Sydney's '68

[ekgguy]

I bought this 1968 LWB C10 off of craigslist for $1500. It is going to be a daily driver for my 16 year old daughter as soon as she gets her license. She gets her permit tomorrow and has to have it for 6 months before she can get her license, so I have a little while to work on the truck.

Here are some pics of what I am starting with:


Bringing it home. We had been looking for almost 6 months and found one less than an hour away.


Trusty ole in-line 6 with the 3 speed manual on the column. I havent found out if it is the 250 or 292 yet.


Looks like it was a work truck, it has a bare bones interior with no amenities.


It has a little damage to the cab / bed that is either going to have to be fixed or replaced.


And you cant see it too well here, but there is about a 1 foot square hole in the bed that will have to be repaired.

But other than that is is pretty straight and rust free.


All the trim pieces are there and everything is pretty straight.

LIke I said, I had been looking for a while and everything that I found was in pieces or was someone elses project. The entire reason I bought this one is that when I got to see it the first time, the guy walks out, puts the key in the ignition, turns if over and it started right up. And does so still. Plus, all the lights work, turn signals, high and low beams, horn, etc. Finally, all the class is in perfect condition. Not so much as a bulls-eye in the front windsheild.

[ekgguy]

Here is the build plan as it is so far.

Phase 1

1. Replace the in-line 6 and 3 speed manual with a 350/350 or 350/400 combo, depending on what I find in the next week or so.
1a. I will be putting the original motor / transmission on an enging stand and storing it in the corner of the garage just in case I ever decide to go back original with it.
1b, I currently have in my posession a 1973 SB 350 out of a Chevelle SS. I was told that it was a 4 bolt main, but I am reserving judgement on that. I will start tearing that down this week and doing a complete rebuild on it with some mild upgrades which will include: 1. .030 over bore on the block, I think that is it going to need it. 2. High volume oil pump. 3. Flat top pistons. 4. Lunati Voodoo cam and lifters, probably 60103 as I have had pretty good luck with that cam in the past. 4. I have a set of 2.02 angle plug heads. 5. Victor Jr. Intake. 6. Holley 750 carb. 7. Mallory electronic ignition. 8. Headers and flowmasters with turn-downs right before the axles.
1c. Transmission will be sent out to be rebuilt. I know nothing about then nor do I pretend to.

2. New brakes, tie-rod ends, check all the bushings and ball joints and replace as needed.
3. Drive it for a month or so that way to get all the kinks out of it. Make sure that there is nothing else that needs to be fixed or replaced.
4. Start the body work on it. Once that is all completed it will end up with the factory colors of Varsity Blue and White. Blue on top and bottom, white in the middle.

[ekgguy]

Phase 2

1. 6 lug to 5 lug conversion. Probably a 2 or 3 inch drop on the back just to level it our.

2. Nice rims and tires and let her drive it until she graduates.

Phase 3 (After graduation)

She goes off to college and it becomes Daddy's Toy.

1. BBC with GM 6-71 blower
2. Powerglide
3. Narrowed Rearend
4. Mickey Thompsons
5. Fuel Injection????

(insert Tim Taylor here..... ugh, ugh, ugh)

to be cont...........

[1967wannabe]

Looks like a great starting point.......now if I could just get going on mine!

[ekgguy]

So, I got most of the enging tore down today. I have seen better and I have seen worse. I think that the heads got the worse end of the deal. The rotating assembly looks pretty solid. They are going to need a dip in the tank for sure if they are worth using. I posted a question over in the engine section about them if anyone has any ideas.....

As I thought before, this is NOT a 4-bolt main block. Imagine that, buying something from craigslist that wasnt what is was supposed to be. Oh well, I am not building a race motor anyway, so 2-bolt mains should work just fine.

I will post some pics later.

[zammer]

Your daughter is a lucky girl! Sweet
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[ekgguy]

Thanks.

[Hotrob72]

Let her get her hands dirty right along with ya, memories in the making that will last for ever.

[ekgguy]

Well, setback #1. Took the 350 block and crank to the machine shop today and basically I have two different shaped boat anchors. Turns out that not only was the 350 not a four bolt main out of a truck like I had already discovered, but it has been bored .040 over already. With the surface rust and the cylinders that were rusted in place, we would have to bore and sleeve every cylinder. I guess the heads should have been a warning to me of things to come. Link to Head Thread: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=512910

In the interests of time and money, I am going to re-evaluate my plan and do some backtracking and shuffling of how I wanted to build this truck.

Since I have a running I6, I am going to rebuild that and put an automatic transmission behind it for now. Then I will restart the build process.

I am going to do a little research and maybe start a new thread to see how to build a cool little I6.

[ekgguy]

Update.....

Things have changed "just a little" since the original plan. Bought a few more parts, sold a few "boat anchors" and I am just biding my time waiting for the machine shop and a few more deliveries from the gentlemen in brown.

Here is where what started out as a mild mannered build has made a few drastic left turns.

Bought a new short block. 350 that was already 30 over. This one is most definately a 4 bolt main. Going to go ahead and bore it to 60, line hone it and do all of the things that it needs.

New steel crank, 60 over pistons (dish to keep the compression as close to 10:1 as I can), new rods (x beam), new balancer and new flywheel, all balanced and blueprinted.

Found a set of '67 Corvette heads (462 casting) that had been mildly ported and polished with 2.02 / 1.60 valves. They have 64cc combustion chambers, hence the need for the dished pistons.


Waiting impatiently for the Lunati 60102 cam / lifter kit. I will order the pushrods when I get the motor together. They are going to be topped off with a set of Roller Rockers and Edelbrock Elite series valve covers.


Top half will consist of and Edlebrock 750cfm carb and a Victor Jr. Intake

Never used an Edlebrock carb before, but I couldnt refuse the price. We shall see.
You can also see the shifter in the pic. A Hurst ratchet shifter that I picked up at a swap meet couple of weekends ago.

I will probably go with a Mallory ignition system or may just stick with the HEI, not sure yet.

All this will run through a THM400 with a shift kit.

Hopefully, more pics later this week when I pick up the heads and block from the maching shop and actually start building this thing.

[Tinkermc]

looks like 1 lucky girl until Daddy catches her boy friend driving it. Sounds like a great starter truck have fun and make her and yourself proud.

[ekgguy]

That would be the quickest way to lose a truck AND a boyfriend.
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[ekgguy]

Soooooooo....., the truck is still pretty much as when we bought it. Havent done anything to it except a little body mending.

I have had such bad luck trying to get a decent SBC engine that wasnt going to cost me an arm and a leg worth of machine work and rebuilding. I dont remember it being this hard when I used to build them.

Anyway, I have pretty much scrapped the idea of going with an old school SBC and have decided to go with the newer stuff.

I now have in my possession a running 2002 6.0L LQ9 motor and 4L80e transmission from a rolled Escalade, along with the complete wiring harness, computer, exhaust manifolds and exhaust pipes including the converters and )2 sensors. I have the radiator and hoses, instrument cluster, fuel tank including fuel pump and filter.

I am doing to do a lot of searching before I start asking questions because I am sure that someone on here has done this conversion or something like it.

[daves72C10D]

Sorry to hear you had such bad luck with a 350 set up. The 6.0l sounds good. About 10 years ago a girls dad fixed up a '69 SWB fleet and painted it yellow for her to drive to HS and around. Like everybody said, your daughter will be a lucky girl. Good luck.

[widewhite70]

Excellent first ride for her! looks like you found a good starting platform

[ekgguy]

So I have finally gotten the time and money to get some stuff done.

1. We took the steering column out and slid it back to where it almost touched the dashboard.

Before



After




This isn't a very good picture, but here is where we took out the length.

[ekgguy]

After setting the steering wheel back against the dash, I still needed a little more room. So, we pulled the entire interior out (sounds like a big endeavor, but most was gone already and look what we found...




A little bit of rust and a couple of holes... Not too bad, but enough.

Anyway, we took out the bench seat to replace it with some bucket from an '05 Silverado

Here is my nephew making sure they work



The seat install wasn't as easy as some of the ones I read, but it wasn't too hard either.

We started out by taking all of the stock mounting brackets off of the seat frames...




When you remove the stock mounting brackets it frees up several good mounting holes in the sliding portion of the seat frame. We got the seats in where we wanted them and then just marked and drilled holes in the floorboard.






We used some bolts that were left over from the removal of an old class III tow hitch along with some of the spacers from the same hitch to mount inside the seat rails.

I don't have any pics of the under side yet but we cleaned it all off with a wire wheel and welded 4 x 4 steel squares to the floorpan and then used some Loctite as insurance

Here is what we came up with in the end.



As you can see, we also moved the shifter from the column to the floor and put a smaller 14" steering wheel in place of the stock 17". That gives me the room that I need to be able to get in and drive her which is exactly what I did today after getting this...



And anyone that has done this with their kids, knows that after dads turn, they are next...

[67cheby]

great start, looking forward to your progress !

[Hardesty454]

Wow, this sounds like a fun project. Too bad about all the bad small blocks. The 6.0 should be fun wiring up. Good luck!

[ekgguy]

I have been looking all over the Houston and surrounding areas for a new bed. The one that I have as can bee seen in previous pictures was a little crumpled and the floor looked like swiss cheese.

We took a little vacation to Stratford, OK last week and on the OK City craigslist up there, found this:







Guy up there had bought it for his project and then wrecked the truck before getting to use it.

Best part...... $100

Problem..... getting it back to Texas. I guess that is a good problem.

[ekgguy]

I thought that I had updated this thread after getting the bed, but I guess not. So....

Since the bed was in Oklahoma, I grabbed a buddy of mine with a truck / trailer and we loaded up the wives and cooler and made the 600 mile round trip to pick up the bed.

[ekgguy]

Got it home and started taking all of the extra parts (light fixtures, tailgate mounting hardware, etc) that I will be using from my existing bed. Then we flipped it over and started cutting it out for the mini-tubs....





to make room for these

[ekgguy]

I decided instead of going out an buying pre-made tubs, why not just widen what is already there and give it a somewhat "stock" appearance. So that was my project for today.





Got both sides cut apart, tomorrow I will bolt the halves into their new homes and figure out how wide a patch panel I need then off to the sheet metal store.

[ekgguy]

Had a couple of days off in a row and did a little work on my other project and managed to get some time in on the bed.





Gave me an extra 11 1/2 inches of room.

Now I am looking for a good place north of Houston to get some sheet metal without having to go all the way to SSS steel in Houston.

If anyone knows of one, I am a little north of Kingwood.

[ekgguy]

Actually did this last weekend, just getting around to updating the thread. got the drivers side welded up and primed. Still have to do some trimming on the bed to get the wider tub to fit over the corregation of the bed. Working on the passenger side today.. kinda.





and the test fit...



I have also decided that if I ever have to depend on my welding skills to survive, I will starve.