1968 Chevrolet "Slow" and "Quiet" Build

[Originalthor]

Good Evening all. Hope you all enjoy watching this build as I do reading all the other builds Great job all and gave me some great ideas along the help with google images when you search C10 Race truck.

I am no stranger to these beauties as I have owned 5 of them in my life time. 3 of them were before the age of 16. Even did my first 80s disk brake swap at the age of 16. The last one was a 70 chevy C30 grain truck that I redid the old wood and metal grain box with a 3 foot front tool storage in the front and the back 9 dumped the garbage at the end of the day. Was my DD for 2 years without a hiccup and work got slow and had to sell it with my company to my buddy so It hasn't gone far so I still get to drive it from time to time.

The father inlaw has always said if I ever needed any parts that he had 3 of them sitting in a field since 92 and longer. Never needed any parts accept a heater control unit but got lucky and found 2 at a garage sale for 2 bucks so never went and looked at them.

A year has gone by and I miss my truck I got to get one of them. Crazy not to their free. I only had a very small window to get them cause there was canola fields around them and they are the last ones to come off. And then it snows. Crops came off I rounded up the buddies and a flat deck and lets go driving through some fields.

Slow and quiet. Yeah right. Its gonna be piston pumping throttle stomping hard cornering FUN.
"Slow" Yes I got three kids, full time job, and work on everybody vehicles when stuff goes wrong plus my own DD Mods.
"Quiet" I got no motor. Just me making the noise with blood sweat and beers. Gears come later. I got a lot of work to do.

Plans. A lot of them. End of day 900 something full out autocross race truck.

Main one LWB to SWB Conversion.
Lifting back half of frame up 4 inches
Fully home built coil over system using a 80 cross member.
LS For sure tucked back and as low as it can go. Fire wall mods will happen.

And a Pile of body work. And I mean a pile.
Full custom front and back roll pan.
Maybe do a full front fender and hood flip forward.
And something on the sides. Always hated how you could see the weld seam on the cab rockers and the box is up that half inch or so.

Enough Reading and time for some pictures already. The truck is already torn apart and frame sitting on a home built frame table but I cant give you all the pictures at once now can I what fun would that be.

[Kronald_70GMC]

Well this is gonna be a fun build! Ill jump in and help out too man! Subscribed

[Originalthor]

Hey man long time no text. Lol its gonna be interesting. I should of called you up for the tear down, but me and the boy got it done he had fun ripping the bed apart and using the impact. Did pretty good to for being 6. Have you hauled yours into the garage yet. I could use some bodyman expertise on my cab shes a little ruff in crappy spots.

Since I'm on ill tell a little more on my build. So rounded up the buddies, a trailer and a extra truck to drag it on the trailer and went for a drive. Going off a google map and some explanation from the father inlaw on where the trucks were we found them.

Got to the brown one and it was 40 yards through tall grass and face first into a swamp. No diff and frame sunk halfway in the dirt. Like couldn't even see the trailing arms. Cab was one of the worst I've ever seen. But oddly enough the box sides were in good shape minus missing a tail gate surprise surprise. So that one wasn't going anywhere atleast not without a tractor.

So off through the field we go to find the other two. I only had my buddy with the second truck there for a few hours cause he had to take his daughter to a bday party, we were under the gun now cause who know what the other ones are going to be like to get out after seeing the brown one.

2 Miles later driving through 16 inch canola stubs we found them. I wanted a fleet side and new there was two of them let go for green. Get there and was like damn that's not cool. Must of been hit by something when the car that was in the middle of the blue and green trucks was drug out cause the father inlaw doesn't remember it being like that except the grill missing. It was pretty rusty though, you open the doors and and the back half of the cab was wanting to fall apart. Lost cause accept for all the pretty crome trim.

Old blue which is originally the inlaws truck was the next candidate and was looking promising. Lucky enough it was sitting on rims under the drums so was far enough up out the ground that the grass was only polishing the paint. Did a quick walk around and found that its in pretty good shape minus where the hammer head put the hood hing through the vent window from when the fender was jacked. Let load her up only got like 2 hours to do this. It got no tires that's ok the green one has 2 on the front and there's a pile of tires and rims 20 feet away we will find the other two in there. Well good luck all were turd tires or 5 lug. Well shoot but after scrounging through the junk we found two more. 3 held air and one was done. Next step was finding lug nuts out of 48 lug nuts that should of been there I had found 4 on and that's all I could find. Other 4 were on the green truck. There goes another hour of pissing around great.

Time to drag it through a maze of junk and cars. 6 tow straps and like 3 chains we made it to the truck so buddies brand new dodge was still in the field instead of driving in through the junk. He was in a hurry so next thing you know I am getting dragged at like 10 km/h though this junk with 3 locked tired and a small steering wheel that was barely holding on with the nut. Made it out without a scratch. I jack knifed the truck and trailer and started getting it on but with three seized tires it fought the whole way and got it half way there and buddy had to leave. That's ok I brought the back up chain hoist. Another hour of pulling on chains and a small heart attack it felt like it was on. Yay.

Anyways enough chit chat for the day got to take the kid to hockey. Cant forget the pictures though. Should of took more but ohwell.

[Kronald_70GMC]

Haha good times. That thing was just bound and determined to stay in the feild, but we weren't giving up that easy. Took a full 8 hours but we got it on the trailer.

Im hoping to get mine home one of these days. Just waiting to clear out space in the driveway. Need to sell my 98, but of course right when I finally have a guy to come look at the thing, she blows an intake gasket. So in the garage that one goes.

[Originalthor]

Evening all though I would throw up some more pictures. Me and the boy had the old truck stripped down to the cab and the frame in a couple of evenings. He sure did enjoy himself. I though for sure he was gonna step threw were the box floor was out but he was pretty cautions there and plywood helps. And man that quarter inch bumper was heavy and of course welding on.

[68Gold/white]

LOL, That picture of the young'n facing forward standing in bed looks deceptive. At a quick glance it looks like a man, makes the bed look like it's 20' long...LOL to me...

[Originalthor]

LOL, That picture of the young'n facing forward standing in bed looks deceptive. At a quick glance it looks like a man, makes the bed look like it's 20' long...LOL to me...

Ha it totally does look like the bed is super long.

Well you how everybody has to do major repairs on the bottoms of these cabs mine is opposite. Not saying the bottom half is perfect still needs cab corners, cab supports, rockers and some of the floor on the drivers side. But its all there not totally rusted away like the rest of the cabs around here.

Mine has ugly roof rust and not to sure on how I want to go about fixing it yet. The brown cab is almost a convertible worst I've ever seen. And the green one starting to do the same thing and nothing left to the bottom of it. The gas tank is holding the back together pretty much.

So Do I buy some sheet metal and cut out the bad spots or do I buy a hole new inner roof skin? Kinda torn here I didn't even look up when I picked it up I was like holy even factory inner and outer rocks are intact sweet. Any who here is some pictures.

[Kronald_70GMC]

I could be wrong here but after looking at my cab I believe you would have to remove the outer roof skin to change out the whole inner roof skin. That being said, maybe buying and inner roof skin and cutting out and patching the bad areas would be a better option. Again not entirely sure I am correct here. Good luck on whatever you can figure out.

[Originalthor]

So I decided to build myself a frame table since I am cutting down the frame to a short bed and also kicking up the back portion of the frame 4 inches. This way I can keep everything nice and square and level. My garage floor has ups and downs roughly 3/8s of a inch so this way table is perfectly level and I can weld it right to it. And I also gain all that storage for parts under it aswell. Ill tell you one thing though it was not fun getting it on there buy myself and it just had to snow the night before. But after some pulling, pushing and some deep breaths I got it there.

[Originalthor]

Good day all. So I will bring you guys all up to the stage I am at right now with my build. Haven't got to much time to work on it with the holiday season coming up and a busy life.

I got the frame all ripped down to the rails and the cross members. I pretty much had to cut every bolt that held the back end together and boy do they pop and fly everywhere when doing it. The front came out easy but just about knocked myself out when I took the last bolts out of it and the front of the frame shot up lol.

I also found out why my cab is all rusted out on the inner roof. MICE. Damn things made a nest up there. Those things are going to be the death of me I had to rip my garage apart to rid of there nest that they built in there over last winter.

[68Gold/white]

I'm thinking out loud...

There's several directions you could go for your cab. A new less rusty (as in NO rust in the roof!!!) cab would be best.

I don't know exactly how good the lower half of you cab is...but cutting the top off a cab and welding on would not be that bad...I'd cut the new cab part below the front pillars and cut at the rear below the belt line. This would allow you to utilize the new roof piece hopefully the best.

[Originalthor]

It's really to bad that the roof has such bad rust above the doors cause the bottom is in pretty good shape unlike the rest of the trucks I've owned. But I do got some good news Kronald_70gmc brother has a cab he is going to sell me for a great price so looks like I might just carve up this one for patch panels for friends in need.

[Kronald_70GMC]

You mean friends in need like me?

[Originalthor]

Got a little more work done over the weekend and tonight. Frame is all welded up to the table and nice and square and level. Ready to cut, well almost I have to remove the trailing arm cross member then I can carve it up. Shes like a rock on there just have to remark it better, cut out the pieces, undo four bolts and slide it together and weld it up. Hopefully before Christmas see how that goes.

[Originalthor]

Well I finally got some hours of work done on the beast. The cab has been bugging ever since I found all that roof rust when I got it back home. So I figure since I may buy another cab lets open up a can of beans.
Goal take of roof skin and be able to put it back on if i decide to keep the cab.

First step start drilling out the spot welds, which on mine there wasn't very much of them and they were wide not circles. At least on the front. Oh well drill them out differently I quess.
My drip rail above the doors was showing some signs of rust behind them so i decided to drill them off at the same time. They came off pretty good, you new exactly when your drill bit was at the drip edge cause a poof of rust would come out around the drill bit.
Now for the fun part the back seam. I kinda forgot to take a couple of progress pictures at the beginning but easy enough to explain. Here's the first set of pictures of up front and the side.

[Originalthor]

The back seam. How does one get to those welds. All lot of ideas came to mind. Non of which was gonna turn out good until I thought to my self well I do have access to buy another cab screw it take a chisel to it and see what happens. Well between a flat bar, half inch wide chisel, grinder, and cheap nail puller pry bar body clip remover screw driver it did the trick with very little damage.

I took the Screw driver and beat it into the seam closest to the drip edge and found where 3 of the spot welds were. At the same time having the front held up by a screw driver to give a little up ward pressure. Then I took my flat bar and wiggled it back and forth to open it up to fit the grinder disk in there and start carving. That's where most of the damage happens but nothing a hammer and dolly cant fix. Did that to both sides.

Now for the long back seam was pretty easy going just time consuming. I took my cheap screw driver and held it parallel to the roof and beat it along until i found the spot weld and went past a couple of inches and then stuck my chisel in where the last spot weld was. Took the flat bar and wiggled it between the spot welds till it was wide enough to fit my cut off wheel in and cut out the spot weld. Five and a half hours later I have one cab missing a outer roof panel and one perfectly fine outer roof panel.

[nuke1]

Looking really good so far!!!!! My favorite style of truck ever!!!!

[chewychevy67]

Nice that the roof came off as nice as it did. I think when I get my cab done I want to remove my top as well and have a look. Maby seal it better than gm did before it goes back on. Seen a few with rust by the visors now. Be a shame to do all the work and have rust pop out there when it's complete.

[jjzepplin]

So let me get this straight. You have a field full of trucks? You have a big shop full of space? You have a son to help you? Heaven isn't too far away...

[Originalthor]

Thanks guys. I got to get back working on the truck here. Christmas was busy one then my garage got filled with a bunch of random junk. Now I got a couple of side jobs to do which helps out the cash flow so that's good.

Nuke loved the havoc build. I wanna pop in your shop one of these days I got a couple of questions for you in regards to sgi that's I don't want to talk about on the forums.

Chewychevy the roof came of really good. It was my decision on weather to keep my cab or buy Kyle's brothers. Every truck I've ever owned has always rusted up there so it was my goal to take it apart and seal and paint it up in between the roof panels.

Jjzepplin the field of trucks at pretty picked over now once I was done with them and not to much salvageable. I got a small shop that is very well organized. Saving so much space by hanging parts in the wall. The boy loved the tear apart but not so much the grinding lol but who does.

[Originalthor]

Well after a busy winter spring and a fire in my back yard I'm finally back to work on this thing.

I got a little unmotivated when I found out that the vin I have for the truck is write off and needs two inspections so I cant do as much I wanted to do off the start. I basically got to build it to somewhat of a factory truck get it inspected then rip it apart again to do what I want to do. I tried the other two truck vins but they both are titled as salvaged and sold for parts and can never be registered. oh well such as life. Cant complain to much for getting 3 free trucks.

Then to top things off I had some yahoo start a fire in my back yard early spring and take out all my tires, kids play house/shed , fence, two 40 foot pine trees and a bunch of other stuff. So the good old very well organized garage got filled with bikes, lawn mower, and junk. Then we get a meat head for a insurance adjuster and takes 5 months to settle with them. Used up all my holidays for the rebuild of the back yard and I got a garage back

I also bought a boat that need some good old tender loving care. That ate up a lot of the summer aswell. Fix a couple of holes, gave it a polish, rebuild carbs, rebuild trailer, all that good stuff. But its gonna look sweet behind the chevy once I get it done.

I got the daughter out and she helped me strip down the front fenders. It was like a science project for her. Paint on the stripper and watch it curl and bubble up. Heres the weird thing takes the blue paint off like nothing no work what so ever. The red on the other hand barely touches it. Why?

Me well I got a little crazy and decided to make the truck a convertible. After a couple I decided that it was going to be easier to fix the pillars good that is was easier take the inner roof skin off. And there was rust starting on the back seem aswell so crazy not to clean that up.


Time for pictures. Not many but its a start to hopefully a lot more this winter.

[TexasLS1]

Nice work, way to jump in with both feet. Love that you’re patching and fixing the cab, can’t wait to see the finished truck in action!

[Originalthor]

Well I took it to the next step today and after 100 or so tac welds drilled and a killer sore back I got my A pillar apart. She was pretty rusty in there and not the easiest to do neither.

The lower kick panel and air vent piece covers about 6 or more inches of the a pillar piece. So out it came. It needed to be fixed anyways and easier to do on a bench then in the truck. The one nice thing on having the whole roof off is theres tons of light in there and when you need to stretch out the back and legs you can just stand straight up.

I want to make it out to the green truck and maybe carve the top half of the cab off to see if I get some usable parts. Shouldn't be hard to get the gas tank and the fenders are only things holding it together. Those pieces above the doors are going to be a little tricky to make.

Ever wonder what inside a A pillar looks like. Its some beefy metal compaired to the rest of the truck.

[68Gold/white]

So, is there a "good" answer in sight, concerning the VIN ordeal???

I have one 67 C10 and one 68 C10. The 68 is mine, I drove it some from 1980 to 1996, been parked since.

I bought the 67 in 2002 without engine/trans. I got a title from the seller, had been signed over twice....not notarized... not a good thing.

Very fortunately I have a friend that works for a towing company. He was able to (with permission from business owner) claim my pickup as an abandoned vehicle that was towed in.

There is a process (in Oklahoma mind you...) through the DMV he found pevious legal owner. The tow co. sends a registered letter to previous owner, to come get vehicle, or let it go.

The previous car lot was no longer in business, registered letter returned. Then he was able to apply for title in my name....I MAY NOT have some of these facts straight, but this is approximately how I got my 67 titled to me. May not be same in Canada.

IF it could possibly be done, it might cost you some $$$, who knows how much. AND the fact that a tow company would be doing this for an outsider, it may be tough to get someone to help you with this kind of a situation................

[Originalthor]

The brown truck has another quark in it aswell that I talked to insurance people about. The Vin C9E1481100795 and the C9E in the vin screws me aswell if I were to go and get it inspected the vin has to be CE1481100795 cause that's what shows up in there computers so since day one I am assuming it was done wrong. I dunno.


Now I thought that I had the green trucks vin right but it doesn't show up either so there might be some hope for a good vin. I want to go carve off the top half for hopefully some usable parts. But its been raining here for like a week and its on a dirt road so its not easy to get to yet.


I didn't get much done. Back was killing me from drilling all them rivets and also ripping out like 3000 sq ft of floor at work. Not fun. But did manage to score some more supplies and give them some use. Gotta Love when a new princess auto opens up.