1970 C10 2wd SWB budget daily driver

[Farm Shop]

Nothing overly exciting to update on, just replacing rusty panels. I started on the passenger side floor, and inner/outer rocker. This truck had dirt, leaves, and other junk in every possible place it would sit, so the bottom of the A pillar and kick panel need some work as well.

I am not going for a 100 point restoration finish with this truck, therefore instead of a perfectly trimmed butt weld fit, the floors are being installed with a 1" lap joint *gasp!*. I'm using copper-weld between the panels, fully welding the interior, stitching on the underside, and the seam sealer on both sides. The floor braces were also wire brushed and sprayed with cooper-weld, and the outer brace was treated and primed/painted on the inside


This was while still fitting/trimming the replacement panel down.



Mice had taken up residence in the heater box, and consequently chewed away 1/4 of the blower fins in the process. Any recommendations for ways to clean up the inside of the heater box under the dash? Its in ok shape, but will reek of mouse piss unless I do something... maybe wash it with bleach?



I also pulled the outer rocker off the driver side when I ran out of shielding gas in the welder. The driver side is in much better shape, but will still require the same panels to be replaced.







That's all for now. It'll be a while until the next fun update. I plan to get the cab all solid and sealed up before moving on to the next step of pulling the cab and bed off to blast/prime/paint the chassis.

[mild68]

I like seeing the rust repairs. I'm sure mine will be the same way once I dig into it. Keep up the good work. BTW, I'm digging your GTO.

[Advanced Design]

Farmshop, Your idea for cleaning the heater box will probably work. Moving right along on the rust repairs there.

Oh, your buddy Brad found my Suburban for me right there in Morton.

[Farm Shop]

Originally Posted by mild68

I like seeing the rust repairs. I'm sure mine will be the same way once I dig into it. Keep up the good work. BTW, I'm digging your GTO.

Ha, there is plenty of opportunity for rust repair pics on this truck. And thanks for the compliment on the GTO... its in driver condition, and that's how it gets used. Hopefully I'll get to put a lot of miles on it this year.

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Farmshop, Your idea for cleaning the heater box will probably work. Moving right along on the rust repairs there.

Oh, your buddy Brad found my Suburban for me right there in Morton.

Sharp burb! I'm still working on my wife about getting one as a family hauler, but she loves the C10 trucks. Brad and I have known each other for quite a while, and swapped parts back and forth pretty frequently. Actually, I just grabbed a '79+ power steering box (needed the metric o-ring fittings for the 454 PS lines) from him last week for this project, lol.

[bowtieguy79]

Nice progress Kyle!

[Farm Shop]

Man, I forgot how time consuming body work and rust repair can be! Not the most exciting update, but its progress none the less.

The passenger floor board and outer rocker are finally nailed down and about 98% complete. Still need to spot weld to the floor braces and put a couple stitches on the underside, but it's getting close. The outer rocker took a LOT of massaging to fit ok, but it looks like it will turn out nice. I'll finish burning it in this evening.




This pic shows the 88-98 C/K style door weather stripping in place. It fits like it was meant for this truck... and it was free. (I'll take small wins wherever I can!)



The Lincoln mig was putting in some good work.

[Advanced Design]

Looks good Kyle. Those are some nice beads.

[Farm Shop]

I'm still working on rust repairs and getting this cab up to be structurally sound, and sealing the passenger compartment off from the engine bay, but the list of problem areas is getting smaller. I'm looking forward to being done with metal work, and moving on to the fun stuff like blasting/painting the chassis, and dropping the EFI 454 in place! But for now, this is what I've been up to:

Got this from a co-worker that's a bit of a packrat. The bottom is more rusted than there, so it's perfect for what I want to do with it.




To use as a battery box (I'll run a battery with smaller dimensions)



And get bolted down here:



For rust repair I am working my way around the cab. The passenger side floor and rocker is 85% done (still need to pull the door and finish welding the outer, plus seam sealer), so next up was the firewall... mainly around the blower motor.





Moving on to the driver side floor... finding and drilling out all the spot welds felt like a game that was never meant to be beaten.





The inside of the front cab support had held dirt and leaves causing it to be a little weaker than I liked, so it got some reinforcement.


The entire seam was welded, and it will get seam sealer as well.



Mocking up the driver floor and inner rocker.


Fitted and burning them into place.



Made a piece to repair the rusted inner A-pillar where it meets the floor and cab support.



Outer rocker clamped in place to check clearances. Next I'll hang the door, fit and tack the out rocker, and then it should be down hill from there.



Hopefully the next update will be of the cab/bed coming off the chassis. We shall see.

[bowtieguy79]

I'm digging the battery tray! Nice work

[jeh]

Rust repair is looking good!!!

[Farm Shop]

I am trying to complete this project on a pretty strict budget, without compromising build integrity. I spent a lot of time with the die grinder wire brush cleaning up any scaly rust and coating it with POR15 to prevent future issues.

Trans tunnel. I picked out all the old seam sealer.



Did the same with the drip rail. Removed all the old seam sealer, POR15'd it, I'll will give it a nice layer of new sealer soon, and then somehow touch it up with paint to blend into the sun burnt roof paint.





POR15'd joints at the windshield to be re-sealed





Weather strip flange had some rust damage from the seal holding junk against the metal. Luckily it wasn't bad enough to warrant replacing the metal.



I also went back and plug welded the outer rockers to the inner rockers at the weather strip flange. I wasn't sure if the factory did this, but it seems like the right thing to do, and it feels a lot more solid now, as well.




I'll hopefully be far enough along by the weekend to pull the cab and bed in order to focus on the chassis.

[Advanced Design]

Nice work on the floors. You are making good progress and I like the battery box too.

[kjdolphins]

This is a lot of fun to follow! I'm sub'd!

[swamp rat]

Yes factory did have spot welds in the threshold, your doing great!

[Farm Shop]

Originally Posted by swamp rat

Yes factory did have spot welds in the threshold, your doing great!

Good to know. The factory spot welds (or the surrounding 3" of metal) were no longer existent on this truck, lol.

[Farm Shop]

We've been going full bore installing field tile, working ground, and planting corn, so I haven't been able to do much with this project for the last 1.5 months. With all the rain keeping us out of the fields lately, I was finally able to make a little progress.

I masked off and applied seam sealer all over the truck after removing the old crusty sealer and applying POR-15. Hopefully this will keep the inside of the cab nice and dry. I'm not sure exactly how I'll do it, but I plan to blend the gray sealer into the burnt paint with primer or satin paint.



My 13 month old son seemed to approve!



I also spent some time popping out dents in the bed. Its far from perfect or unnoticeable, but I was able to make some big improvements... at least now the side of the bed isn't caved in:

Before: Big pushed in spots ahead of, and behind the right rear wheel.


After:



The big accomplishment was getting the cab and bed pulled off the chassis. We had to improvise on the "boom" used to pick the cab. The 2x4's were screwed to the plank:



I didn't pull the steering column or any dash components, so the cab was very front-heavy and needed some dead weight to counterbalance.



The right tool for the job always makes things go easier! We set the chassis off to the side for now until I can wash/blast/paint it.



We set the cab on a pallet to move it into the shop and then rolled it onto its back. This will make stitching the bottom seam and applying seam sealer MUCH easier and faster. I'll clean up the entire bottom side, paint, and probably undercoat for an extra layer of protection and noise reduction.



That's all for now. Not a great update for 1.5 months, but if the rain keeps up I'll be able to make progress a little faster... hopefully that doesn't happen. lol

[Advanced Design]

Great pics. Looks like everyone is having a good time.

Nice repairs on the dents. It is wet down here too and nothing is planted.

[Farm Shop]

Thanks AD! We've been really fortunate with the weather up until this last 1.5 weeks. We've got all the corn in, and were lucky enough to get about 40,000 feet of 4" and some 6" drainage tile planted before spring field work. I like making progress on the truck, but planting beans would be my first choice, lol.

Speaking of the truck, made good progress last night. I have been dreading the work needed on the underside of the patch panels, and kinda procrastinated on them for a while. With the cab tilted back it was SOOO much easier, and I was able to do a better job than if I was laying on the floor.

The original plan was to throw a few stiches on the bottom side and then cover with seam sealer. However, with the cab oriented like this and the welder singing, I ended up welding the entire seam on all panels. Strength of the repair will never be an issue.



Cut out the rusty metal and replace with new:





The last task was awful. I spent a lot of time with the grinder/wire brush cleaning off the floor and bracing before undercoating the entire cab. I made a huge mess, but it turned out pretty nice.

[jeh]

Nice work on the cab floor

[Farm Shop]

After about a year away from this project, I had some time to make some progress recently.

I was pretty apprehensive about how the firewall was going to look after trimming the top channel, but I think it turned out really well. The firewall is primed, painted, and I started reassembling some small pieces (can't do too much before dropping it back onto the chassis), and I'm really happy with how it turned out.





Next up was to get the chassis sorted out. First things first was to swap out the 1970 drums and manual steering for parts from a mid 70's 1/2 ton.



With the chassis able to roll again, it was time to sandblast. I reconfirmed what I already knew: paying someone to blast a full chassis is money well spent. Oh well, i got it cleaned up and was happy with it for $50 of sand and a day of effort.







Now it was time to get in the air, clean, drop the "paint booth", and shoot some black.






It turned out pretty good!



Now, ideally the next several steps would've been done before the blasting and painting, but weather, field conditions (too wet to be planting beans, so shop time was actually possible), and shop space dictated the order, and I'll work around it.

The first modification was to flip the truck arm brackets. This truck is going to sit on 3"/5" drop springs, so this will help keep the pinion angle and anti-squat in check. I removed the rivets and used bolts/nuts to position the brackets while I welded them to the x-member.




Took some tweaking, but the vertical-ups turned out ok.





That's all for now. Next up will be fabbing some rear top shock relocation brackets, installing the new springs/shocks, installing the ply truck arm and panhard bar bushings, installing the '79 metric o-ring steering box (to hook right up to the Vortec 454 PS hoses), 6 lug conversion front rotors, etc. I'm just happy to be making some progress on this truck again!

[raggedjim]

Nice work, I like the way you are approaching the build, it's easy to go overboard.

Good luck, Rg

[Farm Shop]

The rear suspension is wrapped up as of last night. The truck arms and panhard bar (stock for now... there's a good chance I'll move to a longer adjustable in the future) all have new poly bushings, lowering springs are bolted in, and I made some shock relocation brackets to stand the rear shocks more upright. This will make much better use of the shock range of motion, and hopefully help with performance.

New bushings installed and greased up, headed to their new home in the flipped stock brackets.



The Craftsman bearing/bushing/seal press assortment worked like a champ, even though it was a metric set! lol



Long story short on the shock relocation brackets: I followed this thread (https://talk.classicparts.com/thread...n-63-72.18179/) without much validation on my own application while fabbing the mounts... big mistake. I built them, bolted them up, and quickly found out my shock bodies did not clear the axle. After some head scratching, I ended up just moving the brackets forward in the chassis and welding them in place.











Up next is front springs, 6 lug rotors, and the newer steering box.

[webberjames95]

dig it

[Farm Shop]

I wrapped up the front end over the weekend. Drop springs, shocks, and 6 lug conversion rotors are on and look nice, and we also got the cab dropped in place. Seeing it finally come together a little is giving me the motivation I need.






A fork truck and some help made the job really easy.









Next I'll roll my '99 Z28 parts car in to steal the fuel tank and rear sway bar to use in the C10.

[Odaroloc]

Looks great! Cant wait to see this one finished!