Project TLOW - 1971 stepside

[Rod Run]

I figured after hanging around on this board for a while now, it was time to start a build thread for my project.

The background story on this project starts in October of 2013.

Every year I organize a multi-day/multi-state hot rod cruise (www.northeastrodrun.com) through the northeast USA. During our annual run in October of 2013, as we were driving through a covered bridge on the Vermont/New Hampshire border, I looked in my rearview mirror and said to my girl, "right now the first car I ever owned is behind us (1973 Chevelle) and the next project I want to build is behind that (1971 C10)."

The next day on my way to work, I pull out of my street and 3 houses down on the left there is a C10 sitting deep in someone's driveway, that was never there before. I see it and say to myself "that almost looks like it should be for sale". Two days later I'm on my way to work again and as I drive by it's sitting right at the front of the driveway with a FOR SALE sign in it. I make a phone call, take it for a test drive and a week later it's sitting in my driveway.

At the time I was putting an addition on my garage, so I wasn't really ready to take on a new project, but the coincendence with the truck was to much to pass up. Fast forward to June of 2014 and I got a temporary 90 day layoff from work (the call is a TLOW). This gave me the time I needed to finally button up most of the garage and by September I was finally able to start working on the truck. Before I went back to work I was able to do the teardown and started stockpiling parts.

Fast forward again to the present day and I was able to get another 30 day TLOW. I go back to work at the end of January, but during this time off I am trying to get a rolling chassis back together. I've got some progress pics to post up, but I'm going to try and post them up in order over the next couple of weeks.

To start with, here are a few of what I started with....

[Hankster]

Good looking truck. Are you leaving the squarebody bed on it?

[Rod Run]

Here is the beginning of the teardown. If you notice the doors are different from the first pictures. I scored a pair of real nice doors off another forum member, because mine were hammered

[Rod Run]

Originally Posted by Hankster

Good looking truck. Are you leaving the squarebody bed on it?

Thanks

I'm either going to look for the proper bed and fenders, or if I can't find one by the time I need it, I'm just going to use this bed and put all the right parts on it, then sell these fenders and steps when I'm done with the build

All the parts are real solid, so I don't know if I'll find the proper bed in this good of shape

[Rod Run]

As you can see, the floors are pretty hammered (along with the rest of the cab)


The cab completely gutted


And finally the bare chassis

[Rod Run]

Next step will be stripping the chassis down and pressure washing it, before figuring out my next step and seeing how deep I really want to go

[mcbassin]

Nice looking project. Welcome to the board.
What's the plan for the drive train?

[Rod Run]

Frame is all scraped down and power washed



Started disassembling it


Completely broken down

[Rod Run]

Originally Posted by mcbassin

Nice looking project. Welcome to the board.
What's the plan for the drive train?

Going to use the engine and rear-end (3:73 gears) that came with it. I'll just freshen them both up a little bit.

I have been sitting on a 700R4 tranny for about 3 or 4 years, just waiting until the right project came along and this is going to be that project.

[Rod Run]

The original plan was to build this project on a real low budget. I got one gallon each of some professional/industrial Rustoleum primer & paint and was going to just scuff the frame and paint it on with a brush, but here is where the project's first detour comes into play. This was also responsible for me changing the project's name to 'TLOW', instead of what I had originally planned.

I picked up some new grinding discs and flapper wheels for my angle grinder to clean the frame up. After breathing in that dust (I did wear a mask) for about 4 hours and using up about $25.00 worth of materials, I was probably less than 20% finished with the frame. I figured that was going to cost me a lot more time and money than I wanted to spend for a half-assed job, so I decided to send it out and get it sandblasted.

Now that it's sandblasted I can't bring myself to use a paintbrush on the frame. Instead I brought it down to a friend's shop and bought myself a gallon of PPG epoxy primer and activator (I will have plenty leftover, to paint other stuff down the road), so now I will be painting the frame with a gun instead of a paintbrush. I've never used a gun before, so this should be interesting.

Here is how it stands right now:



Next I will be c-notching the frame, fixing the coil spring mounting plates (hidden rot), while also cutting out and welding in a couple new body mount bushing pads. With a little luck I'll have everything welded and mocked up, then painting it on Friday

[Rod Run]

I figured since I don't have any progress pics to post up, I'd post up some of my current parts stash instead. These are just suspension parts, except for the engine dress-up kit.




My major problem/malfunction is that I'm one of those types of people that will dump thousands into a project just because someone gave me a free set of tires. The thing that sucks about the dress-up kit, is that it came with the truck when I bought it, so now this little $200ish kit is holding me hostage over the entire paint theme of the truck.

[Rod Run]

Finished painting my frame, c-notch kit & trailing arms today.

Hopefully I'll bring it all home by the start of next week and I can start re-assembly.

[Hankster]

Nice stash. CAn't wait to see the frame all dressed up!

[Palf70Step]

Looking forward to seeing the progress on your build.

[Rod Run]

Here is everything prepped, primed and painted, that is needed to bolt in the rearend, shocks and springs

[Rod Run]

I haven't really done any substantial welding in quite a few years, so this stuff won't be pretty, but it's better to hone up on my skills underneath the truck, than waiting until I get to the body.

Here is one of the rear mounts, before and after replacing.




Here are some pics of one front mount, with the new piece I made next to the old one and then all welded in




The CCP supplied c-notch mocked up before painting. Had to work on a couple of the holes, so I wanted to do that stuff before painting.

[Rod Run]

Originally Posted by Hankster

Nice stash. CAn't wait to see the frame all dressed up!

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Looking forward to seeing the progress on your build.

Thanks guys.

I will post up plenty of pics as the chassis goes together, but after that is done there won't be to much more for a while. I've got to save up some more money before I can go at it hard again, so I will just be picking away at some of the little stuff that doesn't really take much money and doesn't make for interesting pictures.

[aboesec10]

looking good so far! nice goat as well

[Rod Run]

Originally Posted by aboesec10

looking good so far! nice goat as well

Thanks man!

The GTO is completely custom inside & out, along with the underside and under the hood too.

I am hoping to keep the truck from being there too, because this was just supposed to be a quick & easy do over, but it's not looking good right now

[Rod Run]

I got my frame back in my home garage today. I will start turning wrenches on it tonight, so more pics to follow soon

[Hankster]

Sweet! Have fun and stay warm!

[Rod Run]

Originally Posted by Hankster

Sweet! Have fun and stay warm!

HA! Right now it's 40* in my garage and that's to hot to work in comfortably, while wearing a sweatshirt. I had to go down to a t-shirt but now I'm ok.

[Rod Run]

I haven't had much time to work on the truck lately but I know you guys like pics, so here are a couple

When I bought the truck, it had lots of new parts but they were neglected from sitting still for a long time. I took the shocks and cleaned them, before repainting them with some epoxy paint.


Sometimes it's the little things that make a difference. I took the calipers and took down all the heavy castings, before also prepping & repainting them with epoxy paint. I then lettered them up with high temp lettering. I've used this same process on my GTO and it has held up for many years now, even after taking some hot laps on the track at Watkins Glen International.

[Rod Run]

Got myself a new cart for my welder. A well organized toy box makes projects much more fun

[Rod Run]

Haven't done much in the way of interesting progress lately, because I'm trying to get all the dirty work done first. I do this stuff at work (so I can keep my home shop cleaner) and it's hard to find the spare time there, so it takes me a little longer than it should.

Here's just a couple of pics of my UCAs and LCAs. Each pic is showing a before and after of them. Just one more lower to prep, then I will degrease all of them and give one final scuff before painting.

Once that is done, I will have everything I need to assemble my chassis except my spindles. I am going with the CPP 2" drop modular spindles, but I am trying to buy everything on sale and I haven't seen them on sale yet.