69 C10 swb stepside project 45 ACP

[68 TT]

Originally Posted by jlsanborn

Nice job man! How far back are you running the exhaust?

For now it will only just pass through the holes I will be cutting in the crossmember with the mufflers just forward of that for now.

Down the road I am going to trial fit a spare trailing arm suspension setup onto it and make the tail pipes clear that system. At that point I will move the mufflers back to behind the rear axle where they are more efficient.

Not sure if I am going to keep it leaf spring or put trailing arm suspension onto it but I might as well make the exhaust system work with both.

The final system will exit straight out the back. I might notch the rear bumper similar to some newer vehicles to tuck them up a little higher. Side exits shake the walls of my house and the neighbors house too much. I like the look of out the back better vs side exit anyway.

[gdavis]

Originally Posted by 68 TT

I was planning on doing a rear disc brake conversion to it and run a C3 Vette manual brake master cylinder but decided to keep it simple and run the new drum brakes out back that the PO just finished.

This worked out to be able to use a 71 C10 front disc rear drum master cylinder. It has the deep push rod hole so it can be run with manual brakes like I will be doing. A big whopping $14 with a lifetime warranty. Power brakes are a waste of time on this thing as the engine builds too little vacuum for them to work.

Cleaned it up and sprayed the bare cast iron of the outside with a matte finish clear coat. Looks just like the unpainted interior of the master cylinder when it dried. I will have to be careful not to spill any fluid on it as I really doubt it is chemical resistant. We will see how it holds up.

I really like that finish.

[68 TT]

Originally Posted by gdavis

I really like that finish.

Unfortunately the matte finish clear didn't hold up well at all. I ended up re-doing it with a spray on matte stainless steel spray coating. Looks the same as freshly blasted cast iron but much more durable than the clear coat.

[68 TT]

Not much progress recently but the acquisition of my 67 Suburban pushed things along. I decided I wanted the bigger low RPM motor in the K20 so I pulled the 400 out of the stepside and put it into my 4x4. The fresh 4-bolt 350 that was in the K20 is now in my 67 Suburban.

I am in the process of freshening up the very low mileage rebuilt but greasy and partially ant infested 70 Chevelle 350 that came out of the Suburban for the stepside. All the oil on it came from a grooved balancer snout hosing down the whole undercarriage and engine and a pushed out rear intake seal. Other than the small amount of ant nest sand in the intake ports and the thick coat of grease on the outside it is in great shape. Very clean with nice crosshatching still clearly visible on the cylinders, nice tan clean burning cylinder residue on the valves and no sludge anywhere but in the bottom of the oil pan from the 33 year old oil that was still in it from 1979 when it was parked. Pretty amazing for how long it sat untouched. I expected barnacles in the cylinders and rats nests in the heads.

The auto trans has been eradicated and the original 3-speed manual trans will be going back in.

I will be converting the truck from the as optioned leaf spring rear suspension to trailing arms after the engine & trans are installed.

[mcbassin]

Glad to see you are making positive progress. Keep the update pictures coming.

[68 TT]

I am making good progress on getting this truck put together.

I am going to convert my newly acquired 67 Suburban into a 4x4 so this worked well with my desire to put a trailing arm rear suspension into the stepside. It also gave me the motivation needed to get that monumental task started.

The leaf-spring-suspension-ectomy is complete on the stepside and it now has the complete trailing arm suspension system out of my old 67 C10 that I parted out.

The cab of my 67 C10 was too rusted out to be economically salvageable so it gave its life to help out several of my other projects. It continues to give as the inner roof skin and outer roof skin will be going onto the stepside cab. I need these to fix the damage caused by the roof mounted service light installed by the original owners as it was originally a Pacific Telephone & Telegraph service truck.

I need to do a little work to the front end and brakes before I start on the roof replacement but it should happen soon. My plan is to drill the spot welds and remove the inner rear window panel & inner roof panel then do the same to the outer roof skin. Just reverse the original assembly line process then install the 67 C10 donor parts like the Fisher body plant did. Should not be able to tell it was ever done when I am finished and it will be just as strong as it ever was.

Lots of pics to post just haven't had time to download and edit them to size.

[mcbassin]

Originally Posted by 68 TT

Lots of pics to post just haven't had time to download and edit them to size.

Ready to see some pictures of all that progress. Sounds like you have been busy.

[68 TT]

Some way overdue pics of the trailing arm conversion to the factory optioned leaf spring 2wd frame.

Luckily the leaf spring option did not eliminate the forward trailing arm crossmember itself but only the trailing arm mount brackets and carrier bearing bracket. This made for a very good reference point for all suspension conversion measurements.

I used my old 69 C20 frame as a component location template and parts donor in addition to the trailing arms & rear end out of my old 67 C10.

Problems loading the pics and letting the site resize them. I will need to try again later after I get a chance to resize the images myself first.

[68 TT]

Been very busy with the family & life getting in the way but finally getting back to working on my trucks and the Camaro.

I ended up going off the deep end on my daily driver bagged 89 C1500 RCLB when it blew a head gasket in the original small block. It turned into a full frame off rebuild & upgrade. It is now a static dropped short bed on a torsion bar 4x4 chassis with TBI 454, 4L80E and 14-bolt posi. I am playing around with the idea of making it all wheel drive as I have all the parts to do it but the lack of posi for the front is kind of a detractor. We will see.

The stepside has reverted to the 400 small block and T-350 again.

I fit the stepside with the 5-lug drop spindles off of my 89 C1500. With the 235/70-15's on the front it sits nice an low like I wanted it. Now I have to make the rear match.

That necessitated a rear end swap to get 5-lug out back. I cut the trailing arm mounts off of a spare housing I had and fit them to a square body 3.73 posi truck 12-bolt 5-lug rear end I had rebuilt for the 89 C1500 rebuild job but didn't use after I decided to make the C1500 6-lug and found the 14-bolt posi for it.

I just got the rear installed into the stepside yesterday and am in the process of building a longer panhard bar setup for it. I used the axle tube mounted portion from a spare HO72 housing I had and modified it to fit outboard of the trailing arm mount on the passenger side. It sits about 2" lower than the stock mount does so that will lower the rear roll center a bit. I need to build the longer panhard bar to match. I am toying around with the idea of making a frame bracket to lower the arm more to level out the bar and lower the roll center even more.

[jlsanborn]

Nice looking work there! How bout a pic of the '89?

[68 TT]

Originally Posted by jlsanborn

Nice looking work there! How bout a pic of the '89?

Thanks, hear are a few of the 89. Lots of labor left to get her done but quite a bit less than what has been done already.

Before with full air bags:

[68 TT]

With front bags removed and a static drop installed:

[68 TT]

In progress trying to figure out what needed to be done to drop a 4x4

[mcbassin]

Very nice looking OBS. It's amazing how fast time flies on these projects
Keep up the good work.

[jlsanborn]

Well done man, that thing is sharp!

[68 TT]

LTZ Silverado wheels with 245/45R20 Cooper RS3-S tires after the 14-bolt install.

[68 TT]

Scored a nice used stepside rear bumper and put that on.

Had to cut out the raised areas the factory put on the frame to locate the stock leaf spring hangers so the bumper mount brackets could fit.

[68 TT]

Made these upper spring locators that bolt to the frame so I could use some easier to cut down springs I had left over from another project.

The lower portion has the same size pigtail as the stock springs so the lower cup fits right in place to mount them to the trailing arms easily.

[68 TT]

While I had the rear end out I finally got around to cutting the trailing arm crossmember for the exhaust to pass through.

Made some 4" O.D. reinforcement rings and welded them in place after cutting the holes. Probably not needed with the factory notch as big as it is but might as well be sure.

[GIZZ]

Nice looking trucks, I found your thread looking for factory 6 lug rotor swap.

I have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind...

1. Is the c2500 front track the same as the c1500 and c10? I just noticed when you had the six lug on the rims stuck way out vs how they are tucked near the end. Or is that just due to the rims you are using?

2. How is the stepside looking now?

[mcbassin]

Where's the updated pictures?

[RCbowtie69]

Looking good,keep the pictures coming,& keep on truckin'

[68 TT]

Made a whole lot of changes to the truck but lost a hard drive so no pics from the progress.

Currently buried in a foot of snow and ice so no new pics to get right now.

She runs and drives but I need to rebuild my vacuum pump so I can get some air out of the brake lines as they are a little softer than they should be. Once I am happy with the brakes I will take it in for an alignment and then it is off to put on some shake down miles and work out any bugs in the build.

I ended up putting the 1969 factory A/C cab from my beater work truck onto the stepside and made the system functional with a combination of parts from the 69, the left over parts from my 89 C1500 build where it got converted over to R134a and with some new square body parts as needed to make things fit and be functional to the 1989 component specs.

I put a freshly rebuilt 400 small block into it that I built for my Malibu a while back but the Malibu is getting a more modern EFI drivetrain so this engine had no place to go and the stepside made a great home as the Camaro wanted its big block back. I ripped that apart and am done with the long block build of the fresh roller cam 427 for the Camaro too so when the snow goes away the Camaro will get its heart back.

The 400 sounds great in the stepside with a full mandrel bend 2-1/2" exhaust system I built tucked up tight passing through the cut-outs in the trailing arm crossmember and going up and over the trailing arms and through two more cut-outs in the crossmember above the rear axle. I need to mount the hidden trailer hitch before I can build the last little bit of the tail pipes but the system is complete to over the axle.

The 400 made 320 hp to the wheels in my Malibu with the same trans and headers as I put in the stepside but with a smaller rear end. The stepside does have a better flowing exhaust system though so that probably makes up for the extra parasitic loss of the heavier rotational weight of the 12-bolt in the truck. Should be a fun daily driver. Can't wait for the snow to go away so I can get behind the wheel of this thing.

[Mcmour67]

Good to hear she runs and drives! Looks like we started with a similar pile of parts. Cant wait to see more pics. Love the shorty step sides. I too am having a hate/hate relationship with my computer. It sucks loosing good pics.