1966 C10 Father Son Build

[matt_l]

Many years ago I read an article about restoring/building a car with your son/daughter. It sounded like so much fun, and I loved the idea of spending the time together, learning together, and passing on my love of cars and engineering to my son. I actually decided I was going to build my sons first car car together before I even had a son.

So I have been looking for the last couple years for a vehicle to build. The struggle was finding the right vehicle. It had to be practical and safe enough for a 16 year old to drive. No super charged big block here. It also had to be something affordable that I would not be brought to tears the first time he scratched it or god forbid ran it into a tree. The third criteria was that it had to be something we could work on without a ton of electronics. Finally it had to be something we both though was cool. You can see the struggle. We went to car shows together, looked at pictures online, and scoured craigslist for ideas.

Slowly the ideas got narrowed down, and the idea of a truck was starting to emerge. Then it quickly narrowed to Chevy or Ford. We decided either would be ok, but when it came down to it, we like the Chevy styling better.
Once the decision on vehicle was made, we just had to find a truck. And craigslist came through.

Here are a couple pictures when we drove it home on a cold January day.









Plans for the truck is to go with the lowered shop truck look. Do most of the projects on an ongoing basis while keeping it on the road.

First Phase:
Fix the major rust and get the cab structurally sound
Upgrade to a dual master cylinder and power brakes
Go through the wiring and get it safe and reliable. (current wireharness is sitting on the exhaust)
New Windshield and gasket (Not sure what is holding the current cracked one in)
Set of 4 matching steelies and white walls

Then the on to the big stuff:

undecided on bagged or static drop but going low for sure
change to 350 sbc with 5 speed manual
upgrade to 4 wheel discs
power steering
lots of body work and paint

That is the quick and dirty. I plan to get lots of pictures and share the progress.

Matt and Ben