Project 65 C10- Take two

[dlisabeth]

Hi there-
My name is Derek and I am building this 1965 shortbed stepside C10 in San Diego, California. I am calling this project Take two because I started building a '64 stepside about 14 years ago when I was 15 years old and due to school, a lack of money/skill, and a move across the country it never got finished. I have since sold that project and picked this truck up last October.

It was a pretty solid platform for the truck that I am trying to build. We drove it around town for a few months and as you can see in the photos the transformation has begun. I removed the stock bench seat which was actually in pretty good shape and replaced it with a seat out of a 1997 Dodge Ram. My parents actually gave me this seat as a Christmas present 13 years ago for that '64 I had. It feels great to finally put it to use in the new truck. The seat fits great with the frame that I fabricated for it which still utilizes the slider for the driver seat.

I pulled the 283 motor and TH350 tranny that the previous owner had installed in a less than precise manner. In their place I will be installing a 350 that I built from the motor that came out of that '64 I had back in Michigan and a 700r4 that I picked up out of a 1991 Corvette. I built the motor with flat top pistons that are .030 over, a fairly mild Comp Cam, Edelbrock RPM intake, Edelbrock 600cfm carb, Hooker shorty headers, and World Products iron heads which put the compression ratio right at 9.1:1. The entire rotating assembly was also balance while it was at the machine shop. According to a Dyno simulator it should put out around 375 hp.

While the motor is out I have decided to swap in the front suspension out of an '85 C10. I picked this up at a local junkyard, disassembled it, had it sandblasted, painted it, and reassembled it with 2.5" drop spindles, new polyurethane bushings, and Moog balljoints. The truck had 3" drop coil springs all around when I bought it. I pulled those off and installed new 5" coils in the rear and will be running the 2.5" spindles up front, hopefully this levels the truck out. If not I will either cut the stock length front springs or install 4" springs instead of the 5" in the rear. I will also be installing an adjustable track bar that the previous owner had but never installed. I have also picked up and will be installing a tilt column shift steering column out a 70's Chevy van. The final items I will be adding in this first stage of the rebuild is a serpentine setup, rear disc brakes, and power brakes.

As you can see in the photos there is some rust that needs to be dealt with on the front passenger cab corner, and a hole in the frame that the previous owner made to install a power steering gear box. I will be repairing the frame at this time but will probably wait on the body work for now. My goal is to keep the downtime to a minimum so that we can continue to enjoy the truck during the rebuild process.

Enjoy these pictures that I took tonight, there will be plenty more in the future.

Derek