"The Smell of Victory" 1972 Cheyenne Super

[Katrina/10]

Sorry, I must have missed your comments on the starter. I had a similar problem with a no start when hot situation. I tried the remote solenoid trick, and it had no effect on the problem at all. Installed a later model mini starter (from a 95 truck, I think), and that fixed it.

[kingstrider]

From day one I had a small ABC fire extinguisher that I normally keep in the garage under the seat of my truck. Having done some fire combat training in the past, I know the dry chemical extinguishers work well but leave a powder residue that goes everywhere and can be hard to clean up. Plus the A component is often corrosive and will ruin things if not cleaned up quickly. This is okay for around the house or garage but for the road I wanted a clean agent extinguisher so bought an Amerex 2.5lb Halotron extinguisher with vehicle bracket as shown:


In the event of a real emergency, I didn't want to fool around with the buckles and straps so bought a quick release vehicle bracket from Scott Drake Enterprises, a company that is well-known in the vintage Mustang circles for quality aftermarket and reproduction parts. This is fabricated from 6061-T6 billet aluminum and is NHRA approved. The mounting straps had to be purchased separately but this makes for a really sweet setup.


I debated where to put it but wound up mounting it in the middle of the transmission hump where it could be reached from either side. Hopefully this is something I'll never need but it is cheap insurance in the event of a small fire. As for the old extinguisher, I put it on the wall by the kitchen using the mount that came with this one and am now I'm in the market for a larger unit for the garage.

[kingstrider]

For several months I had been looking for a set of slotted mags without much luck. One day I found a pair of new old stock 15x10 ET mags on craigslist which were purchased by a guy in the late 1970s but were never used. They had literally sat on a shelf for decades and one even had the original worn box. Normally I don’t like unilug rims but this was a deal I couldn't pass up. The only catch was they were in Kentucky and I'm in South Carolina.

It turned out the guy lived 20 minutes from my parents so I arranged for my dad to pick them up the next day. By a stroke of luck, my best friend was getting ready to go on vacation to Hilton Head so I had him pick them up and deliver them to me. It took about 3 weeks to get them but the wheels were in remarkable shape with only minor scratches and oxidation in a few places. I imagine one doesn't come across NOS slotted wheels like this very often.


My end goal is to lower the truck some more and go with a 4/6 static drop. Unfortunately I found the 3.75" backspace was insufficient to allow the wheels/tires to tuck under the fender. The lesson learned was to make measurements before buying wheels! On the upside, I made a little money flipping the wheels so was able to buy parts for the next project below.

I wasn’t crazy about the fabricated aluminum valve covers that came with the truck so decided to replace them with a set of old school finned aluminum covers instead. I bought new gaskets but wound up reusing the old ones since they fit better.


I also wanted to upgrade the plain chrome spark plug wire looms so ordered new ones from R&M Specialties. These are the vertical style with polished finish and black spacers, part #1101-90-P. I found the easiest way to install the wire looms was to pre-assemble the parts using super glue to hold the washers and nuts in place on the back side, as well as the bottom half of the plastic spacers. This saved time as well as a lot of cussing and frustration from dropped parts. New spark plug wires were then cut to length, crimped and routed behind the valve covers. Overall the installation went fairly easy and helped to clean up the engine bay.

[kingstrider]

When I bought the truck, it came with an old cassette radio with speakers in the dash and under the seat. Unfortunately it wasn't loud enough to compete with the exhaust and I tossed all my tapes years ago anyway. One day while looking at the classifieds, I found a new Hermosa RetroSound Bluetooth radio which was purchased from Holliday. This is a pretty clever design that maintains the vintage look of a pushbutton radio while offering modern electronic features such as built-in Bluetooth for hands-free calling and wireless audio streaming, powerful 25 watts x 4 channel RMS power amplifier, AM/FM RDS tuner with 30 pre-sets, auxiliary USB port and dual RCA inputs, dual RCA pre-outs for external amplifiers, dual color illumination, and 3 different style screen covers to complete the old school look.









While waiting for the new radio to arrive, I pulled the old one out and put it to the side along with the in-dash speaker. I was going to keep the speaker but am in the process of putting the a/c back into the truck and found it wouldn't work with the center vent.







This is a one size fits most type radio and the faceplate is really the only thing specific to 67-72 C10 trucks. To make it fit my application, I mounted the controls using the patented InfiniMount adjustable bracket system. This took some trial and error but I was able to get it sorted out with little effort. The last step was to verify everything worked prior to installation.







The radio also comes with a microphone which allows you to safely make hands-free telephone calls through the audio system. This was mounted above the rear view mirror and the wire was routed under under the weatherstripping and padded dash pad.





I wound up putting one of the screen covers on but don't really like how it obscures the screen when the unit is on so may take it off. Regardless I'm very satisfied with the setup using just the speakers under the seat and plan to add some kick panel speakers at some point. I haven't tried to use the phone function yet but love being able to stream music from my phone. The other cool thing is the radio can automatically fill the presets with the strongest stations which eliminates searching for good tunes. This really beats the snot out of the old cassette radio!

[04sshd]

great story and gorgeous truck! Keep up the good work!

[dutchmanz]

That's a beautiful truck. I'm partial to the Orange anyway, but the options make it even better. It would be hard to not put a big block back in it for me.

[kingstrider]

Originally Posted by dutchmanz

That's a beautiful truck. I'm partial to the Orange anyway, but the options make it even better. It would be hard to not put a big block back in it for me.

Thanks, that's my long term goal. Keeping my eyes open for a good donor truck.

[Benny-]

Nice looking truck!

[steelhorse]

Nice truck.