The Pickup Truck

[1968CHEVYC10]

Well this is my first post, my first build, and my first Truck... so any tips/advice on anything would be great. its got a 350 with a Muncie (I think) 3 speed on the column. my plans for now are to just get her street legal and something for me to drive around, maybe sometime in the future I'll take it a little deeper and make her look nice. here are some pics of her...

I offered to buy it from my grandpa, but he ended up just giving it to me. when he gave it to me he said "its your headache now" but so far its turned alright.






no truck is complete without a bed full of random junk

[1968CHEVYC10]

well the first thing i did was try to bleed the brakes, the rear brakes did fine. but the front not so good. It seems like the brake line is clogged comin off the master cylinder, when i tried to bleed them i mashed down on the brake pedal so hard the brake line popped off the master cylinder (this probably had something to do with the fact that the brake line was j-b welded to the master cylinder). so a new brake line is first in order and should fix things up nice. I'd post some pics but i ain't sure how to upload them off my computer, my first pics i had to copy off a web album. any tips? also any advice on anything i'm doin on my truck would awesome since this is my first build.

[nuke1]

Nice truck and a great start, good for you for getting your grandpas truck, just take your time and do not get frustrated in the future when working on it, just enjoy it, and welcome to the board!

[1968CHEVYC10]

well its been awhile things have been going kinda slow, school started for one. anyway today i got working on the rear drums, they were pretty well frozen up, so i got one side adjusted and hopefully tomorrow I'll get the other side done.
I'm have trouble with the parking brake cable, it looks like its frozen in the line that goes inside the drum. when i took the drum off i had someone move the brake lever back and forth while i watched the cable inside the drum. nothing was moving, the cable would tighten up out side but wouldn't budge on the inside. so it looks like i'll have to replace that, and maybe the whole drum.

here's a pic...



I'm wanting to get this done so i can drive it into the shop where I can really get to work on it.

[1968CHEVYC10]

well there was supposed to be a picture there not a link, oh i see, i clicked link instead of pic. here we go...

[Puropedo]

Great project,,,( wish it was my head ache )

[77chris03]

are ya gonna do anything with the engine? let me know if u need a block to build in replace of that one. plus it gives me something to do...
heres mine i built...i build turbines so these are like legos..lol

[1968CHEVYC10]

Hey yall, ha if anybody's following this one, haven't posted since sept. Anyway I'm gonna try and get back on it. I have been getting stuff done just haven't been posting it here. Well if there's one thing I've learned about this stuff is it takes longer than you think. Got the truck in sept of last year, at first I was hoping to get it on the road before 2010, well... that didn't happen, then I was hoping to get her going before the summer started, yeah well. But I think I'm getting pretty close now if she ain't done before august... well... she will be, and by done I mean a safe function street legal (ok semi street legal ). later tonight if I have time I'll upload some pictures and write some about my progress.

[1968CHEVYC10]

Originally Posted by 77chris03

are ya gonna do anything with the engine? let me know if u need a block to build in replace of that one. plus it gives me something to do...

as of now I'm hoping to make this thing last as long as I can, but if I need something I'll let ya know.

[bigguy69]

cool!!

[67chevy1series]

well where is that update huh

[dfwright]

subscribing. Looks like a great project. It seems like there's more than a few of us here with our Grandad's truck. Cool!

[1968CHEVYC10]

Originally Posted by 67chevy1series

well where is that update huh

Yeah well sorry, got busy. So I wont make any big promises this time, just a brief history of what I've done to it then I'll try to keep yall updated on what I'm doing currently.

[1968CHEVYC10]

Well were did I leave off? truck was still sitting in the yard where I unloaded it from the trailer. The wheel cylinders where total crud and the e-brake had been left on for to long and rusted in place, so the brakes were locked up. got those adjusted to it could move then drove it into the car port where it would live for the next ten months. Anyway first was the brakes, I removed all the old brake lines and wheel cylinders, bought some new line and a double flaring tool from snap-on, it was the cheapest one but it worked great. I did the rent-a-tool thing with all the local parts stores and broke everyone of them, cheap china. Anyway this was my first time doing any kind of brake stuff so it took me a little while to get the flares down. I replaced all the wheel cylinders got new shoes and replaced all the brake springs, it took me awhile to track down all the springs kinda hard to find at the parts stores. So next was to bleed the brakes, well I'm still in the process of that having trouble getting any pedal pressure, so i took a break and started on the motor. It wasn't getting very good spark so I replaced plugs, wires and got a skip white hei, although later I figured out what year the motor was, '75 and apparently it already had hei ignition, well anyway the new red one looks kinda cool. now that the motor is running I discovered a pretty bad rear main seal leak, So I got a new one piece rubber from fel-pro, stuck it in there used a tractor with a front end loader to raise the motor actually was alot easier than I thought it'd be. But now that it's in there is a worse leak at the front of the oil pan, I'd heard that they changed the thickness of the gasket at where the timing cover meets it but don't think it was until '81, So not sure what the problem could be. I had some leftover gasket maker so I sealed it up pretty good, hope fully that'll fix it. Anyway that's where she stands today, tomorrow when the gasket stuff is dried I'll start her up and see how it goes. And I know that was alot of reading with out any pictures so I'll see if I can't fix that for yall. Also any input or advice is always welcome, I'm a newb when it comes to this stuff.

[1968CHEVYC10]

oh forgot to mention, I changed the diff oil, the gears look pretty good, no chips and not really any wear.

[1968CHEVYC10]

Changing the Oil pan gasket. who needs an engine hoist? go tractors

[1968CHEVYC10]

Here's my leak repair job,



The new skip white dizzy,



and my custom radiator overflow tank,

[bradley7576]

looks like mine did back in nov. '99. it was my dad's truck and i had wanted it for years. he gave it to me and here we are today. i'll get some pics up soon. wish i could go back and do somethings different. junkyards will be your friend moreso than ordering from catalogs. i bought things from catalogs instead of going to junk yards i could have saved alot of time and money and been further along quicker. good luck and it is a great ride through this process.

[1968CHEVYC10]

Update, The gasket repair stuff wasn't working so I went ahead and Got a new one. There first one I got was actually for a '74, in '75 they changed the thickness on the gaskets at the front and back and made the curve deeper so the new one fit alot better. Although there was a leak around the dipstick at the pan and where the dipstick goes into the block, I tightened up the pan bolts and that fixed that, for the dipstick tube I pulled it out and put some rtv silicone and put it back in, should fix it. I troubleshooted (is that a word?) the wiper motor, wiring and switch, got some good info on testing the motor here: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=413301

The switch and the wiring was messed up so I redid both, here's a pic of my handiwork:

Now I'm working on get the Temp gauge working again, there's no wire coming from the temp sender. That's it for now yall!

[1968CHEVYC10]

Originally Posted by bradley7576

looks like mine did back in nov. '99. it was my dad's truck and i had wanted it for years. he gave it to me and here we are today. i'll get some pics up soon. wish i could go back and do somethings different. junkyards will be your friend moreso than ordering from catalogs. i bought things from catalogs instead of going to junk yards i could have saved alot of time and money and been further along quicker. good luck and it is a great ride through this process.

Cool yeah I def wanna see pics, Where is Seagoville?

[oldblue1968chevy]

Hey man, never checked out your build?! Any updates? I wish it was my headache too! Love the orig. paint, lucky! Take care of it, dont do anythign stupid. POST PICTURES MORE OFTEN! lol

[ThomasTedder]

. . oops old thread.

[oldblue1968chevy]

any updates man?