Jack's Minty Fresh 68 Build

[Jack68]

I've been cruising in 67-72 C10s since before I can remember. My dad thought it was a good idea to start the C10 brain washing as soon as possible. Not kidding my first word was not mom or dad it was actually "truck". This is a picture of my first cruise in my dad's 1970 C10 (2006).



My Grandpa Dennis helped my dad build his 70 when he was a kid. Here is a picture of my grandpa and I with my dad's truck



Early on even though I didn't have a designated truck of my own we started the process of dragging donner trucks home wheneverwe could find them. We knew we would need a good stockpile of parts to build six C10s for me and my five siblings. Here is a picture of my siblings and I with my grandpa and dad pulling one of our first trucks home. Don't worry we didn't pay sticker price. We walked away only having to shell out $200.



Much of my early childhood was great memories of finding and dragging trucks home and searching for parts for my future truck. Here is a picture of me and one of my brothers finding our first gauge clusters.



My grandpa, little brother, and I changing the alternator in my dad's truck. Dad taking the picture.

[Jack68]

Sadly, in 2018 my Grandpa passed away unexpectedly, just as we were about to start working on a truck for me. Over the years my Dad and Grandpa were working on a 1968 Camper Special for my Grandpa. They had installed a roller rocker 350 out of a Caprice cop car in the early 2000s. The plan was to start working on it again while working on another truck for me this time putting a 5.3 LS in my Grandpa's 68 and then I would inherited the 350 cop car motor for my project. When Grandpa passed we decided that we would put all of our focus on building the 68 for me keeping it in the family and having it be a three generation truck. I saved up money for a whole summer working to buy the truck for myself. Here is a picture of when we went up and picked up the truck from my Grandma (March 5, 2020).



On the way home we stopped by the cemetery where my Grandpa was laid to rest and let him know what our plans were, and that we would bring it back not on a trailer when we got the project up and going.



In the 90s when my Dad built his truck with my Grandpa most of the work was done in the back of Grandpa's NAPA Auto Parts Store. Conveniently the building previously was a car dealership built in 1920. In the early 2000s the business and building was sold. Luckily for me in 2014 the business and building was put up for sale again. At that time my family moved back to Idaho and bought the store back. That means I get to build my truck with my Dad in the exact same building, and in the exact same bay as he built he truck with his Dad. Here is a picture of when we brought the truck to the store.



The first thing that we did when we got the truck in the building was pull the two rotted saddle tanks (April 4, 2020).

[D.B]

Cool story, looking forward to seeing more on what you do with your 68. Thanks for sharing!!

[Jack68]

From all the holes it looked like this truck had changed side mirrors quite a few times. We figured going back original would look the best. This was one of my first purchases, parts wise, for the truck. The new mirrors did not come with backing plates, so we made some out of aluminum.



But once we got the inner door panels pulled off to install everything look what I found at the bottom of the doors!



After a quick sandblasting and squirt with black paint the old backing plates were good as new and we were able to install the new mirrors.



I love the look of the original mirrors. They are so clean and simple (July 3, 2020).

[Jack68]

On September 11, 2020, we started to take the old cop car motor out.





I made a list of everything that needed to be done before we could take the motor out.



I got everything unhooked, but I had to stop there because my dad needed me to stock shelves.

[Jack68]

Then the next day September 12, 2020, we were able to pull the motor and transmission all the way out.



We even stopped to take a couple father-son pictures, I am glad I will have these for the future, my dad always says he had more pictures of working with his dad.



There is a lot of room in the engine bay without a powerplant inside.

[Jack68]

November 10, 2020. At first, we were thinking about reusing the cop car 350.



But after pulling it a part we decided that we would save it as a core for a future project.



Lucky for me, my dad decided that the LS he had bought for my grandpa needed to go in the truck as was the original plan. The LS motor and 4L60E came out of a rolled 2007 2WD Silverado Classic with 40,000 original miles. When he bought the motor, it came with the original computer and wiring harness which had been reworked for the swap, GM ProFormance oil pan, motor mount adapters.

[Jack68]

December 4, 2020. This was our first attempt at putting the LS motor into the engine bay.



After adjusting the motor mount adapter plates we gave it the first stab.





Once we got it in there we realized that the stock Silverado exhaust manifolds were not going to fit between the frame rails.



We decided to leave it in there while we thought about what we were going to do.

[Jack68]

March 19, 2021. I was able to take care of a couple of items.

Sandblasted and painted some under hood parts that were showing their age.




I did one at a time so I could show a before and after. Its amazing what sandblast and paint can do.



I also started to take my cracked dash pad out.

[Jack68]

April 24, 2021. I was able to get back to the store and worked on cleaning up some more rusty parts. Didn't get as many pictures this time, Dad must have been busy with customers. At least we got one before picture. I was also able to clean up and paint other items like radiator mounts, etc.

[Jack68]

June 11, 2021. After bumping the motor into the heater box and cacking it a little bit we decided to the position of the motor figured out it would be a lot easier with the front clip off. I am very thankful for nematic hoists it made the job a whole lot easier.





Even after cutting the flange off the stock exhaust manifold we were not able to make them fit with the frame. Also, we want to keep the stock lower mount A/C position so there is still more to figure out.

[Jack68]

November 17, 2021. For my birthday, I wanted to figure out a stereo system. We really liked the look of the original AM radio in the dash but wanted to have a more modern Bluetooth capability. Now that we are using the more modern LS motor the choke lever is no longer needed. That opened up an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. We are pretty proud of this solution and think it doesn't take away from the classic look of the original interior. Nothing like hiding your radio in plain sight.





We were even able to swap out the knobs so that it had an original choke style look.

[Jack68]

November 22, 2021. Getting my stereo figured out for my birthday got me excited about my interior. With Christmas coming up I wanted to figure out my carpet and upholstery options. So, I set off a couple of samples to some fabric companies.




We didn't hear back in time on the seat material, but we were able to figure out the carpet so that I could have it under the Christmas tree. Better than asking for some waste of time Xbox game.

We heard back later on the buddy bucket seat material. That is going to be an expensive project. We will have to deal with that later, but at least we have the info to keep everything looking stock.

[Jack68]

December 30, 2021. Christmas came through with the stock carpet kit time. The original carpet from the factory which is now about 54 years old. It was missing pieces in places and was starting to frizz.



We plan on using a blazer style gas tank so the original one has to go. We order the carpet extra long to cover all the way to the back of the cab.




For now we left the old carpet under the new carpet hoping it will act as additional sound deadening. The new carpet makes the interior look a lot better.



This is a before and after picture you can tell where the thresholds were on the original carpet the color is pretty much identical.

[Jack68]

February 25, 2022. Finally got the motor adjusted to where we wanted it and got it bolted down.



We gave up on trying to the stock exhaust manifolds to work.

Our local VFW Hall has a yearly competition called the Patriots Pen where students can submit and essay on the topic they assign. The topic was “America: Where Do We Go From Here?” Turns out I won the competition and got a $200 cash prize. I took that money and ordered a new set of stainless-steel headers that will hopefully solve my problem.

[raggedjim]

Great story and nice work! Do you have more info on the radio thingy you put in the choke hole? It's a great idea!

Good luck, Rg

[loudchevy]

Cool background stories! Sub'd to follow along.

[Jack68]

March 2, 2022. Now that the motor is where we want it we can find the correct length for our driveshaft. I pulled it out and my dad's friend Kipp cut it for us with his lathe and welded it back together at the shorter length we needed.




With new u-joints and a quick paint job we had it back in the truck.



March 11, 2022. Bolted on the correct alternator.

[Jack68]

March 12, 2022. Lucky for me, many years ago while on this site my dad purchased a gas tank from Boyd Welding that was a ding and dent deal. He didn't need it at the time but the price was good enough so he got it for when he changed his truck to fuel injection. Turns out his truck is still carbureted so he won't be needing this for a while 😁.



We used the future fuel pump block off plate as a start for our homemade fuel pump assembly. We got pretty creative with this one. We soldered a barbed fitting into a brass 90 creating a way to hook the in-tank pump line to the fuel injection house coming from the intake. We then drilled another hole and used a copper line compression with pipe thread on the opposite side to run the wiring into the tank. We also put a chunk of small gas line where the copper line would be compressed by the ferrel. Once we tightened up the compression nut it was a watertight penetration. We used a piece of conduit and a large carriage bolt to create a mounting stem and set the depth of our aero motive fuel pump. For a bunch of random parts it turned out really well and was very cost effective.

[Jack68]

March 15, 2022. When we bought the LS motor the harness was already modified and the plugs were cut off. Whoever reworked the harness did a great job and labeled everything by number. The only problem was when we got the motor the previous owner had lost the paper with the information that each number meant. So we had to break out the volt meter and check where each wire went. With the help of LS1Nova71 and some good wiring diagrams we were able to start to figure everything out.




Took the LS pressure sender and broke out all the plastic. Then drilled and tapped so I could run my stock gauge.

[Jack68]

April 5, 2022. My fancy new headers showed up and lift great except for the passenger side motor mount perch. But with a little cutting and welding we fixed that.

[Jack68]

April 9, 2022. Got all of the wires figured out and labeled. Feels really good to get that done.




Cut a little relief in the farm and installed stub outs off of the ac compressor for future ac line hoses. Hope this helps us in the future when we get the ac system up and going.

[Jack68]

April 11, 2022. Made a cardboard template to figure out a bracket for the drive by wire pedal assembly. Ran the wires through the clutch block off cover.

[Jack68]

April 12, 2022. Out the fuel tank in the bed for now. We'll put it in the blazer tank location later when we have the bed off for the short bed conversion. Ran plumbing.

[Jack68]

April 15, 2022. With a bunch of temporary fuses, relays, and switches the beast runs!!!!!