'71ish K10 restoration

[Papaloo]

So I've been trolling this forum since I bought my '71ish K10 project back in October and I thought I would post on here to share it.

I bought this as a partially restored truck with a supposedly rebuilt engine (fewer than 50 miles), but from what I've seen so far, I'll be redoing most of the work. I bought this near Allentown PA and unfortunately, the dash board gauges were not hooked up and unbeknownst to me, the heater core had a slight leak and combined with the wrong radiator (only 40% the size it should've been) the truck overheated on the way home stranding me on the side of the road. It is kind of a funny story though because a friend was following me in his '05 Focus and his alternator died the same time my truck overheated and we coasted off to the side of the interstate together.

Anyways, when I got the truck home, I drained the oil and sent a sample for analysis. It came back with no antifreeze in it, so I decided to refill the oil with 10w-40 and keep a close eye on it. I took it for about a 2 mile drive and the oil pressure started to gradually drop at constant RPM. At that point I decided to rebuild the engine. Once it was apart, I could see that the person I bought it from either confused the terms engine rebuild with engine repaint, or he put new parts into a very dirty engine. I had to scrape sludge and carbon build up from around the head bolts so I could get a socket on them. The heads were the 462624 heads (better served as boat anchors), the crank was scored from all the junk in the block and the piston skirts were scored from the overheating. This didn't leave much worth salvaging. I decided to install a 383 Eagle Street Performance rotating assembly with a cast steel crank. The block is currently at the machine shop getting properly cleaned, machined and clearanced for the 383 kit.

While that is going on, I've pulled the SM 465 tranny and I'm in the process of rebuilding that. It had the common urge to pop out of third gear and the shifter slop along with plenty of whine above 30mph. I'm going to also rebuild the NP205 T-case while it's easily accessible.

As for the body, there are plenty of dents and poorly done bondo spots on the bed, but that was visible when I bought the truck. The cab supposedly had the body work finished, just a new paint job. But, too bad for me, when I went to remove the transmission hump to get the tranny out, I found that the bench seat was only held in by 4 loose nuts. Following that, I found that the transmission hump had quite a bit of slathered on bondo covering holes (including bare bondo on the underside of the cover to act as a handy sponge). To top that off, I noticed daylight coming up through the edge of the floor pan. He had installed a new floor pan, but had only tacked it in about every 8" and hadn't even bothered with any seam sealer...

So, now begins my full frame up restoration. I'm thinking I might finish in 4-6 years. Until then, my woefully underpowered 2003 GMC Sonoma gets a stay of execution.

Oh, a little about me. My name is Dave and I'm a 25 year old mechanical engineer living just outside Philadelphia. I never had anyone really teach me about cars growing up, but I have a very mechanical mind and enjoy tinkering.

[Papaloo]

Well, I should be getting my engine block and rotating assembly back from the machine shop this week. I stopped by last week to inspect the work and give a progress payment. The block was in the process of being honed when I was there. The new rods in my ESP rotating assembly were slightly out of round so they machined those as well. They also located new Pioneer flywheel and harmonic balancer so the assembly could be balanced.

Over the past few weeks, I've been working on the transmission. I pulled apart the parts transmission (broke two gear pullers in the process), installed the new bushings, gears and bearings into the good case (which I blasted and painted previously). I disassembled the top cover over the weekend and blasted that clean. Now I need to paint those, the PTO covers and reassemble all of those. I must say, I was impressed by the ingenuity of the design used to prevent multiple gears from being engaged at once. I also dropped the T-case out of the truck and power washed it while the weather was warmer.

So how many other people in the Philadelphia area are currently restoring, or have restored these trucks? I'd like to make some friends with people who would be willing to impart some of their wisdom on me

[Papaloo]

So I've been occasionally working on my truck in between projects on the house. My current plan now is to take it down to the frame, strip the frame and repaint the frame to stop the rust. The PO spray painted the frame but he did no prep so all of the paint is peeling. Most of my time has been taken up by house projects though. I need to get all the trim work in my house finished to keep my wife happy. Because I don't have a garage, I bought a 3 room, 20'x11' cabin tent from Wal-Mart to use as a paint booth for staining the trim and as soon as the trim is finished, I'll be using it to work on body pieces.

As far as progress, I have engine block back. It's sitting on the stand and wrapped in a garbage bag to protect it from dust. I've finished rebuilding the sm465. The engine bay and cab are both stripped bare and I've started disassembly of the bed.











I've noticed that the PO welded in new floor panels, but they are just tacked in place and he didn't remove the old rusty panels first. I'll have to grind out his welds so I can cut out the old rusty steel.





A bird got into my basement through an open window the other day. I didn't have any problem getting it out, but I found that it crapped... On the SPID... Luckily it cleaned off rather easily.

[threeonthetree]

Great build man
love them 4 wheel drives.
keep up the good work.

[Papaloo]

Woo! The first reply to my build thread!

I have been thinking about asking my wife for new heads for my birthday, but I've been having a hard time deciding on a set. Does anyone have any opinions on good flowing economical heads for a 383? I am searching for aluminum heads to reduce the chance of knocking. With 64cc heads, I'll have static compression of around 10.5:1. I may go with 76cc so I can run cheaper gas though.

In the immediate future, a PO installed a sunroof and it leaks like a sieve. I am going to a salvage yard tomorrow to look at a possible donor roof. With all the PO damage I've seen in this cab, I may buy an entire donor cab.

The next few months will be spent practicing with my welder, body hammers on the body panels and stripping and painting the frame with Eastwood rust encapsulator and 2k Ceramic chassis black.

[Papaloo]

I just realized that if I'm going to ask for input on heads that I should specify that I'm not looking for a drag vehicle or racer. It's a 4x4 LWB and I plan on using it as a truck so I am looking for idle-5500 with the torque curve in the low-mid rpm range.

[Chevymaniac]

Any new updates to report, I need my 67-72 fix.

You have a very solid truck to start with, how has it been to tear apart?

[Papaloo]

The truck has been pretty easy to tear apart. The PO installed a lot of new bolts... He also missed installing a lot of bolts, between the two it has come apart pretty fast. The hard part has been finding and digging through all the bondo. The truck looked very good to start with, but there was considerable badness hidden under the surface. I can see now that I pretty much got screwed when I bought this truck. I don't know if all of the badness I have found was through incompentence or intent of the previous owner (or some combination thereof), but all I can do now is try to keep smiling and thinking of what it will be when I finish.

Today I bought a "new" roof to install on my project. I plan on cutting off the roof and welding on the new one so I can be free of the terrible, leaky sunroof.







I'll need to do quite a bit of work on the floor. The new rockers panels have not been welded to the floor boards.





I didn't grab any pictures of it, but the reinforcing bump in the floor that the seatbelts bolt into has numerous large dents and rusted out areas. Looking at the overall condition of the floor, I think the best thing to do will be to just purchace a new floor pan. I noticed on the Goodmark website that it has two listings for the floor pans. One is with and the other is without the under braces. Does anyone know what the braces are? Are they the cabmounts and reinforcing plates for the seatbelts?

http://www.goodmarkindustries.com/mo...make=Chevrolet Truck&model=C/K Pickup&parts=500-599

[1949gmc]

Just to throw this out there for you to think about, but if you're replacing the roof and the floor, how about just getting a new, clean cab? I have no idea what they go for, but as I learned in my Jimmy project, sometimes it's better to find a clean body than to try and fix your PO's patches and any other rust problems that have come up since then. I was bound and determined to fix all the rust on my Jimmy... I wanted to bring this baby back from the dead... bought every repair panel made, even bought an entire cab floor for the pieces that weren't made or to replace the repops that I didn't like. After a while, I determined that it would be faster, and cheaper, to buy a much cleaner blazer tub than to continue to fix the pile of crap that I had. Even though I had thousands in the original tub and all the pieces that I bought and the sandblasters I rented, I'm still better off with the second body. So, my advice to you would be to take a step back and see if it would be easier and faster for you to switch cabs with one that is much cleaner and easier to work with.

As for the heads, you've got a couple of options. 1) You could take yours to the machine shop and have them done, 2) you could buy a brand new pair of Vortec's from Jegs or Summit (much better flow than the old style heads, relatively cheap, small comb chamber, will need Vortec intake to go along) or 3) you could buy a set of S/R Torquer heads, I think World makes them (larger comb chamber, use your old intake, they have bolt holes in them for the accessories, about the same price as Vortec's). My machine shop guy once told me that I'd be better off buying aftermarket heads than to rebuild the ones I had. After all of his labor costs, new valves, springs, guides if needed, I would have spent more with him than if I had bought a new pair from Jegs.

Just my .02. Hope it helps ya.

[Papaloo]

Yeah, I've thought about getting a better cab, but living in PA, I haven't had any luck trying to find one that would require any less work
I'll do my best with what I have though. This cab wouldn't be so bad if the work had just been done right the first time. It's the subpar repairs that have this cab in sad shape. As for the cab that the roof came from, the roof was the only part of that cab that wasn't see through

As for my current heads, the PO built the engine using parts from a '76 blazer so the heads are the lovely 462624 smoggers. My machine shop told me they might be good as anchors. I was thinking that with my flat top pistons, I'll probably want to go with a larger combustion chamber and aluminum heads. I was going to keep the intake runner size around 190cc to keep the velocity up. Are there aftermarket aluminum vortec heads?

[Chevymaniac]

I'am in the same boat as you are. My truck cab is too far gone on the bottom, i did contemplate buying a new floor pan, but i found a 2wd truck with a better body than what i have. So i will just do a body swap.

Hopefully you find somehting, just keep plugging away.

What kind of horsepower/torque is your motor putting out and are you trying to squeeze more out of it?

[Papaloo]

I came really close to buying a '72 LWB c10 that had a better body, though lots of dents and still in need of 3/4 cab mounts and a rocker panel along with the need for a few spot patches here and there. It also had a pretty big dent in the rear bumper where it looked like it was backed into a low post, hard. hard enough to drive the spare tire through a frame cross member under the bed. The bed itself had a wood floor, though it was about 1/3rd rotted. Mechanicaly, it had a 350 with a wiped cam lobe. The interior had been partially stripped. No gauge dash, radio, vents, glovebox or glove box door. I offered the guy $1500. He told me he'd try his luck online. I wished him well. I haven't seen anything else since then.

I have no idea what the HP and torque was of my engine before tearing it apart. I was about 20 miles along the 70 mile drive home when a small, unnoticed coolant leak caused the engine to overheat. It was flatbedded the remaining 50miles home (thanks AAA) and while investigated if any damage had been done to the engine by overheating, I found all the main/rod bearings were shot and the heads were completly full of carbon and crap. I'll let you know how much HP and TQ it makes when it goes back together someday

[Chevymaniac]

Sounds great, i can't wait to see the outcome. I'am debating what i should go with, 383 SBC or 396 BBC. I guess it all depends if my friend lets me have his BBC.

Keep plugging away at it little by little.

[Papaloo]

I went with the SBC 383 because I already had the block, and the parts are cheaper. Cheaper makes my wife happier

[msgross]

nice build... In my sig is a thread for the "flip that truck or else" truck i did... we replaced the roof in one night... I'm out near Lebanon, PA...

[Papaloo]

Big Mike, Beautiful job with that roof! I hope mine comes out that well, but I figure if I really screw it up, then I'll just say the hell with it and try and find an AZ 2wd LWB truck and stick in on a train up to here for a body swap. My wife already complains that one disassembled truck makes the house look a bit redneck. I might as well add another

I'm really in now hurry with this project though. I just like taking things apart and fixing them so it's all the process for me. Of course, what I don't like is redoing work, so once the engine came out, I didn't want to be pulling it multiple times, so I figured I might as well start from the frame and work my way up

Lebanon's not too far from me. It's just shy of a two hour drive. I'm the engineer for a regional industrial sales office and one of our sales guys lives in Annville so I travel there every few months.

[msgross]

I actually live 2 mi south of Annville... There is another board member in Lancaster that has a cab and short bed for sale... I'll look for the thread.

There are alos some guys with good cabs but they are in Kansas, California or Arizona usually...

[msgross]

you could also reskin your roof...

here are the parts in Lancaster
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=395180

[rickymac85]

wow youve got a great project going here. Im about to start on a frame up resto on an 84 k10, and im also thinkin about stuffin a 383 in it. Oh and if you are still looking for heads, look at trick flow aluminum heads. They flow very well and they arent VERY expensive. All depends on how much you want to spend. What rearends do you have in the 71?

[Papaloo]

Big Mike, if you could find that link to the cab in Lancaster, that'd be fantastic. The shortbed won't help much, since I really like having a long bed I'm still not sure about the cab though. I really started this project so I could learn about body work. I just wasn't expecting things to be as messed up as they are. It wasn't until I removed the carpeting that I started to see some of the bad. When I then wire wheeled parts of the floor I found lots of bondo and knew then that I was really in trouble. I go back and forth between wanting to buy a new floor, replace that and the roof and rebuild it and buying a new cab (if I can find a good one). I decided to replace the whole roof as opposed to reskinning because of the hole cut through for the very leaky sunroof. I hate aftermarket sunroofs.

As for the rear end, it's a 3.73 open carrier. I'll keep the same ratio, but I want to put in a posi unit. How do people feel about the Trick Flow heads? In my browsing, I've seen some mixed reviews in regards to them, though I'm not sure how much that would apply to all companies since so much is dependent on the interaction of all the parts and not just on any one part.

[Papaloo]

I've spent the past few weeks hard at work getting trim installed in my house so my wife would be happy, but I finally got back to the truck last weekend. I finished removing the bed and I flipped the cab onto its back so I could inspect the bottom. I found that while not laying on my back and having the floor shadowed, it looks far far worse. I also found some bondo spots on the firewall that I have yet to wire wheel. I also noticed that the rocker panels were held in place by a couple of sheet metal screws and a half inch of bondo and the new cab corners were in place with non-countersunk pop rivets and about another 1/4" of bondo. I pretty much lost my optimism on Saturday. This week, however, I did score a '72 LWB C10 Cheyenne with factory air and a wood bed that still had the original factory paint. It only needs a passenger side rocker and cab mounts. That should make the 4x4 project much easier

[Chevymaniac]

It's too bad the PO didn't take pride in doing a professional job, but opted to do a half a$$ job instead and pass it off as something worthwhile.

Have any pics on the truck you recently acquired.