the love machine build

[kev63rod]

Hey guys just stopping in to introduce myself and start a build thread for my truck. I’ve been a lurker here for 3-4 years but never posted over here, but I know all about the picture police my name is Kevin I’m 24 and I’m located in south central South Dakota working as a tree cutter for the electric co-op. before moving out here I worked in a couple different mechanic shops for 2 years. My draw for trucks/mechanics came from my dad owning his own body shop for years and for most of the time he was based out of the garage behind our house. Unfortunately for me about as soon as I got interested in it he got tired of it and started over the road truck driving. So enough about me, just wanted to give an idea of my level of understanding for fixing cars, or lack there of. So 4 years ago while at a car auction while at work I saw a truck sitting again the junk fence for auction and wanted it bad. It was a no sale for 750 and the guy wanted 1000 because he took it in on a loan for that much. I talked him down to 950 and winched it up on the rollback and drove it home proud to finally an owner of a classic. All I new about it was it was supposed to run but had a busted flywheel and of course a dead battery I was also told it had been a drag racer at the local track there. it ended up being a 63 GMC short bed having a 350/350 combo so when I got home I charged it up and it ran good but made tons of noise, had a missed, and smoked like a freight train. It had awesome throttle response and had 2 holly 4 barrels with an edelbrock hi rise intake and msd controller box, coil, and distributor. Tear down showed a busted flywheel, a beat up piston from a dropped valve, but it was a 4 bolt main punched 30 over with needle bearing roller rockers. All the trash from the busted rocker was in the oil pan so I knew it was going to have to be totally checked out so I tore it completely apart. Thinking that I would have the money to fix it soon I started a complete sand and tear down of the truck and of course found tons of surprises along the way. I started buying odds and ends but soon landed in the hospital, and as a result of being off for months I found myself without a job or money. So now my truck has set for a couple years torn down completely with lots of bare spots. Now that I’m out here it killed me to have it just sitting in pieces on the ground back home but there was no way to fix it at the time. But at Christmas I went home and picked up the pieces and headed back here with a very heavy load. While it was sitting I tried to come up with a direction to take the truck and decided that it needed to be cheap, reliable, and decent looking enough to drive to my wedding. I bought the truck with the main thought being that this is what I’m going to drive to my wedding (hence the build name) so I started doing research and found that 5.3 are incredibly cheap and reliable so I started looking for one. Luck would have it that I would be able to get home for Christmas and find a motor/trans combo with the computer and wye pipe with 90,000 on the clock for $1000. So we loaded it on a 20 year old trailer my dad built and a 200,000 mi suburban of my brothers and headed 1,000mi back home. The trip went without incident for the most part and now it is safely snowed in at my house. (its nasty cold, going down to -27 tonight with -42 windshield) we have drifts up to the eaves and I’m sooo ready for summer. but anyways my girlfriend of 4 years thinks I should be getting this together fast if I’m going to take her to my wedding in it the plan for now is get the cab fixed, if its fixable, and get the motor in and going. It could be drivable with no bed so it’s low on the priority list. The paint scheme is going to be flat black for now with shop lettering on the doors. If anybody has info and/or pics of how to do the worn look I would be interested in seeing them. I know the 5.3 and flat black is getting common in these trucks but I don’t care its getting built to fulfill my lifetime dream of driving a classic to my wedding. So that’s a little about me and my truck and now I will try to load up some of those pics before the police start harassing me so if there’s any questions or comments I’m open to anything