New to board '69 C10 lwb

[Baddflash]

Hey guys, been lurking around the board for awhile now and thought since I've learned a lot about these trucks in the last year of owning one I should try to offer some assistance where I can and give back a little for all the excellent info I've found here. I am in Edmonton Alberta so rust free doesn't really exist here.
This is my 2nd '69, my first was a custom/20 I bought basically sight unseen for $200. The truck itself while fairly original and low mileage was very rusty and every panel save for the hood was in bad shape. It did however have a very nice low mileage untouched '73 350 (010 block) crate engine and a decent interior including original am radio. However that was about it.


Within a couple weeks I found another '69 this time a c10 with only 70k miles in completely original condition. A few hours later and $1200 less in my pocket I bought this.




Sadly while I did get the engine running on 5 cylinders only, it had sat for so long it would have needed a rebuild, and as much as I like all original I've been down the i6/3spd path before. Being I had a perfect donor on hand I went about swapping all I could from the c20 to the c10 before sending it on its way for $185.
Here's the truck as it stands, still working on repairing the rust damage in the bed area so I can install a new floor then I can pull the bed off and begin work on the rockers and cab corners. I'm sure this is too long already so I'll end with a few more pics.




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[doubleb's69]

Looks cool.

[yuccales]

Good looking truck.

[tommys72]

Nice truck there

[kitsbeach]

Looking good..!! And great progress so far.!! Are you keeping the three on the tree or going 4-speed.?

[Baddflash]

Thanks guys,

I couldn't justify cutting the truck up to swap to the 4/spd.
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[Baddflash]

A little update on my '69. After a year of messing with it off and on it finally has a bed floor again and is solidly attached to the rest of the truck. A major step up for the truck though I don't even want to walk on the floor now,lol. There was a lot of metal repair and I'm certainly no body man but it's acceptable for the mission of this truck. The paint still needs work but I guess it highlights how much work was done. I likely would avoid a truck with a bed in this condition if buying another one, it was too much work though the result was worth it.

Some pics of the rust and repair work.






Nearly the whole perimeter of bed and wheel wells and all the bed supports were repaired or rebuilt.

[Baddflash]

Now with the bed wood unfortunately I couldn't find 1x10x10 material anywhere not for under a grand anyway, so I took the more labour intensive but considerably cheaper route of milling down $100 worth of construction grade 2x10's.

So this


Was mostly turned into this


A lot of it.

[Baddflash]

And finally all that allowed me to get to here.

[Baddflash]

I still have a lot of work to do with the paint work but that's minor compared to where it started.

[Baddflash]

I picked up some mirrors for it but clean bright white just didn't look right, so I sort of copied the originals and came up with this

[Baddflash]

I also managed to reinstall what was left of the original mangled tailgate handle onto the 73+ style handle I had.

[Baddflash]

I wanted tunes but didn't want to modify the truck including not running power wires so I came up with this.



Sounds impressively good for what it is, 4" infinity reference series and a pioneer 6000ub.

[lil hoodlum]

Hello, and a late welcome from Texas.

Great job on the C10! Alot of work and it shows!

Love the job you did on the wood for the bed. That is alot of wood shavings. Maybe you can sell the shavings to a pet store and re-coup of some of your cost.

I kinda wonder why some owners let the bed wood get to be in such bad shape to begin with.

Keith

[trac209]

Cool truck there,word of advice is to ditch the plastic fuel filter. They always end up leaking and are a risk for fire.

[Baddflash]

I've never had an issue with plastic filters yet but I'll keep that in mind. I would have preferred no filter there but someone stole the fuel line off the motor before I bought it and the only ones I could find had been cut. One day I'll replace the line....

[mike16]

I love the wood work, mine are steel beds but I would love to find a nice wood bed, dont know how you finished it, but a quart of linseed oil painted on every six months will preserve that wood for years and even decades. some 300 year old british warships finished in linseed oil remaned preserved ontil discovered resently.... and splinters soaked in linseed oil will NOT become infested.....
The British navy discovered that as well back them. British rifles descovered of the coast of dunkique resntly ... thier wood is almost as good today as it was then.

If the previous owner had preserved the wood with linseed oil on a regular basis you would not have had the rust issues either.

it lookes really nice.

I think your choce to keep it a three speed is a wise one too. My 72 c10 is a three speed. I cant imagine changing it. there are so few left that are origonal. keep it well lubed and well adjusted and it will shift with fingertip pressure...literally with so little effort its amazing. I prefer using high quality fire arms lubricant to keep the column mechanism shifting smoothly.