51 GMC 'Project Why Wait'

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Hey everyone, been lurking around for probably the past 6 months now but figured I'd start a thread because I'm likely going to need a strong community to ask a bunch of questions and all of you are pretty darn helpful from what I've seen.

About 2 years ago I had a bunch of money in a jar I was saving to do silly things (turbo) my Mazda 3 I had at the time. All the while my wife and I would go to classic shows and I would say boy it would be nice to have a project. She said Why Wait, why not now. And the name of the project was born.

After years of blogging on my site stanceiseverything.com I've managed to make an awesome combination of friends who could also help make my first real project possible so the timing seemed perfect, they'll all get introduced as the project progresses. I am also documenting the build on said website here (Project Why Wait On stanceiseverything.com) if you want to see more pics that I have reposted.

So with that said I started pretty actively looking for a proejct.



After looking at a ton of vehicles here in Ontario that were far too much rust and bondo for far too much money my friend Blair (aka Taylor'd Customs aka where the truck is being stored and who I'll be building it with) found someone who picks up trucks from Saskatchewan where they don't use salt and thus things are in much better shape.




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The truck actually arrived on father's day so naturally I plopped my little man in the driver's seat as one day it will be his.



As I mentioned before through blogging I've met a lot of people and the McJannett family behind Performance Improvements are some of those people and they are awesome and immediately signed up to basically help me track down any new parts I need. I've been giving my wallet a work out with them the past few months, but we'll get back to that.

Another friend Chris Piscitelli (Piscitelli Design I made lives out in Detroit and does wicked art work so I got him to do up a few renderings.

[img width="960"]http://www.stanceiseverything.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/roject-why-wait-Piscitelli-designs-render-2.jpg[/img]

I wanted Astros, wife wanted steels, we both wanted a flaked roof and the door art is a tribute to her father so we are now building towards this currently, I might try and sneak Astros back in at a later date though. This will get framed and put on my wall in the near future.





Then I got to talking with my friend Jeff, who is also a GMC owner and wicked fabricator, and he mentioned that he might want to sell the chassis he started. At this point I was thinking s10 with a back half but his frame made more sense and we both like riding low and a lot of the same things so it made sense to keep the chassis in the family.

So money and high 5s later...




I'll be doing shock mounts, gas tank mounts, rad support etc with Blair but a lot of the chassis is already sorted out which is wicked. From there the truck sat all winter while I did grunt work on this. Great way to get exposure to a lot of different parts of a build.



But spring came around and it was time to work on the truck, or at least tear it down so that's what we did




I have since learned that the front end could have come off as one unit, but hey live and learn right?

Found a few soft spots but nothing earth shattering




More time passed then I found some time to pull the cab off



and then of course slide the new chassis underneath





Excited I cut the rungs out of the bed I bought (hey I bought a bed by the way!) and put it on the chassis to get an idea of what was what



The bed is sitting on the axle and frame here so not really in place, nor is the fender hence the wheel base looking odd




Still though, awesome. Natrually I took a pic of Ash and I in it



The build is currently in another wait period (there will be many of these) but I just went on a bit of a shopping spree and now have

-Fuel Cell
-Front brakes (blazer 2 pistons and related accessories)
-Fuel Cell
-Shocks
-Motor/trans (let you know what soon enough)

I need a few more odds and sods but I have enough to get started on finishing up the chassis once I can free up some time. The goal is epoxy coated chassis bolted together before the year is out. Hopefully my calendar and wallet allow it.

I will no doubt be asking a LOT of questions so you'll see me bouncing around threads. I was a bolt on guy so I'm not all thumbs but this is without a doubt the largest thing I'll have ever built.

...well I did help with a Fiero/Countach kit in higschool but that was a few moons ago...

Also yep some of the pics are kind of big for the site on a desktop, I'll resize them all more consistently for future posts

[ADchevys]

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[Dave_The_BMXER]

Lost the window to edit the first post but if a mod see's this I can swap out the images if I can get back in there.

For anyone else interested yes it's the chassis from this thread: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s....php?t=5625243

Jeff still has his cabs and bed and what not though.

[Rods57]

Very cool so far

[ChuckDriver]

Cool build!

[joedoh]

why indeed? great start!

the gmc front ends are my favorite AD

[Katrina/10]

Nice work!

[iowaboynca]

Gotta luv them !!!!

getting that frame and making it work will save you tons of time. Welcome aboard!

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Originally Posted by Rods57

Very cool so far

Thank you!

Originally Posted by ChuckDriver

Cool build!

Originally Posted by joedoh

why indeed? great start!

the gmc front ends are my favorite AD

Funny enough my wife actually likes the Chevy front end and we were originally looking for one of those but this came up and I was ok with it and she's fine with it as long as I do not, under ANY circumstances, paint the chrome.

I don't plan to so we're good!

Originally Posted by iowaboynca

Gotta luv them !!!!

getting that frame and making it work will save you tons of time. Welcome aboard!

Yeah the chassis was a huge step in the right direction. G body front end, F body rear end with posi, AD in the middle, already bagged

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Just realized I can attach images directly to this forum, so I can add some of my cell pics too, these are all from the day we moved the cab over.

Next time I am out I am going to be cutting the bed sides and bed to get it to fit then work on mounts. The plan with the bed is to fauxtina it eventually, and maybe find a GMC gate, everything here is pretty solid considering so I might not immediately worry about that.

[Dave_The_BMXER]

I'm off work this week and had grand plans of getting a lot done, but things didn't quite go to plan with my schedule and the weather. However still got a few things done.



The first thing, and it's not a lot to tell from the photo above, was that I moved the cab mounts from my old frame to the new frame. This helped sort out the wheel base, the bed is still slightly out of square in the photo above but that will come together when I make the rear bed mounts, the front is mounted.



Used a plasma for the first time on the bed sides, rough cuts I'll smooth out later with the bed and fender off and put a trailer cut trailer fender over.



For now it's clear of axle and caliper so I could lower the rear of the bed down and measure for mounts, which I did and I made a mock up.



Diaper wipe boxes come in really handy, who knew, these will be mounted to the side of the frame and use the factory rear bed mount boxes. I'll take pics once they are back, welded, and on of course.

I made another, rechecked (then rechecked) my measurements then sent them off to get laser cut along with front shock mounts.

[Dave_The_BMXER]

While I was aligning the cab we tipped the bed on it's end, bit of a parallelogram.



The shop is really busy right now so we moved the truck back to it's storage spot which is behind one of the barns.



Till next time!

[84blaze]

Wicked start dude!!

[ptc]

Wow some really great shots of your truck there....

This one here is PRICELESS!!!! and will be a lifetime image of your familys' legacy with the truck passed on to generations to come!!!! very nice!




I have one just like it with my grandaughter.... Whom I hope to teach to drive my truck one day!

[BlueJeep]

I agree, my 8 year old twins are already telling me what they're going to change when they get my truck, and it's only been on the road for 2 months!

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to have him grow up knowing the truck. My dad always had a few cars (nothing overly special) but knowing he saw them as more than just transportation certainly had an influence on me.

Your grand daughter looks right at home in it!

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Boy, been awhile, had a tough go for awhile with the weather (I've only got outdoor shop space until the snow flies) but managed to dodge few showers and knock a few things off in the rear of the truck.

Made those carboard mounts into real mounts, got to lay my first TIG welds.


Had Blair zap them on since more experience with the TIG than I, the bed is pushed off to the side here so that's why the mount on the bed isn't sitting completely on the one on the frame.




Next we ran a few more welds over some of the bars that were not welded all the way around and added the rear shock mounts which are speedway studs welded on.



I had made a cradle for the fuel cell a few weeks prior to my last visit so we welded that on as well





The C nothces are pretty high so the fuel cell didn't need to sit particularly low to be under the bedfloor I'll be making awhile from now



The lastly we started on the shock mounts for the front. They were back ordered so we got a local waterjet guy to cut some pieces which we welded together.


I got reaquainted with the MIG welder (over ten years!) on the back side but Blair did the front with the TIG




That's pretty much it for now. The plan is to finish the shock relocation up front next visit then tear it down for sand blasting and paint before the chassis comes to my garage over the winter where I can pluck away.

Winter's coming fast so I have to get my garage free of kitchen reno crap ASAP.

Couple more progress photos are here if you're interested in a little more.

[northern 49]

Awesome. I'm glad you're starting a thread on this truck, I have followed "Stance is Everything" on Facebook for some time and always dug this project. That frame is sick!

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Thanks! Yeah I started a build thread so I could better ask questions to those who have built them before as I'm learning my way through this as the process continues.

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Busy, busy day yesterday. Off to the sandblaster and coater soon!

[CMACDONALD1]

looks like a really fun build! Good work!

[northern 49]

It will be so nice to have the frame cleaned up and coated!

[lower50's]

Good progress Dave!! So is it going in your garage at home or at Taylor'd?

[Dave_The_BMXER]

Originally Posted by lower50's

Good progress Dave!! So is it going in your garage at home or at Taylor'd?

To answer your question and update everyone there wasn't any space for me to work at Taylor'd this winter because he's got 3 projects on the go in his side of the shop so this winter after coating the chassis will be coming home to my garage to become a roller.

I've spent a little bit getting the garage ready that I'll get into more in a future blog update but basically I bought tools, modified a work bench someone was givng away and did a lot of clean up so expect a lot of updates from this bench right here:



In the photo above is my entire front end.
Pro Forged Center link, idler arm, and super travel ball joints
Moog Bushings, lower ball joints, end links
Allstar Upper control arms
Engery Suspension sway bar end links
Msport pads and rotors
Belltech Blazer Drop spindles
The whole kit and kaboodle came from Performance Improvements who I can't say enough good things about. I've already started putting a few things together too.





I loaded everything up a few weeks ago to go to Stripping Technologies in Cambridge Ontario who's a friend of mine I wanted to work with for awhile.




The frame is going to be blasted, coated with POR then painted, here's it in POR



I know there's a ton of holes in the front clip that would have been sweet to shave but to keep progress trucking along we focused on making the visible back half as clean as possible, this isn't a show truck so once the front ends on it will all be gravy

The chassis should be back within the the month then I can start putting suspension and brake stuff on it to reunite with the body panels in the spring at Taylor'd.

I'm missing a few things in this quick update but I'll get into it more the next one on my site, also high res photos too.

I am going to have about a million questions (though I've searched quite a bit) once I start bolting stuff together so be warned guys!

[MIKESAD50]

Like the build. Like the pictures, especially the picture with your son.