Green Gus the 68 shortbed convert

[hewittca]

Figured I'd post an update since it's been a few months even though I haven't done much to the truck. I rode around on the 5" CPP drop springs for a while and they were fine just cruising...





...but I discovered they have a load carrying capacity of about 10 lbs (sarcasm) after carrying my kids and their power wheels through the woods. I then tried to haul a 1/2 yard of dirt and that was a mistake. That was a rough ride home!







With spring upon us, I reluctantly put my old springs back in so I could get some work done around the house. My father-in-law just got a new lift so I also had to try that out and get my first good look at the bottom of my truck.







I wasn't quite happy with the rake of the truck with the old springs back in, so I machined some 1/2" spacers that I will use in the meantime until I can get around to notching the frame and putting in the 2" blocks. I also had a chance this past weekend to bring the truck out to one of the best cruise ins around my area in Kannapolis NC.





That's it for now. I still plan on doing the whole spindle/disk swap but that will probably be pushed off until this winter. I'm getting too much use out of the truck right now to put it up on stands!

[GR8-68]

Always enjoy your posts Corey, hope you and the family are doing well

[cornerstone]

Awesome truck with perfect look.

[rusty76]

Looking good Corey. Glad to see you using your truck like a truck. There’s also a cruise in Lexington that’s looks to be nice too. It’s downtown. We have one in Welcome and soon to be Midway too. Pretty neat.

[hewittca]

Thanks guys!

Yeah there are quite a few good cruise ins around this area. Larry told me about a good one in Kernersville, and there's also a great one in Pilot Mountain.
I always tend to gravitate towards Kannapolis though, I guess because that's the one I've always gone to. I need to start checking some of these other ones out.

[Mikes68C10]

Originally Posted by hewittca

Thanks guys!

Yeah there are quite a few good cruise ins around this area. Larry told me about a good one in Kernersville, and there's also a great one in Pilot Mountain.
I always tend to gravitate towards Kannapolis though, I guess because that's the one I've always gone to. I need to start checking some of these other ones out.

Wow! Now that's what I call a transformation of love!
Great detail, great story, great craftsmanship!
Super inspiration!
Congrats!
Mike

[hewittca]

I'm slowly making progress toward doing the spindle swap, but before I can get there I needed to finish up the mods in the rear. I decided to go with a bolt in c-notch from CPP. Overall I'm really happy with it. The fit was really good given it was all prefabbed and is being bolted up to a 50 year old chassis. I just had one small gap between the notch and frame on the left side that was due to a deformity in my frame. I think I will eventually weld in the notch just for added reassurance. Other than that my only criticism is that the bumpstops included are pointless because the differential hits the bed floor about an inch before the rear even touches the bumpstops. Before the notch I bottomed out routinely on 5" springs. With the notch, I haven't bottomed out yet but I'm kind of worried to see what it does to my bed floor if/when I do bottom out after I add in 1" blocks.





While I was under the truck, I decided I would go ahead and try out the trailing arm bracket flip trick. After all the work of removing those rivets, it turned out to be a fruitless endeavor. The pinion angle was much worse after the flip than before. In fact, the pinion angle was almost perfect before because I have a two piece driveshaft. If you have a single driveshaft, this mod may help but don't waste your time if you have a two piece. I was able to correct all my driveshaft angles simply by raising the carrier bearing which requires flipping it 180 degrees and relocating the mount as you can see below.

The other thing I tried while I had those mounts off was adding in a 1/2" spacer to recenter the wheels in the arches. I think 1/2" was too much because the wheels looked too far back after I added the spacers! I may mill the spacers down to 1/4" eventually, but for now I think I will leave them out. In actuality, I think I have enough room to slide the bed forward a bit to help compensate for the slight forward shift of the rear with the large drop I'm running.



I think the last thing I need to do in preparation before I can do the spindles is replace the exhaust. It is poorly fit and would hang within 1" of the ground after spindles so I definitely need to fix that! For now though I'm just going to enjoy driving the truck for the summer.

[Janz99]

Truck looks great! I love seeing the updates as progress is made.

[rusty76]

Gus is going to enjoy the summer for sure.

[hewittca]

Thanks guys!

Here's a before/after photo for the new page. The before is from about 10 years ago. This is a Google Streetview photo from the truck sitting neglected out front of the previous owner's home. The after is the truck in its current state.

[rusty76]

Very nice.

[hewittca]

Getting some of those summer miles on the truck. Took it out the other night for a cruise and had to stop and take a photo. It was a beautiful night here in NC. You'll notice I also tested the look of whitewalls again with chalk. I think I liked this look more than the white lines I tried a while ago, but I will probably still stick with the blackwalls. Plus, the whitewalls were promptly washed away after this photo from a pop up storm that rolled through. Not a durable solution by any means, but it does look convincing and its fun to try something different for a while.

[Mikes68C10]

Originally Posted by hewittca

Getting some of those summer miles on the truck. Took it out the other night for a cruise and had to stop and take a photo. It was a beautiful night here in NC. You'll notice I also tested the look of whitewalls again with chalk. I think I liked this look more than the white lines I tried a while ago, but I will probably still stick with the blackwalls. Plus, the whitewalls were promptly washed away after this photo from a pop up storm that rolled through. Not a durable solution by any means, but it does look convincing and its fun to try something different for a while.

Very cool old school-cool look.
? ever try the redline tire look, like the old red line tires. I think it might be a sweet color contrast while tying into the red Chevy emblem on the hubcaps.
Anyone got photoshop skills to pull the look together?
Me, no photoshop skills - see attached for a rough (very rough) idea of what I was thinking for the "Red Line Look"

[rusty76]

I like the white walls. I bet your kids are having fun letting you use their sidewalk chalk. Lol. You could try red walls. Blue ones. All sorts of colors this week. They’ll definitely get washed away by all the rain we’ve been having.

[hewittca]

I have thought about red actually, but my kids only had pastel colors and the closest they had was pink Didn't look too good...

[hewittca]

It's been another few months since my last update. I'm still here! I brought the truck out to the Piedmont Traction show in Mooresville NC in June which was awesome, but then I had to go to Paris for work, then had surgery, and then we got a puppy so I've been too busy/distracted to do much of anything with the truck. Plus, surgery has severely limited what I can physically do during recovery so I don't have any plans on the truck for the foreseeable future. I'm hoping to be back to normal towards the end of the year.



To be honest, I'm also seriously considering selling the truck. I love it but hate that it just sits unused 95% of the time, and at this point in my life I can't practically commit any more seat or project time to it. I'm thinking I may need to let the truck go to someone who can get more use out of it. That way I can consolidate my vehicles down a bit so that I can get a daily driver that's practical for the family and fun to drive that I can also upgrade along the way. So far the Volkswagen R32 has risen to the top of my list. Here's the truck sandwiched between my other Volkswagens.



At this point it's all still just hypothetical until at least November because the truck is scheduled to be used in another Christmas photo session this year. That will give me a good 3 months to think over the decision and possibly come to my senses!

[CG]

I get where the truck is a little small for a family of four. But you obviously have a love for this style truck. And you have the skill set and family help to pretty much build anything you want. Maybe buy a burb and shorten it up like Frizzles? When you need to haul more than the shortened burb will hold (seldom Im sure) maybe a neat little matching truck bed trailer. There ya go I covered all your bases for you lol. You did a nice job on this build.

Here is a link to Frizzles build ... http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=239896

[rusty76]

Sorry to hear about your surgery. I hope you recover fully and gracefully. I really hate to see you sell your truck. I’ve had my rusty pile since I was nineteen. It took me several pay checks to buy it. I never thought I’d sell it, but life got in the way. Practicality got in the way. I considered selling it at least a half dozen times. I even wanted to trade it at some point. It’s been a love hate relationship. When gas got almost 4 bucks a gallon I was like I need to do something different. I bought a cheap car to scoot around in. It was a wagon. I could still haul stuff. I’ve owned no less than seven other vehicles while owning my bucket. I haven’t driven it on the road since 2004. So honestly I can’t say why I have that rusty bucket of bolts. I think really the reason is that it’s the first vehicle I cut my teeth on and while life gets in the way I don’t want to give up on it. And believe me life is a stinker. Good luck buddy and hopefully by January you’ll be saying glad I didn’t sell it. But if you need a place to hide it bring it to the house and it can sit quietly by my ole truck.

[hewittca]

Thanks guys for the encouragement!

I have run through many scenarios while I sit and contemplate life as I heal, haha. CG, I definitely seriously considered doing a build like the Tahoe in the past, and that would be something that would fit perfectly for what I need/want. My only hesitation there is by the time I finished it my kids would be moving out and then I'd want a truck again!

Over the past week the whole photo session thing has started to take on a life of its own and now the truck is going to be used as a prop in three different sessions over the next three months. That's forcing me to get the truck out and get it cleaned up which I'm actually looking forward to. It will get hands on the truck without much physical effort so I should be able to do that no problem. I think I'm also past the peak desire to sell and am coming back down from that crazy idea. Maybe I just had to get the thought out of my head and type it out to realize I'm crazy! I'm still considering it but I also realize I'd most likely really regret it too.

Here's another one of the new pup. She looks sad because I told her I was thinking about selling the truck!

[67ChevyRedneck]

She looks like she wanted to go for a ride and you said no...

[Dads79GMC]

Just went through all 13 pages! Great attention to detail! Love the truck!! Mike

[Graham57a]

Dude you can't sell it! Just get a VW and keep the truck. I promise you will regret it and then 5 years from now you will end up buying another one and spending more money trying to get into half the truck that Gus is.

[ShortHaul]

Originally Posted by Graham57a

Dude you can't sell it! Just get a VW and keep the truck. I promise you will regret it and then 5 years from now you will end up buying another one and spending more money trying to get into half the truck that Gus is.

I second this... See the smile on your kiddo's faces in the pic above? No VeeDub will ever replace that!

[hewittca]

I definitely agree with what you all are saying in terms of valuation of the truck and that I'd be taking a big hit if I sold and then eventually wanted another truck. I think the honest truth is I'm just scared to drive it these days. Growing up I didn't think twice about the safety of my vehicle and drove old cars for years. Now that I'm older and especially since I have kids, all of a sudden the risk is starting to outweigh the joy of driving old iron. I know there's risk in driving anything, period, but I can't get out of my own head that the truck is a death sentence waiting to happen. And I especially don't want to subject my kids to that by taking them for rides, even if I know they love the truck. I don't know, maybe it's just an existential crisis I'm going through, but at present I'm feeling like once I finish up a few things on the truck I will most likely let it go...

[knomadd]

With how these trucks are doing, you'll be money ahead by keeping it instead of trying to buy another even a year from now. It's one thing if you planned on flipping it to begin with or just hate the truck, but if you even remotely think you'd like to have it around for a while, it's worth holding onto (at least it is for me).