Advice on a '70 GMC 4x4 purchase

[wildwilly]

Hey All,

Ever since I was a kid and was picked up from elementary school every day by in a 4x4 71ish Chevy, I was hooked. I am a GM guy at heart for sure. I have been looking for a 4x4 truck in these years (67 to 72) for a while ... seem pretty hard to come by (rare?), especially in a 4x4 worth working on. I am writing for a little advice on a purchase I found as I am new to looking into any details on these years trucks.

I have located a long box '70 GMC 4x4 for an asking price of under 3k. (Would prefer a short box, but long is OK too.) I have attached a few pics. In my pursuit of finding one of these guys, it is hindered by the logistics, cost, condition, and availability.

The VIN seems to check out as much as I can find for an original 4x4: KE134ZZ#####: 4x4 half ton from Fremont I think ... is this correct?

I took a look a the truck and for the price it seems like it is worth it, but would appreciate any further comments, as it has some issues. The glove box did contained the original owners manual, a metal tag with same VIN and dealership info as well as original owner. The glove box still had an original sticker on the outside for 4x4 instructions.

Here is some more of what I noticed:

- The wiring is a nightmare of splices everywhere ... an aftermarket A/C that is gone, but bits left over from other things. Several toggle switches drilled into the dash, alarm, A/C, aftermarket auxiliary tanks, Cd player after market stereo nightmare, fog lights, etc.

- Two tanks were added at some time on each side, so now three tanks total including the one behind the seat ... and one of the aux tanks was indicated to be leaking when full.

- A 4 speed trans., told to me to be original, yet the dash seems to have a column that may have had a shifter there, not sure.

- The engine is a Non original V8, told to me to be a 350 with unknown mileage and unknown what it is out of.

- The front drive shaft is gone and in the back of the bed as they indicated it needed to be rebuilt.

- The frame is solid and very little rust.

- The bed is also solid with little rust, but the left rear panel has alot of "work" as it was indicated to be hit there ... and mentioned something about bending something on that side around the axle. He had it fixed and "bent back" but that side does not sit center in the wheel well.

- The door sills have some rust and into the floor pan a little, but not too bad as far as I could see.

- Manual drums all the way around. It runs pretty good and the clutch feels good.

- The frame rails under the doors are orangeish red for some reason. I asked, but he did not know what that was all about. It looks like heavy overspray, but why orange as he said it was always blue and everything seems to indicate it was.

- I jotted down numbers on the frame rail:

3975 198 160 9 1912 Right side
3975 197 160 7 309 Left side

I could not find any information on what this means of anything.

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated, otherwise I am going to make this one a winner!

Thanks.