Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

looking forward to it:metal:

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Well yesterday was a holiday for school and work. So after I finished up a few things at the rent house (another place to dump money into), Owen and I cleaned up the shop on moved Henry inside for some changes.

First, here is what we started with, lets see if we can do something with the stance...

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

We got Henry in the shop and set on jack stands and the wheels off so that we could start our work. Owen worked on all the bolts holding the rear suspension in place while I worked on getting the front torn down.

This truck is relatively clean underneath, and we are not going to do some of the clean and paint right now for various reasons. Time being the main one...

The front was well lubed and the parts are in good shape. The shocks and ball joints are all OE parts still. We will do a front suspension rebuild in the future and paint all these parts then.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Once we had it apart, I moved over to help Owen with the rear flip kit. We got it all but bolted back together. The U-Bolt plates need a clearance hole added and I was not up to the task to do it on my drill press. I broke out the torch to burn a hole, but no acetalene...

Lucky for Owen, he does not have school today because of snow & ice in our area. I'll get the plates cut tonight and the rear bolted back together to finish off that end.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

While Owen was still working on the rear, I was able to attack the front and get it torn down for the new spindles and cutting a coil off.

This thing has many OE parts on the front. Looks like the brake hoses and pads have been changed, but the rest looks OE. The ball joints are tight and the shocks, well they will need to be replaced soon.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

I got that far and pulled off the front to assist with the springs in the rear. Once those were in place, Owen started putting bolts back in and I went to cut the front springs. We decided to only cut 1/2 a coil at this time since we where not real sure how much clearance we would loose...Got that down and started putting the front back together.

Out with the old stock spindles, in with the new CPP 2.5" Drop Spindles...

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Got the front all put back together with the cut springs and the new spindles. That's when...

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

I bought the wrong freaking spindles...I got the ones for the 1.25" rotor, Henry has 1.0" rotors. Since it has to get back together tonight, I get to replace the good calipers, pads, rotors, and bearings with all new stuff!

Lesson here kids is to check the details I make sure you order the right parts to avoid delays and extra costs...I should know better...

I have done a bunch of these in the past, but the truck always needed brakes, so I always just upgraded them to the 1.25" rotor set ups. This truck was not needing brakes and I just assumed it was a 1.25" set up. It never occurred to me to look to make sure before I ordered the spindles...Lesson learned, the expensive way...

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

aggie91 you might as well go ahead a whack the other 1/2 coil off now, it will be too high in the front if you don't. And if you're not completely finished with rear you can gain about a 1/2 more drop by removing the overload leaf out of the pack. Then it will get you sitting right on the money.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

You're probably right on the front. Its my boy's truck and with him never driving a lowered truck before, we thought we would get him some seat time before we go the whole coil. For the rear, it only has the 3 leaves plus the overload leaf. Since we still need to use it as a truck every now and then, we will be keeping the overload in place for now. We aren't going with 20's yet, just sticking to 15" rally's for now.

I know you have a great formula for setting the stance on these trucks and each one of yours I have seen in here look great. We eventually plan to do the full treatment that you typically do on your C10's. Just the weather is not helping and he has to be able to drive to school in the morning...

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Well here is the picture of the front to where we got to on Monday night...the bright glow in the lower left corner is my flexible LED strip that I use as a shop light. I use a couple of paper binder clips to attach it around the wheel well lip so it lights up the whole inner fender area. Works great!

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Well, I left work at about 4:30 yesterday to pick up all the new brake parts we needed to make up for me ordering the wrong spindle. Got to the parts store to find out they are closing at 6:00 yesterday because of the weather conditions. Well that one AZ store did not have all the parts I needed. Ran across the street to the O'Reilly's for the last part, lucky for me they had it, and they are closing at 6 too.

Got home with all the parts, unboxed the rotors and set them aside, checked the calipers to make sure the hardware was all there, good to go. I took the bearings along with some rubber gloves and the wheel bearing grease inside the house where it was warm. Got all the bearings packed and headed back out to the shop to throw the front brakes together while Owen finished up the rear shocks and rechecked all the bolts.

Started putting in the bearing into the first rotor...Dang it...The AZ store sold me the wrong inner bearings. Its past 6 so we are done for the night. Back to AZ after work today to exchange them for the correct inner bearings. They are getting two pre-packed bearings from me...

...to be continued tonight in the cold shop...

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Well, after getting AZ to realize that their system was wrong and it called for the wrong bearings, I got the correct ones. They where actually $2 less for the correct ones...

Got home, packed the bearings and did the install. Got the front brakes bled and all was good. Put Henry down on the ground and rolled him out of the shop. Brakes felt good (Better than before the swap!), and because of the snow and ice, almost did not get him out of the back yard. Owen was able to drive to school on Thursday which was actually his first day back because of the weather closures. He got a few thumbs up that day from a variety of people, so that made all the work in the cold and the frustrations worth it for him. In the rush to get it on the road, we did not cut off the bump stops in the rear, that makes for stiff ride. Looks like we get to do that over the weekend.

Friday was about my daughter, Katie, she is a Level 9 competitive gymnast and it was her first meet of the season in Irving. She placed 4th in the all around and scored high enough to qualify for the State meet in March at her first event, so that takes some pressure off for the rest of the season.

While at the meet, I get a call from the City water department where we have a currently vacant rent house that I am getting ready for new tenants to move in next weekend. Seems a pipe broke during the freeze, a neighbor saw the water running out of the yard and called the city. They turned off the water and called me to let me know. Looks like that is what I get to work on for the weekend. So nothing is going to happen with the truck this weekend, Owen will have to deal with the stiff ride a few more days.

Saturday, Owen and I went to the rent house, found the broken pipe, repaired that and he worked on setting posts for a section of privacy fence. Once the pipe was fixed, turned on the water and we find a new leak :banghead: Well, the local hardware store does not have what I need to fix that leak. So, Owen and I finished setting the fence posts in concrete and called it a day.

Sunday, Owen works at the church so his day is full. I skip church and run to Lowe's to get what I need to fix the leak and reset the hot water heater since the leak is behind it. Also, picked up the rest of the items needed to finish the fence. I head out to the house and get it all fixed and the fence installed. One small thing to do in the house and It will be ready for the new tenants. I will do that on Wednesday...:exit:

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Well I posted a before pic of the truck, so here is an after pic.

We did a flip kit in the rear, factory 4 leaf spring pack, shock relocators for the lower mount. The front is a 2.5" CPP drop spindle and cut a half coil. I forgot to remove the rear bump stops from the frame, so it is kinda sitting on those in the pic. I will come down a bit in the back once we get those out of the way. Once that is done, we will evaluate it and potentially cut another half coil off the front.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Been slacking a bit on getting this thread updated. Been out of town a bunch these last few weeks and the weather around here as not been good for working on a color change for the interior.

A couple of weeks ago we pulled all the trim parts and headliner out to get the color change started and a new headliner. All the parts are in really good shape except for the seat belt anchor covers, they are pitted and dried out horribly. I coated them, but they still look like hell, will have to get some replacements.

Pictures, 1. All the parts out and laying on the prep table. 2. A-piller covers in the new color (both of these had cracks in them, I had another set in great shape so we color changed those). 3. One of the B-pillers on top of a kickpanel to show the difference in the old color vs. new color.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Nice. That looks like the same color used for my dually.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

The progress is fantastic. That color is going to bring the interior to life.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Looks good, I like the the darker tan. Those seatbelt anchors are easy to get at any of the online truck sites, like LMC. They will be black, but your painting them anyways.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Went home for lunch to let the dogs out and took advantage of that and got a 2 more trim pieces painted. Also snapped a picture of the new headliner with one of the B-pillers. I think this is going to turn out really nice once we get it all together. For LST, the seat will just be covered with a saddle blanket cover until we get enough money saved for a proper seat reupholstering in matching material. We are going to reuse the stock carpet since its in pretty good shape, I might try to die it to match the new color depending on costs and time before LST.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Thanks for the replies and checking in on our little project.

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

that's a nice color! looking great!

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Good stuff! Enjoyin the thread!

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Looking good. Will follow in on the interior work. Looks close to the same color that I'm gonna do on the 1978. Mike

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Well, not much progress over the weekend, weather did not help to be able to paint interior parts. Owen did get the dash pad out and started cleaning under the dash pad area and the insides of the doors. I have 2 trim pieces that I have to recoat, tried to paint them, but the humidity was too high and they blushed. Still shooting to have it back together for LST, we are going to drive Henry down, interior or not...

Re: Henry - 1984 C10
 

Progress has been slow on Henry. Lots going on in our lives right now.

Anyway, Owen got the sun visors died to match and got the door panels died also. We install the sun visors, but that's about it for now. We really need new trim for the door panels and the upholstered piece needs to be redone.

I got the drivers door window harness up grade installed and it works, but the motor or regulator binds when moving the window up. I have another motor and regulator so when time allows I will swap that out to see if it fixes the issue. Below are some pictures of the door panels we have died in the new color.

When I do the passenger door window harness upgrade, I will do a better job taking pictures and doing a step by step to put those in...