It’s Just A Pickup

[Bruce88]

Where to start, I guess at the beginning sort of. First I would like to share my rebuild with you and of course get feedback, suggestions and help in all those questions that seem to come up that I lack knowledge about. Plus keep a running log of what’s being accomplished to include parts installed.

As for the name of this rebuild (It’s Just A Pickup) it all started over a year ago with my neighbor and many conversations we have had about how the truck should be rebuilt. He being younger than me an older back yard mechanic and how the rebuild would be more of a vanilla stile of rebuild rather than wild and custom show quality. Not to say that it will be pure stock configuration it will have some personal innovations and some old school approach to some improvements. The neighbor is still excited about the build and wanting to help and learn when time permits.

I’ve been gathering parts for over a year, along with researching and gathering information from this forum and other web sites. Thanks to all, yes you can teach a older backyard mechanic new tricks. A special thanks to all that have taken the time to post the How To’s. I thought that I would give it try myself and it’s a lot of work. You can see my attempt in the FAQ section of this forum title (V Belt Pulley Alignment 101) let me know what you think. Note just finished putting the engine together and took the pictures for the How To, will be posting pictures of complete engine in next post on this thread.

The rebuild started over 6 months ago and I’ve been taking some pictures along the way and winter has come along the rebuild will slow down. So I will take this time to sort thru the pictures and get to play around with Photoshop (self taught) crop, size and organize along with text generation for this build thread. Yes I know I’m rather slow with 1 day work on the truck equates to 2 – 3 days rest/recovery due to physical limitations and pain but I will plug along because I enjoy it. I’ll apologize up front that my spelling and grammar is pore and a spelling & grammar checker can only help so much so don’t expect to much or fast response.

I bought the 1972 Chevy C10 short bed step side pickup in Dec 1998 for hauling and yard work around the house with the possible customizing after I retired, it came with a spare stripped cab that had a lot less rust and damage than the one on the truck. I’ve rebuilt the front suspension with 2-1/2 in drop spindles and sway bar in the front, 4 in drop springs and sway bar in the rear and replace the sparkplug wires all the other modifications that will be listed below where accomplished by prior owners. The truck never failed to start and run but burned oil and had small engine and automatic transmission oil leaks.

Color - dark green with black bumpers and black color over fender wells and lower panels (There is no identification labels in the glove box to indicate its color from the factory and this color does not match standard factory colors. The closest color is a fleet/industrial color dark green it reminds me of a forest ranger truck color.)

Engine - 350 V8 It appears that this engine was equipped with an exhaust air pump that has been removed and the intake manifold has been replaced with an Edelbrock Streetmaster manifold toped with a Holly 4 barrel carburetor.

Exhaust - dual exhaust with an “H” tube

Trans - Turbo 350 Automatic Transmission column shift (Worn linkage some times you have to jiggle/hunt to get it into drive.)

Differential - 12 bolt with 3.08 to 1 non-lock gears

Suspension - Front coil springs with sway bar. Rear coil springs with sway bar

Brakes - Power brakes with front disc and rear drum

Steering - Power Steering

Towing - Home made or shop made tow hitch that will not accommodate a spar tire mount

Damage - Front bumper, grill and right front fender have been hit and are not reparable. Right inner fender is rusted thru in the front area. Radiator core support rusted thru in the bottom area. Hood has a 8 in diameter dent in front area. Front window is cracked. Cab floor panels, rocker panels, rear corner panels and more rusted thru. Bed wood floor rotted out, the rest of the bed body panels have minor dents.

Most of the rebuild is going to take place in a 13-1/2 foot by 21-1/2 foot garage attached to a two car garage filled with cars. I have a good assortment of the standard tools and a few specialty tools. Also to help during the winter months a small kerosene heater to brake the chill.

Now that I’ve bored you with a wall of text it’s time for some pictures. I always enjoy seeing the pictures and they are some times more informative than the writing. I will try to include as may pictures as possible in future posts.

[Spray-Bomb]

Cool
I like that green

[Puropedo]

Wow Bruce, u gave lots of info about ur truck, Im glad ur thinking about
making it be a bad ass ride! Keep posting pics of your progress!

[R.L.]

Wow, this sounds great, keep us posted and

[65ShortStep]

Looks like you have a great plan for it. I like that color of green. I even kinda like that 2-tone job. It's unusual to say the least

[Bruce88]

Yes 65ShortStep I agree it’s an unusual 2 tone paint job but I think the previous owner painted the black to cover body work and rust will find out when the panels are stripped. Haven’t finalized the final color for the project, might even redo the same unusual 2 tone paint job.

[Bruce88]

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Chrome Blue not exactly what a bride would bring together for what to wear at her wedding but very applicable for building a engine.

Not the most performance oriented SB Chevy engine I’ve built but a good solid every day dependable engine that will run on regular gas. Just what I want for this rebuild.

I prefer to put all the parts together in mockup on the engine stand to workout any small details even knowing that some parts will need to be removed to facilitate installation and to lessen back pain from working over a fender.

All the pulleys & brackets where removed form the old engine, sandblasted in a small sandblasting cabinet and painted with VHT satin black epoxy paint.

The aluminum throttle bracket did need some modification to clear the 700R4 TV cable corrector lever, choke butterfly linkage, and bring the return springs into a straight pull when the throttle is wide open. Yes the build will be getting a 700R4 transmission, will be posting more information in next post with pictures of course.

Never used ram horn exhaust manifolds before, usually first thing to change was to headers ceramic coated. But I well give it a try, spent about 2 hours grinding to remove the casting flashing then took them to the ceramic coater and had them coated. Hope the coating holds up as good as it does on headers.

Parts used on engine buildup
10067353 - GM Goodwrench 350 crate engine 260 HP and 350 ft/lbs of torque

65903 - Moroso low profile air cleaner

1400 - Edelbrock Performer Carburetor 600cfm

15152 & 15229 - JEGS Billet Aluminum Throttle Brackets

AS3-03K - Sonnax TV Cable Corrector Kit

2101 - Edelbrock Performer Manifold

9518 - Trans-Dapt Performance chrome valve covers

40002 - JEGS Chevy HEI Distributor

40200 - JEGS 8.0mm Red Hot Power Wires

RNM-1101S - R&M billet wire looms

RNB-674-199 & RNB-674-201 - Dorman exhaust manifolds

PTP-7-1907-BL - Prothane Motor and Transmission mount kit

12355612 - GM Performance Parts Street Fuel Pump

51030 - JEGS High Flow Water Pump

SUM-161358 - Summit OEM damper

SUM-811001 - Summit Alternator 100 amp, internal regulator, powder coated

NAPA - rebuilt power steering pump

Well another wall of text but this will benefit me in the future with all this information in one place to reference if required and maybe others will be interested in it also. Thought I would take some 360 degree pictures of the engine, so to be able to view it from different angles not normally seen when installed, hope you enjoy.

[EyeH8the24]

thats a clean looking motor ! awsome job

[R.L.]

Yeah I've enjoyed the picturers, good job on such a clean looking powerplant.

[Tx Firefighter]

Great job bending those hard lines. I always hate to see a bunch of rubber hose lazily running everywhere. You obviously took a lot of time routing the stuff.

But tell me, what are you doing with the two vacuum lines running off the engine near the fuel pump ?

[Bruce88]

Good eye Tx Firefighter I was trying to hide them. The two vacuum lines will run over to the charcoal vapor canister that is mounted just to the right of the battery. One to open the canister valve and the other one to clear the canister trapped gas fumes. They possibly will be trimmed shorter after installation.

[72hotrodder]

why are you running a charcoal canister?

[Bruce88]

You have to vent your gas tank somewhere the older trucks use to do it thru the gas cap into the atmosphere I prefer to vent my fumes into a charcoal canister then have them burned and there is no power loss with this setup just some extra vacuum lines

[my67chevytruck]

nice looking engine.. great work!

[nuke1]

very clean looking engine you have there, if this in any indication on your build you will have one fine truck,

James

[Bruce88]

My Quest for a 700R4, there are loads and loads of information out there about the swap and all the possible down falls to being happy with the end results. So I’ve gathered together my thoughts and logic of all the information and will lay them out hear for others to see. If any one sees a flaw or pit fall with the plan please let me know I think I got it right but it’s always easer to correct a problem before I build it.

The engine is a stock GM 350 crate engine with no performance mods made to the cam, compression, or intake manifold to change the horse power or torque curves of a stock carbureted engine. Looking at the torque curve for the stock motor the majority of the torque is obtained by 1700 RPM. The primary area the truck will be used is at sea level and very little towing so corrections for altitude or weight should not be required, there for my RPM at highway speed should be above 1700 RPM.

I did a comparison between the stock truck TH350 trany and the 700R4 with different deferential ratios and the same tire diameter (27 inch) that I will be using, for speeds at 60 – 70 MPH to determine operating RPM. Found a very good online calculator for this comparison at Mark Willams Enterprises ( http://www.markwilliams.com/calculators.aspx ) and took some screen shots and with a little manipulation in Photoshop generated the comparison below. When I rebuild the deferential it will be with 3.42 to 1 gear ratio for 1800 – 2100 RPM at highway speeds.



With so many different places to get a 700R4 transmission from and all the different versions I decided go with a TCI Maximizer RV & Towing Transmission Package 371002P1, TCI 700R4 slip yoke 967300 and Sonnax TV cable corrector AS3-03K to correct the TV cable pull geometry at the carburetor. Note per TCI there aperies to be a difference between the TH350 yoke (Fully splined) and 700R4 yoke (Counter bore in end of barrel) what this exactly means I’m not sure but to be on the safe side I decided to use the TCI 700R4 yoke rather than reuse the TH350 yoke from the truck.

Will be using the torque converter cover from the TH350 trans. I Did have to trim the aft edge of the cover about 1/16 to 1/8 of an inch to clear the 700R4 trans pan.

The Trans mount cross member support will have to be moved approximately 3 inches aft I see no problem there. Except there might be a clearance problem with the Trans oil pan if so I will just fabricate a new one that will clear.

The driveshaft will have to be shortened approximately 3 inches. Plan on retaining the 2 peace driveshaft configuration, just take the new yoke and old driveshaft with the exact dimensions down and have it made and balanced. The 2 peace drive shaft configuration works well with the coil spring swing arm set up and no need to play around with pinion angle for a one peace drive shaft.

Speedometer calibration is being accomplished with 34 to 39 tooth gear housing, 15 tooth (gray) drive gear and 38 tooth driven gear. Found P.A.T.C Speed Shop ( http://www.transmissioncenter.net/highperf700r4.htm ) on the web and ordered the housing and gears, good price, fast shipping and they have a speedometer calculator to figure out what to order. I may have to get a longer speedometer cable for this installation, I don’t know now. Just a thought do you think any one would be interested in a “how to” with pictures on changing the drive gear on a 700R4 for speedometer calibration. If so let me know and I will generate one. I’m going to be changing mine shortly.

Converting the shifter from a column to the floor and wanted kind of a truck 4 speed look so I went with a Lokar Auto Trans 23 inch Shifter ATS6700AB and Lokar Back-up Light Switch BL-1400U. I will say that installing the main shifter mount bracket with the Trans on the bench is a lot easer than it would be in the close confines of the truck tunnel. I did have to bend the shifter arm outboard about ½ inch to clear the trans and vacuum switch. That changed the geometry between the gates in the shifter and the trans lever detents. To bring it all into sink again I moved the shifter rod hole lower on the trans lever.

I wanted to be able to lock up the torque converter in other gears than the 4th gear automatic lock up the trans provides, so I will be adding a switch to do this. I made a switch bracket out of aluminum, sandblasted and clear coated to be mounted to the shifter shaft. Kind of reminds me of larger trucks that have an over and under (two speed rear-end) switch on the shifter.

I have rebuilt the steering column removing the shifter handle and filling the holes plus removing the lever and detent in the lower end of the shaft.

On to the electrical, I find it easer for me if I draw out wiring modifications to figure out where to tap into the stock wiring. So with a little work and Photoshop manipulation I generated the one below that shows the Trans wiring plus all the other electrical items that will be added to the truck.



Well that’s all I can think of on my quest for a 700R4 post except to figure out what pictures that will be posted.

[nightmare]

All i can say is WOW. that looks awesome. i can't wait to see what happens with the rest of the truck

[SCOTI]

Stuff like this is what makes this board great. 'Real world' ideas, costs, & products w/a detailed plan of execution & focus on visual elements. I look forward to the updates.

[kyull67]

Very nice thread you've got here!
Can't wait to read the rest.

[nuke1]

talk about thinking alot into things, thatr is some amazing detail you have there.

[ERASER5]

I love the Lokar shifter and switch setup. Thanks for the pic of the setup.

I have thinking (that usually a bad thing), Could a Lokar column shift linkage be also bolted to the trans shift arm? Remove the detent parts from the column so the original PRNDLL indicator (with a Lokar PRNODL installed) will move with the stick?

The early 70's Dodges with floor shifters did something like this.

Also, I would like to see the speedo gear calibration pics.

[Bruce88]

Originally Posted by ERASER5

I love the Lokar shifter and switch setup. Thanks for the pic of the setup.

I have thinking (that usually a bad thing), Could a Lokar column shift linkage be also bolted to the trans shift arm? Remove the detent parts from the column so the original PRNDLL indicator (with a Lokar PRNODL installed) will move with the stick?

The early 70's Dodges with floor shifters did something like this.

Also, I would like to see the speedo gear calibration pics.

ERASER5 Interesting concept to think about for a innovation. I like to think about ideas like this. I think it could be possible but you would have to make a custom trans lever that extends up and down from the centerline of the trans shifter shaft. One end of the lever (top end) attached to the shifter rod and the other end (bottom end) attached to a rod running up to the column lever. Figuring out what angle the lower portion of the lever would be made to and hole location I don’t know but if figured out it would move the indicator on the column and then possibly you could use the backup light switch and the park/neutral start switch on the column. Then you could take a peace of Plexiglas and make an indicator glass with the new shift positions on it. This is all based on using the lokar shifter that I’m using.

There is another Lokar shifter that could be used the Cable Operated Automatic Transmission Shifter where the trans arm extends down and you would probably still have to make a custom trans lever. This shifter gives you more shifter location option since its floor mounted.

If all else fails there’s always the Lokar shifter position indicator light systems that can be used.

Keep up the thinking about how to accomplish what you want to and throwing out ideas. This is how the innovations in the custom/hotrod vehicles came about finding ways of doing things that nobody has thought about or didn’t let any body know about.

Hope this helps you put your plans together for your ride.

As for the how to calibrate the speedometer with a 700R4 with picture I will post it in a few weeks in the FAQ section of this forum. Thank you for asking just wanted to make sure others would be interested.

[gcburdic]

Great build Bruce88....I look forward to your progress....and your attention to detail is immaculate!!!

[texanidiot25]

Killer build, and the wiring diagram will save headaches.

Love the thought into it, and that clean lookin' engine.

[Bruce88]

As I’ve been gathering parts for over a year and started this build/disassembly over 6 months ago I’ve been taking pictures and when removing parts, looking the parts over and determining if they will be cleaned up and used as is, or rebuilt possibly modified, or replaced with something else. Plus putting all the nuts, bolts, and small parts in zip lock bags labeled where they came from that way finding the small parts that I might need to be reusing would be simpler.

I’ve been sorting thru all the photos that I currently have of the parts that have been rebuilt or will be used and wanting to bring this build thread up to date. This has worked out fairly well because a cold front has moved in with snow and ice. This gives me the chance to stay warm and bring a lot of this build plan together on this thread.

So hear is a glimpse into where the interior of the cab will be going.

The interment cluster has been rebuilt with LMC 36-1924 Fuel Gauge and LMC 38-8016 Dashboard Bezel

I’m going to replace the radio with Custom Autosound – Concours Series CHTKL-1S
AM/FM Cassette, CD/mp3 plug in capable. It will fit in the stock radio opening with out modification.



The heater control assembly had broken control arms and cables were in pretty bad shape, rebuilt with LMC 32-064 Repair Kit, LMC 30-1450 Control Cable Set, and LMC 36-0675 Heater Switch. The control arms where probably damaged when some one tried to move them and the heater box heat valve was clogged up with needles and leaves. Will be posting the heater box later.

It’s been around for ever or at least as far back as I can remember, one place to add gauges was under the dash on a simple bracket. I wanted something a little different so I bent up and welded a bracket for the gauges that will be mounted below the heater control with the heater control screws. Gauges to be used Auto Meter ATM-1994 Tachometer, Auto Meter ATM-2484 Vacuum, Air Lift 24804 Load Controller II using Auto Meter ATM-2234 Angle Rings and air switch and relief valve. The bracket will be painted the same color as the dash. Yes I will be using air shocks for helping with loads I’ll talk about that later.



I’m of an older generation before cell phones and GPS locaters and my truck just would not seem right if it didn’t have a CB. So I will be installing a Cobra 29 WX NW ST – Sound Tracker CB in the overhead head liner.

The LMC 38-2043 Headliner is where the radio speakers will be installed along with some sound/insulation material under the headliner.



Since I’m storing the seats in the spare bedroom the cat is checking out a new place for a nap or should I just say kitty approved. The seats are from Discount Van-Truck-SUV-RV http://www.discountvantruck.com/truc...sSantaCruz.htm Santa Cruz 40-20-40 Truck Seats. For semi custom seats I find them of good quality and reasonably priced. I did order the frame the seats will attach to that’s for the 67 – 72 Chevy C10. I think the frame will require some additional support on the legs that I will weld on before the installation.



I haven’t finalized the interior of the cab color yet but I’m thinking of obtaining some of the stock fabric color of the seats for the door panels and some of the headliner.