Project: That's not very original 1970 C10

[Harrison.]

I've been posting and lurking here more lately so I wanted to start a thread and show why I've been asking so many questions. It's my first C10 I've built although I've worked on a handful before and my dad had a '67 growing up. I honestly have no brand loyalty, I come from a VW background but I've had Mopars, Chevys, Fords, VW's and even Studebakers and a Desoto. Pretty much whatever tickles my fancy when I get an itch to build something. I started with this '70 short bed that I bought from a coworker of my neighbors; I'd mentioned that I wanted a 67-72 short bed fleetside truck and he turned me onto this one. It's far from original, it obviously has a 71-72 front end on it (which I've decided I'll be keeping), already been converted to 5 lug all around and had a big block in it. The truck is missing its SPID decal in the glove box so I have no idea what options it originally came with, but the frame matches the VIN and it's an original short bed that was gold and appears to have had trim. I think the VIN told me it was originally a small block truck but I can't remember now it's been so long since I looked.

I had it for maybe a month before starting to tear it apart, couldn't help myself.

Sand blasted the frame and removed the crossmember, the PO had installed a one piece driveshaft and butchered the crossmember to clear it. I bought an aftermarket crossmember from POL that did just what I needed it to and clears the driveshaft with ease.

Frame all painted up, I used a product called MasterSeries chassis black, I've used it on a handful of other cars and I love the way it comes out of the gun, lays down and the fact that it's durable. I'd considered powdercoating it but I like the fact that I can touch it up with a brush if it gets scratched or if I decide to cut on the frame for any reason. To be honest, I like it more than powdercoat, I've had suspension pieces powdercoated before and had the coating chip off from road debris.

Bought 100% all new hardware, all grade 8 USA made stuff. A lot of the bolts I pulled out had corroded so I decided it would be a nice touch to put all new shiny stuff in. I ordered a large quantity of grade 8 stuff from an online retailer and it wasn't much more buying US made stuff vs Taiwanese and I'm a guy who likes to keep as much stuff on shore as I can.


All back together. I had a lot of trouble finding the right ball joints, I'd ordered for a '70 but quickly found out that was incorrect (thanks to this forum for helping find the right ones). I bought ball joints for a 71-72 and realized the uppers were still wrong so I finally realized they were 73-87. Then I had the issue of the tie rod ends being different sizes from inner and outer and had to order some CPP billet tie rod sleeves.

Bent all new hardlines up from stainless tubing, I'd heard aftermarket kits were junk so I ordered a 25ft reel and built all my own. Never having bent any up before I felt pretty happy with how they turned out, wish I'd had a straightener but I made do. The rear end is a 12 bolt with a posi and 3:42 gear, I rebuilt it while it was apart.

Not knowing much at all about these trucks when I bought it, I lucked out and the truck had the correct factory big block mounts.


Rebuilt 454 .030 over. I wanted it to look subtle so I put some aftermarket corvette 427 valve covers on that are taller to clear the roller rockers. Transmission is a 350 I rebuilt and put a shift kit in and a 2500 stall. I polished the case while I had it all apart, who knows how long that will last.

Didn't know what I was going to do to clean the underside of the bed so me and my dad built a rotisserie

Media blasted the top and bottom of the bed floor and the rails, knocked the sides down with 80 grit. The bed is surprisingly solid for being original metal, I'll have to do some patchwork but overall I'm pretty pleased.

Passengers side fender lip was toast, I wanted to keep the bed as much original metal as possible but I didn't see it being worth my time to rework the original section so I grafted this in. Previous accident damage + bondo that trapped moisture in and completely rotted it out = me ordering replacement metal. It didn't fit worth a darn so we had to do a lot of work to get the radius correct and the body lines correct.

That is where I'm at right now, as of last week. Sorry for the lengthy post, I'll try to keep updating as I go but I hope you enjoy.