Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Wow. I feel like there's a lot of missed content but I suppose it was getting cold and we stopped working on the truck as much as holidays are always busy. I know there are some missed things but it's been long enough to where it's hard for me to recall. (That's why I started the thread.)

Before we all know it, the cab is being loaded up on a borrowed trailer and is being shipped off to the body shop where it still is to this very day. I'm going to share a photo of present day what it looks like as I don't get to see the cab much in our busy schedule.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

The next thing to tackle was the bed. We thought the bed was going to be in great shape, it looked to be in great shape. I made jokes after I saw the hidden mess in the doors about hidden holes in the bedside and floor AND BOY WAS I RIGHT whether I wanted to be or not.

We had known there was an issue on the bottom left side of the bed, there was bondo and fiberglass there. We just didn't know how bad, the answer is pretty bad.

It all started on a Friday where I was bored and started poking.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I also learned just how messy bondo can be in an enclosed garage in the middle of winter..

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Ouch, been there, still doing that.

Good luck, Rg

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I think I'm going to post all of the problems we found with the bed in stages and then show the repair process.

I'm sure most of you all know what brazing is, I had never heard of the process before and never want to see it done on body work ever again. My bedrails were a bondo mess.. what was it hiding? Brass. Lots of brass. From what I can tell, I guess bondo does not like brazing. While my dad was focused on the bedfloor I took the angle grinder and ground off what I could from both bedsides. The dust was EVERYWHERE!


My guess is the top of the bedside was beat and they drilled holes for the brass to set into in each dent and went to town.. this was a night mare. I discovered them by picking at some bubbles on the bedrails. Stress followed.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

So.. after the holes in the bedfloor and all the bondo on the bed I was getting pretty skeptical about my bedsides. It looked like the bondo from the top of the bedrail was feathered out pretty far on the driver side so I had my dad go savage on it with the angle grinder.

It looked like the truck had been ran into or ran into something and then someone beat it out with a hammer and used the bodyfiller to smooth it. It was pretty beat up and warped. After some long discussion and looking a few times we found the filler held moisture and it would be easier to replace the piece.

We taped them off and measured to try and see if I could get a hold of some OE sheet metal instead of patch panels but didn't have any luck.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I guess now is the time to share how we attacked these issues, I had gotten in contact with a forum member here on 67-72 named KrazyRay. He cut up some bed patch pieces for me and had them at my door very quickly. They weren't pristine NOS by any means but they didn't have holes and were solid.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

With our new Californian steel, I let my dad have a go at the bed floor as soon as Saturday morning came around.


It was pretty bad! The repair was made by screwing in some sheet aluminum and then applying bondo/fiberglass on top. To make it worse the aluminum was painted black on the underside of the truck so it was hard to tell.

I know everyone says that these trucks aren't perfect from factory and never were, but I didn't realize there was such a huge difference in sheet metal stamping. The bedfloor patches we received were great but they just didn't line up great. The "ribs" on the floor were either wider than mine or thinner. My dad did a pretty good job with what he had but there was some significant differences in size.

I didn't have much to do during this stage of the truck project. After I had the brazing figured out, there wasn't a whole lot for me to do but wait and watch.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

So while dad was doing that I was doing two things.. looking for patch panels big enough to repair the bedside and working on the brazing. I attacked the brazing with the dremel tool, doing my best not to damage anything I didn't have to. I'd locate the hole they drilled through the bedside and circle it for my dad to come by later and drill it out.


After I did my best of removing all the excess brazing I had my dad come over and tack the holes up and grind them down smooth. The bedsides aren't straight anymore after all the bondo was removed but at least the brazing was gone to the best of my ability. When it was all said and done there was over 20 holes on both sides.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Remember how I said I was also looking for patch panels online? Well I found one big enough from a company called Key Parts. The cool thing about them is that Jegs was a vendor and I got free shipping.. once you see how big this delivery was it's hard to believe it was free!!

I picked up the driver side bed patch, two wheel tubs for the front clip, and chrome vent shades for the doors that were at the body shop.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

good build Hunter. Love Hawaiian Blue. If your on Facebook check out the c10 Kentucky group

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Looking good.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Great work!!! Keep it going!

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Looking good keep it up! I'm also from ky out of rockcastle co.
Got a few c10's myself hope to get my done soon also..

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

You finally get done with rust repair come over and I'll let you start on my ole pick up. Ha. Good job by the way.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Thanks guys! I'm going to organize some more photos tonight and update the thread.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I saw the state of my photos and really didn't feel like searching through them until today. I have them all sorted out and resized I just have to get them all fixed from being sideways which I will correct as I upload.

Last time I updated I left off when I had gotten my patch panels, so I'll pick up from there when we started replacing the bad pieces of the driver bedside. It was super cold so this wasn't a whole lot of fun, even if I did a whole lot of watching during the welding process.

Here is a before, during, and after of the first patch which took some time to complete. These were cut from the patch I purchased from Jegs which covered an impressive amount of the bedside.

Sorry for the lack of photos for the updates to come, it was super cold and I didn't pull my phone out much in the garage.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

It's crazy looking back on this thread, seeing how fast it makes things go by when a lot of these processes took days and sometimes multiple weekends.

The next patch wasn't entirely necessary however the panel was really beat up and there were tiny rust holes and "pock marks" throughout the area from the surface not being appropriately prepared for the bondo. This area still needs some hammer and dolly work but it's better off with this patch for sure.

We replaced both the inner part of the fender, outer, and a couple of areas inside of the bed. We found that the door patch we had used earlier had the same bend.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Sorry if that seemed like a rush, but I really just didn't take too many photos! Did not want to take my gloves off and I was really tired of all the body work. Here is an overview shot of the bed floor after the welding was done for the most part.


Now it was finally time to get around to some of those Christmas goodies, and man did I have some great Christmas goodies! First thing on the menu was changing out my rear leaf springs, which I bought from https://www.thesuspensionking.com/ and were partnumber CHE50 I believe. They are the 4+1 1950 lb rated spring pack. The springs themselves were cheap however shipping was not and they arrived with some heavy duty sticky tape. The tape made the painting process WAY longer than it should have due to all the residue, I ended up giving up and painting over a lot of it.

I needed new springs because my truck was sagging towards the gas tank. I thought these springs would give me a small lift with the flip kit - don't get me wrong, they did.. just not very much I think I gained 0.25" of lift. I was looking for an inch or inch and a half. I should have bought a 1" lift set.


In that last picture you might notice something cool, that something cool also is why this process took a lot longer and we ended up removing springs, adding springs, removing springs, and adding springs again in one day. It wasn't too fun.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

If you weren't able to tell in the last post, that cool thing in the corner of the photo was a part of some caltracs I am fitting onto my truck! :metal:

After letting the springs dry for a day and repacking them, we ran into an issue on the install. The overload was in the way on the bar of the caltracs. I for one have some small plans to still use this truck and I didn't want to take the overloads off my new springs, so I had my dad cut them. The clearance right now is scary but it will do for now until we see what it looks like with some weight on the front end.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

There are two more Christmas goodies to share! The next one are the bedrails, and man do I love the bedrails. Believe it or not, my dad and I had run into a set of bedrails prior to my knowledge about the truck and starting the restoration process. The conversation went a bit like this.

Dad: "Look, those are bedrails - and they're for your truck!"
Me: "Bedrails, why would I want bedrails?"
Dad: "They're cool and original?"
Me: "Do they need holes in the bed?"
Dad: "Uhhhhh... yep."

Annnnnnnnd... then they got left for garbage. Few months later I'm buying a set for $100's on ebay. This set hasn't been altered but the driver side set isn't equally spaced and there's about an inch difference for some reason between the posts. It did come with every gasket however the bolts are mixed and need to be replaced. Some are hex and some are phillips.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Very sweet setup with the bed rails definitely a rare option and very nice to have!

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Time for some back peddling, I saved the best (and the worst) for last. My parents were out of town and they visited a big car show down in Florida and a few months later an awesome gift had arrived - a set of cragars. There's one issue with the cragars. They don't quite fit. They look awesome but the back spacing is off on the rear and I have no idea if they will fit on the front, I do know it will need a spacer.

I plan on trying to use them, the tires that are available for a 15x10 for daily driving are cheap anyways. I'll just have to check to see if my fender is digging in or not. My dad and I are a bit optimistic and think with weight on the front end the bed wont be so low. If they don't work out then I'll sand and refinish the polished aluminum ones that came off while there's no tire mounted.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

So, for awhile the truck didn't have much progress made. I have been waiting for the cab to come back from the body shop so things can finally start going back on and we can stay busy this Summer.

With all the free time I had, I had time to think.. and I mean REALLY think, Big Block sized thoughts and ideas. I checked craigslist everyday for a deal on a 454, at first kind as a joke and slowly becoming a reality. Sometime later I found one, surprisingly big blocks aren't that common on my local craigslist without costing a small fortune.

I somehow talked my dad into a 2 hr drive up into Ohio to pickup a block for $500, and to weld up an engine cradle out of an old bedframe. We quickly learned they were powdercoated and hardened steel. It wasn't fun, especially at 10 pm the night before the trip.


It held up me and my dad pretty well but I don't think us with a bare small block compares to a complete iron head big block.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

We left out the next morning at about 6 A.M and took a quick drive up to Dayton, OH for this block. It was advertised as a block out of a 1982 truck and had about 112,000 miles.

It was about $700 by the time I left as I also bought a Edelbrock Performer RPM intake from him for about $200. He also tossed in a sliding back window and a AM/FM radio. I am convinced he threw the radio in because he knew what was to come.

We couldn't get the block to turn but he assured us it had never been sitting outside and he had a reasonable explanation for why it was pulled however I've since forgotten.

Here's the greasy block and our travel companion. He's gotten a lot bigger since you all saw him last!

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

We spent the ride back thinking about what we were going to do with this block. The original plan was that I was going to run the 454 stock with the peanut port heads, we were just going to refresh it like we did with my small block. New gaskets, seals, maybe the camshaft.. but since the block didn't turn we knew it would need more just not what.

Soon as we got home I hopped in the back of the truck with my dad and we started to take it apart, we don't have an engine hoist readily available so there's not a chance we could pick up a complete cast iron 454 off a 3/4 ton truck.

What was found was not good.


We still took it apart and planned to use it regardless, I think most people would have pitched it then and there but we're special and like a challenge.. apparently.

This is the last photo I took that day, most likely because my hands were too greasy to grab the phone.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Yikes.. heads up tho! Big block are a big PITA and rightfully so. Just keeping believeing in the rumble she'll have in the future and all the curse words and machine shop bills will be worth it

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

That looks pretty gross, but as long as it isn't cracked it can be brought back to life.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

I plan on catching this thread up to speed later tonight but I figured I would take the time now to ask about headers for a big block. I think I am going to give the ebay stainless headers a shot and try to mate them up with my pipe using those header buddies. Does anyone have any suggestions? I found a thread talking about these cheapie ebay headers but it's 6-7 years old and about small blocks.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-St...NXmvLG&vxp=mtr

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=412188

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Time for a little more catch up! After seeing the condition of the big block and some thinking, we decided that we were in fact going to build it and this was going to be Blue's new heart. We rolled out the 350 from the corner of the garage and did some dusting and decided to post it on Craigslist. (for those just joining, this is not the original block. My truck had an inline 6 from factory.)

It sold in less than 24 hours for around $600. I guess cleaning and painting goes a long way when you're selling. It was just a previously rebuilt 2 bolt main 350 with 400 heads. Mileage unknown.


I also sold those pretty hedman headers I purchased earlier, some swirl port vortec heads, and a few other odds and ends on eBay.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

We got in contact with an old friend of my dads here locally and asked if we could bring in our block to get cleaned. He let us come in one Friday to get everything cleaned up, I think it cost $85. It's kinda cool how well everything cleans up.


Some of the guys at the shop were saying they never saw rods that looked like that before, my dad said it was because in the factory they took off too much material and brass was added to even them out.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Well, if you haven't noticed yet we don't have our own shop. Since we don't have our own shop and the work is being done by ourselves (+ this is a huge learning process for myself) it is really hard to find time get the block work done.

I'd estimate that it took us about a month before we started to touch the block again. Here is what we accomplished in the meantime.

We made a trip or two to Lowe's for some casters and bought some treated fence posts and we had plans to remove the bed in a similar way we removed the cab. Here's a really crap photo of the frame we made.


The following weekend we rolled out the frame for the first time since the Cab was removed from the truck. We did a very necessary cleaning to the entire garage (I hate bondo dust) and picked up the bed by ourselves (it was really heavy) and struggled it onto the "dolly" with minimal injury. Take note that the casters are not on.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Annnnd this is why the casters were not mounted yet. We had come up with a plan to mount the bed standing up however we forgot to measure and could quickly tell that it was not going to fit in the garage like that and I had planned on scraping off all of the undercoat for it to be replaced by bedliner. We bought a lot of wood and cut even more into useless sizes for a whole lot of nothing as the final decision was to stand it up on some ply wood for now.


I'll be back sometime soon to update the project further. For now I will leave you all with a question. In your opinion, what would be the best front bumper option for this truck? I have a set of chrome bumper guards and the rubber inserts. I'm kind of leaning towards a body color bumper with the inserts as that look isn't taken on too much. Thoughts?

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I really hate undercoat, almost as much as I hate removing it.


So, just like before on the cab I also discovered rust on the underside of the bed. Awesome! After taking a close look at it we should have just replaced the whole part instead of just the bottom (which we had done before the bed was off.) I poked out all the holes and circled them until my dad and I could come down to a decision.


For some reason almost all of the rust we have found, besides what was under the battery tray, was all on the driver side. We think maybe because this is the side towards the center of the road. Opinions?? Here's what the other side looks like.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Now, I'm not sure just how well this encapsulator works but I figured a little bit is better than nothing. While that piece was cut out from the fender well I poked my phone up there with the camera and it was scaley scaley! I put a big leather glove on and went at it the best I could with a cheap wire brush and then stuck this can in there with a nozzle. It did a pretty good job at coating everything.


For some reason I didn't take a photo of the inside of the bedside, maybe because it was wet. In my last photo you can see it got all the way up inside of the bedrails as it oozed out from the holes previous owners drilled and the ones for my nice rails.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Keep at it!! It's coming along great.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Thanks!

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Hey, it looks good. I cant wait until your finished. I am working on the same truck as we speak. I'm running a LSx swap 5.3/4L60E. I don't think my truck will turn out as good as yours though.

Re: The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.
 

Cool truck, nice stance. Thanks!