Project Pancho Villa - 1978 SWB

[BruthaMan]

I've been here a few months now and figure it was time to start a project thread. I have lots of pics and some stories to go along with the build.

I've always wanted to restore an older vehicle. In my younger days, I bought all sorts of cars (68 Camaro, 71 Chevelle, 68 Tempest, 71 Camaro and many others) with that youthful hope that somehow I'd miraculously get rich and be able to afford to make the car(s) great cars. Of course, it never worked out, but it was fun to dream!

Fast forward twenty some odd years. I'm in my mid-40s now and officially a "Paw Paw" now! My mind rarely acts as though I'm this old, but one thing is for sure...the body will NOT let you forget!

About six years ago, my life long best friend died. It was tough. We had been best friends since about seventh grade. After high school, we always stayed in touch and always visited each other. As we got older, we stayed in touch at least once every few weeks by phone or email.

The reason I mention that, is because this build is dedicated to my life long best friend. I miss him a lot. We grew up in a small town in Texas and these trucks are what I remember the most about him. He had late seventies model SWB in HS and we used to cruise all over the place. For as long as I knew him, John always had a Chevy SWB truck. He'd live out one, and get another.

So last year, with things doing very well for my wife and I, and our kids grown and off doing their own thing now, I started looking for a truck. Finally found one locally in November of last year. I had looked at quite a few trucks, but when I saw this one...it just reminded me of my best friend.

I had no tools, other than a few mis-matched socket kits from Walmart. Our garage was packed half full of stuff my wife (mostly) has toted around since we've been married, never willing to quite let go of. We spent the next week or two going through all the "stuff" and I finally convinced her that it was time to let go. Some she did, the rest we moved into a spare bedroom.

With the garage cleaned out, I set out to start buying tools. The guys at Sears know me by name now! I bought a compressor, a welder, a plasma cutter, socket sets, grinders, screw drivers, and Craftsman work cart and Who knows what else, over the past few months. My experiences with cars in the past was not good, mostly because I never had the right tools. I'd be right in the middle of fixing something, than have to stop, go to the store, and buy something because I didn't have it. For this project, I decided to have everything I would need. Anything is possible, with the right tools.

Sorry to ramble on. Just figured I'd put a story behind the build. This is my first build and will probably be my last, but it was important to me to do in memory of my friend.

So here's the truck as I bought her:









The truck originally belonged to a local dealer here. He owned a Chevrolet lot and when the truck came in, decided to make it his personal vehicle. He added the rims you see, a billet grill, had it pinstriped and a few other things.

The body was straight. Two small places, one front fender and one rear fender, has some minor rust, but nothing that can't be fixed.

The cab, however, had the usual rust problems. Floor pans, cab corners and rockers. No, I had never done any of these before and was quite intimidated by it, but having read some posts here, the advice I kept seeing was "just get in and do it!" And I have/am!

Interior was pretty faded. I'm going to redo the set in leather. Already bought a good dash from Ebay and have most of the other stuff waiting to be installed.





The bed isn't bad, despite the pic. Some surface rust and one area at the rear that we'll replace. Going to clean it/sand it out, and leave the inner in epoxy primer to seal it, then have it professionally spray lined.



Disassembly begin Christmas day, after presents, family time and the big family lunch. We got most of the front clip off, hood, radiator support, finders, bumper, etc.

A few days later, we took the engine/transmission out:





I had another motor I had bought from someone locally, that was already built. As time went by, I kept thinking "383 stroker" and read a few posts here were guys were saying "you won't be sorry!" So I finally gave in and sent the 350 block to a machinist to have a 383 stroker built. He's done me pretty good. Paid average rates for machine work, but he called and was concerned about getting it to me on time.

I told him it would be a few months before I was ready to put it in, so put me on the back burner and get his backlog taken care of. In turn, he offered to build the motor for me. He's putting on the new heads, new roller rockers, intake, camshaft and basically saving me the trouble of building it. Worked for me!

And here's the love of my life (well, one of four, but he lives close by and comes over to see "Paw Paw" every weekend!), my two year old grandson. The second he hits the door to our home, the first thing he says is "See Paw Paw's truck?" He loves to go out in the garage and play with the tools and work on the truck.

Part two, with more images, below.

[BruthaMan]

Before we started tearing it down, we'd go out and he'd spend an hour at a time (until I would have to drag him in), sitting inside the truck, playing with the steering wheel, the doors, opening the windows, etc. I never saw anything like it! He'd spend all day in that truck, if we let him!







I wanted to do buckets on the truck and down the road, may still, but my Grandson loves this truck and spends just about every thurs, fri, sat, and sunday with us (till after Church), so I opted to leave the bench seat so he could sit in the middle when "Paw Paw" and "Grams" goes out!

The doors were rusted out at the bottoms, beyond belief. I went back and forth over repops, or getting lower skins and using the plasma with a straight ruler to cut them out and weld in new ones. I opted for the latter and had ordered the skins from John at Tri-pro (super nice guy and very helpful, btw!)

I had been watching Ebay for some NOS, but the last set went for crazy money. Out of the blue, earlier this week, a setup showed up on Ebay. No BIN at first, and I figured they'd go upwards of 500-600 each, but I added them to my watch list. I checked my watch list the next day (always picking up stuff off Ebay) and low and behold, the seller added a BIN at $250 each! I snagged those suckers up quick! Here's the old doors:



Time moves forward and we started taking out the floor pans:





I have a couple of college kids that help out a few hours per week. It was more at first, but school started back, one of them got sick, then I got sick, then it was in the 20's for a couple of weeks, so we're just now getting back to it.

This week, I managed to get the driver side floor pan in (have some sheet metal to fill in a few areas that the pans didn't cover, but were rusted up pretty bad) and the driver side rocker panel. That inner rocker panel liked to kick my butt! I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to lay it. Finally found a post on 73-87 site (Captain Kaos' site) that helped, but still not sure I got it right. But the outter rocker turned out pretty good (for my first one) and I put the door back on to make sure everything fit good and lined up.



That's about it for now. Thanks for looking and feel free to share any advice. I have all the shop manuals for the truck (which have already come in hand) and just try to put in a few hours per day, weather permitting.

Hoping to have the bed off this weekend. One of my youngest son's friends used to work in a paint/body shop and is going to help get the bed ready for primer.

I'll post more pics as the build progresses. The motor is going to be a work of art. Not only is being professionally built, but have a lot of "eye candy" for it as well. I'm old, I can go all out now and that's exactly what I'm going to do! Thank God I have one hell of an understanding wife!

[menace121978]

wow! looks too familiar!LOL just started the same thing on my 78 couple weeks ago. good luck and keep us posted!

[N2TRUX]

Thanks for sharing with us BruthaMan. It looks like you have a good start on a sweet project. With a cute helper like that you can't go wrong. Build it solid and let it be his first driver...

[Gregs71]

Looks Good, keep up the work.

Greg

[slugish]

Com o n brutha man 40,s is not old . That would make me ancient since Im in my 60,s . Good luck on your project & yes , you must be blessed to have such an understanding wife. you are also blessed with such a cute grandson & I AGREE this project very well could be his 1st driver . Ifeel this project is gouing to make us all squarebody addicts proud.

[Jonboy]

Looks like you have a great start! having a helper is good, too.

[fast75]

i can relate Bruthaman, i too lost my best friend, a damn car wreck. been 1 1/2 years now. we met in the second grade, we went in the marine corp, i was the best man at his wedding back in 76. went thru all the phases of life together. if i called him, he'd be there without fail and like wise. we were getting ready to tear into his 79 swb. he helped me get mine to where it is now. that alone makes mine priceless to me. i've about got his wife talked into letting me rebuild his. there is no way in hell she'd sell it, and it's way too nice to let it go to rust. i figure it would be a great 16th birthday present to his first grand baby.
by the looks of the pics of yours, you'll do your buddy proud. hopefully i'll be able to do the same...............Fast75

[killthewabbit]

Looks like a fun project, dude.

[Vixvega]

No better way to say thanks for the memories to your best friend... Get that beauty done and he will be riding with you... Nice project!!!!

[vern350]

Enjoyed the story. I'm sure you'll enjoy the experience from building the truck and driving it when its all finished. Looking forward to progress!

[CTENTA1]

That's cool Bruthaman!
with that attitude you will have Pancho done sooner than you think. Hope to see some progress pics.

Viva la Revolucion!

[BruthaMan]

Hey Guys,

Thanks for all the kind comments and encouragement!

Been a while since I posted some updates, so thought I would download all the camera pics I've been taking to my laptop tonight and do an update. It's been a slow but steady progress.

Bed and cab off the frame, finally. Starting to see some light. This old 30 year old truck has seen the elements over the years!



Just about got the frame stripped down. This is a friend of mine that's been helping out.



Frame finally stripped down, ready to head off to sandblasting.



Here's a quick tip, for those thinking about doing this. If you are like I am, you spent a lot of time here reading threads. And you probably came across a few about sandblasting. You know when those guys say "don't do it yourself, it's not worth it?" Well, add one more to the list that had to learn the hard way



We used a harbor freight pressure pot. It really did work pretty well. We couldn't find blast media in Amarillo for nothing, so I did what everyone always says not to do, bought play sand. That, and a big strainer from bed bath and beyond (no kidding!) and we sifted the play sand to get the fine material and ditched the pebbles.



Another tip. You know how everyone is always saying you need a huge compressor to sandblast? They aren't kidding! We had a 60 gallon 7hp compressor and it struggled to keep up. Had to stop frequently. We were able to recycle sand, but had to sift it each time so it wouldn't clog up. That severely slowed up progress. 10 minutes of blasting, 15 minutes of sweeping and sifting. Just not worth it!



After ten hours of blasting, sweeping, sifting, rinse/repeat, we got the frame done and a few other parts.



Frame's back at the house and putting on Dupont Epoxy.

[BruthaMan]

After curing overnight, I coated the epoxied frame with GM Reconditioning Paint I bought on Ebay. Apparently they don't make this anymore.





After the sandblasting ordeal, finally wizened up and and sent the rest of the stuff over to a local sandblaster who had a real machine. Cab and other parts back from the blaster, ready for paint.





Misc. parts being painted in the GM Recon paint.



Cab getting a healthy shot of Dupont Epoxy primer.




As we get more time (time has been more of a deterrent than anything else), I have a 383 stroker built, waiting to be picked up from the machine shop. A rebuilt 700r4 being rebuilt now. Just bought complete new braking system, front and rear disc with dual caliper pistons up front, slotted/drilled rotors, etc.

New NOS dash sitting in our hallway along with other boxes of parts (drop kit, fuel sending unit, fatmat, and other misc parts) that I have no room for in the garage.

Did some more chassis parts painting today and started sanding on the cab. Still undecided on color. Trying to decide between black, white, silver (newer silvers coming out look amazing) or a 69 Camaro blue. Decisions...decisions!

Thanks for looking and feel free to offer any advice/suggestions.

[HanSoloWS6]

Awesome progress!

I need to quit following these build threads or I'm going to end up out in the barn for hours and really upset the wife lol. I'm itching to get my truck stripped now.

[Cherub]

Yea thats the way to do it. Good insperation.

[menace121978]

whoa! very nice progress buddy... you have passed me up!!! looking very good. i dont listen very well either because i'm going to blast the frame myself also. i'm just waiting for the air compressor i ordered to get here. i sure hope my frame and stuff turns out as nice as yours did. i went w/ east woods extreme chassis paint. hopefully i didnt make a mistake going w/ gloss.
dang you got me on edge.. come on compressor!!!! LOL

[factory2wdblazer's]

looking good keep us updated on the progress..................

[scottco]

Truck looks good ! I have some parts. If you need something let me know.Saw the truck on amarilloracers.com as well. I am in Dimmitt.

[flamingbig10]

looks good, keep up the great work

[crossy]

yep, 40 ain't old at all. :-)
keep up the good work and thread updates. I would love to do my 87 SWB that way, but it will never happen so I'm just going to spruce it up a bit and drive it. that'll take 5 years at my rate. LOL
I would love to find an 87 SWB already done to that level. crossy

[78 Chevyrado]

That frames better than new! NICE work man!

[larrystone]

IMHO your paint color choice is easy.

It just won't be right if it is not the OEM black color.

I admire your ambition and encourage you to complete this time consuming and tedious project.

[James McClure]

Hay guys. Here is a pic of mine. I have a bunch of pics as progress went along but can't get them to fit the size restrictions. I'm 60 and computers drive me NUTS!!! #1 rule with body work, take your time!! My rebuild took 2 years and it is still a work in progress. I did however get the winch mounted where I wanted it. The steel for the running boards/belly pan sits right where I left it a month ago waiting for some nice weather. On sand blasting. I got the same pressure pot blaster you have from Tractor supply. It does a great job, especially with the right media. Like you, I ran short of air even with 2, 5 horse compressors running in tandum!! I could run a whole pot of media at once but the compressors had a devil of a time keeping up. I do hope your build turns out like you want, you have a great start. Jim

[72 Super]

That is a great story and I am sorry to hear about the loss of your best friend. Your build is coming along quite well. I bet it will be a super nice truck when finished. I am sure your little helper can't wait either


Ray