George...

[69gmcc10]

Thanks 67 cheby, I see you every where on this forum and you realy help motivate people on there projects. I realy like the work you do with the slosh tubs, grat looking product. That dropmember thread you have is great, cant wait to see wht you do to it next.

[67cheby]

this forum has always motivated and helped me, it's all about the whole group sharing ideas and helping one another ! the step by step that you are doing here is great, i always like to see those and Thank You !

[69gmcc10]

If you do any research about shaving the drip rails you will come across several posts with pictures dedicated to the subject. In those pictures you will see that if you just cut off the rail and weld it up you are left with the world’s smallest and ugliest visor.

[69gmcc10]

In order to combat that problem I went about it a little different. We kept the windshield in place because we did not want to brace the frame or take it out. It also needs a new wind shield any way and good heavy cardboard paper taped to the windshield would protect just fine. After that we cut the entire front drip rail off in one section and left it open. We then slightly lifted the roof and cut the lip that comes forward from windshield frame under the roof. This left an over hang of about 3/8” for the roof to be trimmed back to sit flush with the windshield frame minus the lip we cut off. We then began tack welding from the center out to keep any excess metal or warping to the corners where we can take it out with a pie cut.

[69gmcc10]

We placed two pie cuts about 5” long in the corners of the cab so the roof would fall smooth and not buckle. Then we moved to the center section of the roof and started burning the roof to the window frame 1 random spot-weld at a time to prevent warping. This is the easiest part of the entire project be cause you are only working with two pieces of metal at full thickness. Just an FYI, the corners of the cab are a night mare there are three and sometimes four pieces of metal you are welding together at once, but if you take your time and think about it rationally it isn’t as bad as it seems.

The only thing I would have done different on the roof is make a slightly larger pie cut on the driver side. After welding the roof up there was a very small buckle at the peak of the cut that we had to heat and tap down with a hammer, the passenger side was wider and we just used the piece we cut out of the pie to fill it in and it came out real smooth.

Sorry I dont have a photo of the finished product primed, I would take one and post it, but the truck is currently sitting under 18" of fresh snow we got yesterday and last night. I will post one as soon as I can.

[67cheby]

looking good !

[69gmcc10]

Ok, I am keeping my promise, here is the photo of the finished drip rail. I think it came out good, follows the body lines well and blends right in!

[67cheby]

wow...now i think you need to pancake that hood a little...seems to stick up

[69gmcc10]

Having 2 trucks in my life caused a little confusion in my house between me and, lets call her the “Warden” for a few weeks. She would ask if we were taking the new truck, witch is confusing because the new to us truck is 43 years old and the old truck is 9, and that would spark a 5 min debate every time we left the house, so we named it George. There are simple solutions to everything and I have better things to do than go through that routine every day.

Speaking of not having enough time, George let me down for the first time! The tumblers in the ignition are so worn that you can take the key out in any position, so while it is running, when it is off, in the accessory position it doesn’t matter just pull it out and go. Well word to the wise, don’t take out the key when it is in accessory and drain the battery while you are at work. There is nothing worse than beer thirty with your friends and a dead truck! It only took 15 min and some jumper cables, but that is still frustrating.

[fakerwade]

Dude that's funny!! , ,Move all that snow into the box for better traction!!

[69gmcc10]

Wade, most of the snow went into the back of my 4wd just for that reason. When I was done there was a heep in the back of the truck, snowfall alone filled the bed!

[Camaro_nut2001]

Lookin good, subscribed to this one.

[69gmcc10]

I got myself a sway bar! Now I had a little bit of a dilemma on my hands when it came to choosing a bar. The originals keep the cost down, bolt right in and it gets some useless hunk of steel out some guy’s field. With a new bar that has connecting links to the arms it would cost more money, involve less work and the stock bars create some binding on the suspension that these new bars don’t produce. So I looked at the warden, realized she wouldn’t be upset over $50, but for $250 I may as well castrate myself and just hand them to her because it would hurt less. Besides, on a daily driving situation, or any other driving situation for that matter, I wont be able to tell the difference so to the bone yard I went.

In the land of 4x4s that Montana is, I thought it would be a little more difficult to find 2wd parts, but the junk yard had 2 mid 80’s 2wd 1 tons with the 1.25” sway bars each for $35. I did get the brackets and bushings from the yard, but I want Polly bushings and the bar to be tucked up under the body more so I called Early Classic. After asking them a few questions about using the lowered mount on a stock height truck and having them assure me that it would work just fine, I bought their lowered mounting bracket and hardware for $19 and the Polly bushings and straps for $29. I then gave the bar a good coat of simple green, a blast from the power washer, rubbed it with a red 3m scuffing pad, some self etching primer, 2 coats of black enamel I had laying around and for about $85 I had effectively saved the environment and had a sway bar mounted in George. It feels good to do the right thing, or that is what I tell the boys.

[69gmcc10]

I need to make this truck a little more fun, reliable and safer to drive. No, that doesn’t mean I am replacing the ignition tumbler to keep me from killing the battery when I turn it off. Yes it happened again and no the wife didn’t find it as funny as I did. Besides, that would cause me to spend money on something that works, not well, but works none the less. I will converting to an HEI unit, rebuilding the Quadra jet (they are so under appreciated), convert to coils in the rear with the later wider rear end with HD 2.75” drums and disc brakes up front with 5 lugs all the way around. Also I will be adding 1.5” blocks in the rear and cutting ½ a coil from the front to hopefully give it a look that the truck could have come from the factory with a sport option. I want people to look at the truck and know something is different, but not able to tell what has changed.

With the small amount of drop I want in the rear (3” max) I thought of just taking out the over load spring and bolting in a drop shackle, but I then started to think about axle wrap wheel hop and the decrease in load capacity of doing that. I don’t want to load this truck heavy and haul stuff with it all the time, but I don’t want it riding on the bump stops if I throw a 4 wheeler in the rear or else what is 8’ of bed for? The only answer I had to these issues was cal-trac bars (because they are way better than slappers) to help it hook up during spirited driving and a set of bags to help me when I pull stuff or put manly things in the bed! When I did the math for shackles, cal-tracs, overload bags and all of the other components necessary it became obvious that it was cheaper to buy and swap to trailing arms, blocks and eventually some firestone 9000 bags in the future. So off to the local junk yards to find myself some suspension parts!

Thinking ahead (wow, never done that before!) in my project I know George is getting disks up front in the future, adding about 1.5” to the track width up front, and knowing that the rear is already narrower than the front for tracking I don’t want an awkwardly narrow rear or off set wheels to make up for it so I picked up a 1.5” wider 71 rear end for $150. I found some trailing arms, springs and lower shock mounts for $65, look at the picture and you can see the owner just cut the frame to drop out the cross member (wow!), and HD breaks for $50. Other than the axle being designed for leafs (It just couldn’t be that easy) everything else should just bolt right in, gotta love GM!

[67_ShortFleet]

Good choice on the truck! I've been throught many girlfriends and I am getting a divorce, and guess what I still own it!

[69gmcc10]

Ha Ha!

[69gmcc10]

Here are some pictures of the 2 ¾ inch rear drums against the 2 inch drums. They don’t make the track width any wider, the backing plates are just recessed over the axle further to compensate for the extra width. With 37% more break I think they will work well for me.

[Tinkermc]

nice start to a long project I have the front end from a 72 with disc braqkes very reasonalble if interested.

[fakerwade]

You must have dug yourself out from under all that snow!!! Welcome back,,looking forward to your progress!

[69gmcc10]

Tinkermc- thanks for the offer, If you were close I would be running over to take a llok at what you have, but I think I have something lined up here in the big sky state!

WADE-the snow is fianlly gone, but as I type this it snowing outside and this evening I am going to pull a shock cross member from a junked truck. I hope the sun comes out some time today so i dont have to do it in the snow

[Low Elco]

Good Luck!

[69gmcc10]

Well thanks for the hopes of good luck getting my shock cross member! It didn’t snow, but it did rain the last while. Man this thing was miserable to get out! When I got there I found out that this was a ¾ ton and the extra support inserts in the frame made the rivets next to impossible to get out! Interesting stuff, I never knew ¾ tons have an extra set of supports running from the frame to the carrier bearing cross member. I wanted them to just to add a little more rigidity to the frame, but ran out of time. Here are some pictures and an action shots my wife took of the parts and process. Just a few more things and I will be ready to start bolting things up hopefully in 2 weeks!

[67c10rustbuket]

Nice job on the drip rail! I hope you didn't do it outside, on of the hippies could suffer a bloody toe if you didn't pick up all the pieces.

[69gmcc10]

If your gonna be dumb then you gotta be tough!

[69gmcc10]

Some parts came in today! First package was Poly bushings and axle saddles from ECE, man those guys are good! I had allot of questions and they just knew the answer, didn’t have to look it up or anything. The second was a panhard kit from No Limit and this thing is awesome, but I was missing a bracket when it showed up so Michele at No Limit sent it right out. This thing is hefty, even with a single shear mount on the frame side this thing isn’t going any where! Thanks Rob for making some great parts for these trucks and giving your knowledge to our community for free. I have to gather a few more parts and the weather to clear up (started snowing again!) and I will be attempting my first trailing arm swap.