Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

No thanks, I have one already. ;)
http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g2...312_162057.jpg

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Great idea on the truck ralley wheel FAQ thread!

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Thought you might like it. I'll just be plagiarizing your posts anyway :lol:

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Took a little break from 'mechanic-ing' to do some wood work. Decided I liked the look of a wood bed, so I ordered up some rough cut, clear SYP(southern yellow pine) and made a bed floor out of it. This is the wood that these trucks came from the factory with, is durable, reasonably priced, and I won't be afraid to throw crap in the back of the truck like I would with expensive wood. I paid $70 for the stack of lumber and spent a few hours ripping, cutting, and grooving the planks. MUCH better, in my opinion, than spending $3-400 on a pre-made kit.

Here's a few shots of what I started with, and some of the work in progress :chevy:

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Here's a few more of the 'complete' floor. I had to lay it on top of the steel foor to see what it will look like. I gotta say- it looks sweet! :metal:

I used the dimensions from GMCPauls website combined with some from Mar-K, since I'm using their bed strips. All cuts were made with a table saw and a miter saw at the local Air Force base's wood shop. This could have easily been done at home if I'd had the tools, but my garage is full of stuff used to work on cars... :smoke:

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

looks good. What did you do to address the rear where the tailgate steps up to the raised bed?

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

With the gate down, there will be a 3" step there. Not much that could be done other than fabricating a custom set of hinges, I guess :confused: Good thing the truck is low enough to just drop stuff in over the bedsides :lol:

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Wood floor looks GREAT!

Are you going to stain it?

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

very nice! Love the look of a wood bed!!!

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

nice work

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Any plans to space the wood up off the metal floor?
I wondered about water/moisture being trapped between the two.

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

I have a little bit different than the 'normal' resto plans for this one. We'll see what happens, as I'm prone to changing my mind frequently ;)
Thanks, me too!
Thanks!
Yeah, I have pondered using some sort of cross strips, but don't want to eat up all of my raised floor space. I can probably spare a 1/4 inch without missing it though. If I decide to bolt the wood to the steel floor, it will get painted and probably rubberized undercoating.
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Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Paging P.Tina . . ..... paging P.Tina.....
Is there a P.Tina in the house?
:)

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Never met her, but I do like the idea of not having to worry about every little scratch, chip, or door ding ;)
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Edit: I also hear she's cheap, low-maintenance, and doesn't mind hanging out in the Wal-Mart parking lot...

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Been playing with the truck a little bit more the last couple of days. I spent way more time than I care to share getting the fan shroud aligned- VERY little clearance around the clutch fan on my serp setup- but now it's done and installed for the last time :chevy: Also finished up the underhood wiring, spent a ton of time chasing down a new lower radiator hose (do you guys' LAPSs suck as bad as mine do? <--rhetorical question), and finished up the last few things on the front suspension which included welding up a wallowed-out upper shock mount hole and finished installing my 1.25" sway bar and poly bushings (more leftovers from the Blazer), which makes the front suspension officially DONE except getting it aligned :metal: Unfortunately, none of this is really picture worthy...

Buuuut, you can't have an update without pics, so I'll stick a few up of my 'new' brake booster and bracket assembly with the new master cylinder installed, which also shows the rad and shroud installed (I know, nothing to look at, but I am happy that stinking shroud is installed :smoke:). I went with a '68 3/4 ton booster to reap the benefits of dual diaphragm and still be able to use the '71-'72 1/2 ton disc/drum master cylinder. Most guys when upgrading will use the '71-'72 3/4 ton booster, which will only accept the C20 master cylinder. I also prefer the look of the earlier unit's shorter, straighter bracket. I don't like the 'lean' the later trucks' master cylinders have.

Almost forgot, since I snapped the end off of one of my tranny cooler lines while removing the radiator, and the other had a compression fitting already patching it, plus the fact that they were a mangled, PO hand bent mess, I decided to bend up a new set. Used a couple of 6' lengths of 5/16" pre-flared steel line from Advance- like $3 each. What a pain, but MUCH cleaner, better looking, and safer than before. Also, in the process of installing the new brake booster assembly, I dropped the steering column and figured while it was out, I might as well 'shorten' it 3" (Thanks for the write-up, Putter) to give me some elbow room (I'm 6'6")...

All in all, the progress feels good, but I think I should have accomplished more given the time spent. Seemed like everything was fighting me the whole way, one problem after another, but that's how it goes sometimes- hopefully the next round will go a little more smoothly and be more pic-worthy :cool:

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Great work as usual.
I bet those tranny lines were fun,...

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Those are great pics of the bed, I never realized how simple they are. Should've known I guess. Oh and good job on the shroud too!;)

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Nice work, love the bed wood!!

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Yeah, 'fun' is definitely the word :waah:
Thanks! Waaaaay too much time in that silly thing...
Thanks, hope to be installing it soon :)

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Little bit more progress today... Started by bleeding the brakes to complete yesterday's booster/MC replacement. Wrapped up the last of that messy-ness and moved on to the interior, a MUCH cleaner place to work :)

Below is what I started with and basically set about gutting the interior from there :ito: Upon pulling the carpet, I was pleasantly surprised to find only surface rust and NO rot whatsoever. Plenty of holes from POs drilling for various things, though :whine:

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Next, I set about taking care of what little rust I did find lurking. I started by using the shop-vac to remove all of the loose dirt and then attacked it with CLR. This stuff rocks! :metal:

It took care of most of the rust and even got back to bare metal in a few places. Whatever didn't come up with the CLR was wire brushed and hit with rust converter and then coated in rust encapsulator. This will hopefully keep it away, for a while at least...

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Gringo,
Where did you mount the prop valve? I'm guessing on the cross member 73 and later style?

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Looking good man! Nice floor on that truck!!!

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

I also tore into the dash, spending a bunch of time tearing it apart, removing the heater components in preparation for the Classic Auto Air kit, and re-wiring quite a bit as I went through it. At least with the seat out, I was fairly comfortable lying on my back working under the dash :chevy:

While I was in there, I replaced the dash cluster circuit. I did it with the cluster in place, as with the recently 'shortened' column, it is impossible to remove the cluster without dropping the column, which I didn't feel like doing two days in a row. Actually wasn't to bad to do the swap behind the dash, just a little tight, but nice to have the other components removed. Check out the old circuit- amazing I hadn't started a fire :devil:

Also got around to mocking up the new floor covering (sorry, no pic- but, soon) and the new shifter, as I have always hated the silly Mega-Shifter. This is NOT a '70s Camaro- not that there's anything wrong with that, I just don't prefer the slot mags and air shocks look. If you look back on the earlier pics you'll also see a barefoot pedal to go with the '90s stepside bed- this truck was a true 'custom'- just needed a 'Heartbeat' logo somewhere :rolleyes: The Lokar is well made and the perfect height, but will require some more head scratching before it is permanently installed- clearances are tight with the 700r4 in the tunnel...

Re: How to: Ruin a perfectly good C10
 

Yes, it is mounted exactly as a '73-'87 truck would be. I was VERY tempted to bend new lines for it, but restrained myself due to time concerns, so I just painted them black; it will leave me something to do after the truck is 'done' ;) I need this thing road-worthy by mid-June...
Thanks! I was happy to find so little cancer lurking under the carpet, as I knew it had been wet before and wasn't sure what to expect.