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.

[cooperhw]

Sweet. I will tag along on this one.

[Xeen]

It looks like a good start, I will go along for the ride.

[LPoole]

nice progess so far... subbed. way to go for doing your best to keep it made in the USA. it's tough with so many off shore parts but im trying my best also. working in a steel mill and then in an ammunition plant made me appreciate what Made in the USA really meant. ill stop preaching now. keep up the good work.

[mattfranklin]

Looks great. Coming together nicely.

Is that a later model ('71-'72) 5 on 5 lug patters on the wheels or more of the smaller passenger car pattern? It looks like the smaller bolt pattern, but my eyes could be fooling me.

[bluex]

Nice, I'm restoring a frame for mine as well. Can you give me a link to where you ordered all your bolts from? I want to replace mine and I also need them to replace all the rivets as well. Might be cheaper to order them all at once versus buying 20-30 worth at a time from tractor supply. Hope mine looks that nice when I'm done. I'm going to check out the paint you used as well. Thanks!

[69short]

Good progress

[flashed]

Im in to see the rest .

[Harrison.]

Originally Posted by LPoole

nice progess so far... subbed. way to go for doing your best to keep it made in the USA. it's tough with so many off shore parts but im trying my best also. working in a steel mill and then in an ammunition plant made me appreciate what Made in the USA really meant. ill stop preaching now. keep up the good work.

Thanks! I know I won't be able to keep it all made in USA but I'm trying my best to when at all possible.

Originally Posted by mattfranklin

Looks great. Coming together nicely.

Is that a later model ('71-'72) 5 on 5 lug patters on the wheels or more of the smaller passenger car pattern? It looks like the smaller bolt pattern, but my eyes could be fooling me.

They are 5x5

Originally Posted by bluex

Nice, I'm restoring a frame for mine as well. Can you give me a link to where you ordered all your bolts from? I want to replace mine and I also need them to replace all the rivets as well. Might be cheaper to order them all at once versus buying 20-30 worth at a time from tractor supply. Hope mine looks that nice when I'm done. I'm going to check out the paint you used as well. Thanks!

I ordered from ASMC Industrial. Free shipping on orders over $50. I think the brand is Nucor, or maybe Infasco (both are US made). TSC is pretty cheap, probably even cheaper than ordering from ASMC but they don't carry 7/16 bolts and ACE wants an arm and a leg for 7/16 grade 8 hardware. Plus they aren't US made, which isn't a big deal I don't guess.

[Justin@EntropyRad]

Nice thread on a cool truck!

[Ta2Don]

Diggin' this build…
I'm in for the ride...

[Harrison.]

So, this project isn't dead. I should have been posting updates this entire time, but there's only so much time in the day and for the most part my free time has been spent on this truck. I'll try to recap the best I can, and say that the bodywork on the bed is finished! After setting the bed back down on the frame I realized the wheels/tires I'd chosen weren't going to fit with my drop without rubbing the inside of the bed. Since the inner fenders had rot in them anyhow, I cut them out and built a set of "tubs" for them. You can see where the wheels that had previously been on the truck were already rubbing.

They give the tire about 2" more clearance on each side, and the wheel tub still bolts up like factory.



The tailgate that came with the truck wasn't really usable. It had bullet holes and rust holes all throughout on top of it being bowed way out from use. I bought a non marked tailgate since I plan on running trim on the back. Went ahead and mocked it up with all of the guts to make sure it would latch when installed.


And just like every aftermarket piece I've used so far it doesn't fit well. It was too tall and the edges weren't square enough. Since this is the tailgate I'm using and I don't plan on restoring this truck again I ended up cutting the bed sides and making them match the tailgate. I didn't really want to section the entire tailgate. You might ask why I didn't just adjust the hinges so that it sat lower? Because then the trim for the tail light housings wouldn't line up in the middle of the tailgate.


Hard to tell in this picture because of the reflection but the top lines up perfectly now



Finally I modified the bottom of the fender openings so that the factory inner fender liners fit snugly


Got the bed in polyester primer (which is how it still looks)



And one last small detail on the bed that I left out, which I can't find any raw metal pics of..but I filled the gap between the bed floor and the rear brace. I just thought it gave water and dirt one less place to collect in.


Stay tuned, I've got a load of pictures that I need to post! If anyone is an Instagram user I've done a better job posting there. My handle is harrisonspeed

[Harrison.]

Speaking of the tailgate, I went ahead and sorted it out (seemed like the natural progression for things). The gaps were too wide for my liking so I added metal to the sides to make nice 3/16" gaps.


The aftermarket tailgate was pretty wavy, so I put a skim of filler over the entire surface before shooting it with my polyester primer


And blocked out ready for a coat of 2k


Oh, and now that the bed is in primer I taped it off and seam sealed everything

[Harrison.]

With the bed finished up I was finally able to pull it off the rotisserie and put it back on the bed cart I built. I went ahead and built some bracing for the cab and mounted the cab on the rotisserie so I could begin the process of repairing it.


Used my trusty pot blaster and supplied air respirator to blast the floors and firewall on the cab. I only blasted to where it started blowing the metal out.



As you can see, there was a good bit of rot (more than I had thought )





I didn't blast the roof skin, or rear bulkhead on the cab. Didn't want to risk warping large, low crown panels.


And all clean, ready to start patching!


Stay tuned! More updates as I have time.

[tommys72]

Nice work so far

[Harrison.]

Thank you!

This is how far behind I am. This is the last thing I got done in 2015! Put extra bracing in the cab and started cutting out the rust. This is what went into the drivers side:


And this is what I cut out:





It became pretty obvious pretty quick that the aftermarket floors weren't going to fit correctly so I built my own. The middle section was fine (you'll see in the pics) but as soon as it started up the firewall it was completely wrong.




Moving onto the inner rockers:



And finally the floors themselves!


..and cab corners


Sorry for the lengthy and pic intensive posts, hope nobody minds!