New member, first venture into American muscle!

[Artikgrau325is]

Hello everyone, my name is Mike and I just picked up a C10 from member ETsC10 last week.

I am a new homeowner and I got tired of borrowing trucks from friends to get stuff moved around. A friend of mine suggested getting a classic truck for their style and supposed ease of maintenance (really, I am still amazed that all that resides under the engine bay is an engine, battery and master cylinder).

I always said that if I was going to get a truck it has to be a Chevy, and I always had a thing for the flowing, classic lines of the 60's, so right from the start I had my sights set on a 68-72 C10. After a year of searching (and some disappointing "you missed it by 20 minutes" episodes on Craigslist) I finally found a decent project to start with. After I emailed the seller I soon found that ETsC10 was very knowledgeable about these trucks, a moderator on the forums here, and the doorway to a huge network of people that live and breathe restoring these trucks!

I was expecting more of a "get that rust heap out of my yard, I don't know anything about it, I just want it gone," but instead I stumbled upon an invaluable resource, so I have confidence that this truck will be on the road again in no time.

It is a bit overwhelming since I am completely new to all of this, but I want to someday make a nice weekend driver that looks good with plenty of power. I am a hardcore lurker so you all wont' seem me posting much, but 3k+ pages is a lot to look through so I figured I would go ahead and make my intro thread, ask a few of the questions that have me stumped at the moment, and hopefully get some valuable input.

Here is the truck:

Hitching up for delivery.


At her new home.


This is my project of the last 7 years (Yea, yea I know...it's a Honda):







For the truck I have been delving into research, I'm thinking of trying to do as much of the work on my own as I can. That includes trying to my hand at welding to replace the common rust areas in the cab (very intimidating).

The front end needs to be rebuilt, so far I have been eyeing two kits but I am unsure as to which one has all of the components I need:

http://www.classicperform.com/Store/.../6062SFKPT.htm

http://www.azproperformance.com/Prot...it-7-2024.html

The engine is tired, I am looking at a replacement crate engine. Again, I have several choices within my budget:

http://high-performance-engines.com/...duct_Code=HP29

http://high-performance-engines.com/...duct_Code=HP32

Lastly, I want to upgrade to disk brakes all around and power steering, lower it AND convert to 5 lug for a supposed wider choice in wheels. I have been searching around online for the past 3 days but I cannot for the life of me find the direct answer I'm looking for.

I am finding drum to disk conversion kits with drop spindles, and these are available in 5 or 6 lug configurations, but I can't figure out if I just can buy one of these kits and call it good, or if I have to do some parts swapping before I can get them to fit. If all I have to do is get a 5 lug disk conversion then I'm set...but again I don't know enough about them. It seems the common solution is to get parts from a 72 truck, but I prefer to buy new than deal with hunting parts down and installing 40 year old parts. Paying for convenience, I think they call that.

Lastly is wiring, it is a mess and rather than tracking down everything to figure out what is wrong (even if it is as simple as bad grounds) I'd prefer to buy a new harness and reroute it all myself, and make sure it is bullet proof for additional add-ons in the future.

So far I have found the Painless kits as linked below:

http://www.streetsideauto.com/p/pain...n=PriceGrabber

Then there's American Autowire, Keep It Clean, etc. Whichever gets the job most efficiently at the best price, so if anyone has any input on this...or ANYTHING in this thread, it is much appreciated.

Again I'm new so if you can point me in the right direction I would be very grateful. Brothers Truck is having a huge sale right now so I'm browsing their catalog to see if there's anything I can update now and save some cash on

Thanks again for reading, and it is an honor to be here. I hope that I can become a good contributing member of this site in due time.