My '63 Restomod Build

[0ldSoul]

Originally Posted by Android04

Very nice looking truck.

Thank you, love the patina on your truck!

Originally Posted by lownslw64

Looks Good! Very clean work. Your doing a lot of good upgrades to your rig to make driving it nicer. Nice truck to start with also

Appreciate it. That was the goal, to make it drive safer and nicer. There's a small oil leak that I'm going to chase down in the engine bay, and I got a few new gaskets on hand but besides that, she's a solid driver.

[0ldSoul]

So while working on the rear, I noticed the PO had botched up the tail light wiring harness. Yesterday after finally putting wires back together, my tail lights stay on even after the truck is turned off.

Turn signals flash on the correct sides but the tail lights don't get brighter when I brake and they stay on.

I've read countless threads where people state check your grounds, so I'll do that.. but I don't think it could be a ground since they actually work, just not correctly? I think the wires might be connected wrong.

To make matters worse, it doesn't appear to be the original wiring harness because the 3 wires running back are not yellow green and brown. They're purple white and black. Fun.

Anyway, any guidance would be appreciated but that's what I'm going to take a look at today.

[0ldSoul]

Alright, after analyzing the scope of how bad the rear harness was.. and not wanting an electrical hazard while cruising with the family.... we decided to order 2 new harnesses and a set of grounding straps. The first harness is the one that runs from the front of the firewall down to the inside of the frame and to the rear, as well as the harness which then connects to the tail lights and license plate light.

The previous owner cut and spliced back together the current harness countless times.. sometimes with butt connectors, other times with bare wiring wrapped around each other and covered with electrical tape

Waiting on parts..

[0ldSoul]

Pulled it out of the garage to tighten the bolts that secure the bed to the frame and couldn't resist taking it out for a short cruise around base




Also, just noticed I need to clean those white walls.. they're filthy! haha

[made2drag]

Nice work!

[SkinnyG]

Is that really over 11" lower in the back?

[0ldSoul]

Originally Posted by made2drag

Nice work!

Thank you, it took a while but well worth it.

Originally Posted by SkinnyG

Is that really over 11" lower in the back?

I was baffled by that too, not sure how the rear isn't lower than the front but the components that went in were for a 4.5/7 drop? Unfortunately I didn't get before and after numbers for the front, I just got to work. The rear was lowered and the front wasn't; it looked goofy so I knew I had to get going.

The rear has 5" CPP springs, 2" drop blocks, relocated shock brackets, CPP shocks, CPP adjustable panhard bar, and it's c-notched.

Front has CPP 2.5" modular drop spindles, 2" CPP springs, CPP shocks, new upper and lower ball joints, new inner and outer tie rod ends, new idler arm, 70s lower control arm u-bolts for added strength, and CPP disc brakes.

[SkinnyG]

Cool.

I have 5" CPP springs for mine, and 2" blocks (as well as 3", if that's not enough).

11" would be sweet!

[0ldSoul]

Originally Posted by SkinnyG

Cool.

I have 5" CPP springs for mine, and 2" blocks (as well as 3", if that's not enough).

11" would be sweet!

SkinnyG, I've spent a large portion of this morning following along your build and appreciating the extra steps you've taken to build it right. I got a question about your crossmember being pancaked.

It seems as though the control arms are what's hindering the frame from sitting on the ground. How far off the ground is the frame? Do you think it would be on the ground if you had aftermarket tubular control arms paired with your 2" pancaked crossmember? Or is an aftermarket front crossmember required?

[SkinnyG]

If I had the earlier style (63-72) control arms, it -probably- would sit on the ground.

If I went to tubular control arms, I can make it sit on the ground.

I have decided, that at this point, having the crossmember physically sitting on the ground is not that big a deal for me to warrant acquiring another set of control arms of whatever type.

Because I am not willing to raise the bed floor more than 4", the frame rails themselves (and rocker panels) will -never- sit on the ground, so the extra effort/money is not worth it. I can spend that elsewhere.

As it is, it should be a reasonable level of "cool enough."

[0ldSoul]

Originally Posted by SkinnyG

If I had the earlier style (63-72) control arms, it -probably- would sit on the ground.

If I went to tubular control arms, I can make it sit on the ground.

I have decided, that at this point, having the crossmember physically sitting on the ground is not that big a deal for me to warrant acquiring another set of control arms of whatever type.

Because I am not willing to raise the bed floor more than 4", the frame rails themselves (and rocker panels) will -never- sit on the ground, so the extra effort/money is not worth it. I can spend that elsewhere.

As it is, it should be a reasonable level of "cool enough."

Right on, thanks for clearing that up. There's no doubt, it's cool as hell already! I've only digested up to part 4 of your build but I'll catch up and keep following along.

[0ldSoul]

double post

[0ldSoul]

Practicing social distancing

[Palf70Step]

Renamed you thread for ya. Nice truck!

[0ldSoul]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Renamed you thread for ya. Nice truck!

Thank you

[0ldSoul]

Here's a quick video I put together, finished the exhaust.

1963 c10 283 - YouTube

[0ldSoul]

Current side project while I wait for the Classic Industries order to fix the rear tail lights. I ordered the wiring harness from the firewall to the rear, and from the rear to each tail light. That was 2 weeks ago. Thank you coronavirus.

Also been working on installing new ground straps. Ordered a new set after this whole tail light ordeal. Found out the truck had 1 of the 4 that the shop manual shows its suppose to have. That's probably part of the tail light issue, but the harness back there was so trashed from the previous owner.. I'm glad I ordered a replacement.

[0ldSoul]

Wife helped out by making the tailgate look much better. Now we'll work on taking some paint off and giving it a weathered look. Like it's been there for some time.

[cwcarpenter98]

The lettering looks great! I can't leave the letters unpainted on my trucks

[doobiebro]

Nice upgrades! I personally have owned lowered short beds but man the look on a lowered long bed to me looks Saweet! Next build for sure will be a lowered long bed for me.

[0ldSoul]

Originally Posted by cwcarpenter98

The lettering looks great! I can't leave the letters unpainted on my trucks

That small project was long overdue

Originally Posted by doobiebro

Nice upgrades! I personally have owned lowered short beds but man the look on a lowered long bed to me looks Saweet! Next build for sure will be a lowered long bed for me.

Thanks I will say, although I do like the look of a lowered long bed, this will be a short bed one day. Or maybe it'll be one of those in between 7 foot medium beds.. we'll see. I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

[0ldSoul]

One thing that had to be addressed was that rear bumper.. in recent pictures you can tell the cancer is causing the passenger side to droop and the unevenness was looking worse and worse.

So that came off. Cutting out the cancer and welding in new metal will be a side project.



Now the problem was:

1. Not street legal without a rear license plate.
2. Looks bugly. (butt ugly) Pun intended.

So, off we went to a local junk yard to look for another bumper.

First junkyard didn't have anything from the 60s but at least I was steered towards one that did. Went there and was told to go to the far left corner, so we did. We found about a handful of 60-66 chevy/gmc c10s.

First few didn't have a bumper at all.

One had this, I guess you could barely call it a bumper:


I will go back and take that tail gate off to make a bench out of it though!

Then we found this:


Not my style.

We didn't see any more trucks so I told my girls we should head home but my 6 year old said, 'Dad why don't we look in the other corners? There's lots of cool old cars here'

I couldn't say no.

Not only did we in fact see many old cool cars/trucks, we also found this hidden treasure:

[0ldSoul]

Only to find out that truck was only for sale as a 'complete' project.

The guy didn't want to sell me the bumper

So I went home, got on JEGS and ordered a bumper

oh well.

Anyway. The wiring harness from Classic finally showed up, got that wired up and the rear tail lights work perfectly.

So that left me with figuring out a way to get the truck street legal until the new bumper arrives, gets painted, and bolted up.

Made measurements, cut out a template out of card board, and then cut 3 pieces from a 3/16 steel sheet I had (pretty thick I know but it's what I had at the moment)

[0ldSoul]

Drilled some holes on the bracket, and was able to use a hole already in the rear of the frame. Same hole I used to run a ground wire from the tail light housing.

Road legal again:


That should get me by until the new bumper gets here



Also poured new oil into the engine, transmission, and rear diff. Reg. oil with Zinc additive for the engine, Redline MT-90 for the transmission, and Redline 75w-90 synthetic GL5 for the rear diff.

[88Stanger]

nice work Sir and great job to your wife on lettering job