New here, my 79 C10 Stepside

[Jrgunn5150]

Hey guy's, my name is J.R., I've been reading this forum a bit, the name is somewhat misleading lol.

Anyway, I've gotten some good info here, and I thought I'd share my new driver/builder project thingy. It's not my first Chevy truck by far, but it's my first in the past ten years or so, and I wasn't very active on forums back then. It is my first 2wd truck, ever, in life lol. I also have an FJ40, and an F100 I'm into a frame off on, so I wanted something I could drive and tinker with, that had some style, some value, some utility, etc.

A recent trip south to visit various family members in Ft Smith and Dallas turned up a few exciting prospects, but as I was only going ot be in town a few day's, I didn't have time to fool around with people who couldn't answer the phone, return calls, basically, who moved on southern time lol.

I did turn up a nice stepside, the guy promptly answered the phone, answered all our questions, and was available for us to meet. It was a friend of his project, that friend became indisposed, he picked it up, got it together mostly, and really wanted a snub nosed van.

So, for 2,500 bucks, I picked up a decent 79 Stepside, with a supposedly fresh 400, Edelbrock performer intake, Edelbrock 750 carb, TH350, 12 bolt with 3.08's



It's rough, and I'd have preferred he didn't rattle can it before I got there, but compared to Michigan, it's a thing of beauty lol. The heater core was bypassed, of course, and the choke was MIA. Gotta love warm weather lol. The windshield is cracked to hell, and I wad to rewire the trailer taillights in the hotel parking lot, but I drove it 1200 miles back home.



Now I at least had brake and taillights, of course the turn signal switch was broke lol, and, with trailer lights, no reverse lights. But I was almost ready to go, first I had to make it start to earn it's keep.

I swung by the local pull a part type yard and loaded up with tailgates, we don't have these up here!



And down the road I went, other than leaking a fair amount of oil out of the valve cover (I used a whole jug of Rotella), it ran fine and didn't miss a beat cruising at 65-72 all the way back to Michigan. Of course no heat and no radio made J.R. go crazy a bit, and the exhaust which consists of header's, two inches of pipe, chambered mufflers, and dumps right under the cab, was less than ideal also.

But, I got her home, and ordered up new door pins and a Quickfuel 1957 carb. 379 for a vacuum secondary, electric choke carb is a pretty good deal. Adjustable air bleeds/etc are nice, if I ever dig into the engine.

My nephew helped with the door pins, he actually got one out, after I cut it of course lol.



The interior, leaves a lot to be desired here, but I got a couple of classic Mexican blankets, at a Mexican flea market in Dallas,



Then I pulled the floor up, and the heater core out. Apparently trucks rust from the inside out in the south, strange place



I've never had an old truck that absolute colonies of mice didn't call home...

Anyway, the driver's side has a couple of holes, and a patch of galvanized posing as the outer rocker/door weatherstripping piece. So I ordered a floor and outer rocker from Tabco. Today I went out, pulled the seat to get ready to blast and coat the floor with chassis saver and found this under the seat,



About half a quart of transmission fluid, a neat ratcheting flex wrench, and some kaka. But, my GF helped me clean it up, with flour of all things.



You can see where I spot blasted some places, but somehow my media got all wet in the bag, so it was like spraying mud. I have a hanging furnace now, I just need to get it plumbed and I'll have heat in my garage to work over the winter.

I plan to coat the floor top and bottom in Chassis Saver, then add some Dynamat (or whatever), insulation, paint the inside of the cab, pull the dash and recover it, fix my completely non-functioning gauges, get the headlights to where it's better than a midget holding up a BIC lighter, and possibly get the outside painted.

If anyone is still following along after that book, kudo's to you!