Big Red, my 68 3/4 ton GMC

[Jacfourteen]

So I decided to start a build thread for my project, my 68 3/4 ton GMC. The truck has been in my family since 1970, when my grandad bought the truck. He drove it on a daily basis up until about 1994 when he finally bought a newer truck. He maintained the truck very well and when he sold it to my brother it was all original and in very good shape. My brother had just turned 16 and drove the truck like a hot rod and spun a bearing in the 305 V6. My dad then took over the truck and me and him rebuilt and dropped in a 351 V6 (I was about 13 I think, and I did most of the work with my dad's direction). My dad is a contractor and used the truck for hauling drywall to jobs and then hualing the scrap to the dump, so the truck wasn't nearly as pampered as when my grandad owned it. That 351 wasn't fast by any means but that thing would pull anything, I remember I had the bed filled with 40 sheets of 1/2" by 12' sheets of drywall and went over donner pass on I-80 doing close to 70 mph the whole way (as fast as it would go with the 4.56 gears ) Well, back in 2000 the 351 started knocking so my dad gave up on it and gave it to me. I decided to go for a 350 sbc for parts availablity and so it would be a little more fun to drive. I yanked out the old motor and found a motor to drop in that the previous owner said ran great when pulled (at least it was free). I found a bellhousing for the motor and tried to drop it in, but work ground to a stop when I found out the bellhousing wouldn't fit the trans (it was for the smaller car trans). I was fresh out of high school and broke so the truck got put on the back burner for a while. Well for the next 7 years (I got married in 2001, had a son in 2001, had a daughter in 2006, and many smaller events along the way) the truck sat untouched. so in 2007 I decided to start working on it again, I quickly found out the motor had water in it from not being covered. I decided to start from scratch and get a fresh rebuilt motor from a local shop (good thing because the builder tore down the core I gave him and he said it was junk long before I let the water get into it). So the motor he built me was a 350 with 10:1 CR, a comp cams 268 cam, edelbrock intake from the old motor, and heads from old motor with a head job. He said the motor should put out between 285-300 HP with the 670 holley street avenger carb and the long tube headers I put on. I dropped the motor in and got it fired up, but then it sat again until just recently. I have the summer off from school so I decided I need to get this thing on the road by the end of summer. Sorry for the long intro but this truck has meant alot to me over the years and I wanted to let everyone know why I want to get it going so badly. I will try to get some pics up soon and start detailing my progress, anyway thanks for looking.