Grandpa's 72 restoration

[landarts]

Snake72 - very nice work on the truck. I like the fact that you stayed in the original lane. Also sorry to hear about your father in law. Maybe you could get his initials on a custom classic license plate for the truck if they do those there in Iowa. Every time some one ask what does the plate stand for you have a life story to tell, which will help keeping his memory alive.

[Snake72]

Landarts I have thought about license plates with initials and his old race car number, but I just found a mint set of 1972 Iowa plates that I really want to run but I'll have to check with DOT first to see if I can use them.

Also finished my cluster refurb. $35 from rock auto. Tried using "chrome paint" on the original but it looked like satin silver, not good enough. The clear plastic gauge covers were polished with flitz, came out great and very happy with it.

FYI rock auto has the cheapest ACC carpet I could find, I think it was $160 with mass backing upgrade, should be delivered today.

[Snake72]

Made some good forward progress this weekend. Redid my plug wire routing, I used Delco 75 corvette wires that routed WAY better than my previous wires that were for a 78 C10...was able to tuck them away nice and clean. Ran some more ground wires/straps, went through the wiring again and ran a temporary exhaust using stainless downpipes to cheapo turbo mufflers, will have a good system put on after the truck is running.

I threw the ACC carpet in quick but is not in permanently yet, just wanted to let the carpet rest. It fits well but was quite wrinkled which I should be able to work out pretty easy. Cut and buffed the original interior paint and cleaned up awesome. The steering wheel will be cleaned but not repaired or painted. Took many miles of my grand parents hands to get it looking like a beat up chore boot.

Cleaned the nasty gas out of the old tank and now looks brand new. There was a solid layer of varnish crud on the bottom but after draining the tank my Dad and I dropped a log chain in there with fresh gas and tilted back and forth, flushed, and repeated. Worked great. I wire wheeled some minor surface rust from the bottom outside of the tank and sprayed acid etch primer and painted silver.

Reinstalled the instrument cluster, glove box, radio, and glove box door. While doing this I noticed the heater control plate was loose, all 4 rivets were broken. So I pulled that assembly out and tore it apart. Already drilled out the rivets and will just use stainless button head bolts through the face plate. I dont really care if there are bolt heads visible, just want a solid assembly. I ordered new steel heater selector levers from GMC Pauls that are supposed to be unbreakable and will lube the cables when I re install.

One question however, I used an engine and fwd lamp harness from M&H that were already set up for HEI and internally regulated alternator, my original harness had another small harness from a separate hole in firewall (see firewall pic below, large black grommet covering this hole next to speedo cable) that connected to a small dark brown wire and then a larger gauge red wire ran to the front of the carb I think? Idle stop solenoid? (see carb pic, front left solenoid on carb) What is that and do I need it? Also another connection that ran possibly to trans? TCS wiring? Do I need these or can I discard? I don't think they're necessary but confused on what this harness controlled. What is the small brown wire coming from the engine harness plug? Any help would be great.

[72 tigger]

Making nice progress! Looks like you have a great shop to work in

[Snake72]

Thanks Tigger, the shop was my father in laws, every tool and piece of equipment you could ask for. I really need to clean up the parts boxes..

After doing some research, my mystery wiring harness that went into the firewall by speedo is the TCS harness. The wiring connected the idle stop solenoid on carb, TCS switch on trans, passenger side water temp sender to a relay inside cab and the fuse box/ign on plug. I'm tossing this whole system, not needed for my set up. Sounds like most TCS were unplugged soon after the trucks were bought anyway

[Snake72]

Just a few small updates, repainted the dash with a blue that closely resembled the original darker blue dash, its gloss not matte but oh well.

Used the GMC Pauls heater control repair kit, worked awesome, well made product. My heater control panel backing plate rivets had all broken and the unit was loose so I drilled out the rivets and counter sunk some stainless allen head bolts. Put the new decals over top and looks great. Very solid and controls work smoothly.

Got the gas tank installed. Used a filler neck grommet from GMC Pauls, way better quality than the one from Brothers I previously bought. Grommet went on pretty well, lots of cuss words and some blunt push tools helped.

Installed new fuel sending unit, need a few hose connections and ready to add fuel and turn the key...then wait for whatever starts on fire...