1969 C10 Bagged LS/T56 Build

[ADub]

I'm a little late getting the build thread going on this site, but I am going to try and play catch up.

I bought the truck in Dec of 2010. The truck is titled as a 69, but it started (and will finish) as all sorts of 67-72 parts. I bought it from my father in law. Plans were budget LS swap with a rat rod theme ready for Power Tour '12.

I had seen the truck 6 months before I bought it. It had clean flat black primer, red interior, 454 and TH350. It was a decent driving truck then. Between then and when I showed up, he installed a 700R4, spray in liner, and some limo tint. Despite owning 50+ of these trucks, he knows very little about them and OK doesn't have inspections.....

[ADub]

So when I showed up to grab it, he had retrieved it from the trans shop 3 days prior. The 700R4 was not built/setup right and wouldn't shift. I blamed it on the zip tied TV cable mount.....The trans shop parked it under a tree and the pigeons ruined the primer. The brakes were pretty scary and started smoking after we spent half an hour trying to adjust the TV cable. I put it on the trailer and drug it to Houston.

Once home, I spent the better part of 3 months just getting it driveable. This one had power brakes added at some point but still drums. Both front wheel cylinders were leaking as was one line and the friction material came off the shoe plate on the drivers side! Fixed the brakes first, as cheaply as possible since all of it was going to be junked anyway during the build.

Then came the trans. I bought all the proper mounts and set the TV cable up right, but it still wouldn't shift until 5000 rpm. Checked the line pressures and they were all sorts of wrong, so I gave up. Bought a cheap TH350 and went back to work. When I pulled the pan on the 700r4, it had an honest 1/2" of sludge. I think the builder was a moron (we'll find more of his work later).

Once she could "go" and "whoa", I cleaned up the wiring, bulbs, signal switch, etc until all the mandatory lights worked and threw in a set of cheapy seat belts. I painted the wheels satin red and yanked the dumb rear window decals.

Great weather that day I finished it, drove it to work, did some burnouts with the car guys and drove home early. Took the truck out that evening to go meet some friends. I think the combination of too much fluid (dipstick not original to trans) and cheap ass transmission caused it to overheat, puke fluid, and get trailered home.

After that, I didn't stray too far from the house with it, mostly using it as a parts truck around the house. Made it to mid summer and the brakes starting acting up again, so it pretty much sat from July on as there was no point in spending money on the junk parts

[ADub]

I forgot to mention....during my post purchase inspection, I found that the frame was originally a long bed frame. It had been cut down to short bed. Not the most redneck job I have seen, but being an engineer, it tore at my core to leave it as is. Found craiglist score complete 68 short bed frame with full suspension and a short bed. I didn't need the bed, but it had to come with the frame. So I bought it all, sold the bed same day and got my frame for half price! So with a rolling frame, the plan was to modify/build the frame and move the body over to it later. At that time, the truck was still driveable, so this made sense as I could keep using the truck during the initial stages of the build. This was deviation 1 from budget build.

The front suspension of the truck wasn't in bad shape. Other than old springs, it was generally tight and could have safely gotten away with a disc brake upgrade only. The rear suspension was much worse. The panhard bar bushing was gone and the panhard bar had walked up and wedged itself on the rear end mounting stud. When you hit the gas, the truck went right; let off and it pulled left. It also had universal style U bolts and lowering blocks. The U bolts were a tiny 1/2" in dia and the blocks were narrower than the bolts so you could only run the bolt through one end of the block allowing the block to rotate between the control arm and the axle.

After adding this up, I decided I always wanted to run on air bags. Might as well be now. Deviation #2, but to stay in line I decided to build my own system rather than buying a kit. So I bought the hard parts (bags, spindles, C notch) and mocked everything up on the rolling frame.

[ADub]

After mock up, I stripped all the parts off the frame and had it blasted/painted. They used Rustoleum enamel. It dries hard, not as durable as a powder coat, but I like that I can continue to work and touch up with off the shelf paint. Once back, the frame sat for a few weeks waiting on me to catch up. I blasted/POR15d/painted the front control arms and put new ball joints in all the way around. I was only able to reuse the driver's side equipment off the frame. The pass side lower was bent and the upper needed bushings. I yanked those parts off a 72 front crossmember I had purchased for other parts. With the paint dry, I installed the arms, bags and spindles. New hardware everywhere!

I moved on to the rear. I couldn't fit the control arms in my blasting cabinet, so they just got POR15 and paint. New bushings, lowering blocks, U bolts, aftermarket track arm, and finally the bags. With the exception of the control arm to frame bolts, everything was left loose because the axle you see in the pics is still the mockup axle. I had planned to reuse the axle that was in the truck, but it wasn't ready yet.

Last thing I did before tearing apart the truck was install a blazer tank in the back.

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All the work above took me through most of October. Wifey was having a ladies only event, so I hosted the men in the shop. After lots beer and BS'ing, it took us barely over an hour to get the engine/trans out of the truck. I wasn't surprised to find the ol 454 was originally built for an 88 1 ton truck. What was surprising was that it was built of the same day of October that we pulled it out! I kept the carb for use on the build, the intake and the accessories. I have a 396 in the Chevelle that could use some of these parts if necesssary. Stripped the engine down to the short block and bagged and tagged it for a future 496 build up.

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Now that I have two rollers, I looked at swapping parts that I could reuse. I yanked the tank from the cab and dismantled the interior to inspect the floor. You could see some small issues with the inner rocker area. I planned to fix it, but ran out of time for now. I yanked the steering from the truck and cleaned/painted it up for the new frame. The outer tie rods were questionable and the adjusting sleeves were a whopping 6 bucks ea, so new parts went on as well.

I purchased a CPP front sway bar on closeout, but when I tried to bolt it up, it clashed with the steering linkage with the bags aired out. Somehow I missed this during mockup. I could adjust the mounting points on the frame, but then the bar would hang down way low on the front and have clearance issues anyway. So I sold it for what I paid for it and bought a stock sway bar. Same size, different shape so it will clear the linkage. While I'm waiting on the new mounts/bushings to arrive for the bar, I threw some calipers and pads on the spindles and pretty much have the hard parts done up front.

[ADub]

I moved to the rear. I had picked up a cheap used 5 gallon air tank on CL, but I couldn't make it fit in a way that was hidden, so I bought a pair of 3 gallon tanks and mounted them on the sides of the frame. They will be hidden under the bed sides once the bed is on. I yanked the "good" axle out from under the truck and set it on stands for inspection. Its a 3.73 open diff. I was debating whether I should spend budget on a posi, but it solved that for me. With the axle out, it was painfully clear something wasn't right. My father in law told me he had new gears installed in Feb of 10 by the same genious who did the 700R4. It didn't really look new, all the seals were leaking and the gears were stamped GM. Billy Bob wouldn't pay the premium for new GM gears if they were even available. The final straw was trying to rotate the pinion by hand. It was hellaciously difficult. I borrowed some gear paint and a dial indicator and learned myself some gears. It had zero backlash. Now it worked without noise under the truck, but I couldn't trust it to run the tour without incident. I happened across another 67-70 rear axle with 3.73 posi while searching for parts, so I picked it up instead of rebuilding the original. I tore the new axle down and it looked good. Replaced the seals, but before I painted it up, I did a brake upgrade on the cheap. I didn't see the point in rear disc upgrade. Most require large wheels and I want to run 15" steelies; couldn't see the calipers anyway. I decided to do the big brake drum upgrade. I had picked up a junk axle for $100 months earlier with this in mind. It was 5 lug, so I new I needed new drums. Found them new for $20 ea on closeout. After shipping and new wheel cylinders, I have right at $150 in my big brake upgrade! I bolted those on and cleaned/painted the axle. Rolled it underneath the new frame and torqued it all up. I noticed the bushings were rotted on my "brand new" track arm, so I had to get replacements. They sent them no cost.

[ADub]

The original plan for the truck was carb'd LS and T56. I picked up a T56 a while back and its been politely waiting for its day to shine. I considered 5.3s for a brief while, but the power potential for the money just didn't satisfy me. I'd been hunting for an LY6 most of the year. They are usually cheaper than the LQ4/LQ9 mile for mile since they aren't a direct bolt in for the older truck guys (less demand). I'd shopped some salvage yard units but none of them were screaming deals, so I kept waiting. Happened on a local guy selling this Ly6. Picked it up for 1k. Its an 08, miles unknown. Bought it at a city of houston auction. Wasnt sure why it was yanked at the time, but at this price, its worth the risk. The top end was off it when I bought it. Cylinder walls still have cross hatch, and overall the block is very clean. It doesn't have a whole lot of miles.

[ADub]

Between the holidays and work, the C10 didnt see much love other than a few minutes here and there. Other than a small fortune in brass, not a lot to show. Got the hard lines run for the brakes. Nothing fancy, just pieced it together with parts store hard line. Not that many bends on the C10, so it went pretty smooth.

Assembled all the valve blocks, mounted them, and ran the air lines.

[ADub]

I finished the frame in late Jan. All components installed, everything is prewired so once the body is on, I just have to make my final connections under the hood. I bought a Painless Wiring Circuit Boss. Its a clean way to add 7 new circuits to the truck. The truck only had a few circuits to begin with, adding fuel pump, air compressor, MSD controller etc definitely makes the circuit boss a mandatory upgrade.

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Got the engine stands and motor mounts in the frame. I ended up just buying a kit from Early Classic. No time left to play around with fabbing my own. They weren't too expensive and I picked up some new body mounts from them as well.

Moved on to prepping the body to be pulled. I welded in the patch panel over the hole for the old gas tank filler neck. Ground off some paint where it was bubbling on the cab corner. The truck has about 6 layers of old paint and bondo....

I went ahead and cut the transmission hump out of the floor and positioned the factory "high hump". This is needed to clear the T56.

[ADub]

Had some buddies over to help throw the engine together and pull the body off. It didn't go as planned. We did get the cab and bed off though. I also got the bed cross rail notched to clear the tank.

The reason it didn't go as planned.....engine needed some work. General consensus is that it was overheated. This was reinforced as we dug deeper. The valley cover and rear cover gaskets were cooked; rubber was hard and they had to be scraped off. Cam bearings had a lot of wear. I'm guessing from oil temps or lack of lubrication when it got hot. Main bearings didn't look bad, but one had a small groove on bearing and crank journal, so that needs to be cleaned up. Rod bearings looked OK. We tried to find parts locally, but the only thing the parts stores carry are some chinese rod bearings. So I had to order some parts and schedule another weekend of fun.

[VA72C10]

Great looking build! Are we caught up yet?

[ADub]

Originally Posted by VA72C10

Great looking build! Are we caught up yet?

Nope. Had to call it a night last night. Getting back to work on it now

[ADub]

Had some buddies stop by to help with the engine assembly. Some good and some bad with this combination of parts.

Good:
Engine and motor mounts fit well. I'm using the GM muscle car pan. I was worried it would hang below the cross member, but it does not!

Driver's side header fits great

T56 bolted right up to the LY6

Bad:
The muscle car pan does have one bolt hole misaligned with the T56 bellhousing so you have to run 7 of 8 bolts. Im sure this is no big deal.

I had the motor stands pre torqued, and I guess they were crooked, so the engine was crooked. Had to loosen those up and adjust.

Passenger header does not fit. Right now its hitting the pass side motor mount stand. It also looks like it will be pure hell to get a starter to fit, but they had to have had that in mind, right? Headers are dynatech LS swap headers designed for a second gen F body.

The collectors point directly into the trans crossmember. Going to require some bends for the exhaust.

.

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TH350 and T56 have same output shaft, so I threw the old driveshaft in to check things out. Its about 6" short, but its good for mock up. New prob is with the current angles, the DS is too close to the frame crossmember. I imagine it would contact on mild bumps as the rear suspension nears the bump stops. This of course is going to be made worse the closer I get the tailshaft angle to the rear end angle. This is also assuming the the current driveshaft dia can be reused. Definitely need to put some more thought into options here but I ran out of time tonight. First glance looks like I can gain 1/2" or so of clearance if I do some cutting.

I know a few vendors make crossmembers for dropped trucks, but the consensus is you don't need one with this size C notch. So I didn't buy one early on. I only found a couple T56 c10 builds and none of them on bags. I think the T56 is the game changer here since the tailshaft is much higher up than TH350. So I think I will just lovingly clearance the current crossmember. It will be cleaner and quicker than pulling the crossmember, which would require removing about 16 rivets and disassembling the rear suspension

[ADub]

Been a "rough" week for the C10. Everything fits now, but the painted frame paid a serious toll. I notched the motor stand so the pass side header fits. Starter arrived today, so I bolted it up. It is a very close fit with one of the primaries. Header has to be removed before starter can be removed. Guess thats part of the game.

Welded up the modified trans mount last night and bolted it in position. No way around it, so I sectioned the factory crossmember that the driveshaft passes through. Using my feet and other precision instruments, I formed a piece of 1/4" bar to brace over the cut out. Put the DS in to make sure I had clearance and welded it up. The rear control arms mount to this crossmember. Once I get the engine and everything out, I will add another brace below the DS that ties the control arm mount points together just to be safe. I would triangulate it, but that gets complicated with my exhaust needs.

Took my measurements for the new DS, going to have it made tomorrow. Going to try and get the exhaust finished this week, then pull everything out this weekend. Paint engine and fully weld the exhaust so I can put it back together one last time.

[ADub]

Got the engine and trans installed. A few buddies stopped by to help put the cab and bed on. We tried to engineer it and use the engine hoist for a precision lift, but it was not to be, so we just muscled it! We also rigged the bag system back up so no need for jack to install all the mount bolts. I was definitely getting burnt out on the build, but getting the body on was good for motivation.

[ADub]

Not many picture worthy accomplishments this weekend. Spent a lot of time on it, but don't feel like I have a whole lot to show. Aligned/torqued the cab and the bed. Fixed a couple clashing issues that showed up with the body on. Started working from the back of the truck forward. Got the rear wiring installed, taillights etc in, tailgate on. Centered the rear axle.

Spent way too much time building a mount for the fuel filler. I originally bought the tank as a budget conversion, but by the time I messed with the pickup tube and fuel filler BS, I am pretty near the cost of a custom aluminum tank. That of course would have saved me 8-12hrs of BS. Lesson learned. BTW I used a vented cap from a boat. The ports exit the filler body at an angle, so I hoped it would match up well with the wheel well. Ended fabbing a box out of sheetmetal and cutting a window in the drivers side inner wheel well. Welded the box to the wheel well. Used a combination of filler hose and 1-1/2" stainless flex exhaust tubing to connect it to the tank. It didn't turn out as pretty as I had hoped so I don't have pictures, but PM me if you want more info.

Need to adjust the pass side exhaust dump to clear the shock at ride height, then on to working on the cab.

[ADub]

Still chipping away. Spent about half the weekend fixing issues underneath. The rest of the weekend was spent on the cab. Got a good first layer of sound deadener down. I used Rattle Trap by Fat Mat. What you see in the photos is about 50 sqft. I will use the remaining 50 sqft to do the firewall and double up on the floor. I intentionally haven't hit much of the firewall yet. Hopefully the Vintage Air shows up this week. I want to mock it up so I know which holes need to remain and which can be covered up.

[ADub]

So that gets it updated through last weekend. AC and gauges showed up so I have been working on those. Once I wrap it up for the weekend, I will take some photos and update the threads.

I know I didn't include a whole lot of detail on the parts used. If you have any questions, post or PM me.

I plan to have it "done" by the end of April so I can spend May driving it and troubleshooting before Power Tour. Once Power Tour is done, I am going to take a break, but I do plan to finish it. It will still need the little details like parking brake, backup lights, etc and I want to shoot it satin black. Maybe throw on some smoothie style steelies and wide whites.

[trkfrk]

Sweet build.. Keep up the good work.

[ADub]

Originally Posted by trkfrk

Sweet build.. Keep up the good work.

I still haven't put the clutch master in. I know its going to be a PITA so I keep procrastinating. Any luck on yours?

[Tinkermc]

schweet so far

[ADub]

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Well got a free 3 day weekend due to Good Friday, so I had big plans. Spent half the day on Friday getting parts. Picked up the AC and guages. AC showed up with the wrong pulley, so I took it to the house, did my mock up so I could clearance the Holley Coil Covers, then shipped it back. New one should be here this week. Also spent the rest of Friday working on the accessories. Got them cleaned up, painted and installed. Went to install the alternator and the bolts I had were too short. Grabbed a longer pair, but I guess the threads were just right to where they bottomed out right when the bolt head bottomed out. So I thought I was torquing it and I ended up splitting the casting. Found a good deal on ebay, so I just ordered another bracket with the PS pump still installed to save the hassle of removing the pulley and pump. So not much really got accomplished on Friday.

I got started on the AC install Saturday. Went ahead and replaced the seal on the factory fresh air vents. I wont use them anymore, but I didn't want them leaking. Got the AC vents mounted and the evaporator installed. Once I had the firewall figured out on the pass side, I finished up the sound deadener and cleaned up the paint on the engine side. The Vintage Air kit reuses the factory defroster ducts. Mine were too old to take the tension from the ducts, so I had to order a new set. On top of that, I don't have enough duct for the defrosters. I think they shorted me, but either way going to have to call tomorrow and get some more. I assembled the control unit; pretty cool. Uses the factory cable style linkage and converts it to a digital signal. Went ahead and mounted the air bag gauges since they use the AC control panel bolts. Ran the passenger side bag lines into the cab. Pass side is almost done. Need to do a little more wiring on the AC before I can call it good on the pass side.

I set up a little workbench in the house so I could come in and take a break from the heat. Disassembled the factory gauge panel and installed the gauges. The setup is from New Vintage USA. They call this their 1940s series. I like that they are simple and clean. They fit in the factory spots if you remove all the guts. I prewired it all to minimize connections once I get in the truck. I bought (4) LEDs at Radio Shack for blinkers, brights, and brake warning light. I am going to hit up a car audio store this week and get a small sheet of black plastic. I'll use the plastic to block off the blinker holes and the 3-3/8" center hole. Then I will mount the LEDs in the plastic block offs. Also have to mount the momentary switch for the speedo.

Still feeling pretty good about finishing it up this month.