One Piece at a Time - A True Friend

[Chief5940]

This will be a little bit of a long story, but it's one worth telling!

I've had a couple of C10s over the years, but nothing nice. I've been on the hunt for the last 2-3 years, chasing down every lead, and even going to a couple of Barrett-Jackson auctions, only to find out I have a wine-appetite on a beer budget. The biggest part of my problem is that I know exactly what I want!! A red and white, 1972 C10, with bucket seats, tilt-wheel, tach, A/C, disc brakes, headliner, rally wheels, cargo-light, etc! The next part is that I'm a little bit OCD! And lastly, I'm completely incapable of doing any of the work myself. Not that I wouldn't help, i just don't know how to weld, do body work, paint, build an engine...you know.... all the things you need to know to build a truck!

A couple of months ago, my buddy (Spoon3210) posted a picture of an incomplete C-10 short-bed. The frame, cab, wheels, and bed were there, but not much else (see attached). It looked like a great starting point. I hit him up and asked if he was going to build it? More specifically, would he build it for me?

He had already built one for himself a couple of years ago and it turned out fantastic! It was a blue and white, 1972 C-10 long-bed that he cut down to a short bed (see attached). When he bought the project, it came with a set of blue bucket seats. I begged him to let me get them reupholstered in red, because I'm not a fan of blue and I knew as soon as he was finished, he would want to sell the truck and move on to his next project. If I could just convince him to build it red and white, from the outset, I could buy it from him and we would both be happy.

Unfortunately, he had his heart set on blue and white and he actually kept the truck!

Fast-forward to the partial truck on the trailer.... it looked like an okay starting point, but we couldn't have been more wrong. Upon closer inspection we realized that the truck had some damage we weren't wiling to look past, given the end=product we had in mind. We ended up selling the truck to a guy just a few blocks away, but not before we stripped the wheels, which were exactly what I wanted to use on my truck.

[Chief5940]

Even before we had sold and delivered the first misfire to its new owner, my buddy had already located our new starter-kit. A 1972 C10 cab with all the right options. The guy we bought it from had already taken a stab at changing the rockers and cab corners, and had done a pretty decent job!

We also purchased a long-bed frame from the same guy. He also had fenders, two sets of doors, core support, and tons of miscellaneous parts - all in great or near perfect condition. Now we are off and running!

[Chief5940]

Where to begin?!?! Once he got it home, he immediately went to work stripping everything off of the cab to get it ready for media-blasting. We couldn't have been happier with the condition of the cab, no rust and nothing had been cut on by any of the previous owners.

Oddly enough, the last registered owner of the truck was a guy I went to high school with, and I graduated in 1990 - it's definitely a small world!

[Chief5940]

The cab was sent out for media-blast and, just as we had hoped and suspected, we had a great cab to start building from. Everything was in great shape and looked to only need a moderate amount of body work to be perfect!

[Chief5940]

The next step was to get the cab shot with epoxy-primer!

[Chief5940]

Next, the frame was completely stripped down and sent out for media-blasting.

[flashed]

Im in to see the rest . Can I borrow you credit card too ?

[TexasLS1]

I’m watching this one, love the work and the updates!

[notsolo]

Coming together fast, Blue and white truck turned out awesome...I am also Big fan of the red and white. Finishing up her big sister.

[Chief5940]

While Ron (Spoon3210) has been hard at work, I've been falling behind on my job of keeping the progress updated here. So, now that I have a few minutes (thanks CORVID-19) I'm going to try and catch up. Ron has made a ton of progress. I'll break it down into small pieces so I can post the pics to show all the work he has done. First up, was the prep on the cab!

There were a couple of small imperfections in the cab corners, so we bought a couple of new ones and made the needed repairs. We also purchased the small metal patch to cover the factory fuel-fill.

[Chief5940]

The next big undertaking was preparation for the Old Air A/C system and smoothing up the firewall.

[Chief5940]

Ron had the A/C in and the firewall smoothed, but he wasn't happy about the three bolt heads that were still visible on the outside of the firewall. So, he fabricated a bracket to attach the A/C system inside the glovebox without any bolt heads visible on the firewall.

I really wanted to hide the A/C hoses as much as possible and Ron found a way run them inside the fender and bring them up into the cab/glove area through some water-proof grommets (last pic). All-in-all I don't think there was any room left for improvement on the set-up he came up with.

[TexasLS1]

Outstanding, this is the motherload of updates! Excellent work and I love the color choices

[Chief5940]

Thanks! I couldn't be happier with the results so far. He is really taking his time and doing each and everything top notch! I knew from the outset that he would pay more attention to detail than anyone else. I'm excited to see it start coming together and to see the paint start to go on.

More to follow!!

[cornerstone]

Glad to see such a large amount of progress Chief! Is Ron planning to paint the truck at his shop? I'd love to see it in person if that's cool... after this virus mess of course. The work done on the seats looks perfect!

[Chief5940]

Thanks! Yes, he painted his at his house and he plans to paint this one there as well.

I'm sure he wouldn't mind you stopping by. Send him a text of hit him up on here when you get ready.

Thanks for the reply.

Les

[1971Stepside]

Looks great! Pretty is expensive.

[Chief5940]

So far I think we are on track to have about $30K - $35K in it. But, that is buying a lot of new parts, having the steering column and wing-windows professionally rebuilt, new Boyd Welding fuel tank, the highest end PPG paint and clear, rebuilding the bucket seats, and doing the 5.3 swap with all-new wiring harnesses. I still need to buy tires, a driveshaft, exhaust, and a radiator. It's a once in a life-time opportunity to do something like this, so I'm trying not to cut any corners that I don't have to. Thanks for following the build. Take care, Les

[Chief5940]

We're ready for PAINT! After many, many hours of painstaking prep work, Ron was ready to paint! These first few pictures are once everything was ready and taped off to shoot the inside of the cab.

[Chief5940]

April 23, 2020 - I wish I had been date stamping these posts all-along... oh well....

Here comes the RED!!! First up, the base coat on the inside of the cab.

[Chief5940]

Now for a little clear!! We are both very happy with the color selection!

[TexasLS1]

Holy crap dude that is looking awesome!!

[Kronald_70GMC]

I agree. That looks excellent!

[toolboxchev]

Whose Epoxy Primer did you use. Nice looking rig!

[Chief5940]

Thanks guys!!! I appreciate the positive feedback!!

As for the Epoxy Primer, we used Velocity.

I ended up using the top shelf PPG paint and PPG clear. We knew we wanted to use the top of the line clear from the get go, but we debated a little on the paint, because of cost. In the end, it was only a few hundred dollars difference to go with their best paint too.