Driver on a budget.

[TchncnDen]

The front end is all nice and new again. You wouldn't believe the hassle I had getting the front end aligned. I had a new windshield and back glass installed saturday morning. It took them about two hours so I'm glad I had them do it. The glass shop is very close to my house and I stopped at a place even closer on the way home that does alignments to see if they could fit me in. He said there were three cars in front of me but he could call me when they are ready for mine. About three oclock I still hadent heard from them so I went back to see if I was still in line. The machine broke and couldn't be fixed until monday, bummer but understandable. I went to Pepboy's to get some stuff and asked how late the alignment shop was open, 8 o'clock. They were doing one at the time but told me to come back in an hour. I didn't even have the truck with me so that was perfect. I went back in an hour and there was a different guy. He through a hissy fit. Who told you to come in tonight, there's no way we can do this now. Ugh, ok how about tomorrow. How's one oclock, that's too late do you have anything earlier? Uh, how about ten? I can do that, see you tomorrow. I show up at ten oclock sharp and at 1130 I'm about to go get my keys back when they finally pull it in. The kid obviously liked it and drove around the parking lot a couple of times before pulling it in. No big deal, I'm glad he liked it. After a while I walked by the bays and the kid asked if it was my truck and then told me how much he liked it. Then he started telling me how there are shims in the front end sometimes you have to add them blah blah blah. I tell him I know how to align a front end I just don't have an alignment machine. Oh, you're a mechanic too? Well I can put the shims in but it costs extra or you can just do them yourself. Holy crap you have to be kidding me, I tell him just to mark on the sheet how many and where and I'll add them. Then when I go to pay I ask the clerk for the sheet with the shims I need, I also say it's funny that whenever I did an alignment in the past putting in the shims to align it was what I actually did. He said yeah, the shims are like a dollar extra and the labor is included. My truck was already off the rack, I had a ten oclock appointment and it was after noon, and they didn't even write down what shims or where. I was done. They knocked $20 off the bill but basically I paid $50 to have my toe in adjusted. I could have done that with a string in my driveway in about ten minutes.

He did at least show me the screen before he pulled the truck off. One side was in tolerance at about 1.9* and the other side was just out at 3.6*. Close enough I guess, and not bad at all considering every part but the A arms themselves was new. I decided to take it for a drive and went to my Uncles about ten miles away. I don't have my dash in yet but out on the main road where the flow of traffic is 55-60 I was just barely above an idle. You gotta love overdrive tranny's! I have to go around it with the buffer some more to make it really sparkle and there's a lot of wiring cleanup and little parts to put on. There's a rear bumper at the junkyard in decent shape I'll get next week. My grill and front bumper are in subpar shape but I'm going to put them back on so I can just drive it for a while. I think I'll end up painting the grill the lower color after I'm done taking a break from this thing and my neighbor is going to sew me up some door panels and a seat cover. I keep her car running and she makes a little extra for me when she cooks something good and offered to do my interior. I would guess I have about $200 in reciepts I still haven't added in, but right now I'm sitting at $8760.18 on the spreadsheet. A little material for the interior and some other odds and ends should bring me in well below 10k. I'm not going to end up with my dream truck, but I guess that's not bad for a completely rust free LS powered C10.

This thread is worthless without pictures!!!!!!!!!!!!

[VA72C10]

Sorry for all the hassle...looks good!

[67c10rustbuket]

Looks great! alignment hassle sucks, I learned some time ago to stick with merles frame and alignment in OKC. They have real professionals not high school technicians and give you blue prints and tolerance specs of every part of the suspension and frame. These guys will tell you if a tie rod is within specs and give you exact dimensions which I love being an anal numeric kind of guy. They cost more but they actually know what they are doing. And they include shims I didn't know those were extra?!? Great job, You have me wondering how much my truck is going to cost me.. I figure I'm in around $5K now and it looks like poop and a pile of parts cluttering the garage.

[TchncnDen]

Sorry for all the hassle...looks good!

I figure I'm in around $5K now and it looks like poop and a pile of parts cluttering the garage.

Thanks guys, and don't worry 90% of my money was spent while I still just had a pile of parts. Now I have a shinier clump of parts!

I need to get my electric fans on because a mechanical fan with no shroud is really nothing more than lawn art. Does anyone know if I need to find a big nut to put on the water pump after I remove the clutch fan or will the pulley stay on by its pressed fit? I tried the search but couldn't find an answer.

[TchncnDen]

I didn't want to drive the truck too much with the computer hanging from a tool bag so this weekend I put the inner fenders in and mounted the computer in its permanent location, it came out nice. Now I just need to wrap the wires so they look better. I also got my air cleaner setup on and put on the grill and bumper. Neither the grill or bumper are in very good condition but it looks so much better with them on. I may just leave them, it kind of goes with the driver theme. I also wanted to snag a rear bumper from the junkyard but they already sold it.

I took it for a ride after I put it back together, I wanted to stand on it a little since I had the computer mounted solid. I was sitting at a stoplight on a little bit of a hill and it started missing. I thought I better make my ride short so I just swung by a friends house. He wasn't home so I just drove on by heading for home. Now it started running really bad, no power, cough, chug. I pulled over and went under the hood to look for a loose wire or something. Everything looked good. A guy came out from the house I was next to and wanted to look at the truck. He was a really nice guy and after we chatted a bit he told me to knock on the door if I needed any tools. I don't have my gauge cluster in so I don't have a temp gauge but it didn't seem hot, I don't have an oil gauge but I didn't hear any rattling, guess what other gauge I don't have. If you guessed gas gauge you are a winner! I knocked on the door and asked if I could borrow a gas can. When he opened the garage door I saw a shiny new CRF450X, now I have a new riding buddy, good deal. He had about a half gallon of lawnmower gas he gave me and that got me to the gas station and now my truck runs great again, go figure. I was wondering if my fuel system would work down to empty, now I know. It sucked every last drop up and I think even most of the fumes, I'm very happy about that.

Now when I got home I had to check my gauge cluster. I hooked it up and and it showed a little over half a tank. I never tested the speedometer so I took it for a ride around the neighborhood. Everything worked great. I only went a couple of blocks but when I pulled in the driveway I smelled something, it looks like I let the smoke out of the gauges. I'm not sure what happened but I'll have to go through those wires again and see if I get lucky and have it work after it cools down a few days.

[mad2rass]

Very nice build.

[67c10rustbuket]

Computer mount looks great! A vast improvement!

Glad you got her figured out. I replaced something?? radio maybe? as a teen under the dash and neglected to reconnect a few wires to the dash cluster. I was getting really good gas milage that evening untill .... I ran out of gas.

[NewType72]

ahh wires wires and more wires something I won't be looking forward to when I do my complete wiring harness for my truck lol

[TchncnDen]

Very nice build.

Computer mount looks great! A vast improvement!

Thanks

ahh wires wires and more wires something I won't be looking forward to when I do my complete wiring harness for my truck lol

It isn't hard at all to hook them up, it's the routing and tying up that is time consuming. I ripped out all of the original wires and put in a new 18 circuit harness, 12 would have been plenty, and modified the stock engine harness for standalone. One thing I did that I would recommend against was that I modified the engine harness without the truck being put together. I wanted the computer under the dash but there wasn't enough room. If I would have planned on putting it in the engine bay I would have brought the main bundle out the factory location on the manifold cover and still mounted on the inner fenderwell, but more forward and lower than I have it now. You can see what I mean by the pictures above, it would look cleaner that way. I also have told any friends building cars and anyone that may be reading I highly recommend doing this LS swap. There is almost always a package like I got on craigslist with an engine, trans, computer and wiring for around $1500. You can't rebuild an engine for that price and this was ridiculously easy to do.

Now that I gave my recommendations on what to do I have to let you in on another bonehead move. I should win some kind of award for the most bonehead moves on one build, but I learned a long time ago that mistakes are learning experiences so I'll keep sharing them with you. Even if you learn what not to do you still learned something! Remember my smoking instrument panel? Remember I got a good deal on that instrument panel because the mileage area wouldn't light up? Remember when I easily fixed that? Well, there is a small exposed area on the bottom of the cluster with access to some electrical leads. When I placed the cluster in to take it for a ride it was just sitting there and after vibrating around it found its way onto the steering column mount shorting a couple of those leads. What leads you may ask, the ones going to the mileage area! I fried it beyond all repair At least all the gauges work, espescially the gas gauge, and I wasn't worried so much about mileage but I did like the gear selector. I have it zip tied in place for now until I make a panel, maybe I'll replace it at some point so everything works again.

[ta2ed]

Mr Smith, you are doing 1 fine job on this truck. I look forward to seeing what you end up doing with the gauge cluster. We all make mistakes & hopefully learn from them. Personally my track record isn't the best....lol keep up the good work man.
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[brn agn]

Originally Posted by TchncnDen

Now that I gave my recommendations on what to do I have to let you in on another bonehead move. I should win some kind of award for the most bonehead moves on one build, but I learned a long time ago that mistakes are learning experiences so I'll keep sharing them with you....

I heard someone say yesterday that "you won't live long enough to make every mistake!". Thanks for sharing and using it as an opportunity to teach the rest of us. Your truck is coming together nicely.

[TchncnDen]

Thanks again guys. So yesterday I put my electric fans in then I went to the truck shop and bought some new parts. I went ahead and got a new rear bumper for a little bling, the passenger side mirror and a bunch of other little stuff. It looks so much better from the back now. I just went by the Golden cruise night, but I don't have wipers or headlights and it started to rain so I didn't stay. Now I have enough miles to know what bugs to work out and I have to finish the wiring and give my seat to my neighbor to sew so I'll probably just park it until that's all fixed.

[TchncnDen]

My neighbor is working on my seat and door panels. I also got a carpet kit and put down some sound deadener. I bought the 36 sq ft kit from eastwood and I thought that would be more than enough to do a truck but each door took one full sheet and there wasn't quite enough to go up the firewall. A friend told me about a place nearby that sells it by the sheet so I'll try to get some on monday to finish. Then it is just wait for my seat and we're about done.

[NewType72]

bummer on the cluster wiring but the interior should be nice and quiet now I like it

[superduty_59]

Very nice build. Is the $8000 including the price of the truck too?

[TchncnDen]

bummer on the cluster wiring but the interior should be nice and quiet now I like it

Thanks buddy

Very nice build. Is the $8000 including the price of the truck too?

Thanks, and yes that includes the price of the truck. The only problem is I blew by that number a while ago. Current total around 9500. The truck was 2000 though so if I don't count that I guess I could say I did an 8k build? Anyway my neighbor has been working on the seat and it is looking good, I can't wait to see it finished.

[VA72C10]

Still a good deal for everything you now have...try and buy a truck with the motor you have and see how much it is now....and how much it'll be worth in 5-10 years...your truck is cooler...and worth more now and will be worth A LOT more than the depreciated modern truck in 10 years

[TchncnDen]

Originally Posted by VA72C10

Still a good deal for everything you now have...try and buy a truck with the motor you have and see how much it is now....and how much it'll be worth in 5-10 years...your truck is cooler...and worth more now and will be worth A LOT more than the depreciated modern truck in 10 years

That was my plan, thanks!

The day after I gave my seat to my neighbor her mother broke her hip, so understandably my seat is not done. I haven't really touched the truck in the meantime, then today my neighbor called to tell me she was going to start working on it again. That gave me motivation to get out and get my bed wood cut. I love the look of wood but I'll stick to my original plan and paint it black since the inner metal is all dinged up and I plan to use this as a truck still. I bought 1x8's which in reality measure 3/4x7 1/4. That is 3/16" narrower than the 7 7/16 boards from GMC Pauls website so I just took the 3/16" off one side of the reliefs. You can see in the last picture the left side outer shelf is a little narrower than the one on the right. I see no reason why this should be a problem.

[NewType72]

looking good you have polished strips to go in right?? I'm such a sucker for wood beds

[mrgm]

very cool

[TchncnDen]

Originally Posted by mrgm

very cool

Thanks mrgm, I'm honored to be your first post.

Originally Posted by NewType72

looking good you have polished strips to go in right?? I'm such a sucker for wood beds

I'm a sucker for wood beds too. Unfortunately this one will be all black, that way I won't have to cry the first time I load it full of crap. The woods all painted and the underside of the strips. I'll paint the tops tomorrow so I can install everything next weekend. Also got my interior parts back from my neighbor, can't wait to get that all together.

[ta2ed]

Hey Brian, looking good man. Can't wait to see pics of that thing finished.
Hey are you on The Facebook part from here?
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[TchncnDen]

Actually I'm proud to be one of the three people on the planet that have never been to facebook, I plan on holding out til I'm the last one.

I got a little work done this weekend. Put the seat back in and the door panels on. They look like they were done by an ameteur that has never done interior work before, but that is only because they were done by an ameteur that has never done interior work before. I'll get them done professionally at some point but they will work for now. I love the color scheme and fabric choice, it's just the execution that is a little off. I also got some of the bed wood in, I'll finish that up when I can get a friend to come by and help hold the screws in place while I tighten them from underneath. The mounting points are all solid now and the rattle trap I was driving before is now nice and solid sounding.

[67c10rustbuket]

Originally Posted by TchncnDen

Actually I'm proud to be one of the three people on the planet that have never been to facebook, I plan on holding out til I'm the last one.

I guess I am #2 of 3. Don't drink the Kool-aid! Not much of a people person, now us truck people are good people though No whining or drama.
The seat looks decent but yeah not show worthy on the execution but it beats spending butt loads of money. I think my seat was redone in the 80s and looks great other than it is fading it will serve my bottom just fine for a while. You didn't happen to take detailed measurements of those wood bed cross sills for me to make some did you

[TchncnDen]

I didn't take any measurements before they were installed, but they are very easy to get at so I took some today.Think of it as an upside down U with ears at the end. The ears are 1/2", the top portion is 1 1/2" and the first, second and last brace are 2" deep. That is starting from the front of the bed. The third brace that goes across the front of the wheelwells has the same dimensions but is only 1" deep. All braces are 72" wide. If this doesn't make sense to you let me know and I will try to upload a cad drawing or I could email you one. I also didn't measure the holes but I will if you need them. I figure if you're making your own braces you would most likely want evenly spaced wood, that is how I would do it. I also looked at the street sweeping sign down the street and the post has the perfect shape only not as deep. I'm sure you could pick some of that post up cheap at a sign shop. It has multiple holes already drilled and you could find a way to shim to make up the height for perfect bed alignment.