Cooper's 1966 C-20 "Old Yell'r" - Picture Heavy

[Cooper197]

In July of 2013 I was looking around on craigslist and found a killer deal on a 1966 Chevy C-20 pickup. It was essentially a two owner truck that had been recently repainted and virtually everything mechanically had been rebuilt. I showed it to my dad, solely as a 'hey look at this cool truck' type of deal. As it turns out he had the keys to it a few days later. He never really said what the intention for it was, but it sat at my grandma's house for almost a year.

In May of 2014, my signed the truck over to me as a high school graduation present. Turns out that was his intention from the moment I showed him the ad, and he was able to keep it a secret for 10 months.

Shortly arriving back home in Bend, Oregon from picking up the truck in Port Townsend, WA.


My dad's 1966 GMC Suburban can be seen lurking in the background here


And his 1949 5 window is hiding here...





The 81,000 miles seems to be correct.


At this point it could be seen that some work had been done by the previous owner. The biggest thing that made a difference to me was the rear axle. Being that it was a C20, they had replaced the rear axle to allow for highway speeds to actually be reached with the old 250. The new axle was a 5 lug instead of 8 lug as the front was. I knew when I first got it that I wanted to lower it, and put different wheels on. I ultimately decided to use a McGaughy disc brake/2.5" drop spindle kit in the front which also converted it to 5 lug. At this point I picked up some Vision Legend 142's for my truck, as well as 3 inch rear drop springs.

18's up front and 20's in the back





The result stops very well and looks something like this










Also added LED tail lights


It had some junky 6x9's in the door when I got it, so I replaced them with some Infinity Kappa 6x9's with an amplifier under the seat. Sounds pretty impressive for 2 speakers


The wood bed is not in that great of shape, so while that is ultimately in the cards, I went with a cheaper solution to cover it up. Extang Black Max


Starting to come together and become what I was hoping for. Replaced the head lights with 7" KC lights meant for a Jeep, fit perfectly and are very bright, also have an H4 bulb so there is a ton of options for bulb replacement.


And finished off the lights with a set of LED parking lamps for the front


Just some shots of the truck I took








The seat that was in it was very nice and had been reupholstered well, however I did some damage to my spine while skiing and needed something that I could adjust a bit more and went higher up my back. After looking around a bit and making a few phone calls I found a set of seats I knew would work for me and they were only $100. I jumped on them and soon learned that they had aftermarket heated seats already installed in them. Those suckers work AWESOME.
Did some searching on eBay and found a jumpseat out of a newer Silverado that was a pullout which had never been used. Cost more than the other two seats, but ultimately came in at under $250 for the whole set.




I had been getting annoyed when using my truck at night by this point. The lights on it were great and while driving I could see very well, however getting in and out could be difficult to see, and if it was dark it was impossible to find anything under the tonneau cover. I set off the the junkyard to grab a few door pins and ordered an under rail LED bed light kit.


At about midnight outside




So now when you open the door of the truck, the dome light and the bed lights come on. Additionally the bed lights can be turned on by turning on the dome light.

Being 6'4" I was having a leg room issue. The seats actually helped this part a little bit, while they did take away from overall leg room, but whenever I was taking my foot off the clutch I kept getting my knee caught on the steering wheel. I also had to be careful when going from the gas to the brake with my right leg or the same thing would happen. Figured this was a bit of a safety problem, so I got a steering wheel with a little bit of a dish, which solved the problem perfectly! And, it looks good!