Bare bones '72 rebuild

[72kool]

I've decided to finally start a build thread for my truck. This will be a fairly slow paced build. Let's start with the intro.

I bought this 1972 GMC C20 Custom Camper almost 9 years ago. Local elderly gentleman bought it new, drove it around the farm everyday as neared retirement. Then it was passed on to his son and then hos grandson as he started his construction company. I got it with 62,000 original miles. Through the years I have fixed what was needed to drive it. Valve cover gaskets, belts and hoses. Then a heater core the first winter. After a couple years as it was, driving it on a occasion, it got an HEI upgrade and ne ignition system.

Over the years add a beautiful wife and three kids to my life, and the truck sat patiently in the background. It was a daily driver occasionally and now has 72,000 miles.


Fast forward to today. My current DD is a '93 suburban that has 277,000+ miles, engine and transmission had about 90k and 40k. But every other part is worn out and tired of spending money on it. So I decided it's time to make this my daily driver permanently.

The plan is to strip it down piece by piece and drive it in-between teardowns. As life goes, money is not in high abundance for this so it is going to be left stock mostly for now and just made reliable and ready for my daily needs.

Enough rambling for now, I will try to upload some pictures of the current progress.
Also disclaimer, my schedule is always busy it seems so this is all done down at night after 8pm a couple days a week so it will be slow going at times


Ok here are some pictures

[72kool]

I can only do a couple at a time so here are more of the current condition

[72kool]

I haven't spent alot of time on the truck since I started this thread. I did work on it a little bit Friday night and then. Little more for about an hour this afternoon. I didn't think to get any pictures though unfortunately.

Progress made, I've got a good portion of the passenger side wire wheeled and closer to paint. While over there, I noticed that my kick panel isn't actually rusted through , but I stead the spot welds broke loose. After looking at it, I will be a simple fix. That was a pleasant find last night.

Today i started to tear some accessories off the engine to make it easier to pull and start clean up and paint on them. The alternator bracket is broke in one spot so I will take that to work and weld it back together.

Made another find right before I came in for the afternoon. I was unbolting the exhaust manifolds and removed the heat shield off the drivers exhaust manifold, to find that it has been hiding a crack. Original plan was to keep the ram horns, but now that I have to replace one, it may be logical to go with headers now. Have not decided yet.

Any tips to make this process easier, faster or better, I am always open for suggestions! I will try to get pictures posted for you guys soon

[72kool]

Here are some pictures after today's work. Also a picture of the cracked ram horn

[72kool]

Well I got side tracked for a day or two....ok so it was like a month. My first snag was it got really cold for a couple weeks! My garage is not heated but with space heaters and usually I can keep it up at between 40-50. But during those weeks I couldn't hit 20. My body don't move well at them temps haha.

Then I couldn't find a cherry picker to get the engine out. I would love to buy one , but doing this on my budget, it would have set me back a months worth of more of parts sooo.....

Fast forward to this week, and progress!!! We actually got above 70 degrees Wednesday so it was time to work. Put the front wheels back on and truck back on the ground. Push the truck outside where I could use a gantry I built. It's not pretty, but it's strong enough and it worked good...mostly. one tip I will give anyone who is doing this for the first time, invest in a load leveler!

Being a genius ( say it long enough it becomes truth,right?) I am going pull the engine and trans at once. This way I don't have to remove the trans on my back underneath the truck. Sounds logical.

Unhooked everything, making sure to put a pan under the tailshaft to not make a mess..


Back to the load leveler, wish I had one. It took a little longer to get it navigated out of the truck and a miniature red Sea was created under the truck via tailshaft 🤦

[72kool]

Almost forgot the best part of this adventure. Have you ever seen a wheel on an engine stand explode randomly? Didn't expect that! I was going to move the engine near the work bench, but after the front wheel shattered, I realised that I had, in fact, already had it in the perfect spot

[72kool]

Doe anybody know where I can get an entry form for dirtiest engine?? I think I have a fair chance of winning this year.

Got the rest of the little pieces off the engine and started to scrape away forty years. I was able to spend about 3-4 hours scrubbing it and made some decent progress. I still have to do the front and intake, but wanting to really make sure it's clean where the parts meet so I don't get gunk in the wrong places. My plan is to scrub each part after it is disassembled and then paint them then reassemble.

One question I have been trying to figure out, what colors should I paint the engine? I like Chevy orange, but I am not a fan of all orange with black pulleys. The truck is orange already and don't like the Halloween vibe..orange is my favorite color, just don't want the Halloween truck. Maybe a copperish color gold? Or I thought about orange block and heads, darker gray/hammerite intake,valve covers and pulleys? I need ideas here

[72kool]

Here are some after pictures of my efforts. Hopefully tomorrow I can start the teardown.

[72 tigger]

Doing a nice job

[72kool]

Originally Posted by 72 tigger

Doing a nice job

Thanks 72Tigger

I'm trying to keep going and always make some progress so this doesn't stall. I really would like this to be a DD soon but don't right.

Today was a good day of work. Started by doing some easy ( easy if your hands don't hurt after 10 minutes like mine) cleaning on the transmission. Have to say I'm liking the look of it clean

[72kool]

This afternoon I decided I wanted to get the engine tore down as much as I could. Started by setting it to tdc. I want to keep it simple going back together so let's mark it very precisely so I can keep the timing and save some hassle

[72kool]

Everything looked good so I pulled up on the distributor and...well it was a little stuck in the hole. Pull a little harder and....well I have two nice holes in my lip now. Lesson learned


Ok so back at it, I started removing the intake, then the heads. All looks good so far.

As I was taking the last few bolts out I realised there was still some coolant in the block so I pulled the plug on pass. Side of the block...nothing comes out.

Well maybe I'm cra..that looks plugged up there.

Sure enough the hole is plugged solid with coolant buildup. Broke it up with a screw driver and I get coolant draining.

Little concerned about the coolant passages now but no worry yet.

[72kool]

I finish taking the heads off and scrape away the gasket left on the block. Now I'll take the timing cover and crank pulley off so it's ready for inspection and reassembly. All went smooth until time to remove the harmonic balancer, and I remember I don't have a puller. No big deal, I'll borrow one tomorrow from work.

Only thing left is to inspect what I see and relax.


Cylinders look good and pretty clean and...$+&-#. There is a definite ridge at the top of the cylinders. I don't think I can just reseal this engine with new gaskets and call it good. Time to start looking into full rebuild options 😕

This is normally not a big deal, but I think my timeline and budget just got shot. More to come

[72kool]

Well as you will soon learn, I have two bad habits ( ok probably more but you only hear about two tonight!)

First, I am bad about taking time from working to share the work! Second, my wifey has to remind to take pictures in between. I get started and just go..oops.

So go back a few days, got the camshaft, crankshaft and pistons all out of the engine. I now just need to get it cleaned up and ready to go to the machine shop

[72kool]

Stop,hey, what's that sound!? Everybody look what's going.....

That doesnt sound good.

Found a present in the oil pump screen

[72kool]

Well I think I found where that came from. I was told that the timing sprocket had nylon teeth. Mine does not any more..well it did, just not where they should have been.

Looking at the timing chain, I think my timing sprockets lost weight. Good time for a rebuild I guess!

[72kool]

Shifting gears, I decided to work on some makeup while I save for the shop bill. I decided to take the inner fenders of and see what I could do. This is my work truck so it's not perfect, but hey I think they turned out pretty good!

The right front had rust under the battery tray. Can I trim it off and look ok still? Let's try it and see I guess. For now it will work until I can find a better used one atleast.

[72kool]

I'm happy with the results except the bottom brace is now only held on by a tack weld. After some wire wheeling and sanding, spray some primer on it and then a few coats of duplicolor semi-gloss black. I want to spray bedliner on the outside of the fenders, but all the bedliners I've found so far are rubberized. I don't want it to be flexible, I want something hard and chip proof. I've thought of por15 but idk.

Now I need to do the other fender and work on the core support next


Side note, I thought about taking the dent out of the top of the inner fender, but, I got a secret....I put it there years ago to reach the heater box bolt. And its really handy to have 😂

Hey,it's a functional truck right?

[72 tigger]

Patch it in, it’ll be fine

[72kool]

So we get to Friday night and I'm wore out,but still want to accomplish something tonight. I found this color in the store that i really want to use. So I grabbed one of my valve covers and started scrubbing. Brake cleaner, paper towels and my wire wheel are my best friends (I don't have many friends..sshh)

I forgot the before picture ( what did the wife tell me about pictures? I don't remember..)
There was a dent where the oil cap is so I got out my high dollar dent straightener, the BFH. It's highly effective and very portable! I should sell the plans to my local tool companies...

Here's what she looks like in a new dress. I'm hooked on this color now.

[72kool]

Final post for tonight and we should be caught up. When I started this adventure, I wanted to fix the heater box and replace the cables and seals. Maybe I should actually do that now? Well let's look the damage here. I have this hole on the bottom side under the blower motor. I started by sanding it around the hole with some 60 grit sandpaper. I just wanted to scuff it good before applying the patch. Instead of using fiberglass , I used some milliput putty. I've used it before to build custom diecast cars and it's a really nice product. Now just wait til tomorrow morning and sand it down smooth and prep for paint


No where is the picture of the patch work on the heater box?? Oh yeah...well I will get that tomorrow

[72kool]

This weekend has been busy with spring yard work. We started out yesterday by cleaning up the last of the leaves from the driveway and yard. Then to do some over seeding and help my sister with their garden. After all that it was time to take it easy so not a lot of progress made this weekend.

I'll start off with a picture of the patch work on the heater box. This worked out pretty well. It was a little of a pain getting it flat when putting it in the hole because of the size of the broken spot, but not too bad overall

[72kool]

The instructions say to let it sit for an hour but it still is kind of soft, so I let it sit overnight before touching it. Started off with 60 grit paper on my da sander to get it flattened out quickly.

Here's a picture of the before and after 60 grit sanding

[72kool]

After I was happy with the basic shape, I switched to 120 grit and finished it with some 800 grit. 240 would have been fine but I didn't have any so, use what we got. Then it was time to wire wheel the metal parts and prep for paint

[72kool]

Before I primed it in that last picture, the blend door didn't want to close all the way. I didn't want to tear it clear apart because I didn't want to to re rivet it so I washed it out and looked to see what I could. Found that it had a buildup of crud around the pivot point. Cleaned that out and now it works pretty smooth and closes almost completely. It could use new rubber on it but I don't think it's reproduced.

Finally got to the fun part of paint and getting to see how the patch area will look. I think it will work good for what I'm doing. If you look for it, you will see where is was patched, but at a glance it's hid pretty well