1972 C20 Medium Green Custom Deluxe. All the Patina!

[dakattack7]

Hi folks. I've been mostly lurking since 2013. I've had a bunch of 67-72 trucks (and 50's-90's in general!) but haven't posted much due to time and other priorities. My new job allows for some down time in between inspecting welds so I want to start build threads on some of my stuff!

I found this 72 C20 on facebook marketplace. February? 2024. It had great patina but looked a little rough and needed an original hood that didn't have paint work... But, I always see what the truck could be cleaned up so I jumped on it for the $800 I worked out with the owner.. It was in Vernal Utah, about a 9 hour drive from me in Northern Arizona. Here are pics from the ad and loaded up.

[dakattack7]

The seller picked this truck up and another from junkyard closing down if I remember correctly (or along those lines) he said there was no engine. Upon arrival I was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the truck. Sure there were dents everywhere (Driver door being the worst) but it had no added fuel doors cut into the bed, no radio or door cuts, no extra mirror holes. This is especially surprising to me being a 3/4 ton with the "base" sport mirrors...

Then, I popped the hood and realize it has the original 350 in it! Including a May of 1972 tag on the valve cover, firewall markings, original hose clamps on every hose except upper radiator etc...

Then I check the spid and see 16" wheels listed, the auxiliary tank, very cool! It also had the original paint fuel cap on the aux tank, and 3 of 4 of the original wheels.

Rust appeared very minimal, mostly along the inner rocker where the door seal mounts on the driver side. Very little elsewhere!

The bad: It seemed to have been a parts truck at some time. The transmission was missing, various engine bay components (The quadrajet turned out to be 1975..) interior parts etc. Bed floor is pretty rough, theres a hole in the rear of the bed and tailgate

Still for $800 I was ecstatic! There was also a NP205 tcase in the bed I sold for $350..

[68isgreat]

Wow, $800 is a steal! Nice job!

[dakattack7]

You may have seen the truck for sale on ebay/facebook around September 2024. I found a dream truck of mine (Saddle gold and white 69 like my first ever truck, but this one is a shorty!) so I was going to sell to focus on that, but I'm glad I didn't. I love the medium green and white combo with no trim.

So, what's the plan for this thing? I like originality. My short bed will get a mild drop but something like this I just wanted to source original parts it was missing, clean it up and make a driver out of it. Try my hand at working out the dents without disturbing paint, couple period correct accessories (more on this later) I would love to K20 swap this truck or K20/6bt/Nv4500 and take it with me traveling for work. I hate to modify a truck with it's original engine, but it was missing a lot of parts and isn't pristine by any measure, so I go back and forth.

The truck has had a lot of work done to it and is almost ready to cruise. I've been away for work for the last 3 months but have more cool stuff to do to it when I get home. In the mean time, I will update this thread every few days or once a week to get you all updated and then continue once I get home and keep working on it.

So once I got it home I began scouring facebook, craigslist etc for a matching hood. I looked all over for a couple months with no luck. Then I checked Desert Valley Auto Parts in Phoenix. They didn't have this truck listed on their website but I found it searching thru old facebook posts. Perfect match! It has a dent on the front but they discounted it half price, works for me!

The next picture shows the new hood installed along with the missing grille emblem and Following that is a painted rear sport bumper I found in the dirt local to me while I was buying 67 and 60-66 truck bed trailers. Score! I love the painted bumpers, and as you know the painted rear sports are especially hard to find. Being a C20 I would rather see this thing with a Vernal UT stamped step bumper to match the dealer sticker on the tailgate, but this will be great for now. Right now it looks like a farmer built angle iron and plate bumper.

[68Gold/white]

I like it!!!

Best part (to me), being a 72 it got disc brakes!!!

Carry on!!!

[Shifty One]

Well bought!

[Mike80D]

Nice find, and well worth the money. I don’t think I have seen many green/white with black interior. Nice combo!

[best view]

Yup black interior makes it, green on green is too much nice buy

[dakattack7]

Thanks all. Yes I'm more partial to 67-70 front ends and two tone but it's great this thing already has disk brakes up front!

I'm usually not the biggest fan of black interior (I enjoy the bright colors of days past-inside and out!) but I agree the black looks great on the medium green.

Next I sourced a dodge 16" wheel that matched the original 3, a set of squarebody caps that had matching patina, and a clean painted and patina front bumper.

The next picture shows why progress slowed for awhile on the 72. Too many projects! The 69 shown in the lineup is the swb that looks like my first truck did. Can't wait to start on that.

So then I pull it up to the garage and get the door and fender on the driver side off to try my hand at some PDR. I bought a matco body press for a good price on Facebook to "hold" the dolly for me down in the door. You can see it had a really bad dent, along each of the different body lines and where the mirror mounted pushed up and angled the mirror up towards the roof. See the after picture for where it's at. I'm not really happy with it but at least the shape of the door overall is returned and the mirror is back at the correct angle. I'm planning on having a pro give it a shot when I'm back home, as my search for a nice matching door has been unsuccessful.

[raggedjim]

Nice work on the door, I'd run it as is!

Good luck, Rg

[dakattack7]

Originally Posted by raggedjim

Nice work on the door, I'd run it as is!

Good luck, Rg

Thank you. It's a very hard area to work access wise. I chose the worst picture of it to display the roughness left, luckily back on the truck and all cleaned up it isn't as obvious.

I did however have better luck with the two fenders. The driver fender came out great, just a couple bumps left on the body line. The passenger fender and the mangled original bumper indicated it was crinkled by being pushed in down low near the cup. I already had the hood back on and was planning on addressing that fender later. But then I tried wrapping a strap around the fender cup (with an inner fender bolt backed out to hold it from slipping) and winching it away from the truck to a tree. I then tapped down the high parts of the crease with a mallet and then body hammer. Again not perfect, but very hard to notice under normal lighting/conditions.

[dakattack7]

Moved to getting the engine running. It had a 1975 quadrajet in the cab, but intake and distributor hole were open. I saw evidence of mice so I pulled the intake.

There was indeed a large nest in the intake valley, but I was pleasantly surprised again at the shape of everything. There was lots of junk/nest down in the intake ports of the heads so I removed those as well to clean everything out. Again, the cylinders looked great and barely anything for carbon build up or sludge.

I cleaned and power washed the heads and intake, and put new valve seals on the heads. The original orings were still pliable and soft, I think this thing would've ran fine and not smoked much as is if I didn't need to clean out the rodent nests!

There's a lot of original engine paint on this so I'm keeping it and just cleaning it up. It's so rare to see an original paint engine to match the truck!

Last picture is the squarebody caps with the centers painted and weathered until I pieced together a good set of the convex 69-72 caps..

[dakattack7]

Here is a look at the engine now. I sourced a 72 truck quadrajet and rebuilt it. I tried to rebuild the original water pump but didn't support it correctly in the press when pressing out the shaft, and broke it in 2 pieces unfortunately.. I sourced an original paint 69 pump that I will try again, but for now a replacement off the shelf from an old project.

I also got an sm420 for cheap so I installed that with a new clutch. Had to get an extended yoke for the 2 piece shaft to make up for the length difference. Also had to make an adapter to mount the carrier bearing. I should have just waited for a 465 to pop up or used a squarebody one I had, but I plan to put an nv4500 or ax15 so I made this work for now to drive it. New ujoints and carrier bearing as well.

A picture of the floor cleaned up. It has some scale and the inner rocker/door seal has some rust thru, but the truck is really clean otherwise. I used some carpet I got for free and the seat from my original 69 C10 I've had laying outside for about 10 years for now. Threw some 1" foam off amazon and a seat cover. Base model door panels repainted (Low gloss black engine paint gives the right sheen!) New used dash pad, radio, driver glass etc etc. It was missing a lot of odds and ends in the interior.

Eventually I will get the correct Custom Deluxe cover from carsinc, the custom door panels with trim, prep the floors and epoxy coat and cover with a vinyl floor mat. I just wanted to get it to driver status for now!

[dakattack7]

Here is some pictures of the truck pretty much as it sits today.

There is a new used inner grille assembly, driver mirror, new used transforce 245/70r16 tires. I used Meguiars "spray clay" to remove the oxidation and bring out the color without having to polish or clear. I really like the look. It now runs and drives but needs some more brake bleeding, carb adjustments and I had the driveshaft one tooth out of phase which caused some bad vibration.

[dakattack7]

More pics. You may have noticed I found a matching original paint fuel cap for the main tank on facebook. It was an entire rusty truck in South Dakota for sale, I messaged him and offered $100 to mail me the fuel cap and replace it with a $10 chrome one from the parts store.

Then, I saw another parts truck for sale and ended up with another one. I couldn't pass up two legit medium green fuel caps! This picture shows both of the ones I acquired, though I think the one that came on the aux tank matches the patina better.

If anyone needs a medium green cap, I would trade for a saddle gold cap for my 69.

[raggedjim]

Nice work, it is looking good. Rg

[rodstored-72]

Agree it is looking nice, good job on the dents!! keep us posted..

[loudchevy]

I like it, Sub'd to follow along.

[dakattack7]

Thanks everyone. Here's a little update:

Got home from being gone for work for a couple months. I found this perfect Luverne grille guard after searching for a year (and always keeping my eye out for 67-72 guards before that!) in Montana. UPS just slapped a label on it and shipped it to AZ for ~$160 which I thought was reasonable.

Found the 4th 69-72 convex painted/patina'd cap I was missing so I swapped those on.

Also soldered the leaking og rad outlet and fixed up that leak. The brake booster needs replaced as it is causing a vacuum leaking and not providing assist, but after lots of bleeding I could slow her down with some force. So, I tried to take it on it's first real maiden voyage to the gas station to fill up and promptly ran out of fuel

Neighbor came and saved me. It runs great, still smokes a bit with the new valve seals but I haven't ran compression numbers yet, and it's been sitting 20 years at least so we'll see. I don't mind a little smoke when it's the original engine w/ original paint to match the truck

[lil hoodlum]

I just love, love, love, your 72 C20. It is my dream truck to own as 1972 is my birth year and I also am a huge fan of C20's. Love that you have decided to keep it original for now, including popping the dents out. I think you have made incredible progress in the old girl. Also love the cow pusher, aka, the grill guard.

[dakattack7]

Originally Posted by lil hoodlum

I just love, love, love, your 72 C20. It is my dream truck to own as 1972 is my birth year and I also am a huge fan of C20's. Love that you have decided to keep it original for now, including popping the dents out. I think you have made incredible progress in the old girl. Also love the cow pusher, aka, the grill guard.

Thanks for the kind words. Funny you should mention cow pusher as I've named this truck "Cowpoke" The license plate was the closest available spelling.

I've never really named any of the 60+ vehicles I've had, but my girlfriend suggested I start naming the few I have that are keepers. This truck probably worked on a ranch/farm in Vernal Utah, has a cool faded old Coors rodeo sticker on the rear of the cab (See earlier picture with the fuel caps) and I've finished the farm truck look I love, so I thought it was fitting.

I got some Deestone 7.00-16 traction tires for the rear. I love this look and I'm not sure why it's not more common.. probably 25% of these old trucks I buy that have been sitting forever had traction tires on the rear and highway treads on the front. I think it's a great look to capture how these trucks would've been set up back in the day.

Got the perfect rear sport bumper put on. I ordered a new license plate bracket and was going to patina match it, but then I found an original on ebay that I thought was white.. Showed up as silver og paint, but I'll run it for now.

Got all the lights working, brake booster replaced with a reman from oreilly's for now. I'd like to get my original rebuilt and recoated like factory but this works for now.

Had to throw a gun rack in the cab.. there's a real 30/30 in the pictures but I'm planning on getting a replica pellet gun to keep in there.

I got my bedside spare carrier painted. I still want to patina it a little, but I was rushing to get this thing put together for Dinos git down. I know they were supposed to be mounted on the driver side originally, but this truck already had a pretty noticeable lean to the driver side with the aux tank, so I opted for the passenger side. I wonder if there is any examples of a truck with factory auxiliary tank and bedside carrier?

Did a lot of miscellaneous work and took it on a 20 mile cruise with no major issues. I worked a half day Friday and headed to Dinos, but unfortunately they stopped letting trucks in the show a few hours before. I was pretty bummed not to be able to show the truck but had a good time at the show anyway.

I need to get the windshield replaced, adjust the noisy valves and go thru the rear brakes but the truck made the 50+ mile trip in Phoenix traffic and seems ready to cruise!

[K10-Kansas]

Love it!

[Shifty One]

Very nice!