the engine that I would use for the truck. Initially, I thought an LS swap would provide the best benefits compared to cost that I was looking for at the time. However, I knew that my grandfather would have a carbureted engine because he still drove carbureted cars his entire life and didn't own a motor vehicle made after the late 70s.

So, I went with the obvious, tried and true choice since time began, the 5.7L Chevy 350 Small Block. I found one in a running truck on craigslist that fit the specs and the price I was looking for. I dragged my buddy down to go check it out. The guy was doing a 6LBT4 swap in his C10 and started the 350 up for me. No noises, wierd smells or sounds that I could tell and I agreed to come back the next weekend to pick it up. Little did I know that when I returned, the seller would not have it pulled and ready as agreed. We fought for about 6 hours in 100+ degree weather to get it pulled and loaded up.

The 350 got a full teardown. The engine ran great in the truck, and the cylinder widths matched "in spec" for out of round and wear, so it got cleaned up and re-ringed and resealed. Initially, I set the timing set matching up the 2 biggest triangular marks on each of the gear teeth. After hours of fighting a sputtering, backfiring test run, I pulled the cover to learn that in fact the 2 very small dots were actually the ones needed to line up. Learning lessons along the way, right?

I used a knockoff aluminum high rise intake because it was the first one I found that seemed relatively fair priced and added a carb spacer to adapt the squarebore pattern to the spreadbore Q-Jet pattern. At the time, I didnt realize that this would mean basically a complete loss of low end torque and reduced engine vacuum, but live and learn. It is still on the engine. A chrome valve cover and air cleaner kit and gloss black engine paint finished it off for now.