Hey everyone, my name is Eric Lonseth. I'm 15 years old. I'm from Rocanville, Saskatchewan. i just signed up to the site and my truck is a 1986 C10 standard bed.
I bought my truck from a guy from Yorkton, a city about an hour north of where I'm from. I'd seen it advertised in the local Bargain Hunter on my lunch break one day.(I work for my dad). It was advertised a $1200 and it had listed edelbrock intake, carb, and headers and needed some TLC. I showed my dad the ad, and since we were close to Yorkton, he agreed to skip the rest of the day of work(he's his own boss) and take a look at it with me.
We went to see it and at that point, I had no experience with trucks or vehicles before, so it was all new to me. I didn't have my learner's license yet, but I wanted some wheels ready when I did.
The guy showed us it inside and out, very honest, showed us everything wrong with it and what he had added. He first said 1200
without the CD player. Soon it was 1200 with and 1000 without. A couple minutes later, it was 1000 with. I was happy, we didn't even negotiate to get to that price. i guess we didn't look to interested and he was getting desperate.
Anyways, the truck didn't run, it needed a new distributor. We told him we'd give him 100 bucks to get a new one before we came to stay in town the next week, and pay him the next 900 when it did run. Sure enough, the next week, it fired up and man was it loud. It was coming straight out of the headers and the mufflers hadn't been hooked up yet, they were just in their hangers. i was impressed. We drove it home after getting a transit permit for an unlicensed vehicle, my friend drove it and he kept shaking his head in disbelief; we had to yell at each other to be heard over the engine alone, no tunes going at all.
When I did get it home, i showed it to every man and his dog, very proud but I wondered why when I would press the gas, it only had about an inch of movement. Turns out, the nice Edelbrock carb he had didn't match the stock intake (obviously) and the secondaries weren't even opening. Well, my cousin, who has a wicked project truck of his own, and who's dad happens to be a mechanic, came over and he switched the carb for the stock rochester so I could at least drive it into the shop for fixing. Another thing about it was on the right side headers, there were only 5 bolts there, one had rattled loose. He must have barely tightened them becuase even I know that when you put them on you tighten them, and retighten them each day for a week or so, then take each bolt out one at a time and Loc-tite them and reinstall them. He was also missing the fan shroud, its a wonder someone didn't cut an arm off. Also, when he installed the CD player, he cut a custom hole bigger than the original cassette stereo hole, and there's angle-grinder slits all over the dash he must have been getting attacked by mosquitos and just wouldn't stop for anything. O well.
We also figured out that his younger brother, who had been tinkering on my truck a couple days before, had accidentally wired the solenoid positive and negative wires all on the same connector. W got quite a laugh out of that. When it was in the shop, another of my cousins came over and adjusted the choke so it didn't sound like I had it floored when it started up.
So far, I've pulled the motor and stripped the interior, and i'm waiting on a Crane Blue Racer 1064 cam to arrive so I can send it to Brandon Bearing (a specialty rebuilding shop) for block and head rebuilding. Hopes are to have the motor painted orange or black, not sure yet, and every available thing like spark plug wires will be blue, as well as every possible thing covered in braided lines and aluminum dress-up on everything possible. Can't afford a supercharger system yet, but maybe in a couple years I'll get one (or twin turbos).
The body of the truck is in surprisingly good shape for an 86, there's only rust spots on the cab corners, gas tank door, a little surface stuff on the bedsides, and that's it. Some parts will be completely replaced, like the inner front fender wells, both back fenders (someone didn't know how to use bondo), a roll pan instead of the rusty bumper, and a 2" single cowl hood. i don't know if I should shave anything like tailgate handles or door handles or taillights yet, but any suggestions might help. If you have any ideas, which you probably will(most people here are older than me), please share them, I will probably try them depending on cost and things like that, but definitely suggest something if you think of it.
Sorry, forgot one thing.....I will be trying to figure out how to post the pics I took with my phone on here, I didn't use a regular camera it was just quicker and easier. I do have lots of pictures, right from the start.
Thanks, Eric
