Building My Grandfather's 64 C10

[64C10Fleet]

After lurking around the forum for a long time, I decided to join and share my build.

This truck has been in my family since the 60s. It belonged to my grandfather and we believe he was the original owner. I haven't taken the time to research this yet because I have been in an ugly battle with a family member over the truck for several months trying to work out an agreement on the title. As much as I sometimes hate to admit it, I come from a long line of hillbillies and interacting with some of my family members is not always easy. I digress.

The earliest photo I have of this truck was taken in 1971. My mother is seen here posing on the front of her 57 at age 18. The truck is in the background fitted with a homemade camper.



My grandfather and I were probably the closest of his grandchildren. I spent several weeks each summer break from school with him working in the backyard on his fleet of vehicles, he had several cars and trucks dating back to the 60s.

He passed away 9 years ago and all of the vehicles were quickly picked up by my uncles and stored in their backyards. Two years ago, I went out to my uncle's land one evening during deer season to check one of my stands and I found the truck sitting in the rain under an oak tree with the windows down and rain pouring inside. I got into a huge argument with my uncle over the truck and its condition and demanded he sell it to me. He refused and I was so mad about the condition of the truck that I didn't talk to him for over a year.

Last March, I got a call from my aunt and she told me that my uncle was having some financial troubles and that I should make an offer on the truck if I still wanted it. Two weeks later, I made a deal for $2000 and picked the truck up. Here's a shot of the truck the day I picked it up:



My uncle wouldn't answer my call when I picked the truck up. It took me and two others 6 hours to pump up the tires and move the truck from where everything had grown up around it and onto my trailer. It rained the entire time and we got two trucks stuck in the mud in the process. My uncle would not answer his phone the entire day. We all tried calling him several times so I could pass the money off and pick up the title, but no answer. It took me four months, but I finally got the title yesterday.

Let me rewind a little... Here's a few shots of the truck the day I got it back to my house in SC.

Any idea where these hubcaps came from?



We spent over 8 hours cleaning up the inside and outside of the truck. My uncle insisted on transporting my grandfather from the funeral home to the cemetary in this truck and had a piece of plywood thrown in the bed to cover the holes and a cheap paint job sprayed on. I told you we were hillbillies. And no, we didn't allow him to carry my grandfather in this to the cemetary, lol.

[RockTonka]

Sorry to hear that you had to fight family to get the truck...but you got it and I bet your grandpa would have wanted it that way. Sounds like you want it for all the right reasons, truck looks good and we look forward to seeing what you do with it.

[McMurphy]

Originally Posted by RockTonka

Sorry to hear that you had to fight family to get the truck...but you got it and I bet your grandpa would have wanted it that way. Sounds like you want it for all the right reasons, truck looks good and we look forward to seeing what you do with it.

I think I have to echo what RockTonka said.
If you are going to go at it with someone because the windows were down....then my bet is it is better off with you. Bloody shame he stuck you for $2k though.

I hope you keep us posted, I truly dig it when people know the history of their rigs.

to the board !!!

[64C10Fleet]

Hey, thanks guys. I've been admiring and working on this truck since I was about 13 years old, so the patience and persistence really paid off this time. I almost talked him into selling it back in 2004, but I'm happy he wouldn't come off of it now. I probably would have ruined it with bags and unnecessary bodywork.

I actually started the build last month; I'll try to post the progress this evening. Plan is to return it as close to the way my grandfather had it with a few minor upgrades. Of course, I probably won't be putting the camper back on. Though, it is still there and in really good condition.

[CRGRS 66]

Welcome to the forum, glad you were able to end up with your grandfather's truck. Unfortunately the family history is something that I don't have on my truck. Good luck, look forward to following along on your progress!

[64C10Fleet]

Hoped to post all the progress up to this point this evening, but I got carried away in the garage again.

My wife and I took a drive up to Myrtle Beach to take the kids to spend a couple weeks with my parents. This will be the first time we've been without kids in almost nine years, so should be interesting. There were lots of talks of big plans including a date night and day at the beach. We got home around 9pm and my wife went to bed and I went to the garage. So yeah, we are party animals.

Finished priming the frame under the cab tonight. I've been working in sections, I can only take so much time sanding on one piece before my ADHD kicks in and I have to move onto something else.

Goods news... I talked my wife into going to the beach with her friends this Saturday for a girls day, so that means I get a whole day of working on the truck, uninterupted. I'll probably take her out for a nice dinner that night to make up for whenever she figures out I made the suggestion for a girls day so I could work on my truck.

New parts arrived today. Got my oil pan, oil dipstick and tube, trans dipstick and tube, and new manifolds. I ordered the 60s Corvette style rams head manifolds with the 2.5" outlet.

I guess this is a good time to talk about the engine/trans for the truck... At some point, my grandfather had a 307 installed. Here's the paperweight of an engine a few weeks ago.



I decided I wanted something that would sound bad@ss and had plenty of power, but at the same time I wanted a setup that had a classic look to it. A good friend of mine had a high nickel / high tin block with flat top pistons, new crank, and a bunch of other crap I didn't care about. I picked it up for only $500, less than 100 miles on it. Also included was a set of 461 double hump heads, HEI distributor, and two carbs. Not sure which carb I'll be going with yet.

Here's a shot of the engine two weeks ago when I got my heads back. I couldn't wait to sit them on and see what it was going to look like.



I picked up a used Edelbrock Performer intake from a guy for $40. He also sold me the cam I installed, brand new Thump'r for $60. Like I said, I want that classic look so I bought an intake mounted filler and had the intake machined to accept. I also picked up some Chevrolet script valve covers for $15 locally and bead blasted and painted them.



I didn't realize the heads came from a family owned car until I got them home. My buddy called me up and told me that they came off a 63 Impala he bought from my family almost 12 years ago. He took the heads and the 327 out and stored them until he found out I was building this truck. Nice score. I had new hardened guides and seats installed, along with all new valves and springs matched to the cam. I have another friend that runs a machine shop and he really did a great job on the heads. Shaved just a hair just for the hell of it.





That's all I have in me for tonight. I'll post more tomorrow while I'm supposed to be working.

[SFTorange]

Cool truck and great story! I'm glad you were able to buy it. The engine looks really good. I always dig the classic script valve covers. I'll be watching your build!

[LostMy65]

Very Cool Truck Story.
I love Grandpa Trucks.
I'm glad you managed to win the stupid wrestling match.
And especially glad you're going to do your grandpa right.

[64C10Fleet]

Redneck wrestling matches are awesome, hehe. Back to the build update...

My grandfather was a HUGE fan of the Powerglide transmission. He tried to stuff one in just about every vehicle he ever owned. As far as I can tell, this truck came with a Powerglide and V8 from the factory. Naturally, I'll keep the Powerglide in it for now. This truck will be a daily driver when its complete (Why build something if you can't drive it?), so I may end up swapping the Powerglide for something else later depending on how much highway driving I do.

My garage is full of other stuff, so this entire build will be done out in the driveway. My latest hobby, for the last two years, has been restoring and riding 3 wheelers. When I got the truck I decided it was time to grow up a little and I told my wife I would get rid of some of the toys. I sold a bunch of the guns I had that didn't really serve a purpose and so far I sold all but one three wheeler. I might sell the last three wheeler in the next month if I can motivate myself to pull it out of the garage and take pictures. I also have a '76 CB550 bobber I've been building for a few years that is only missing a cam chain tensioner to be complete, but if I finish it I might have to ride it and everytime I mention riding a motorcycle I'm reminded by the old lady of a bad wreck I was involved in almost four years ago.

At the start of the build I considered renting a place to do the work, but when I weighed the options (couple hundred bucks a month vs. a $25 fee from my HOA each month) I decided to keep it at home and work in the driveway. So far, I haven't received a fine from my HOA, seems most of the neighborhood is more interested in seeing the progress than reporting me for violation. A little tough working in the sun in SC this time of year, but not too bad considering some of the other places I've been.

Did I mention the driveway is on an incline? Makes things interesting. A few weeks ago I had a friend come over and help me pull the engine. I prepped everything the night before, he came over to help me push the truck out in the road so we had a level surface to work with. I gave him the old 307 for helping.

When I got the engine out I was in awe of the amount of oil that had accumulated under the cab over the years. There was a good 1/4" of grease covering everything. Here's the Powerglide after separating from the engine.



I soaked it in oven cleaner and pressure washed it.





Sorry, I like pictures so I'm loading this thing up.

I spent 4 halfdays soaking the frame and bottom of cab in oven cleaner and pressure washing. The years of oil buildup really preserved the frame well.

[64C10Fleet]

I started this build with the bed, but I soon ran out of parts and moved onto something else. Only to run out of parts and move onto something else, and so on. It's a vicious cycle.

First things first. When I got the truck home I had some serious air leakage problems around the beads on the tires. I really wanted to hold off and find some of the original wheels (5 1/2" side I think), so I tried to work the wheels to hold air to get me by until I found some. Well, didn't work. After coming home every day to a flat tire, I decided to go with a 15x8 Wheel Vintiques 12 series. I haven't decided on a center cap yet, but I may pull the trigger soon.





On June 5th, I officially began working on the truck. That afternoon I ripped all the fragments of bed floor and bed strips out. Tool of choice, bolt cutters. I started with a 4" grinder with cutting wheel, but after I got the wood out the bolt cutters were a lot faster than the cutting wheel.



Frame time. I tried several different methods for cleaning the frame. The best by far was a 4" grinder with wire wheel. I spent about 5 hours and finished one side of the frame with a little wire wheel on a drill before I took a ride and picked up a wheel for the grinder. Wish I had started with the grinder. By the end of the first day, I had the two outside frame rails coated in Jasco. Really surprised how well that stuff works.



This is where the research began. I read a ton of posts about what to coat the frame in. Paint vs. powder vs. POR and all kinds of other stuff. As I said before, this truck will be a daily driver. I wanted a bullet proof coating. I finally decided to roll on (instead of spraying) Valspar Tractor and Implement oil based primer and paint. This stuff is awesome and definitely tough. Because of the heat and humidity, and the thickness of the primer, it took the frame two full days to dry. I gave it another two days just to be safe.

[64C10Fleet]

The frame came out awesome so far. It kinda has a rough texture to it as I decided not to thin the primer or paint. It is super strong, I even tried tapping on it with a ball peen hammer in a few spots. I'm planning to hit the top of the crossmembers with undercoating before install, and maybe even the bottom where it contacts the frame mounts.



I went back and forth trying to decide if I was going to keep this old bumper. I finally decided to keep it. Now I have about a day of straightening and stripping and still not finished, but it's a cool old upgrade and really tough looking.





And yes, I used child labor for the frame painting...



My wife of more than ten years knows just how important this truck is to me, and has been really helpful and supportive. My youngest daughter loves to work on stuff with me. She got the bug last summer when she helped build an ATC 70, thinking I was going to let her ride it alone. She has her own set of tools and breaks them out about twice a week to try to help out.

[Captainfab]

Welcome to the forum

Sorry to hear of all the hassle you went thru to get your Grandfather's truck. In seeing the work you are doing, I'm sure he wouldn't want anyone else to have his old truck.

I really like to see people get their kids involved in working on these old trucks. That helps to keep our obsession alive and teaches the kids some valuable skills. Keep up the great work and keep the updates coming when you have time.

[radleyhardy]

This truck, this build, this STORY is just so awesome man. If we ever worked together our ADHD would sure cause a bunch of nothing.

Subscribed for this awesomesauce

[CRGRS 66]

Originally Posted by radleyhardy

This truck, this build, this STORY is just so awesome man. If we ever worked together our ADHD would sure cause a bunch of nothing.

Subscribed for this awesomesauce

sorry, don't mean to hi-jack... awesome avatar!!! love it!!!

[64C10Fleet]

Originally Posted by radleyhardy

This truck, this build, this STORY is just so awesome man. If we ever worked together our ADHD would sure cause a bunch of nothing.

Subscribed for this awesomesauce

Thanks man! Look forward to checking out your build, as well. And about the ADHD, my wife says our garage looks like a meth head lives in it. When I work on my own stuff I like to take everything apart piece by piece until I can't walk through the garage and then put it back together half-@ssed in a hurry. I'm trying to over come the half-@ssed in a hurry part on this build.

Originally Posted by CRGRS 66

sorry, don't mean to hi-jack... awesome avatar!!! love it!!!

Agree on the avatar. No worries, talk amongst yourselves.

[64C10Fleet]

Interior... I thought about leaving the interior as is, just fixing the rusted panels and laying some carpet down. I'll probably end up tearing it all apart and laying down some sound deadening material. Any suggestion? I saw someone on here had used some stuff from a Lowes or Home Depot for his floor, wonder how that stuff worked out.

I pulled everything off the floor and inner firewall. A lot of surface rust and the floor is rusted through in a few places. This was my favorite fix by far.



And this is what I found under it, yikes!



A shot from below, didn't realize until after I looked at this picture that the dimmer switch plug was melted.



Passenger side floor.



Passenger side floor from bottom.



Need replacement parts! Who makes the best fitting parts out there?

[McMurphy]

I have gotten those floor pan patches from both LMC and Classic, in the end it was half dozen of one, 6 of another. Both needed some sort of attention in order to get them to fit.

[LostMy65]

Have you seen the recent thread regarding TopBanana ?
It talks about them being a good place to buy your patch panels.
Posted via Mobile Device

[C@rnut001]

I really like your truck and the story of it. It is great to see you fixing and restoring your grandpa's truck. Keep up the great work on it and keep the updates coming. I love to see these old trucks going back together and being fixed up to drive again.

[64C10Fleet]

Originally Posted by CRGRS 66

Check out the thread on here on Top Banana, good info on patch panels

Originally Posted by LostMy65

Have you seen the recent thread regarding TopBanana ?
It talks about them being a good place to buy your patch panels.
Posted via Mobile Device

Either of you guys have a link?

Originally Posted by McMurphy

I totally love the LMC catalog, it is like a tech manual.
I wish a lot more were like it. It is one thing to order a part sometimes, but to see where it goes too... awesome for a dork like me !!!

My only adivce would be to be patient no matter what you get, and always cut too big, then trim it down to fit. For some reason I did not have much luck with one cut go....

That's what I like about metal, you can always put more back! You should see some of the gaps I've jumped in sheet metal, lol.

Originally Posted by C@rnut001

I really like your truck and the story of it. It is great to see you fixing and restoring your grandpa's truck. Keep up the great work on it and keep the updates coming. I love to see these old trucks going back together and being fixed up to drive again.

Thanks brother. I'll definitely keep the updates coming.

I spent the day organizing my shed to store more parts and then transferred parts from the garage to the shed. I plan to remove the front crossmember this evening and prime it, hope to paint it tomorrow morning.

Picked up the remaining gaskets for the engine today and some paint for the Corvette manifolds. Almost done painting then now.

[CRGRS 66]

top banana thread

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=535140

[64C10Fleet]

Originally Posted by CRGRS 66

top banana thread

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=535140

Thanks man! I'll check it out!

Got the front suspension and crossmember out. Cleaned the crossmember and coated it in Jasco and got it ready to prime in the morning.
Posted via Mobile Device

[64C10Fleet]

Ahh progress...

Managed to get the control arms cleaned and ready for primer, hope to spray a couple coats on tomorrow. They're pitted pretty bad, so I'll probably spray a few heavy coats and wet sand to see how well I can get them to clean up. I think I'll probably swap them out for something else down the road.

Front crossmember is installed. Plan to finish painting the majority of the chassis tomorrow. Sorry for the pics, couldn't find the camera I normally use.







Manifolds look awesome, can't wait to bolt them on.



Hope to install the engine next week if I can finish cleaning up the bottom of the cab and hit it with undercoating between now and then. A lot to do, but I'm really looking forward to being able to move this thing around under its own power soon.

[64C10Fleet]

Not much of an update here... I spent some time sanding and priming my control arms yesterday and then decided to work on the engine a little.

I found that I somehow installed the pistons in the wrong cylinders along the way (or at least I think so) and my rod clearance is off now. The clearance from front to back came in at less than .005 (that's the smallest feeler I had), .012, .014, and .020. My guess is I accidently swapped pistons 1 & 2 for pistons 7 & 8. I'll get back into it on Thursday evening.

[64C10Fleet]

Been a long couple of weeks. Not a lot of time to wrench on the truck with the rain and work schedule. I finished cleaning and painting the front suspension and reinstalled. I've had a lot of problems with the local parts stores lately, it all started when I purchased new ball joints two weeks ago. When I got them home I noticed one was used. Drove 16 miles one way back to the store I bought it from in my Nissan that gets 8 miles per gallon and they didn't have any in stock. They offered to give me the more expensive ball joints for the same price so I agreed. Guess what!? One of the ball joints from the second set was used, as well.

Oh well, sorry for the crap pics, but I got it back together...





Engine problems. For some reason the one thing I decided to not tear down was the most problematic piece so far. Looks like the cylinder walls were not polished properly after being cut, same thing with the crank. Also found the cam bearings were installed incorrectly. We decided to pull the freeze plugs and found even more problems. It was apparent all of the plugs were not pulled during the PO's build process. Last but not least, looks like one of the pistons was dropped at some point.

So the crank and cylinders will be polished, new cam bearings installed, new freeze plugs installed, new main bearings, and new rod bearings. My friend that owns the machine shop said he thinks he can repair the piston. If not, I'll order one.

Had a chance over the weekend to spend some time on the grill. My wife wasn't very happy that I used the kitchen table, but she doesn't expect anything less from me. Grill is still going to need a little work, but the basic shape is there again. Wow, did that take a lot of work!