New Member here with questions on 1970 C30.

[BAMA JEFF]

Hey everyone.....just registered here, although I've been a reader for quite some time. Love the site and there are definitely some fine old trucks here !!

Anyway, I have a 1970 C30, with some neat features that I've never seen before. I'm told it's all OEM, so I hate to do anything to the truck that I had planned. It has a Rockwell rear end (A63-484) with a 5.83 gear. It also has a plate on the transmission with a PTO shaft, as well as a large reservoir under the passenger side that appears to have been for hydraulic fluid. It is a factory A/C cab and all pieces are still there.....it doesn't work, but it may just need charging up. The trans is a 4 sp manual with granny low.....in 4th gear this thing will only run about 50 MPH....LOL It's a 350 2 bbl that runs great, it's just geared LOW. It also has what appears to be a large drum type brake right behind the trans that the drive shaft attaches to.

If anyone knows about this truck and it's features, please enlighten me.....it's the only one I've ever seen like it !!

[too much stuff]

Welcome, and nice looking truck. Can't help you much with your questions, but there are some members here that know that stuff quite well. Someone can probably help you out. Eric

[special-K]

I know of one other I have seen for sure.Other than that,not sure if I saw one and didn't realize it.But since I saw that 1st one 20 years ago I haven't seen another until now.It's a heavier weight C/30.The 5 & 10 lug hubs are the give away.If you look in the parts books the axles are described in GVW #s.I believe these are 13,000# w/o checking a book.Basically,these are predecessors to the 3500HDs that were introduced in '92.Your truck also has a breather on the driver's side floor,right?I have a it cab with that,so I believe that was from one of these trucks.Your power brake booster in under the cab.Do you have an under hood cowl picture?That truck is awesome,BTW.I love it!!

[BAMA JEFF]

Thanks for the info so far guys. I will get some pics of under the hood and under the cab in a few hrs. There is a fluid reservoir on the firewall, but no booster. I will look under the cab when I get more pics in a while.

[chopttop]

Nice looking truck, I have a '70 C30 that I am about to start working on, have build thread started, it came from factory as a cab/chassis and then had motorhome installed on frame.

[special-K]

The cab I have has a/c,too.I figure that was one fine truck.It was a '69.The one I saw years ago was a GMC.It had something I never saw,the tall bumper guards with rubber strips (71/72) and they were white.The truck was red with white top and trim and cattle racks with pinstripe...like Omaha Standard.It was all cherried out and for sale.I wanted it bad! At the time I had my '70 Custom Camper/30 I put a low-profile Reading utility body on.

[BAMA JEFF]

here is a pic of the Rockwell and the "brake" bolted right behind the trans.....I guess that's what it is....?????

[special-K]

Yeah,that's the e-brake.The truck is basically a light medium duty.It has medium duty designs on a light duty truck.It would be hard to find,but I believe there's a 2spd set-up for that rear.Could be wrong,but if that's the same third member as larger trucks I believe it's possible.

[292farmer]

definitely the e-/parking brake behind the tranny, truthfully not really good for an e brake at least mine aint. the large resevoir is basically a brake booster, i cant say its the exact same one as on the c-40-60's but they have the same set up. its probably a 110 (11,000)rear end though 13,000 is poss. im sure whats your spid say for axle code?
btw thats a very very nice c30, been restored recently?

[BAMA JEFF]

OK....here's the dilemma. I wanted to lower the truck and put a custom bed on it, covering just the center portion of the bed. Then I planned on adding polished fenders to cover the rear wheel and possibly change the exhaust.

The dilemma is this....I don't like the 19.5 wheels or the way the front wheels are so close in....it has a very narrow stance in the front. To get it like I want it I would have to change a lot of things PLUS I was thinking of trashing the 4 sp and dropping in a 5 sp manual trans.

BUT....I hate to alter it since it's all original....SO....I'm thinking I could sell it and go to work on the other C30 I have. It's not as nice, but it would be easier to work with PLUS it has already been changed up a little here and there.

What to do ??

[don t. - 72gmc]

Originally Posted by BAMA JEFF

What to do ??

1st off.....Very nice looking truck.

JMHO....if its as original as you say it is, I would not touch it, but im an originality nut when it applies. They're only original once.

Disclaimer.....its your truck and if you want to paint it pink and put Mary Kay in block letters across the back, more power to ya (big grin).

Have fun.....don t. .....

[cam.man67]

Wow, that's a gorgeous truck. Love the color, hope you have god luck working on it.

[Watwood]

Jeff, I did a little research on the old truck. I found another thread that talks about Eaton H110s being a larger 10 lug axle in these old trucks. The H110 stands for 11,000 lb axle, as there are also Eaton H052s and H072s (5200 and 7200 lbs), but folks are saying those are 8 lug and have a removable rear diff cover. Check out this thread:

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=361230

Here's a thread I found on Eaton H110s:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/archi.../t-850670.html

and another:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=576818

The first pic here is from the first thread I attached above, and the axle was identified as a Eaton H110:


These pics are from the second link I posted and it was identified as a H110, but has a removable rear cover and the 3rd member looks nothing like yours.









Lastly, on the housing along the axle shafts, your housing stayed very square, and if you look at the tubes on those above they go from a square look to circular.



So, I googled "Rockwell A63 Axle" it gave me this page:

http://www.truckpartsinventory.com/i...=2&val=c127_m2

which if you search for "A63" on that page you'll see it parallels that code with a Rockwell SQHD axle. So, I googled "Rockwell SQHD" and got this page:

http://www.worldamerican.com/Catalog.../SQHD_rear.pdf

which lists your ratio (5.83) and the other guy's ratio from the first thread above (6.17), of course those could just be standard ratios, but I think these axles are huge, like heavy duty truck huge.

Lastly, I googled "Rockwell C 103 axle" from the other label on your axle I took a pic of the other day, which got me this thread:

http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=75208

and searching images I found this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Rockw...#ht_500wt_1182

which is your 3rd member. So, IMO, Rockwell C103 it is. Your truck has drums on the front and disc brakes on the rear axle, which to me was odd, and this thread mentions having to run 19.5" wheels b/c of the 13.5" disc brakes. It could be original, or it could be off of a GM P truck, as might have similar chassis setups. Honestly I don't know, and I've never found something that had such little information on the intro-webs.

Lastly, we have confirmed some of these trucks were optioned up with the large rear axles, brake booster relocation, driveline e-brake, but the another tidbit that supports this possibly being original is that the speedo is close enough to being correct. I don't know what all is involved in changing a mechanical speedo to read correctly with a significant gear change, as most of the speedo changes I've done involved a laptop computer...

[Chris4x4Gill2]

just stopping in to say Hi to my HSV buddies.

Jeff thats a great looking truck, have you decided if your going to keep it?

[Jacfourteen]

Don't have any answers to your questions, but I wanted to say that is a great looking truck. Also, welcome from Norcal!

[BAMA JEFF]

WATWOOD ......Holy Smokes man, you have been doing your homework on this thing !! Thanks a ton for the info and pics. From everything I've gathered I believe it to be stock / OEM equipment, most of which I've never seen before......but we just recently got the bug for the bigger trucks. Up until now everything we've had has been 1/2 tons.

We have definitely decided to sell the one in this thread and work on the C30 wrecker and outfit it as we want....just to look good and pull the big grills to different cooking events. If you want, call me or PM me, about the price......if y'all are still interested.

For everyone else.....Thanks a lot for the compliments. It's a pretty unique old truck that we have decided not to alter in any way. Hopefully we can find it a good home where someone will appreciate it as a well optioned dinosaur

[prin]

woot!