1970 c10 SWB - Project "Toad"

[OneWheelPeel]

Introducing my first C10 project. I'm gonna call her "Toad" in honor of the awesome faded medium olive paint shes wearing, and its my uncles nickname. We found this 1970 C10 sitting in a three sided barn.




After a few hours of tear-down and a quick bath to clear the 1/2 think layer of dust away...




Found a few small areas of rust, but nothing unexpected for a 40+ year old truck.




My plan was for a nice slow build, taking one step at a time and enjoying the truck as I went. The day I picked it up the PO lost the keys and the "running" engine wouldn't start. She also needs a set of tires badly. This build will move faster than I wanted, and I probably wont be driving until fall.

Current plans are to replace the inline 6 and 3 on the tree with a built 383 and a TKO 600 behind it. She'll also be getting 4 wheel disk brakes and the Hotchkis TVS suspension. Check back for updates.

[Gus350]

Dude nice looking truck I'd slam it on the ground and drive it with the straight six....

[True 67]

Welcome to the board and it looks like you have a really good truck to start out with..

True

[Jon @ Hotchkis]

Wow, the exterior sheet metal looks to be in great shape, nice find!

Looking forward to seeing the progress and if we can help answer any questions, feel free to ask away.

[OneWheelPeel]

Originally Posted by Gus350

Dude nice looking truck I'd slam it on the ground and drive it with the straight six....

That was the plan at the start. I don't feel like throwing parts at the six now tho with a swap in the future.

Originally Posted by True 67

Welcome to the board and it looks like you have a really good truck to start out with..

True

Thanks for the welcome. It's amazing what you can find sometimes in an old barn.

Originally Posted by Jon @ Hotchkis

Wow, the exterior sheet metal looks to be in great shape, nice find!

Looking forward to seeing the progress and if we can help answer any questions, feel free to ask away.

Yeah, besides some abuse to the bed sides and a pretty used up tailgate the truck is perfectly straight with no previous body repairs. That's what draw me to it in the first place. Hard to believe it was used as a farm vehicle until the early 80's.

The suspension is pretty thrashed and the rear control arms are rusty and bent beyond repair. Good thing that's all going to the scrap yard anyway.

[OneWheelPeel]

New / used engine arrived today.

383 stroker, Brodix 64cc heads, holley 750 carb... supposedly over 450 hp, we'll see about that.





Needs a new paint job, some polishing and some other dress-up parts. Couldn't argue with the price. Now I've just got to make my vision of this thing a reality...

[jc70chevy]

Nice RX7

[OneWheelPeel]

Originally Posted by jc70chevy

Nice RX7

Thanks. Thats the other project I never have time to work on.









I'm not sure which way I'm going with it now. It's working its way into a track only car.

[OneWheelPeel]

Haven't had much time to work on Toad, but I did get her running. After putting in an ignition switch and lock/key and throwing in a fresh battery she fired up and ran like a champ on the first try. Now I'm a little disappointed that I gave up on the engine without even trying. Guess the 383 was too tempting...

I did spend a bit of time working on the engine. Got it painted, new valve covers, air cleaner and pulleys / mounts.





I've got a small interference with the #5 spark plug and the #1 header tube that seems like its going to need to be modified to work. The dipstick boss is also too big and interferes with the brand name cast into the head. I'll be sanding that off next. I'm also debating converting to power steering, with the tire size I'm planning to run I think manual steering will get old really fast.

[OneWheelPeel]

Also picked up a parts truck. We found this one literally sitting in the middle of a lot filled with random other cars rusting and decaying. Had to save it. Its a '71 with a 250 and 3 OTT. Price was a steal.











The engine seems to be seized, but everything else is working. I bought it to salvage the 5-lug running gear and a few other items. The more I look at it though I don't want to just scrap it. Its pretty rough but I think it can be brought back.

What do you guys think, is it worth saving?

I might just sell it once I've got what I want. I wish I had more time for projects. It's hard convincing the boss that I need 3 project vehicles at once .

[bobbydigital]

make it a secret project

[OneWheelPeel]

It's been quite a while since my last update. Life doesn't always leave much time for hobbies, especially when work decides you need to head to the middle of the pacific for almost a year...

Finally got the truck home and up on stands...


Everything on the front end was a bit rustier than I had expected it to be. The front drums were pretty stuck even after adjusting the shoes all the way in. its amazing that this thing could actually stop still.


The engine even looks worse than I remember before I left. I guess things really start to go to hell if you don't touch them for a while.


A long day and a lot of PB blaster and luck and everything on the front end come off without too much complaint. I didn't even break any bolts or round off any nuts, which was a surprise to me. I did end up with a 5 gallon pail full of rust, crap and other debris.



One more weekend day and I managed to get most of the rest of the front torn down. The bumper is only held on by one bolt that just spins in a rusted out hole, I'll have to cut that one. Everything else is loose just waiting for a hand to pull the hood off.



Next weeks goal is to tear down the rear and get the rest of the front apart. I've got a stash of parts I'm dying to install but I want to clean and fully prep this frame before anything goes back on. I also found a few spots at the back of the cab that I'm going to have to fix. There was a repair at some point to replace both cab corners, rockers, and the rear floor brace. A LOT of corners were cut and its pretty clear I'll have to do all of that over now. More on that in a later update.

For now it's just good to be back and getting my hands dirty again.

[OneWheelPeel]

It's been a while since the last update, so this is going to move along a bit...

Tear down continues with removing the front sheet metal and engine / trans.



Removed the suspension crossmember.



Big step removing the bed, cab and front crossmember.



Put together a cab dolly and rolled her outside.




Continued tearing down the frame. I'm starting to get good at removing these rivets!

[OneWheelPeel]

Found the rear bed mounts to be totally rusted away. Anyone know of a place to get a set? I could probably bend up something, but would like some options.



Also started wire wheeling the frame. Seems to be cleaning up nicely, just a little pitting but nothing major so far.



Moved the tear down to the rear next...



Installed the Porterbuilt bolt in C-notch.





And a shot of the completed install. Porterbuilt stuff is as awesome as advertised.

[OneWheelPeel]

Finally started putting parts back on starting with the POL trans crossmember and ECE rear suspension crossmember.



Next was the ECE rear trailing arms, and the start of the rear portion of the Hotchkis TVS kit.




Ran into my first snag. The Hotchkis support bar bracket wanted to occupy the same space as the C-notch. A little trim allowed both to mount up together.




I used part of the C-notch I removed to fit the factory shock crossmember and made a little shim for the bracket and bolted it up.

[slowcpe]

Cool project. Going to tag along for the ride.

[mooseknuckles]

cool build!

[67ctener]

That rear trac bar set up is awesome, looking good

[Mr Chevorlet]

Looking Good

[mcbassin]

Very nice looking project. I'm going to follow along too.

[OneWheelPeel]

Thanks for all the comments!

Feel free to follow along, I expect this project will be an interesting ride once the cab rust repair starts...

[OneWheelPeel]

Now for the update.

Finally got my body mount and cross member kit in from Porterbuilt. Even though the old mounts were in good shape, at some point in the trucks life there must have been a cab alignment issue and someone cut a second set of holes in the mounts, making them an oval.

Solutions was, replace...




This let me start bolting up the front suspension parts. I started with the control arms and springs.

I planned to upgrade to later model 9/16 cross shaft u-bolts, and when I went to install them found someone had already modded the crossmember to fit bolts this size.



Both sides


Front sway bar

[OneWheelPeel]

Next was the steering parts of the Hotchkis kit, new idler arm, pitman arm and tie rod ends. I also mounted up my CPP 500 power steering gear.

Everything went together really smooth.






Now that all the parts are on I tried to turn the steering linkage and really couldn't. It took a fair amount of force to move the spindle side to side by hand.
Disconnecting the tie rods I could easily move the steering box and center link from side to side just by turning the rag joint with 1 finger.

The spindles are what seems to be stiff. I have not greased them yet, but it seems like they are very tight.

Is that normal? I'm hoping that by greasing them they will free up a bit.

[OneWheelPeel]

And now for todays snag...



The Hotchkis shock relocation bracket for the drivers side interferes with the clutch Z-bar frame bracket. Apparently this kit was not designed for a manual transmission truck, or at least one with a manual linkage. I was going to try to modify the bracket so they would both work, then decided it wasn't worth it.

I already have a TKO 600 to put behind the 383, so, I guess this forces my hand on upgrading to a hydraulic clutch.

Shock re-locaters installed


And the final shot of everything together.



Ran out of light and found the inner wheel bearings from my brake kit were rusted solid still sealed in the bag

Installing the hubs will have to wait until another day. It was beer time by then anyway.

Hopefully next weekend I can align the engine mounts and drop the 383 onto the frame.

Thanks for reading!
-Ken

[sammygroundzero]

Wow really good progress truck is coming along nicely