The Beast - 1964 K10 Resurrected

[1964K0]

I figured I would use this area to document bringing my 64 K10 back to life. I found this truck about 2 years ago, sitting in front of a barn. According to the owner, it had not run in about 5 years, since something had broke in the steering shaft. He had acquired another steering shaft, but had not installed it, it was laying in the seat. A deal was made for the truck, I came back with a trailer loaded it up & drug it home, much to my wife's displeasure. She has suffered through it, alternately calling it the Beast, or Rust Bucket. And she does have a point, it has lived a rough life & the body is full of rust, although the frame & running gear is solid.








I have no idea how a Mack bulldog ornament ended up on the hood, but it's cool, & since I have a bulldog, I'm gonna leave it.

[1964K0]

The truck was originally equipped with a 283, but that was removed sometime in the 80's, as the gentleman told me, "when it started using more oil than gas."


He had put a 305 in it's place, but I didn't even try to get it running. Having a 350 TBI engine out of my 87 just sitting there, the 305 came out & the fuel injected engine went in it's place.

[1964K0]

Strange, I have no idea why the image host has flipped my pics. I gotta work on that...

[1964K0]

The truck still has the original SM420 transmission & divorced Rockwell T221 transfer case. I have a SM465 with the married NP205 out of a 72 model sitting in the floor, but since it all still works, I decided to leave the original in place for now.

[61K10]

Looks good, keep up the good work. (another one saved)

[DPowers]

Pretty cool

[Captainfab]

Welcome to the forum

[Bears63]

Love these old 4 wheel drives. Looking forward to watching your progress on this.

[flashed]

Im in to see more .

[1964K0]

Thanks for all the kind words & welcomes! I did that engine swap last April 4, & had it running enough to pull itself into the shop shortly there after. I had hoped to have it ready to drive to the rat rod show in Lebanon in September of last year, but on Mother's Day, my colon ruptured. I had to let it heal a couple months before having surgery in September. Then I was out of commission for about 6 months while the surgery healed. So it has been only the last couple of months that I have been able to get back to working on it.

I have to work on my picture hosting, & I have more pics to upload. Hopefully I can get to that this evening. There have been several wrenches thrown in the works with this truck, as it's my first of this generation. I've had I think 13 67-72 trucks & have most recently been working on squares. I've had an 87 GMC stepper for many years, that's getting a slight restomod with a LS, & I recently acquired a 83 model K10 that my father had purchased new. He & I are working on that together as a full restore. Or a full restore except for eventually slipping a 6.0 in place of the tired old 350. Once I can locate one that is.

[1964K0]

The actual engine swap all went well enough, but then I ran into the first snag in my plan. The 87 truck had one water outlet on the intake, & the other on the radiator, & the water pump did not had a place for the fitting, so I had to change pumps. Also, since the only accessory is the alternator, didn't make sense to try to try to keep the serpentine belt system, so I ended up using the V belt pulleys & alternator bracket off the old engine, which meant I also had to swap pulleys & re-clock the alternator. But luckily I found another on the shelf so I didn't have to mess with that.

Then the next hiccup in my plan, I had planned on dropping the intank pump into the tank behind the seat. I had already gotten a new radiator, fuel tank & sending unit from RockAuto, but when I opened the box, I found the hole for the sending unit is much smaller than the 67-72 trucks, so I had to go to plan B, hang an external pump on the inside of the frame under the passenger side.

I ordered a Carter P5001 inline pump & put together a pre-filter & post filter setup.


Then I took the new tank, & drilled a hole in the bottom corner, & brazed a brass fitting into it for a line to gravity feed the pump.


I took the sock off the bottom of the sending unit & used it for my return


I mounted the pump on the inside of the frame beneath the passenger door.




And connected using the stock TBI engine lines.


Fuel system problem sorted out. At least I thought. More on that later.

[Bears63]

Oh man.... you sure know how to do a cliff-hanger ending!

[RANDY COX]

Congrats on your new project I too like the 4x4's...It's good to see another saved...I know back when these trucks were built they were used for trucks not sitting in a garage there whole life like a lot of trucks are now...there's a lot of good builds on here including mine...I'll be a watching good luck with your truck....

[1964K0]

ON top of everything else going on, I went to the doctor on Thursday & I've ended up with a broken foot, UGH! But back to the Beast.

I redid my harness for standalone using information on a tbi swap from a thread on the board here by cjracing15. After following it to the letter, I still forgot to unpin the AC call wire. Or at least I think that's what it is. I haven't had time to pull the harness loose from the ECM & double check, but 99% sure it's the AC call wire to tell the ECM to increase idle when you turn on the AC.

[1964K0]

It didn't fit perfect on the water neck on the TBI intake, but I was able to use the original steel upper water pipe.



What to do about the throttle kept me puzzled for a while. The firewall isn't quite as straightforward to modify for the cable as the 67-72 is, so in the end, I ended up using a rod from a universal battery hold down attached to the stock throttle linkage, & a L bracket on the throttle body. It doesn't look pretty, but it works for now till I can do something better.


Pay no attention to all of those wires that aren't buttoned up yet. I will get around to it eventually...

[1964K0]

I had really intended to use the stock exhaust manifolds, but after 53 years, they were in pretty poor condition. Dual exhaust was hanging from them, with little to no support, which caused both manifolds to have a broken tab. The other holes were drilled through with bolts & nuts in them instead of studs. Not being able to find a good set, I ended up grabbing a pair of the replacements from Rockauto. There wasn't a country of origin listed, but I'm sure they are probably made in China. Oh well.


When I was looking at the exhaust manifolds, I saw that they had a Y pipe, so I grabbed it. Unfortunately, the pipe from the Y pipe to the muffler was not available, or it would have made my life much easier. I took the Y pipe to my local muffler shop & had them weld a bung on for the O2 sensor. And when I went to put it on, that's when I ran into my next snag. The pipe would not go all the way up to the exhaust manifold on the driver's side without hitting the oil pan. That's when I remembered it would have had a heat riser originally.

A couple nights later, I was on fleabay looking for a heat riser, when I found a heat riser delete block. Perfect, it was just what I needed!


I put the correct longer studs in the driver side manifold, added the riser delete block, & the Y pipe fit perfect. Added the O2 sensor & plugged it up.

[1964K0]

On to the next issue, adjusting the clutch. When I pulled it into the shop after getting it started, the clutch slipped BAD. I had put in a new clutch, pressure plate & throw out bearing when I set the engine, so I figured it just needed a little adjusting. Simple, right?
Um, no, not in the least. First of all, here is the clutch rod I'm dealing with.


When I crawl up under it & am messing with it, I then see the actual problem. I used the long throwout bearing for a 1964. Oooops! What I SHOULD have used was the short throwout bearing for the 87 engine. There was no adjustment available, the bearing was all the way back against the transmission, & still holding the fingers in on the pressure plate. One more thing. It was at this point that I didn't even touch it for several weeks, getting some things done on other projects.

When I finally came back to it, I had come up with a plan I was sure that would work. I would unbolt the hump, put a couple eye bolts in the top cover, & use the engine hoist to hold the transmission while I unbolted it & slid it back enough to swap the bearing. And once again, what sounded simple in my mind, turned out to not be so simple after all, but not for the reason I would have thought of.

The day before I pulled the hump, I sprayed all the bolts on top & underneath with PB Blaster. And about half the bolts came right on out. The other half, not so much. Someone had used star washers on the bolts at some point, & the washers were frozen to the hump & the bolts. I had to grind the heads off the bolts. But once I did, & got the hump removed, I was able to removed the rest of the bolt with a pair of pliers, they screwed right out.

Once the hump was out of the way, I moved the engine hoist in the passenger door, & the rest of the plan went off without a hitch.


I went ahead & threw new U joints into the driveshaft from the transmission to the transfer case while it was out. Adjusted the clutch, fired it up & drove it out of the shop, pulling exactly like it is supposed to.

That's when it occurred to me, I hadn't gotten to the brakes yet...

[61K10]

hope it wasn't down hill lol. you're getting it done. Amazing what some mods people do. (clutch rod)

[1964K0]

Thankfully, I have a long driveway along with a large, relatively gentle sloping yard, so there I had a lot of room to recover from my initial "oh crap" moment.

Unfortunately, quite a bit of the parking brake mechanism is missing, so I didn't have that to fall back on. The single circuit hydraulic brake system just doesn't instill much faith in me on a truck I am planning on driving on the road, so I am splitting the system. I bolted on a dual reservoir master cylinder from a 71 that was sitting on the shelf, & the rod seems to be the perfect length without any modification. Now if I can just manage to get my lines bent & installed without making knots out of them. That is my goal for the upcoming weekend.

Then I will have to research what is missing from the parking brake & try to locate those pieces.