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Oh, it's all very nice. Thanks for putting me on them Pete. They were fast and great. The black phosphate stuff was top notch, but the things that were the coolest were the movables on the zinc stuff...like the ball bearings in the ash tray, the spring and hinges on the hood latch...and my gosh all the hatch hardware. It looks better than new...and I sent em gungy stuff as you saw.

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Look what a little careful dissection revealed under the firewall grease pencil markings designating the model and just below the factory RED paint....I got a fever and the only prescription is more factory grease pencil marks.

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On the driver's side too.

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Parts arriving everyday...got some good stuff from Wes at Classic Heartbeat today, but the weekend won't be quite as busy since the frame return date got pushed back to next week. How about some firewall trauma repair pics in the meantime. That patch panel came from the same selfless 1970 GMC 1500 long bed that offered up our frame rail patch.

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Graft completed.

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Parts and firewall look great! Can't wait to see picture of rims, tires and hubcaps together.

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Oh the carnage.

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Unwrapped the GM crate engine. It came with a massive amount of paperwork. A mind numbing single sheet...which was either poorly translated or produced on a device without spell check.

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Why would there be such a big stack of bricks at a body shop?

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You've never heard of block sanding?

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...all together now: "AAAARGH!"

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When you locate a tubing stretcher, please let the rest of know. Lol

Just a little shop humor, i take it that those are "Kit" lines?

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Some of the sheetmetal carnage above appears usable. Are the bumpers that bad? I could use an OEM bumpers to re-chrome...

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Yep. InLine Tube. From what I've gathered from the board, they either fit the first time or the third time after you send your originals in to be copied...or after you go to O'Reilly's and bend and cut. I'm still just at the stage where photos of short lines are exchanged electronically and then stared at before the inevitable."your application is wrong, something has been changed, here just try these, your shipping is 75 dollars."

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Nope. Pretty decent actually. I can snap you some better pics if you'd like. A lot of that stuff is workable depending on the need. I wasn't going to post anything until the end though.

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That is extremely frustrating, I have been thinking of doing my own lines when I get to that point. After reading several threads I'm pretty sure I will do it myself, I've laid miles of tubing at work so tackling my own brake lines shouldn't be that much more difficult.:lol:

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No rush but please keep me in mind - I'd be interested in the bumpers. Need a rear for the K1500 and want a front for the K5 to use with a Hickey grill guard.

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You got it.

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Picked up almost all the powder coat stuff today. The weather has kept the frame from being completed...fingers crossed for tomorrow. Not nearly as productive a day as I'd hoped since I was off today. Intake on. Super nice OE valve covers from a 71 Arizona C-10. Got the U joints in the front axle shafts. Powder coat looked good, the ceramic coat on the exhaust manifolds looked outstanding. I'll try to snap some pics tomorrow.

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Good deal. Are you going to paint the motor Chevy orange or keep as is? Tomorrow I can pick up my freshly powder coated 15 x 8 steel wheels for the GMC. Seeing your valve covers tempts me to inquire about the cost of orange powder coating a spare set that I have - may be overkill.

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Definitely going to be orange. Going to try to make it look as factory as possible, hence the OE valve covers. Going to paint it with spark plug wire brackets, Water pump and harmonic balancer on. Pulleys, brackets, breather, heat stove tube, top radiator hose powder coated black. Manifolds ceramic coated cast gray. Heat riser tins ceramic coated silver.

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Funny thing...I ended up with 9 15x6 rims. Two turned out to be clearly incorrect. That left seven with the powder coater. I told him to pick out the best 5 and shoot them. He shot 6, but one didn't turn out to suit him. I took the five he had and got tires mounted. The tire shop called and said, "hey you know one of these rims is bent right?"

...so for the time being it's the spare and they'll re-shoot that sixth one when they get some more white stuff in to do.

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Great plan! Brilliant idea coating the heat riser tins btw. The rubber oil filler hole plug was also painted orange so might as well shoot that too.

Bummer about the bent wheel but at least you have other options. The powder coated set on my K5 now I also used briefly on my old K10 - I have to beat them off the front hubs for dismounting. They slip on fine and the rears on/off no sweat but up front a real tight bond between the wheels and the hubs develops. If you don't mind me asking, what is cost for one wheel in GA? In NM I've paid $65 and $90 per wheel, here it cost $65 (and no sales tax).

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I don't remember about the individual wheels. I think when I first called for a quote it was about 50-60 per wheel, but I could be off. I don't mind telling you that for the whole lot it was $1600. That's sandblasting frame and all prep. We powder coated: Frame, core support, engine brackets and pulleys, radiator tube, breather, heat riser tube, wheels, removable top brackets, oil filler tube, misc frame/radiator bracketry, front wheel dust shields.
ceramic coated: exhaust manifolds, heat riser tins

...and we had five colors. Gray powder coat for dust shield, white for wheels/top brackets, cast gray ceramic for exhaust, silver ceramic for hr tins, and semi gloss black for everything else.

They missed the color on the tins which they're correcting and I would really be surprised if they invoiced me to re-shoot that sixth rim. They're a local outfit, but I'd recommend them highly.

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That seems like a very fair price for all that work and given the differing colors. I suspect painting would've cost more.

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Most definitely. I had not planned to powder coat the frame. I was concerned about peeling over time...and some people complain about ground issues...but they were the least expensive media blaster, and he told me point blank on the phone if we blast it, I'll powder coat it for $150 more. How could I not?

...and they had come highly recommended to begin with. At first I was only going to powder coat my wheels, but they offered a lot of value.

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Forgot about this, which makes me think I forgot something else. They also powder coated my spare tire carrier and spare tire hardware.

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Had every intention of finishing buttoning up the front axle today, but it fought me at every turn. I have been a little disappointed in the ball joints. Everything is new Moog. None of the grease fittings threaded easily and the upper ball joint on the passenger's side has botched threads...I think I'm going to have to locate a die to clean it up.

I'll also get your guys opinion on the spindle nuts. I've seen so many different attitudes toward how to torque them in...anywhere from 50-75 ft lbs to set the preload on the bearing, 1/4 back then re-torque, all while spinning the hub. Then the outer nut to anywhere from 90-200 ft lbs.

When I initially torqued the inner nut, the hub got super tight at 50 and was pretty much locked down after that. I backed it off a 1/4 turn and then basically torqued it by feel based on the force required to rotate the hub. Then hammered down on the outer nut...am I goofing up?

I like the later model dust shield too. It's powder coated, and it matched the pieces we painted cast gray pretty well...that's another thing...it gets harder not to scratch paint the more aggravated you get.

Hopefully I'll have a complete axle by mid morning tomorrow.

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Ok, basically buttoned up save for torquing upper ball joints and sleeve insert. Gotta get an insert tool (not one of the parts box stores in town had one yesterday)...and I am within a gnat's a$$ of getting the outer snap ring on the axle on the driver's side. The passenger's side was a struggle, but the driver's side is tougher. I don't know if it's just the new seals or the dust shield, but the axle end play just seems to have evaporated. When I tore it down it didn't have inner spindle seals on either side, and was missing an outer axle shaft thrust washer and associated seal on one side (can't remember which, may have been this one).

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Looks like a piece of art. What gear ratio are you running?

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Thanks...3.07s. Which is what it came with...and I'm glad, since I wasn't up for the OD challenge like you were. So maybe I could still go 65-70mph relatively comfortably if I needed to.

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I'll also get your guys opinion on the spindle nuts. I've seen so many different attitudes toward how to torque them in...anywhere from 50-75 ft lbs to set the preload on the bearing, 1/4 back then re-torque, all while spinning the hub. Then the outer nut to anywhere from 90-200 ft lbs.

When I initially torqued the inner nut, the hub got super tight at 50 and was pretty much locked down after that. I backed it off a 1/4 turn and then basically torqued it by feel based on the force required to rotate the hub. Then hammered down on the outer nut...am I goofing up?


I think I did the pre-load at 50, then 1/4 back and then torqued it to 35-40 lbs..I can't remember for sure, though. For the outer nut, I want to say I torqued it somewhere between maybe 75-90.. Definitely, no more than that.

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That makes sense to me. I was having a little bit of trouble resolving the manual, experienced posts and my actual experience. Hopefully neither of us will throw a wheel at 55mph.

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I know you got a roller, let's see some pics.

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...well...

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You must be clairvoyant.

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A few more...it was fun to see big progress today. Finally got the frame home yesterday. I thought she would put up less of a fight going back together than she has. Another Moog complaint...I think we may have to cut the shanks on the tie rod ends. It feels like they bottom out well before you run out of threads...and the toe in is still out. Of course that could be in the connecting rod.

I wanted those blue Monroes on there...and would you believe the rears had to be drop shipped from Monroe. Nobody had them. I ordered all four and the steering stabilizer through Summit. The fronts were in the GA warehouse and were here the next day. The stabilizer the day after that. Then the final package was from the Monroe plant. That box got here about two weeks ago perfectly sized to hold two shock boxes. When I opened it(today), you guessed it...only one. They dropped shipped a single rear shock in a two shock box. Classic.

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Leaf springs are the OE replacements from General Springs. RedHead steering box (obviously)...vacillated, but couldn't bring myself to paint it all black. Their paint job seemed good enough. Loosely test fit the dual piston black Willwood D52s without pads to check wheel clearance following Mike's (72K5CSTDarkOlive) revelation. It seemed to clear, but I wasn't confident. I didn't want to goof them so they couldn't be returned. I'll do a more definitive fit soon. I went ahead and picked up some stock calipers from AutoZone today just in case. Gas tank and radiator are supposed to be ready on Saturday...still haven't got an ETA on transmission and TC.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

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I used 3 washers on each stud (created about 1/4" in space) to see if using a spacer would give me enough clearance and it did.

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Good to know. When I get home next week, I'm going to really fit it and call the ball. I really would like to have those extra pistons.