'84 Chevy Custom Deluxe 10...

[Darkrider]

Well this is my first actual 2wd squarebody build. First square was a '76 GMC K5 Jimmy back in high school. I picked this truck up in september while i was searching for a second vehicle to drive after a bunch of mishaps earlier in the year. Managed to make a deal on some parts with the guy i bought the truck off of. It just so happens hes got a lot of old square body trucks out in his back field. So i am more then likely going to be raiding that stash quite a bit.

Specs:

1984 Chevy Custom Deluxe 10
350 Oldsmobile Rocket V8 with 4 barrel quadrajet carb and HEI ignition
Th400 transmission

[Darkrider]

Not much of an update but i will be taking the truck to my buddies place on wed to go through the carb and rebuild it to get it running better for this winter. Will also be adding a second battery to put the dual battery set up back in service. Right now im having an intermittent starter issue with it. So i may need to replace the starter on it soon as well.

As i had mentioned before i set up a deal to get some parts for it. The parts being a new box, front fenders and cowl panel. There are enough parts on the donor truck to look at converting to the quad headlight setup as well. But i am kind of torn between staying with the single headlights or swapping to the quad lights. My friend also has a few suburbans at his place with the newer front clip that still uses quad lights but the smaller ones. Either way im assuming i will need to swap rad supports to do either one correct?

Here is a pic of the sheet metal im getting from my buddy. The plan is to paint the rest of the truck this color. Not sure what im going to do tailgate wise. This one has a dent in it and my original tailgate is bowed a bit...So i may need to buy another one from somewhere with the Chevrolet script on it.

[Darkrider]

Well a bit of an update on this truck. Plans in the previous update did not go as planned. Still need to do the carb. Briefly ended up having to back out of the deal for the body parts as well. However I ended up with them anyway when i traded a project for another squarebody truck. I will start a post on that one shortly. Plus next week i am going to pick up doors and a front clip off of an '85 Blazer with the stacked 4 headlights and it looks like it may have been silverado trim. The doors have power windows and power locks.

[Darkrider]

I still have this old '84. The other square body I had picked up ended up being traded off for a GMT400 then that 400 got traded for another Squarebody K5. That K5 has also ended up sold but in that deal, I got the front fenders and quad headlight rad support/wiring harness as the K5 was a donor for a 4wd Belair build. However, I'm still kind of torn on whether I'm keeping the current single headlight set up or going to the quads.

In the past few years, the following changes have been made to it

LED headlights
Full LED swap to the rear lights
an old Ammo was used as a floor console with bike bottle carriers as cup holders. However, this mod will be redone when I swap in a pair of bucket seats from a Saturn Coupe.

The following repairs have been done in the past few years:

Rebuilt the starter
repaired a trans cooler line.

Ultimately I ended up just enjoying the truck as it was and put it to work for the first 5 years I had it. It has also served as the backbone of my business that I shifted to focus on building in 2019 when I left the security industry permanently. So now it is time for it to be enjoyed as a simple cruiser and occasional work rig.

The plans for it as of this point are as follows:

Replace the front fenders and bedside
Repair drivers door rust
repair drivers side rocker
remove and discard running boards
Order new wheels: Vision 55 Rallye wheels 15x8 front/15x10 rear
Decide on tires for the Rallye wheels
move 2 of the current Nokian Outpost tires to the Astro rims for a fall/winter set
Bucket swap with the Saturn seats
swap the stock steering wheel out for a recovered Grant Gt wheel, Just waiting to send the wheel into the shop to get recovered as the friend who is doing it is booked up till August.
Gloss black/Gloss Med blue two-tone paint. Mostly a Tremclad paint job for the upper part of the body while the lower will be done with bedliner/body liner to protect the new metal.

Most recent pic I have, I May get some at tonight's car meet







I do have 2 van Rally wheels for it as well as I know where I can get some wider ones which I believe are either 15x9s or 15x10s. I owned the wheels on a different vehicle and traded them for a spare box for my '69 C10. But I am able to get them back. I may opt to see if I can find some 15x8 truck Rally wheels for the front to pair with these. If I do so I prob will not get the Vision wheels. Either that or keep with the idea of the Visions and just have two sets of street wheels consisting of the 15x8/15x10 Vision wheels and 15x6/15x10 rally wheels. Plus of course, I still have the 15x8 Wagon wheels that came with it. Overall in the end 5 complete sets of wheels for it as I have a set of Turbines as well. But given I tend to keep finding square-body trucks and am working on picking up a Chevy G20 van it does not hurt. Plus there is a pretty high chance I will eventually do a 5-lug swap on my '69 so there is another truck that would need wheels as well.

[Darkrider]

Much more recent pic of ol Frank.



I have been thinking about how to progress forward with this truck. I know that if I were to tear it down to redo the body to the almost new condition I wanted to go to it would be down for at least a year if not more. And honestly, I suspect even if I did do that I would be constantly worried about damaging it again as I was with my 2015 Ram. The one thing I do enjoy a lot about this truck is that I can just jump in it and go. I don't need to worry about any new dents or dings and know full well that it would take a lot to stop it. So with the above said I will likely just progress with it as a rolling Resto much like cwcarpenter98 has been doing with his Frankentruck. I have located a set of 15x8 truck Rally wheels...which are currently attached to this thing.





It is a 1949 Dodge B1-D 1-ton cab sitting on a 1993 GMC C1500 chassis with an 8 ft IH step-side bed on it. I once owned the Dodge when it was still on its original chassis with its flathead 6. The friend I traded it to dropped it on the newer frame to gain better brakes and suspension. I will likely be buying the truck back in the summer to continue the rat rod build.

As for Frank himself, I am working out a design to put a lumber rack with troop seating in the box and having the rack itself modified into a platform to stand on. I attend a lot of car club events as both a participant and a photographer. The purpose of this rack is twofold. One it will serve as a platform for me to stand on to take high-angle shots at events. and secondly, provide a bit of shelter at those events especially as they get larger and almost start to require a vehicle to take attendees around. Hopefully, I will start on this build this summer, If not it will be early next spring along with grafting in some patch panels on the bed and then sanding paint back to keep the patina. Again much like Frankentruck.

[Darkrider]

Pretty much all the above plans got scrapped as I drive this thing as a DD and enjoy it as is. Over the summer I did end up installing the Grant GT wheel as is and gained a nice bit of space between myself and it in the process then during the early part of the winter I ended up wiring in a push button to take over for a heavily worn out ignition switch in the column. However, I now face a crossroads as it's getting a bit more difficult to get parts to maintain the Olds 350. The biggest issue is finding the proper starter for it. I ended up with an unplanned week off from all my work because of no starter. In the process of swapping out a failed solenoid, the original starter I had rebuilt last winter ended up getting one of the mounting ears cracked to the point it was nearly completely torn off. This occurred when my landlord got a bit...too aggressive with tightening the bolts that secured it. He had offered to help me fix the starter and this situation happened while I was working on some wiring under the hood to clean up the push button install. Did get the ear welded up as best as possible then managed to luck out and get another nose cone for the starter the same day. However, they are now completely obsolete so if something happens again I am screwed. And before anyone says they are available on Rock Auto or Amazon...they are not. What the part numbers on Rock Auto and Amazon come out to be is a starter for a newer engine likely a 307 with the metric flexplate. The Bendix gear of this starter is too small to engage the flex plate. However...there is a distinct possibility that one for a 455 may still have the correct Bendix gear as it appears to in all the pictures I have seen on both sites for that application. I may take a chance on ordering one for a big block and keeping it on hand as a spare. I am just uncertain if it uses the same mounting locations as the 350.

As to what will likely happen come fall once I start driving something else again so i can do the work:
Short tube headers for a 403 Trans Am application to start setting up a new exhaust
Rebuild the TH400 and have it upgraded to a Transgo Stage II shift kit
Replace all leaking gaskets on the 350 Olds
replace the cracked flexplate when the trans is out.
Left side fuel tank delete and routing new exhaust to exit out that side just ahead of the rear wheel.

Potential options, if I decide against keeping the Olds in it, include going back to a 305 High Output from my old Jimmy with a TH700R4 or possibly an NV3500 5 speed. Otherwise that 305 may end up in my '86 Trans Am to replace its unknown condition 305 TPI with a known good carbed engine.

[Darkrider]

I'm still working on this old truck. Granted there are no new pictures though I can get some pretty much any moment I have free time. But the only thing I have done to it lately is partially delete the bastardized AC by removing lines and the compressor. I had intended to do so for a while now but never got around to it till I had to remove the compressor to get access to change the Alternator belt about a month ago. I didn't realize how much space the 350 Olds takes up compared to a standard SBC in these trucks.

At this point I'm going to start looking for either stock Chrome old valve covers (These were used on some 403 and 455 applications) as well as an air cleaner top and bottom that will work with the aftermarket Air filter element I have. I want to say it's an AFE but not sure as it came with a GMT 400 air cleaner assembly i picked up a while ago.

[sdwolff98]

yeah they are quite a bit wider up top then a chevy SB

[Darkrider]

Originally Posted by sdwolff98

yeah they are quite a bit wider up top then a chevy SB

Yup, They fill the bay about as much as a 454. One thing I want to do to this truck is convert it to Hydraboost brakes. One reason is to clean up the bay a bit and make it much easier to service the valve covers on the Olds due to this width and of course to increase braking power. I will be redoing the front brakes fully this fall and I am seriously contemplating the Wilwood caliper upgrade in the process as I need to change out calipers and rotors anyway. It is nice I have the JD5 brakes to begin with. Having the Hydraboost and Wilwoods would be that much better.

[Darkrider]

Since i cant edit my original post i will add this info here as to the specs i have learned of the truck over the years.

The engine is a 1973 Olds 350 Rocket (Gold block not the 74 and later Blue like i thought originally)
Trans is a TH400
Unknown Kms on it.

In the fall I will be ordering a reman transmission with a Trans Go Stage II shift kit in it to replace the current transmission as well as dealing with the brakes.

From the RPO code breakdown, I got a long time ago for this thing it has the JD5 brakes which from what I am reading is the 1.25 (1 1/4) front rotor with 2.75 (2 3/4) rear shoes. And further reading suggests the JD5 is simply a higher-weight capacity version of the JB5 which makes looking up parts a bit easier. Now my question is what is the core difference between the 1" (JB3 and lower) brakes and the JB5/JD5? The 1 1/4" rotor is obvious, but I'm assuming the calipers are different as well. I did the brakes on it last winter and had to grind down over half the pads to fit partly because I was sold the wrong pads. And partly because I suspect someone swapped on 1" rotor application calipers. Since I need to redo the brakes again this fall to do the job properly. Last time was a slap-it-together-and-get-it-running situation. Thus why I ground the pads down to make it work. I just want to be certain I am buying the correct parts this time. Are the pads the same between the two applications just different width calipers to make up the difference? Rockauto is giving no clear answers on this. Now to muddy the waters further.... I am in the process of buying a '73 C10 Custom Deluxe this summer and it too needs some front brake parts. However, when I look up parts for it on Rock Auto it doesn't even list a 2 3/4" rear shoe option. Did the early squarebodies only have the 1" front brakes?