Another Lks Dcvn Project - 1970 LWB for my Dad

[lks dcvn]

A little history before the updates hit...(taken from an old post of mine)

Long story made short - in December 2007 a guy in Detroit put up a CL ad for a project truck he could no longer keep - and mentioned no rust...I like everybody else was skeptical - but decided to check it out anyway. The most solid truck I have seen in these parts was in his garage (it has some surface rust and a few bubbles here and there, but it is solid for Ohio/Michigan) - after BS'ing for a few mins - he said - just make me an offer - I need it gone...

Having no interest in a project - I left without giving an offer - but left my number and told him my price if he got that low - - he called me before I got home and said that he would take my offering price if I was interested.

The truck was in my driveway a week or so later...I figured I would give it to my Dad since he is always borrowing my other trucks to haul something or another...

Arrival date - Jan 13th, 2008 - no motor, no trans, front clip in the bed...my girlfriend just shook her head as I rolled it into the backyard asking me what I was going to do with that thing...

When the snow stopped flying here I got started. Here are the pix from back then. I had no idea what I was getting into (I had never done a restore before).

[lks dcvn]

Few more of the before pix.

[lks dcvn]

In June 2008 - I happened to get a 67 LWB large window off Ebay and contemplated just giving that to my Dad - that is until I actually got to see the rust that it had in the floor and cab supports - and I opted to pull the motor and trans to put into my Dad's project...

Never had done that so that was interesting. I went and bought an engine hoist to do the job - I have a picture of that somewhere - but for never doing it before it took me and another guy (who had never done it before) about 8 hours on a Sunday.

Since there was no motor in (my Dad's truck) it when I got it I cleaned the firewall down and sprayed it with black paint prior to the motor swap.

Here is the motor swap done...

[lks dcvn]

I did some odds and ends on it for a few months and planned when to give it to my Dad (since he didn't know he was getting it) - I kept changing the deadline for myself since other stuff would come up that needed more attention (work, home stuff, etc.).

I had the shop up the street from me redo the entire brake system so that I could drive it and get it inspected (since the truck was from MI) before getting the title in my name...

In November of 2008 a buddy of mine from HS opened his own storage facility and I got a pretty good deal to store my Dad's truck for the winter - so late in 2008 into storage it went until April of 2009.

When the weather and time would allow I would go check on it.

[lks dcvn]

When May hit this past year - I was itching to get moving on this thing.

I had the trans rebuilt since it was leaking, replaced the cab mounts, and starting selling off some stuff that was sitting in the yard to get some extra dough for this project (and get junk out of the yard) -

[lks dcvn]

As the warm weather got here - I found myself dedicating weekends, work nights and free time on this thing...

I rebuilt the a spare dash that I had purchased for my 69 Blazer - but figured my Dad would appreciate it more. I painted it to color match the truck since it will eventually be white.

I had a new exhaust put on with the 2.5 corvette ram horns into flowsounds - (they sound nice) and then the hammer dropped...

My Dad and I met up for lunch and he starting talking about looking for used truck to buy so he could haul stuff - I contemplated telling him of the project, but wasn't sure how he would react.

After lunch, I told him that I was building this truck for him and he was familiar with the truck since when he would stop over I would be working on it.

I told him that I was hoping to have it done by June - no dice (it is 2 weeks to August now) - so that deadline came and went...

[lks dcvn]

In early June - I found a Nice Blazer Hatch - but to get the hatch I had to take the Single Wall Top which was about 300 miles round trip from Toledo and no way to get it home except for my Dad's project truck...

I figured if it was going to break down - I would hope it was on my watch...

I loaded it up with gas and headed South. I drove there and back without an issue and my Dad was curious to hear the story about it when I got home.

Here are a couple pix of the result and the hatch.

4 Clamps along the bedsides kept it solid - it didn't budge at all on the trip home - I did try an earthquake-like shake on it prior to leaving the guys house though.

[lks dcvn]

The more I thought about this project so far I figured I might as well learn some body work while I was at it.

My neighbor was the Jeep Paint Shop Manager for several years (never knew until I started talking bodywork/paint with him) - he offered to help me get started...boy did I not know what I was getting into.

No real rust on the body - only surface rust here and there, but way more dings than I knew about in these photos.

I took plenty of before pix to see what I started with...

Here are the last day of it looking like this.

[lks dcvn]

Started on the bed...

Plenty of dents on the one side - prior owner welded up the trim holes but did a crappy job on the bedside body work - so I had to revisit most of it.

Driver side was almost a scuff and shoot - but there turned out to be plenty of small dings that I needed to go back over.

[lks dcvn]

After looking at how nice the driver side was I revisited the passenger side to see waves, dings, etc. so I figured I would try to get it perfect - wow - plenty of time invested to get things looking just right.

There hit a point where I got so tired of working on the psgr side so I went back to the driver side to work out some small flaws I could still see.

I shot a final coat of primer on it and then put it away for the day - whooped.

Last pix are where I quit for the day.

[lks dcvn]

I kept working on the bed - I cleaned up the interior bed pieces and tried to figure out what I was going to do with the floor...

I decided to coat the floor with the Master Series Coating silver primer - to prevent any more rusting after I get it cleaned up.

Happy with how the bed turned out on the outside - I then moved to stripping the cab to get it ready for body work and primer.

[lks dcvn]

The hood was always in primer - that was how it came when I got it - I haven't touched it yet in these photos but the psg side is 80% done.

I snuck in a pic of the work to come on the driver side...

I have a new respect for body shop workers - no wonder that stuff is $$$

[lks dcvn]

Wanted to get to the back of the cab and the front of the bed so I built a cab/bed dolly thanks to the plans on this site - works pretty good...

I cleaned up the rear frame and hit it with some black paint.

And finally got the Master Series Primer on the bed floor (www.nomorerust.com) - two coats and it looks great. The dolly held me while I cleaned up the rust on the bed floor and painted the silver primer on it - I never realized how bad the floor was until it was all one color and not surface rusted.

Kept working around the cab...took off the grill so I could get a few more of the hidden spots

[STOCKISH]

Nice sentiment. I'm sure he'll like it. Looks like a nice truck.

[lks dcvn]

I told my Dad once I am done with the paint - he can take ownership and do what he wants with it -

I probably have another week or so of minor body work to get up to my liking and then the color will fly and then I get to put it back together.

I was hard at work for a few days and didn't get a chance to get pix as I got the driver side done - but the process was the same...grind, sand, check, repeat. Very time consuming - it doesn't help that it is my first time doing this stuff. I have always wanted to learn how to do body work - just never had a teacher.

I still need to do something with the bench seat - it is torn - but I might just buy a cover for now so he can drive it and then have it redone when the seasons change.

I also have new inner fenders to install, and replace all the exterior objects (in a box already [handles, lenses, etc.] - just waiting on a set of mirrors that are coming from AZ soon [I hope].

That is the progress so far.

I haven't decided what to do with the rims/tires yet - it will likely get some 15x8 rallys that were powdercoated - I snagged them off ebay for $80 for the set.

[71'tahoe]

Hey I saw this truck!!! Hows it going tom?

[lks dcvn]

Coming along - slowly and surely -

[my67chevytruck]

nice work. Im sure your dad will enjoy it!

[crimespree]

how long did it take you to sand, were there any spots that you found super difficult to get primed? and how long did the body work take?


it looks amazing you did a hell of a job

[lks dcvn]

Thanks for the compliments guys - for being my first time - it looks a lot better than I was expecting.

I went a panel at a time so I couldn't give you a true idea of how long it (the body work) took...

It took a LOT longer than I would have expected that's for sure. I kept going over it until I was good with it (being a perfectionist doesn't help you get done any sooner), but they do say that a paint job is mostly prep anyway.

Spots that were difficult to prime - not really - most of the stuff was easy to get to - it took me a little bit to get used to the gun and the primer coverage, but after the first day - I was good to go. It was a bit of a pain to get the top of the cab (I had to stand on the frame and get those spots since the bed was off by then, but I managed).

On my next project - I think I might prime the entire truck in that Master Series Coating Primer stuff - not sure how it would spray and sand out though...

Body work on each panel was at least 8 hours when I think about it - except the hood and the roof - they didn't have any dings to worry about. Those were a scuff and shoot type deal.

I thought pretty hard about if I wanted to do the body work since I had no idea what I was doing - but figured I would learn a new skill and save some money doing it myself.

Body work started on July 12th and still isn't done yet and I have not worked on it everyday. I would figure I have about 80-100 hours into it at this point. I have a few more spots to hit but it is almost done.

My neighbor is out of town for the next two weeks so I have some time to finish up the spots I want to, hit the whole thing with guide coat and see the result. Then I can readdress and go from there.

When he gets back from vacation we are heading to the paint supply store to pick up the color (white) and see how that goes. He mentioned that shooting color is a heck of a lot harder to shoot than primer - fingers crossed that it goes well.

[lks dcvn]

Well a few more updates - still no color on the truck yet...

a few months ago a guy in Ebay was selling a set of powder coated 15x8 rally wheels - I picked up the set for $80 and he met me near my house (he was a hour or so away). He had a 1972 Blazer that he sold at Carlisle a few years back and these rims were going to be for that truck - but he never got to install them. They were nice with full powder (not just the outside face) and sealed up in bubble wrap.

I had a set of 275/60/15 BFG Radial T/As that I got off Craigs List - but when my local discount tire had a set for $320 (new, installed and balanced) I jumped on them - since now I had a lifetime of tire repairs for free as well.

I got them mounted over the weekend and picked them up last night on my way home...

I didn't get any pix since I was in hurry to get other stuff done - but now I will need to find a set of beauty rings, center caps and lug nuts to get these mounted when the paint is done.

Now the list of what left is:

Paint - White with Black Chevrolet on Tailgate
Wiring Cleanup - few electrical gremlins left here and there

Install New Exterior Items (already have all this stuff):

New Outside Handles
New Outside Deluxe Lenses
New Rear Lights (Backup and Reverse)
New 8/350 Emblems
New Inner Fender Wells

I still need a few items to get this thing done in the next 30 days:

new Custom/10 Emblems
new mirror arms,brackets and mirror heads (not the sport mirrors)
Lightly used Black Bench Cover - or I will wait to recover it next year...

I am sure that there will be more when I get ready to hand it off to my Dad - he stopped over to check on the progress over the weekend and mentioned that he had found winter storage for it - so that is a plus - since I was going to line up a few months of storage with my buddy mentioned above...

[71'tahoe]

Hey tom
I think I have a real nice black bench down at the farm if you are interested its from a 71'

[lks dcvn]

Thx!

Let me know Greg - got any pix of it by chance?

[71'tahoe]

No..but i will be heading down there tomarrow,Ill shot a few and send them to you. If I remember right..I have a nice set of black door panels with the scroll design in them also..if your interested

[lks dcvn]

I have some door panels already (black painted steel) - but if they all match [scrolling] - I would be interested to hear what you are looking ($-wise) for the panels and the bench seat.

Thx again Greg.