1970 in the Great White North

[69GMC2004]

Little over due but finally getting around to starting a build thread. I've always wanted an old truck but life happened and never got around to it. About a year and a half ago I had just returned from a trip, my wife and daughter were visiting some family on the other side of the country, thus I was left unattended with some extra cash in the bank account. I got bored and found a 1969 C20 truck on a nearby farm, it ran and drove, had fair amount of rust (you know, because Canada), and a bunch of dents. That truck came home with me. As with any of these projects, I've changed my mind a million times and still do as I'm building it. The general plan is to have a pro-touring style truck at the end.

I'll post a pic of the original truck and how it all started, and update with pictures and progress up until now. Original pics are kinda poor, didn't think to take a bunch before tearing it apart. Also, don't mind if some of the pics are at a weird angle, my garage is 17x20 doing a frame off restoration, space is tight lol.

[cornerstone]

Looking forward to it!

[69GMC2004]

The truck was a 292 4 speed truck, it ran and drove OK but had some over fueling issues. After driving it around a little bit and bringing it in the garage to inspect it, many issues were found. Suspension needed a total overhaul. Truck was sitting for a while and brakes started leaking after driving it around the block a few times. Started cleaning out the truck which came with a storage box full of extra parts. Maybe it was ambition to get my hands dirty and do something but it didn't take long to decide I needed to tear it down to the frame and start building.

[69GMC2004]

Tearing into it, it quickly became apparent that this truck was indeed a farm truck and anything the broke was hacked together. Case in point, JB weld or some other similar product to hold the wiper arms on. That took some wicked heat to removed.

I had picked up patch panels for the floor, inner and outer rockers, floor supports and cab corners. Digging into it I knew there would be more rust than I initially thought, but I didn't know it was that going to be this bad. The more I cut, the more I found. A complete floor pan went on sale locally so I picked it up and decided to get the cab blasted. NOTE: It's amazing what old school paint can hold together. The cab was bad. Several places on the firewall rotten, complete floor rotten, found what I suspect is accident damaged covered by bondo, inside the cab from rear pillar across the windshield to the other rear pillar was almost completely rotten and hidden. Cab repair was put on hold until I could decide what I was going to do.

[69GMC2004]

Also, if anyone knows how I can rotate the pictures when they are uploaded that would be helpful information lol. All of the pictures have the correct orientation on my laptop but I can't seem to figure out how to rotate them once they're uploaded.

[MDPotter]

That is a lot of rust on the roof. More and more parts for the cab are available now, but you could also look for a donor cab - they aren't impossible to find.

When you take the pictures, have your phone in landscape orientation (home button on the right) and they should post correct.

I have a chocolate lab that likes to sit on car seats too. Took the picture with the phone upright, whoops.

[69GMC2004]

After seeing how bad the cab really was I decided to focus on the chassis and keep my eyes open for a better condition cab or even a truck. I had a hard time going back and forth between keeping the long wheel base or going short. For what I wanted short made sense, but you don't see a lot of pro-touring style long wheel base trucks. What ended up sealing the deal for me was working in a small garage. With the long wheel base the rear bumper would be an inch away from the door and I'd have maybe a foot or so of room in front of the truck to work in the engine bay, short wheel base was looking a lot better. I ordered the Brothers kit to shorten it and started hacking away. My trailing arms were getting pretty rotten and couldn't find any locally, the price difference between the OEM stamped style and a tubular style was almost negligible by the time everything got to me, so I picked up a set of CPP trailing arms and cross member.

[69GMC2004]

I also wasn't 100% convinced that I liked the Brothers kit once I got it. The bolt in brace on the inside of the frame seemed too thin. I left the bolt on brace on while I decided what I wanted to do with the frame. Now that the frame was 20" shorter, it was much easier to work around in my little "shed" lol. In the meantime I was determined to get all of the rust off the frame, which meant I needed to removed all of those old rusty rivets. The frame was still in pretty good shape for the most part. there was even some factory paint still in between some of the pieces. Removing all of those rivets is a very tedious task.

[69GMC2004]

As with many projects, this one started with a budget in mind. Fairly quickly the budget opened the window and got a sniff of what was outside, then the budget was gone. I spent the money on the QA1 front and rear kits. The rear kit I opted for the one without the trailing arms, as the trailing arms were nearly $2000 more by the time it would get to me. The only downside for me was that the kit without the trailing arms doesn't have the coil brackets with the built in c-notch. I tried to purchase the brackets separately on several occasions from QA1 directly but I always got the same response, "not available at this time". I ended up getting a run of the mill c-notch and had to modify it to work with the coil overs. I fully welded the c-notch onto the frame, I was surprised at how much more noticeable the frame stiffness was after welding. I also decided that I was going to ditch the Brothers inner brace and weld a fish plate to the inside of the frame rails.

[69GMC2004]

Shortening the frame actually allowed me to make some adjustments to bring it more square. If I recall correctly, the frame was originally out of square by a little over an inch, which didn't seem all that unusual considering the age of these old trucks. I'll touch a little more on this later. Also did all of the suspension mock up to make sure I wasn't going to have to do any modifications after the frame was painted.

Also, an engine crane is perfect for moving a frame around by yourself!

[69GMC2004]

Here's a few more pictures of the suspension mock up.

[69GMC2004]

Around the same time that I was welding everything back together, I saw a truck on the buy and sell that looked to be in pretty good shape. The truck had some body work done already, needed floors and rockers (which I already had for the other truck), but other wise was a pretty solid cab and pretty straight body. That truck came home and will be going on the chassis once it's done and built.

It's a 1970 CST10. Somebody pulled out the original 350 and put a 267 in it but, its on the road and I can drive it until I'm ready to swap the body over.

[69GMC2004]

Removed all of the remaining rivets from the frame brackets and cross members, completely disassembled, degreased and pressure washed everything. After pressure washing it revealed some cracks in the suspension cross member that went unnoticed under the dirt/grime/rust. Repaired all the cracks and sent the frame out for sandblasting. Sandblasting turned out great, it revealed one minor crack that wasn't visible before. Quick little repair and it was ready to start prepping for paint.

[69GMC2004]

Maybe against my better judgement I went with POR15 products for the frame, I realize it's designed to be paint over rust (which did work well on the old 5 lug 12 bolt I picked up for next to nothing), but in my mind I was convinced it would give me a more durable finish vs primer/paint. I used all of the POR15 products recommended and followed the directions to the letter, but I wasn't very impressed with the outcome. I used a foam brush, went slowly and applied thin layers. There are air bubbles EVERYWHERE! Not very impressive for a self leveling product. After each coat, you could distinctly tell where it was applied, I ended up with 3 different sheens: flat on the first coat, semi gloss on the second coat (I did buy the semi gloss stuff), and a high gloss anywhere that I tried to smooth out any runs. In addition to this, you can see in the photos where the finish appears to have had some sort of chemical reaction, nearly the entire frame is like this. After spending nearly $750 (Canadian dollars in case it seems like a lot) for sandblasting and the POR15 products I was incredibly disappointed with the way it turned out. The only good thing I can note about the POR15 is that once it is fully cured, it does seem quite durable, even though the appearance of chemical separation has me concerned. I handled some of the pieces intentionally rough without any noticeable marking of the finish, so I decided to just try and make it look pretty. I cut the larger air bubbles off with a razor blade and sanded the finish to try and hide the smaller stuff. I picked up some VHT Chassis rattle cans and laid a couple coats down. I REALLY like the way the VHT stuff turns out. It sprays well, and seems pretty durable for rattle can paint. Once that cured for a few days I decided that it was good enough for me, this wasn't going to be a show truck anyway.

[69GMC2004]

With the frame satisfactory it was time to start putting it back together. By taking it all apart I was able to address the frame squareness. Using information that I found on this board and some creative ratchet strapping I was able to the the frame measurements withing about 1/8" (which I didn't think was going to be possible). Had to paint a few more suspension parts in my fancy paint booth and then the front and rear suspension went for final assembly. All of the adjustments haven't been done, I will be waiting until it's sitting on its own wheels.

Am I alone? Or does the look of the yellow zinc grade 8 bolts against the frame make it look better than if it was all painted black?

[Racer2172]

Good work so far, amazing with these trucks how you buy one then before long have two or three around the house lol

[69GMC2004]

Originally Posted by Racer2172

Good work so far, amazing with these trucks how you buy one then before long have two or three around the house lol

I know eh. My wife keeps giving me crap every time I start looking at trucks lol.

[69GMC2004]

It's been a little bit since I updated this. Between all of the Covid-19 stuff going one, work being unusually busy for this time of year, and a last minute impromptu hunting trip, I haven't managed to get much done.

If you live in Canada, don't use UPS. Just don't. 5 days of delays, 5 days of phone calls, 5 days of UPS employees admitting that they messed up and refusing to try to correct it, 5 days of UPS refusing to release the customs documents so I can pay my duty and taxes, $200 above original shipping cost to release my package, just for them to deliver it to the wrong address without the required signature, an hour of me driving around to all of the similar addresses to mine and knocking on doors looking for my package, I finally receive my rack and pinion kit from No Limit. No limit was awesome to deal with, it's just unfortunate that this is the standard service received from UPS.

When I got the package I found that the tie rod was poking through BOTH boxes but miraculously was not damaged. This install was very straight forward and easy, only had to make some minor adjustments to the bearing mount on the upper frame rail because the mount would not sit flush with the holes lined up.

The No Limit tie rod ends are a 5/8" bore. I needed to use 73-87 spindles for the QA1 suspension, which have a larger tie rod taper 5/8" on the small end and 3/4" on the larger end. I spoke with Rob briefly an he hadn't recalled anyone running into this issue. I didn't want to start messing with the steering linkage in the kit or start building custom steering linkage, so I ended up bringing the steering knuckles to a local machine shop and had them punch out the tie rod hole and press in a sleeve with a 5/8" bore. Works like magic!

I set the engine in place temporarily to get an idea of how much room I might have between headers and the steering shaft, as much as I can guess without the cab on the frame anyway lol.

I also found a set of tires that would actually hold air to put on some 5 bolt rims after doing the conversion. So even though I still can't install brakes (14" Wilwoods don't fit so great under 15" steelies), it's sitting its own wheels for the first time in about a year and a bit.

[69GMC2004]

It's been a bit since I updated this. Been busy with home renovations, work, and kids (including a new one that showed up unexpectedly in August, 5 weeks early). Drove the truck a few times over the summer, mostly doing chores and runs to the dump. This old girl still has the original wiring harness with many "add-ins" for various accessories or repairs, and far too many wires that go nowhere. One day I went to start it and wiring shorted out and started melting the harness. This was late summer so I decided it was time to tear down the truck to swap the body over the winter.

Since the budget for the winter was going to be a bit lower with my wife on mat leave, I decided to take the cheaper route, this meant not getting the LS swap done. Did a compression check on the SBC and had 140-145 across the board so decided to fix the oil leaks and do a tune up. Tore the engine down and found a lot of slop in the timing set, I was curious to see how much it really was so I put my degree wheel on and it was about 11 degrees of crank rotation before the camshaft started to turn. I ordered a new timing set and since I was going to run this engine, I just had to take a peek at some camshafts, oops! I ordered the smallest cam above stock specs (a lot of sparse and partial info on the 267 specs mind you), so hopefully it won't be too much lol. I also ordered a carb rebuild kit. I got everything back together and threw some Chevy orange paint at the engine and transmission to get rid of the gray/blue/green/black fiasco it had going. In total I spent about $200 on engine parts, in the spring I had rebuilt the TH350 for about $250, with paint I had basically a complete powertrain overhaul for under $500CDN.

I also picked up a set of used Coys wheels and tires for a decent price that would fit over the Wilwood brakes, so I was finally able to get the front brakes installed and see it on some decent wheels. The wheels needed a good bit of polishing.

[69GMC2004]

More pics, still cannot get these things the right way. They're all correct orientation on my phone, and still correct when I transfer them to my laptop. Even tried rotating all the photos on the laptop before uploading but it makes now difference. I guess technology won this time.

The 18" Coys just barely clear the Wilwood calipers. About 1/4" maybe a tad less between the caliper and the flush mount valve stem. I don't think I'd want any less clearance than that.

[69GMC2004]

Finally got to start working on the cab. Passenger side still had original rocker on it (mind you it had been bondo-patched). Removed the old rockers and to my amazement, the A pillar on the passenger side was still totally intact. It had a bit of pitting, but I don't think it will require much work if at all. I finally built myself a super duper cab remover thing which would have been handy the last 4 times I had to lift a cab. Got the old floor cut out and the new on fit in. Had to do a bit of trimming/modification to get the floor pan into place (thank you May70 for some of the tips and tricks from your floor pan install). I was able to use at least half of all the original bolt holes to locate the the new floor pan to the original pillars. Took some modifying and hammer/dolly work to get the new floor to fit well. Had to make a few patch panels on the toe board.

Also note, it's incredibly difficult to get anything done when you buy your little one a tool set and the only thing she wants to do is work on the truck with dad. But it's worth it to be spending the time with her and passing on the skills that hopefully she'll enjoy someday.

[69GMC2004]

More pics.

[69GMC2004]

Couple more pics. Here you also see my custom hand formed patch panel work bench.

[69GMC2004]

Got some more metal work done. Got the kick panel in place, a pillar repair, and start of the b pillar repair on the passenger side done. Aftermarket patch panels don't nearly have enough flange to meet with the bolts for the floor supports, so I had to build an extended flange and welded nuts to them with the bolts tight.

[69GMC2004]

Managed to get a start to the firewall shave on the passenger side with the kit from LSFAB.