'71ish K10 restoration

[Papaloo]

So I've been trolling this forum since I bought my '71ish K10 project back in October and I thought I would post on here to share it.

I bought this as a partially restored truck with a supposedly rebuilt engine (fewer than 50 miles), but from what I've seen so far, I'll be redoing most of the work. I bought this near Allentown PA and unfortunately, the dash board gauges were not hooked up and unbeknownst to me, the heater core had a slight leak and combined with the wrong radiator (only 40% the size it should've been) the truck overheated on the way home stranding me on the side of the road. It is kind of a funny story though because a friend was following me in his '05 Focus and his alternator died the same time my truck overheated and we coasted off to the side of the interstate together.

Anyways, when I got the truck home, I drained the oil and sent a sample for analysis. It came back with no antifreeze in it, so I decided to refill the oil with 10w-40 and keep a close eye on it. I took it for about a 2 mile drive and the oil pressure started to gradually drop at constant RPM. At that point I decided to rebuild the engine. Once it was apart, I could see that the person I bought it from either confused the terms engine rebuild with engine repaint, or he put new parts into a very dirty engine. I had to scrape sludge and carbon build up from around the head bolts so I could get a socket on them. The heads were the 462624 heads (better served as boat anchors), the crank was scored from all the junk in the block and the piston skirts were scored from the overheating. This didn't leave much worth salvaging. I decided to install a 383 Eagle Street Performance rotating assembly with a cast steel crank. The block is currently at the machine shop getting properly cleaned, machined and clearanced for the 383 kit.

While that is going on, I've pulled the SM 465 tranny and I'm in the process of rebuilding that. It had the common urge to pop out of third gear and the shifter slop along with plenty of whine above 30mph. I'm going to also rebuild the NP205 T-case while it's easily accessible.

As for the body, there are plenty of dents and poorly done bondo spots on the bed, but that was visible when I bought the truck. The cab supposedly had the body work finished, just a new paint job. But, too bad for me, when I went to remove the transmission hump to get the tranny out, I found that the bench seat was only held in by 4 loose nuts. Following that, I found that the transmission hump had quite a bit of slathered on bondo covering holes (including bare bondo on the underside of the cover to act as a handy sponge). To top that off, I noticed daylight coming up through the edge of the floor pan. He had installed a new floor pan, but had only tacked it in about every 8" and hadn't even bothered with any seam sealer...

So, now begins my full frame up restoration. I'm thinking I might finish in 4-6 years. Until then, my woefully underpowered 2003 GMC Sonoma gets a stay of execution.

Oh, a little about me. My name is Dave and I'm a 25 year old mechanical engineer living just outside Philadelphia. I never had anyone really teach me about cars growing up, but I have a very mechanical mind and enjoy tinkering.