The 1947 - Present Chevrolet & GMC Truck Message Board Network

Hi guys,

New to the forum here, just wanted to introduce myself and my new/old truck.

I'm Travis, from Las vegas, 25 years old and this is going to be my first ever project vehicle.

A couple weeks ago I picked up a 1972 GMC long bed 3/4 ton, from my girlfriends grandfather for $1500.

The truck was in their family since it was brand new, Her grandfather acquired it from his uncle, used it for hauling stuff to the dump then when his sons got older, let them use it for school. It had an original 350 in it until it threw a rod, They then decided to swap the motor to a 454 from a 79 GMC truck. The motor was rebuilt roughly 10 years ago, and for the past 4 years of its life it sat in the driveway doing nothing. His son passed away and he lost the will to work on it and keep it running. So to keep it in the family, I decided to take it off of his hands and keep it around rather than It going to a stranger.

He's the type of guy that has an abundance of parts, everything you need, he has, but the only problem is, everything is old, so this truck is kind of a "Frankenstein" hence my name for it. As you can see from the pictures, she needs work.

It didnt run very well when I went to pick it up, had trouble starting which was mostly due to a junk fuel pump, gunked up fuel filter, and a bad alternator.

We drained the gas, thoroughly cleaned the carb, put a brand new fuel pump/filter in it, and swapped out the alternator to a brand new one. fueled her up and she fired. After that though, once we adjusted the timing she seemed to be running like a top, Made it all the way to the west side of town from Henderson without a hiccup.

Now we come to present day, after about 60 miles of driving it. There's rust in the fuel filter, and the engine is leaking oil like a sieve, from what I see, the oil pan and valve cover gaskets are shot. I've ordered a complete set of gaskets to try and alleviate the problem.

So here are my plans thus far:
pull the motor(if needed) and replace all of the seals
Pull the fuel tank and clean or replace it
New fuel sending unit
Fix the speedometer (off by 15mph)
Replace all spark plugs and wires
redo all of the wiring completely.
New set of tires (extreme dry rot)
interior parts and paint
exterior parts and paint

I'm on a pretty limited budget and I dont expect to finish all of the issues in a month. Im looking forward to working on this truck for a while, and hopefully the look on her grandfathers face is worth it once its done.

http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...410_092716.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...330_171129.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...410_092659.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...410_092600.jpg
http://i101.photobucket.com/albums/m...410_092624.jpg