New Project near Abilene, TX

[jamyers]

Howdy all! I've been a lurker and info-searcher here for quite awhile, mostly trying to help my nephew with his '69 C10 longbed project.

Now he's in the Army, deployed to BFE, has two small kids, and has pretty much lost the time / motivation to finish - while my kids are 15 and 13 years old, need a ride of their own, and I've got time and motivation. So I "inherited" the truck...



It's a '69 C10 Longbed that apparently was owned by a Telephone Company, the Callahan County TX Maintenance Department, a couple of West Texas Ranchers, and who knows who else before my nephew got it.
He replaced the 307 (well, we thought it was a 307 until the machine shop called and said it was a 327...long story there) with a 350 with a mild RV cam and an Edelbrock carb and some sort of Pertronix ignition. He also replaced rusted sheetmetal, including the rocker sills and some of the floorboards, and got it painted primer black. It's got a new wiring harness because the old one had been completely butchered to add in whatever "whoopie-lights" or whatever the DPO's wanted. New brakes, converted to power. Manual steering. He also bought a whole lot of new parts, including light housings, trim bits, etc - none of which are installed.

It then sat idle for a couple of years, so here's the list of things I plan on doing:

Clean out the fuel tank
Pull the transmission and at least replace all of the seals (it leaks like a stuck pig)
Clean out the carb (been sitting for a couple of years)
Sort out the ignition (He said it kept "burning out")
Go back through the wiring (something keeps draining the battery)
Get the engine running again (shouldn't be too hard with clean gas and proper ignition)

Repaint and restore the interior
Recover or replace the seats
Add shoulder belts
Paint the exterior
Clean and Repaint under the hood

I've been around older vehicles for years, grew up in a "Buick Cars / Chevy Trucks" family, and currently still own my first car, a '71 Buick LeSabre I bought in '84. Also the '62 Ranchero (I know, it's the oddball Ford in the family) that me and my brother and sister learned to drive in. All that to say that between the Buick 455 V8 and the Ford 200 I6, I've done a lot of wrenching - but by no means do I even think that I'm an expert. I go by "jamyers" over at the V8Buick.com and FordSix.com forums, and look forward to learning here and maybe helping somebody else out when I can.