Project Old Blue, 1965 C10, Rebuild Version 2010

[aggie91]

Small update, not many pictures as I was working and not taking pics.

I bought a kit from CPP to rebuild the stock manual steering box. I was lacking a plug for the end of the box and two bushings for a 100% rebuild, but it did give me the new bearings and seal the box needed. I do not know if the box was ever rebuilt for before I got the truck, so for sure it has not been in the last 37 years. Stripped it all down, blasted the outside of the box and clean all the old grease and grime out of the inside. Got it all back together and found a standard freeze plug that was a tight fit for the end. It really should have a flangeless style plug, but NO ONE local had the correct one. you can see in the one picture that it sticks out past the end, it should be slightly recessed in that hole. I am pleased with the way it feels on the bench, not to finish clean the outside and put some paint on it.

[aggie91]

The other task was I wanted the engine and trans to sit at a specific height in the chassis so that the trans oil pan was not below the bottom of the frame. I wanted it to sit a bit further rearward than where I ended up with the current set up, but I am happy at this point. For now, I used a truck oil pan on the engine as the bottom of the front cross member is actually lower than the bottom of the frame rail in the stock chassis. The current height and front/rear position is OK and none of the oil pans hang below the cross member of the bottom of the frame rail. I cut out the hump to switch to a high hump because I am using a 4L80e, and thought I would need the clearance. But now, I think I could have gotten away with the stock low hump floor. I'll set it back in to verify, but I will stay with switching to the high hump as I have a floor mat that fits the high hump. Here are the pieces I fab'd up for the engine stands off of the front cross member. They will use 3 holes on each side of the engine in the cross member to located them. I need to do some finishing on them, then back in the truck to tack weld, then back out for finish welding & paint and then back in to finish up the install with the actual 6.0 and 4L80e with will be powering the truck.

[aggie91]

Figured it was time for an update, although no pictures.

I fabbed up the new motor mounts, took the pieces back to my house to clean up the edges on the disc sander and have since managed to loose 4 of the 6 pieces. Looks like I get to do that job all over again.

I got my headers in that I think I will be using so that's on the list of to dos.

Well, I got my daughter all moved into her dorm at the University of Nebraska last weekend. Been spending time since then putting my '06 Duramax back together and catching up on household chores. Hoping to make progress on this truck late this week and this coming weekend. Time will tell.

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by aggie91

Figured it was time for an update, although no pictures.

I fabbed up the new motor mounts, took the pieces back to my house to clean up the edges on the disc sander and have since managed to loose 4 of the 6 pieces. Looks like I get to do that job all over again.

I got my headers in that I think I will be using so that's on the list of to dos.

Well, I got my daughter all moved into her dorm at the University of Nebraska last weekend. Been spending time since then putting my '06 Duramax back together and catching up on household chores. Hoping to make progress on this truck late this week and this coming weekend. Time will tell.

You're not alone w/this issue . . ......

[aggie91]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

You're not alone w/this issue . . ......

and if and when I do find them, it will be well after I remade the parts and will ask myself, "Why in the hell did I put those there?"

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by aggie91

and if and when I do find them, it will be well after I remade the parts and will ask myself, "Why in the hell did I put those there?"

Oh.... I know the dance. It happens to a 'guy I know' all the time.

[aggie91]

Good News! I found the missing engine mount parts, and turns out they were at the shop this whole time. I had tossed them all in the box with the headers I had bought. At the time I did that, I had cleaned up the brackets at home, the headers had arrived, so, I need to check fit on the headers so it all has to go to the shop.

So yesterday, I spent 8-9 hours at the shop with Korbin. Took a break for lunch and a short beer break when a female friend came by to hang out for a bit while she was out running errands. Korbin and I got a good bit of work done on my truck. While I put the steering together, he started doing the final fitting of the high hump parts to the cab floor. After lunch, we worked on the engine mounts. Called it a day once we got to fitting up the reinforcement cap for the mounts. I will get those finished up this week when I go back on Tuesday or Wednesday.

[The Rocknrod]

Pretty cool so far. I think your coming along nicely.

[The Rocknrod]

Wow that Mill is a killer, congratulations on that.

[aggie91]

Originally Posted by The Rocknrod

Wow that Mill is a killer, congratulations on that.

Thanks!, we are excited about it. Owen, my Navy MR, is super ready to come home to run it and show me what he has learned. I need to get some basic tooling, but that is an easy fix once we get past C10's in the Park.

[Low Elco]

Go Karl Go! Glad Owen gets to come home. I'm a Navy HM, what is a MR?

[The Rocknrod]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Go Karl Go! Glad Owen gets to come home. I'm a Navy HM, what is a MR?

MR = https://cool.osd.mil/usn/enlisted/mr.htm
HM = https://www.cool.osd.mil/usn/enlisted/hm.htm

[aggie91]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Go Karl Go! Glad Owen gets to come home. I'm a Navy HM, what is a MR?

Originally Posted by The Rocknrod

MR = https://cool.osd.mil/usn/enlisted/mr.htm
HM = https://www.cool.osd.mil/usn/enlisted/hm.htm

LowElco - Thanks for your service!

Rocknrod - Thanks for those links to explain what he does!

[aggie91]

Update - C10's in the Park starts with a Cruise on Friday, Sept 17th! That is 3 days away...

Got the engine fired up on Sunday, super excited since it is a huge step. My harness works and all is good there, just need to make it more acceptable in its appearance. We ran the engine for about 30-40 seconds, because we saw a pretty good leak on the driver side. Turns out, I put the wrong gasket in for the oil cooler bypass block. Fixed that and went to re-fire the engine. No Bueno...Locked up tighter than Ft. Knox!

Came back last night, pulled the engine and trans and got it on the stand. Pulled the pan, found that #6 rod was bent! Pulled that rod/piston out and the crank and bearings look dang near new...Korbin had a set of gen4 LS rods, so we pulled one of those out, swapped the piston to the new rod, cleaned it all up and put that back in the block. Did not have the torque wrench at the shop, so did not get any further last night. All in all it was a good night, 2.5 hours to completely remove parts and get the engine out, split from the trans, converter removed, put on a stand, diagnosed the issue, and replaced the offending part. All that includes moving two other engines out of the way, pulling one off an engine stand and putting everything back in the shop to call it a night.

Plan is to go back to the shop tonight, finish putting it back together, put it back in the truck and see if we have time to try to start it again. We will see how it goes. Looks like I will be at the shop every night this week to get this ready to go to the show on Friday.

Pictures of the bent rod in the engine before we pulled it out, and a pic of it with a good rod. You can see in one pic the shiny spot on the crank counterweight where the piston rubbed the crank.

[SCOTI]

Uhmm.... My mind would still be stuck at "WTF & Why" w/no advancing w/o an answer.

[The Rocknrod]

Originally Posted by aggie91

LowElco - Thanks for your service!

Rocknrod - Thanks for those links to explain what he does!

Well I did a couple years in there.

[Low Elco]

Originally Posted by The Rocknrod

MR = https://cool.osd.mil/usn/enlisted/mr.htm
HM = https://www.cool.osd.mil/usn/enlisted/hm.htm

Irony: that's exactly what I turned out to be. Ha.

[aggie91]

We replaced the rod, cleaned the cylinder, inspected it for scoring and cracks and found not other damage. Reassembled and installed a different injector that we cleaned and cycled a few times on the bench. We fired it up, good oil pressure, no noises, and come up to temp and stayed steady at 190-195.

We made it to C10's in the Park, truck drove from the hotel to the park and back without any issues other than being LOAD in the cab and hot in the cab since the floor is not insulated or finished out yet.

Had a great time! I will get some pictures loaded up here in the next fee days...

[SCOTI]

Originally Posted by aggie91

We replaced the rod, cleaned the cylinder, inspected it for scoring and cracks and found not other damage. Reassembled and installed a different injector that we cleaned and cycled a few times on the bench. We fired it up, good oil pressure, no noises, and come up to temp and stayed steady at 190-195.

We made it to C10's in the Park, truck drove from the hotel to the park and back without any issues other than being LOAD in the cab and hot in the cab since the floor is not insulated or finished out yet.

Had a great time! I will get some pictures loaded up here in the next fee days...

My buddy Matt (from our Waco 'Mini-Nats' days) went out there Sat morning. I didn't make it there but told him the only 2 trucks I was going to look for was yours & GringoLoco's.

Glad you persevered & made it there!

[aggie91]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

My buddy Matt (from our Waco 'Mini-Nats' days) went out there Sat morning. I didn't make it there but told him the only 2 trucks I was going to look for was yours & GringoLoco's.

Glad you persevered & made it there!

Thanks for the compliment. I got to check out GringoLoco's on Friday night and again at the park. What a killer job on that truck. Never got to talk to anyone about it as I never saw anyone around it when I was looking.

[aggie91]

Got this heap running and driving enough to take on a trailer to C10's in the Park. Drove it from the hotel to the park and then back to the hotel. Those few miles were priceless to me. Now the work begins to make it legally streetable...

Here are some pictures I took this past weekend. The one with the red glow around it was taken at midnight on Friday in the hotel parking lot after we got the MAF and Alternator wired in and the front bumper installed. The one in the parking lot was Sunday morning before we loaded up to head home.

[aggie91]

I was so focused on getting the truck put back together that I did not get many pictures of the things I have changed as I went though it this time. Here is a couple pics of the low mount alternator set up I used. Since I am doing manual steering, I wanted the alternator down low so that it is not in your face like a stock bracket. Super pleased with this ICT set up. The smooth pulley in the kit has to be replaced with a ribbed pulley when you are running with out the upper power steering set up. It all seemed to work well together and the truck ran in the 190-195 degree range with what I call minimum belt wrap on the water pump pulley.

[Low Elco]

Congrats Karl! Happy for you guys you made it! Looked like a great party.

[SCOTI]

Looks like you got it done to me! Glad nothing more was hurt on the motor,

[aggie91]

Motivation has been lacking for a bit on this project. Owen had come home on leave for 15 days before his next deployment to Norfolk, VA. Glad to spend time with him. See his Henry thread for an update on something we did while he was here.

Well, the day after he left, I got my front turn signals put together as I have had the new lenses and gaskets for quite some time.