Re: My new K20
 

Thank you Mike,

I am following your build thread on your K-10 and it is looking very nice. You and the boy's are doing fantastic work there. Now I have something worthy of my own cluster build ;) and many other up grades.

Take care,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

Nice truck Tom! I really like the color.

Re: My new K20
 

Great looking truck.

Re: My new K20
 

Sweet Tom, Congrats!!!

Re: My new K20
 

What a gorgeous truck! Great color too. Not one you see everyday. I like your plans for it.

Congrats!

Re: My new K20
 

awesome truck. welcome to the 3/4 ton group. pretty sure you're gonna love it. I've had 3/4 tons all my life, and miss all of them. The wife says one has to go in order to buy another now, so I'm working on my K2500 to make it mine also

Re: My new K20
 

Very nice truck Tom.

Looks like it is in great shape.

Re: My new K20
 

Thanks again guys for the nice comments. I feel lucky to have one in this condition. I cannot wait to do so work on it and "make it mine" as they say.

Looking for ideas on tires. I know I want to stick with the steels but a little wider than these. I want a taller not to wide aggressive tread tire. Something like a 33/10.5/ R16. I will absolutely put a set of springs in the front. I want the front just a touch higher than the back. Of course keeping the stock style caps.

I will be buying a set of either blue or yellow dials, as that is also one of my K20 requirements. I will also be painting the headlight bezels black as suggested by Keith. I completely agree ;)

No big drastic changes in mind, I just want to improve on the clean truck it is and get the gadgets removed.

I will post photos when I make changes.

Hope you all have a good holiday weekend,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

Hey Tom; great looking truck, there's always fun stuff to do on these old trucks. I can't wait to get back to Michigan so I can get back on my shortbed.

You do a nice job on the gauges.

Re: My new K20
 

Tom - not sure this matters or not but IIRC in 1970 GM was using red hub dials in some 4wd applications. Not sure if K20 pickups used red dials but I believe K20 suburbans did.

Re: My new K20
 

Great looking truck. Very nice

Re: My new K20
 

very nice truck, welcome to the club:chevy:

Re: My new K20
 

ok, don't everyone pounce on me at once. I have only had my truck for about a year. What is the difference between a C10 and K10? They look pretty close.

Re: My new K20
 

C is two-wheel drive, C10, C20. K is four-wheel drive, K10, K20.

Re: My new K20
 

Hi Pete,

I am going to do some research on that. My thought was the red dials were for the Ford's. It would be very nice if the red dials were a 1970 only deal with limited use ;)

I do love the style of the original Spicer hubs and if I had to choose between red Spicers or Warn, I would go with the red dials. In my experience from growing up in Mich, the Spicer factory hubs worked just fine as long as you kept them maintained.

Have a good holiday,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

Well I did some work on the K20 today. It was mostly un doing all of the gadgets that the PO installed. From what I can obviously see, the truck was set up for travel. It has everything you would need to have a large camper and pull a trailer down the highway.

There is/was aftermarket cruise, brake controller, washer pump, overflow jug and a non factory aux battery tray with an additional solenoid.

Nothing against all of these gadgets (inspector gadget would be proud), just not for me. One of my favorite parts of any vehicle is the engine compartment and I want this one to be clean and clutter free.

I took some before shots with my phone to show everything. I am thinking about replacing the drivers side inner fender because there are so many holes drilled in it :lol::lol::lol:

Stay tuned for some slow progress. Thanks for looking,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

Great looking rig!
The black headlight bezels would be correct look better in my opinion.
And yes GM did use red dials for the hubs in 70. Not sure if it was a gmc vs chevy thing or the exact application. I have seen 3/4ton gmc trucks with them and 1/2 ton blazers with them in 70. I have a single NOS 3/4 ton one i got from joesjunk awhile back...

Re: My new K20
 

Same to you Tom! Thanks.

Here's a pic of a 1970 K20 with the red dials. These dials did not have "Spicer" on the center, they were plain. I may have a spare set of red NOS Ford dials - you could probably replace the "Ford" center insert with a "Spicer" example.

Re: My new K20
 

Thank you Eric,

The black headlight bezels are on the list as a few have commented on that subject. It was one of the items on my list to take care of.

Thank you for the hub information on the hubs. If you have any interest in doing some trading or selling the red dial you have PM me and we will discuss it.

Have a good holiday,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

Thank you Pete. Send me a PM if you are interested in parting with your spare set. too much stuff (Eric) says he has an NOS one but not sure if it is up for grabs. I am happy to here that red dials were possible. Was this a 1970 only thing?

Take care,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

I made some time today to work on the K20. I finished removing all of the gadgets from the firwall and the trailer brake controler and lines to the master. I think I will find a real nice drivers side inner fender with no holes to replace mine. It must have 15 or more holes drilled in it for all of the gadgets attached to it.

It is getting better as I go. My favorite part of any vehicle is the engine compartment so that is where I start.

Take care,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

I also had some time to install this gauge cluster I have. I bought it at the Portland swap meet and it had a 6 cyl tach that I was going to sell as a whole cluster. The tach worked OK but it did have some glitches in the needle movement which told me it was a good idea not to sell it. I put a good working V8 tach in the cluster. It is not restored but looked good enough for my truck for now.

I will do a restoration on the cluster when I strip the dash down to weld holes, paint and replace the dash pad.

I really love this truck and look forward to getting some more done to it.

Take care,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

Nice Tom, looks good. Can't have the tach man with no tach! He drilled just a few extra holes didn't he

Re: My new K20
 

Thank you T, it is nice to have a tach in it and there are a lot of holes.

Take care,
Tom

Re: My new K20
 

Well in my typical fashion and passion for a nice engine bay, I let loose today ;)

As it usually starts with me, all I was going to do is repair an exhaust leak at the heat riser gasket. Removed passenger side exhaust manifold, hot tanked and glass beaded then coated with some "iron cast" from Napa. With the manifold removed, I noticed the valve covers were leaking.

Having the incorrect valve covers was a reason to get correct ones and paint them nice and pretty Chevy Orange. Now tell me that I can just bolt those nice shinny valve covers down to that black cruddy 350 :lol::lol::lol:

The photos tell the rest. I will update as soon as there is more progress made. I also need to get the correct fan and upper alt bracket which I have access too.

I do not have a shop to work in so it is difficult to do some of the things I need to do but never is there an "I can't" in my vocabulary.

Stay tuned. This will take some time as I have a day job as well as the cluster business to maintain.

Take care,
Tom