1970 C20 Custom Camper AKA "The War Wagon"

[rpmerf]

I've had the truck for about 7 months now, so I figured I'd start a thread. Its a 1970 C20 Custom Camper, 350, 3 speed auto. It appears to be mostly original.

My uncle bought the truck in 1987. He rebuilt the engine and it was driven daily by him or his wife up until about 2 years ago. When he rebuilt the engine, he lowered the compression to 8:1 for better reliability. He also installed an aftermarket cam to give better power in the mid range. The transmission went up in the truck, and he took it to my cousin's garage to have a Jasper transmission installed. While it was there, my uncle's back went out, leaving him without the ability to walk. He was trying to sell the truck, but couldn't find anyone who wanted it for the price he was asking. I had just bought a house and was looking at getting a truck, so he gave it to me. I am the only car guy of my generation in my family, so he knew that I would really appreciate it, and I would work on it and keep it running.









I rigged up those speakers until I can get some kick panel speakers. The old ones were like PC speakers under the seat.


If you notice the 'horn' on the right, that's an air raid siren. Its hooked up to the alarm. This is part of the reason its known as the war wagon.


It lists auxiliary battery, is that supposed to be a passenger side battery? When I got the truck it had a secondary battery in the bed.


What is supposed to go here?


Not pictured is the cap, but it is in a youtube video I took a while back

‪update 2 car garage, new...

So far on this truck I have:
rebuilt the top half of the carb
replaced the rear brake line
removed a bunch of weird wiring(nothing factory) and the rear battery as I wasn't seeing voltage up front
installed the proper center seat belt(the old one was from a ford?)
put a layer of spray paint over the floor rust

I have many plans for this truck. I would like to install these by the end of the summer:
new stereo, most likely a USA-230
new speakers - kick panel, and dual voice channel in the stock location
new dash pad
new glove box liner
fiber optic cable for the shift indicator
rear view mirror
new gas cap that doesn't leak

over time I would like to:
replace leaking seals around the doors
fix the rust, or replace rusted body parts
paint the truck. I'll be doing this myself.
tach/vac dash, my uncle says he has a couple of these somewhere.
replace the cracked windshield
get a new seat or have this one recovered
get the original mirrors

Overall the truck is in very good condition. I drove it to Carlisle(340 mile round trip) with no problems other than using a bit of oil. I got 12mpg, I might have actually done better since I don't know how much leaked out of the filler cap. I've had the truck up to about 90mph and it runs smooth even at those speeds. Since both of my other cars are currently out of commission until I find time to work on them, I am driving the truck daily now(40 miles round trip).

Currently, my only issues with the truck are gas leaking out of the filler cap, an exhaust leak, and sound only coming out of one side of my rigged speaker setup.

I have one question that comes to mind right now.
My uncle gave me some exhaust manifolds and told me they flow better than the ones on the truck currently. The only issue is that the factory manifold are angled toward the rear while these manifolds point straight down. Is there someplace I can get the downpipes to make this exhaust match up?

[hbchevy]

Cool truck and good luck!

P.s. not gonna lie, that has to be one of the ghettoest speaker setups I have ever seen lol, but hey whatever works right.
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[rpmerf]

It looks like I removed the factory dual battery wiring from my truck. I would like to do a dual battery with a factory auxiliary tray again. For some reason that wasn't in the truck when my uncle got it. When I wire up the second battery I plan to do it differently.

The battery in the factory primary battery location will feed the start and receive power from the voltage regulator through a diode. This will ensure the battery is used only for the starter, and not not anything else. This way, if I leave the headlights on, it will not kill the second battery. The battery in the auxiliary location will then power the rest of the vehicle. It looks like I should be able to do this very easily since the only things connected to the junction box are the battery, connection to the other junction blocks and some wire that passes by the other junction blocks. I would install a switch so the starter battery could power the other battery if needed.

[1972hays]

thats a cool camper and garage

[capev86]

dig the Daytona also.....do you frequent any of the mopar fwd forums like turbododge and turbo-mopar?

i have an 86 k wagon getting the works for a sleeper tuner car and its my other favorite toy besides my 72 burb c20!

[rpmerf]

Yep, I've spoken to you a couple times times on car domain and TD, TM. My name on the other sites is RPMurph or Murphy. I used to have a tbi auto spirit I would usually talk to you about.

[rpmerf]

Update:

realizing how the factory dual battery setup as supposed to work, I think I will use that. For some reason the relay was wired to cig instead of ignition unfused, which had confused me. The voltage regulator also is hard wired into the BOTH junction blocks, so i'll need to fix that.

I went to carlisle today. I got some weatherstripping for the doors, new gas cap, dash pad, shift indicator fiber optic wire and glove box liner. I almost got a new radio, but I ran out of cash. I didn't see anyone selling the kick panels.

[rpmerf]

I 'fixed some rust' by adding a layer of primer to most of the outside of the truck. Its gonna be fun when ti comes time to actually fix it...

[capev86]

Yep, I've spoken to you a couple times times on car domain and TD, TM. My name on the other sites is RPMurph or Murphy. I used to have a tbi auto spirit I would usually talk to you about.

awesome! now, like me, all you need is a trailer and all the toys can go with you!!!

[rpmerf]

I want to get a trailer one of these days.

I got the new dash pad installed. Removed the old radio, still need to order a new one. I discovered some more wiring nightmares with the radio. The memory(full time 12v) was connected to IGN UNFUSED. The power was hooked the the ignition behind the key, The wire was just pushed in. For some reason it had 2 inline fuses. I dont know why 2 different wires were used when the memory and standard input were both hooked to full time power.

[rpmerf]

Fixing some rust lol. I wanted to try painting it this summer, but I don't think my bank account would allow that.


the dash all apart installing the new dash pad


new dash pad installed! the interior looks 100% better without that cracked up dash pad!


I played with some wiring under the hood today. The wires that come from the voltage regulator and generator I believe are supposed to meet at a junction block, correct? Well, wires to the gen, volt reg, driver and pass side blocks were all crimped and soldered together. I took this and had the gen and volt reg wires still soldered together and have them going to the drivers side junction block. Then I made a new wire to connect the drivers and passenger's blocks. I also replaced the battery to pass's block wire with a fused 10ga wire, as opposed to the 14 gauge unfused one that was in there. I tried to connect the dual battery wiring, but it seems my relay is dead. I will most likely get a generic relay and use that. I still don't have a aux battery tray so getting it setup isn't that urgent.

There are 2 wires under the hook that I dont quite understand. There is a black fused wire going to the pass side junction block and a black/white fused wire going to the drivers side junction block. According to the following diagrams, I dont see what they are supposed to do. The first one shows them going to the firewall, then connected to nothing on the other side? The Aux wiring diagram shows at least the pass side one, but nothing about where it goes or what it does.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3645/...c2a8064d_o.jpg

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/a...1&d=1283644167

I was going to replace the weatherstripping on my doors today, but it seems the weatherstripping is glued on. Is that really glue or is it just from sitting in the same place for 41 years?

[rpmerf]

New weatherstripping is in. The doors are pretty hard to close now. I haven't really looked to see if I'm still getting water in.

I got a tool box for the bed made out of diamond plate steel for $40. It came out of a newer ford, so it was a tight fit. The bed on my truck is 8" wider than the truck this box was previously on. I still managed to just barely get it bolted in.

I relayed the headlights today. I can't wait to see how they look at night! One of the headlights is dimmer than the other, duno if its a bad ground or if its because they are 2 different brands

[rpmerf]

so 2 weeks ago my uncle that gave me the truck died....

I was helping clean out his garage today. I found a bunch of parts. Best of all I found the ORIGINAL owners manual, completely filled out. the truck was bought November 1969. still looking for that pile of tach/vacs......

[litew8]

Sorry to hear about your uncle
Tailgate looks like the one I found recently. Those bumper guards look original and bad as!

[rpmerf]

thx ya I really like them. I can ram stuff and not worry about scratching my bumper!

[rpmerf]

Found a chrome air cleaner. Put it on with a K&N. Sounds MEAN when I floor it, but i think the carb needs a tune.

There was a CB radio that I'm gonna hook up. Also got a bunch of tuning tools like a giant sears meter for dwell and points, and a sears timing light, all from the early 80's. Along with about 5 compression gauges. He had some kind of obsession with fog lights and interior gauges. There must me 10 sets of fog lights, a pile of voltmeters, amp meters, oil pres gauges, tachs. There is one cool digital tach I'm going to try to hook up.

I just spent about 4 hours digging this stuff out of the back of my truck in boxes and sorting through some of the boxes of electrical stuff.

I found the dealer emblems that go in those fender holes!

[rpmerf]

In the next 2, this was all I found at the time. I found more...

[rpmerf]

So how would I go about adjusting the carb for the new air cleaner? Get it hot, hook up the vac gauge, and mess with the 2 screws in the front till it looks right and feels good?

The spacer between the air filter and carb is sort of annoying, and I think it would be alot nicer if I could eliminate that, especially since I'm planning on adding a carb spacer. Would it be ok to have both PCV hoses hooked up to the carb like the one for the drivers side valve cover? or would he be better to put a valve on the bottom of the air cleaner? I figure it is setup this way so the divers side gets more pull during normal drive then the pass side gets more at WOT.

[rpmerf]

So the truck has been doing pretty good up until yesterday. I can feel the carb is a bit out of tune as it seems to lose power between 75% and WOT, but that's not really an issue.

Yesterday, the truck bogged down a couple times while accelerating, it felt like it wasn't getting fuel. 2 of the times I would let off the gas and it would idle, I would hit the gas and it would bog, this would go on for about 5 seconds then go back to normal. Once, it died out completely. I pulled off the fuel line to the carb and cranked it a few times and nothing came out of the fuel like. I used some vac line to get some fuel from the fuel tank to get it going, and it continued running after that. I'm thinking I have a clogged line or bad fuel pump. Is it possible for the fuel pump to stick and cause an intermittent lack of fuel as I am observing?

[litew8]

Don't think it'd "stick" being mechanical. Like you suggested, the pump could have been starved for gas, or crap got caught up in it or your carb . Maybe your tank needs cleaned? If the pump was going bad, I think you'd see it leaking fuel.

[rpmerf]

So, I figured it was a clog, so I pulled the fuel sender and the sock was torn up. I puled out the gas tank and cleaned it out by sloshing some gas around and dumping it really quick. Not much sediment came out. I pulled off all the fuel lines and blew them out with the air compressor. I replaced the fuel sock, fuel filter and the rubber lines. I replaced the rubber piece at the fuel filler, but it seems to be the wrong one, so I'll need to get the later one. I guess the PO installed a newer style tank?

A few days later I was driving it and thought I ran out of gas. I put more gas in it, but it was running rough, stalling, and had a hard time moving. I let it sit overnight and it fired up and ran fine. I replaced the fuel pump and its been fine ever since. It was feeling a bit better at WOT.

The other day I managed to beak the shift lever. Moving it front to back was getting really difficult when it was cold out. I went to put it in park and the shifter snapped. I had to go under the hood and use a screwdriver on the shifter to get it into park. I'm trying to take it all apart and clean it but I'm having trouble at the turn signal assembly, I have another thread about that here http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=503839

I found my one turn signal cancellation spring is broken, so that will be an easy fix while its all apart.

my pcv grommets are rotted away to the point of almost non-existance. I'll have to pull the valve cover and clean them out and install new ones(already have).

Update on the relayed headlights: They are REALLY bright. I want to get the fog lights working again for more side light.

[rpmerf]

So, I pulled out the steering column and cleaned it all up, greased it up, and put it back together with a new shift lever. Shifts super smooth, almost feels like I don't even have to pull on it, so I might need to look into that. I like to have to give it a bit of pull to get it out of park. I managed to break the shift indicator while pulling everything apart, it will sit in place most of the time, but pops out every once in a while. It also doesn't seem to get good light, so I will need to mess with that. I can see the light coming through, but it doesn't light up the panel. I messed up my horn button when pulling it out, so I will need a new one. Really sucks because this one is only about 6 months old. I replaced the turn signal cancellation spring.

I pulled the valve covers, cleaned them out, and reinstalled them with new gaskets, new PCV grommets, new PCV valve and hose up front and a breather in the back.

I drove the truck to work today. When I stopped off on the way home, and when I got home, the engine shook really bad after pulling the key out. It seems this is caused from the engine being hot and the fuel igniting off the compression alone. I herd coolant moving around after I got out so I checked my coolant and it was a bit low, but the gauge never got above about 1/3. My hose for my overflow is ripped so I will need to do something about that. I guess I'll try power foaming the engine to make sure there isn't any carbon build up. The ignition system could use a tune up too, as I haven't touched it yet. I'll be replacing all the vac lines soon. My choke seems to be operating normally and was closed when I pulled the air cleaner, so I think that is not an issue. The truck is has 8.0:1 compression and I always run 87 octane in it. I don't think Its a gas issue as the truck was running great.

So after being unemployed since the beginning of October, I finally managed to get a job working IT at Johns Hopkins Medical Institution. If you haven't herd of this hospital, its one of the best in the world. I'm really glad to be working again. Having money is going to be really nice. I will finally be able to buy more parts for the truck!