1969 Chevy C10 LS Build - South Africa edition

[Picard]

Hi Everyone.

Quick intro.
I'm from Johannesburg South Africa and love old American cars. I've owned a 1981 Trans Am for many years. 4 years ago I decided to strip it down, paint and update it. After a lot of work, we finally managed to get it back on the road this year. It was a really tough build but with the help of my brother and a few mates, we got it right.

It’s currently running a LS1 with a 4l60e.






Now that the Trans Am’s finished, my brother and I had a few options on what to build next. We opted to take on a 1969 Chevy C10 SWB. It is right hand drive and South African built, so as far as I understand it the load bin is slightly different.

[Picard]

We’ve been reading through this forum and see there’s a wealth of knowledge to be learnt from here. Looking forward to interacting with everyone.

Unfortunately for us, the Rand/Dollar exchange is quite hectic so we will need to try and manufacture or source as much as possible locally. As much as we would love to pick up a catalogue and click buy, the pocket won’t allow for it. 

We’ve seen so many beautiful trucks posted all over the internet, and the idea is to build a updated truck with slightly more modern suspension bits, upgraded brakes, aircon and power steering. Looks wise, we’ll still settle on colours etc later on, but if we could land up with something like this, we’d be happy.


These are the wheels we would prefer for it, but after a few pricing exercises they may land up on a wish list only.


A set of these Salt Flat wheels are on the wish list, however we may need to settle on a different wheel as by the time these land at our door we’re looking at about $4500 which is pretty steep.

We purchased the truck with a Chevy LM7 motor, which is a 5.3l cast iron V8. It also came with a 4L80 gearbox.


Having gone through a “LS” build before, we opted to rather purchase a running vehicle and managed to source this 2006 Chevy Lumina SS.


The Chevy Lumina here in South Africa is a Australian sourced Holden Commodore which has a 5.7l LS motor in it with a 4l60e box. Later models came out with the 6.0l LS2.

The car took a hard knock on its side. However it still drives, is completely stock with 120k km’s on the clock with a full service history.


This way, we will be able to use the motor, gearbox and have access to the computer box, which the LM7 doesn’t have. We may also still be able to salvage the callipers and some other odds and ends.

[Picard]

And so, the Tear Down began.
We removed the load bin.


Disassembled the front end.




Before removing the Cab, we mocked up the LM7 so that we could start building up the engine mounts and gearbox mount. There are kits available in the States which would have made it quick and easy, but to keep costs down we decided to manufacture them ourselves.
We mocked it all up.


Notice the beautiful gearbox mount 


We marked out parts of the frame that would need to be trimmed to fit the LS motor. The frame will be reinforced, especially where any cuts are made.


Slowly the engine mounts started coming together.


And eventually landed up with this.

[Picard]

Years of dirt and farm roads were caked into the chassis so I landed up taking a high pressure hose to it.


The original gearbox mount was a hack job and because we will be lowering the truck we decided to make up a new gearbox mount.
This was the original cross member/mount


After a bit of cutting, grinding and welding we made this up.


In this picture with both mounts in, you can kind of see the difference in height that the new gearbox mount has bought us.


The frame also needs to be notched further back, so we did some more measurements….more cutting and grinding and fitted the C Notch. This we imported and purchased from CPP. Very well put together.




And like that, the frame drops nice and low.

[Picard]

The ‘69 C10 has drums front and back. This obviously won’t work, so new drop spindles will be arriving shortly for it, and we’ve got discs and callipers from a later model C10 for the truck.
With having the Lumina available, we will be investigating perhaps using it’s callipers and discs for the C10.
The C10 is also a 6 Stud 127 pcd, and we’ve decided to change this out for a 5 stud setup which just helps us later on with wheel choices.

We purchased a 5 stud diff with a more suitable diff ratio for cruising. This will obviously need to be refurbished, and we may opt to go with a limited slip unit.


The rest of the suspension was removed.


Here you can see some more creative fixes on the control arms.


The chassis and suspension components have been sent off for sandblasting so that we can assess everything once it’s back and also work with clean parts.


Thanks for watching :-)

[35boulder]

Welcome...I will be watching along on your build. Thanks for all the pics. Good luck with the build.

[Smitty]

Welcome, looks great so keep up with progress reports.

[Perpendicular]

Way cool!

[yuccales]

Welcome! Love all the pics. That's going to be a great build! That Riviera is way cool, as is the TA.

[hewittca]

Nice work so far! I like your approach of ingenuity versus just buying a bunch of bolt ons (although wouldn't we all love that luxury at some point?). I'm curious to see what these differences in the "load bin" are compared to a US C10. Also, I know I'm not allowed to say this here, but that F100 looks pretty cool too.

[too much stuff]

Welcome aboard. Keep us updated on this build. Nice work.

[Picard]

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Will be updating the post as we go along. Will post up some pics of the other toys we're fortunate to play with.

[harpo231]

Nice ! I want righthand drive, people be trippin to see that over here !

['70_402]

This is the first right hand drive trucks like this I've ever seen.

[72 tigger]

Looks like a nice project- following along. How beat up is the load bin?

[flashed]

Welcome ,Im in to see the rest .

[toms68cst]

Welcome! I also think that's the first real right hand drive 67-72 I've seen on this site. Looks kinda strange.

Good luck with your project. You are off to a fine start.

[RenoKeene]

Welcome aboard from Florida, USA!
You guys do good work. Right hand drives are extremely rare over here.