75 C10 Moss Gold - Pgreensoup and Son

[pgreensoup]

First off - thanks to all of you regular posters - I've learned a ton from reading all the threads. I just now got the ability to post, so I plan to start posting myself.

On April 9, 2025, my son and I acquired a 1975 Moss Gold Custom Deluxe (for $42 - not kidding). It has NEVER been under cover, and has sat in the Eastern Washington heat, on a dusty road with windows half open for over half its life. And boy were we excited.

It had 70,000 miles on it when we got it. It is absolutely filthy, so we tossed a sheet over the bench seat, and drove it until it started smoking heavily, which was 12 miles. So now with 70,012 miles, we are learning how to replace a brake caliper that appears to have frozen.

My son and I are not mechanical. And like my son, I did not have a father who was mechanical. So we are learning from these forums, and from YouTube. We have dabbled in upholstery, so we plan to start there.

I'll post a few pictures below, and of course would love to hear any thoughts, wisdom, lessons, things to try, things NOT to do.

Besides the frozen caliper, the truck runs (fine?) it has a bit of rust here and there, but nothing terrible other than a huge hole at the bottom of the cab to the right of the driver's door, and a few holes in the passenger floorboard, and the passenger wheel well/fender area. The tailgate is pretty munched up. The interior is a complete disaster. BUT the truck is loud and fun to drive! My friend explained it has a glass pack (whatever that means).

Okay. To the pics! And PLEASE, I'd love to hear your thoughts!

[pgreensoup]

Oh, I forgot to mention that before we got the truck, we knew we were going to get it, so I found a tailgate locally for $100. I was so excited to find the right color - although it was from a higher trim level. Here is a pic of the new tailgate and the old one.

[pgreensoup]

April 12, 2025 - So it's time to get that bench seat out and see what we can do. Lots of broken springs - also a large crack in the rails. Maybe we can get a better bench somewhere?

While we are in the cab, looks like we need new flooring for sure.

But the most pressing mater is the frozen caliper. I mess about a bit. Realize I can't even see anything behind the tire for all the grease that has built up over the years, so I do some pressure washing, then tackle the brake lines and the caliper. Well, I mangle one of the brake lines. But lucky for me, 64RELIC lives nearby, has a donor 1980 C10, brings a new/old brake line to replace mine, and gets us back on the road. He also mentions that he may have an 81 seat that is in better condition than my 75.

Also we start taking off the dash, the bezel and start working on cleaning that up.

[Mike80D]

Nice find. What a deal! I would leave it as original as possible if it were mine. (They’re easier on the wallet that way!). I guess the rear bumper, and hitch were added at some time. Noticed the old school brake controller so she has seen some work in her day. You can try to find a chrome front bumper, and hub caps to match. Enjoy your project.

[rodstored-72]

welcome aboard!! glad to see that you guys are wanting to tackle a nice project. agree with the above, i would not bother with any paint or body issues now. suggestion: work on getting it to run good & drive safely - all the mechanical stuff. be patient and FOR SURE!! read all you can on HERE, as well as youtube. Be patient & ask alot of questions. it will be more work, but keep us informed & everyone loves lotsa pics!! parts can be found readily, but I tend to go to the reliability of places like LMC truck and any of the vendors here on this site. have fun with the son & keep us posted..

[pgreensoup]

Originally Posted by Mike80D

Nice find. What a deal! I would leave it as original as possible if it were mine. (They’re easier on the wallet that way!). I guess the rear bumper, and hitch were added at some time. Noticed the old school brake controller so she has seen some work in her day. You can try to find a chrome front bumper, and hub caps to match. Enjoy your project.

Thanks! Yeah, we are going to try to revive the paint, and even keep white wheels with hubcaps - although we are painting those "steel". And we think we have a possible chrome bumper from a friend!

[pgreensoup]

Floor holes and new flooring

The rubber flooring was shot. We ordered the Molded Industrial PolyVinyl from LMC. But before we could put it in, there were a few holes to fill. Rather than weld, I created some aluminum patches and used screws and silicone to hold them in place. Folks tell me that means this truck is a “driver” not a “restoration”. Ok.

Next step was wire wheeling, cleaning then POR 15.

After that we installed the new MIP, and used hole saws to cut out the seatbelt and seat bolt hole areas. Used the new seatbelts to hold it in place.
Looks good, but I think we might get some tan floor mats to complete the look.

[pgreensoup]

Seatbelts And a RUST hole.

Safety first. A friend suggested upgrading the seat belts to 3 point harness style. We got them from LMC. The bolts from LMC were wrong - or at least didn’t fit my truck’s pre-drilled holes. Yes, the truck had the holes covered with a plastic cover, but still only had lap belts. My buddy’s 80 parts truck came in handy again with the right size bolts. Seat belts went in easily after that.

We did reinstall the original middle lap belt.

While doing the seatbelts I noticed some puckering paint behind the driver door, then stuck my finger through it, then kept going until I could get my fist through it. Any suggestions on how to go about fixing this? I think we’d prefer the easier, non-welding option if there is one. You can see the hole in the photo, along with a pile of rust on the floor.

[pgreensoup]

Bench Seat

Our 75 seat was in pretty bad shape. My buddy had an 81 seat that folds (the blue one) so we checked the fit and went with that one. Got new bottom foam, and “tan” vinyl and velour seat that looks to be similar to “saddle”. I am noticing that there seems to be a reddish brown saddle, and a more tan saddle out there. Anyone know about this, or why that is?

After wire wheeling the frame and tracks we painted, then reupholstered. The fit is not as tight as we’d like, but it really does look and feel great. Seat sits a bit higher with the new foam, but it is super comfy.

We put in the LMC seat heater kit. Does anyone have any experience with wiring that up? The instructions aren't great. In fact, the kit was a bit disappointing in that there was not enough wire to get the toggle switch to the dash. I called LMC. Yes, they have had other complaints - "but there is nothing they can do." I eventually got a $20 gift certificate which covered the cost of the wires we had to buy to extend the switch. We extended the switch wiring by 5 feet, used a graduated drill bit (carefully) and got the toggle switch installed in the dash next to the ash tray.

[pgreensoup]

We love the ColorBond Spray!

Our door panels were originally the brownish red saddle color, but turned a greenish sand color by the sun over the years. We cleaned with green scotchbright pads, then painted. We did the same for the bench seat hinge covers and the kickpanel air vent thingies. Our sun visors are the reddish brown saddle, but are in decent shape, so we are leaving them alone, and don’t really mind the mismatched color. I did two coats of the satin clear coat at the end.

We also learned that our 75 C10 may be a lot more than just a 75. When we removed the door panels we found out one door had previously been brown, and the other yellow. The card in the glovebox shows the truck’s original color was moss gold - so how much of the paint on this truck is actually original? And why would it need two new doors? What else is not original? How many trucks went into this truck? These questions are likely to remain unanswered.

[pgreensoup]

Bezel and Guage Cluster

When we collected the truck, I couldn’t even see if I was in park, reverse, or drive - the lens was that bad! I spent some time with simple greencleaner, then a Meguiar's compounding agent. It is not crystal clear now, but it is 500% better than it was.
-Repainted the needles.
-cleaned the bezel, and the red guage covers with simple green
-pulled out the headlight switch and re-bend the rod, simple greened the knob, and used some compressed air to clean. - same with wiper mechanism.
Used a little Armor All on the bezel and she looks great.

I tried changing the two lights behind the speedometer and the fuel gauge to LEDs. They are ok, but it isn’t very bright. I’ll keep working on it. I got some lights off amazon - maybe they aren’t good quality? Anyone have a link for good ones?

[pgreensoup]

Steering Wheel

We were actually looking for a new steering wheel because this one looked like the sun had beat it too badly to repair. Upon further investigation, it was just 50 years of dirt and grease and whatever glue like substance was leaking out from it. We scrubbed on it for a while and found that it actually had its vinyl texture under the grease, so we soaked it overnight in Oxyclean, brushed it with a toothbrush to get it clean. After using some wax and grease remover, we used a Landau Black spray that we learned about from these forums. The wheel looks amazing!

Horn button had most of the tabs broken off, but I managed to find two of them inside the steering wheel when I was removing it. I used some flexible shoe glue to reattach the two tabs. I’m hoping that will work to keep the button secure. I honked at a few folks today and the horn button stayed secure. We will see.

I added a leather looking wrap. My son likes it. I prefer the all black.

[pgreensoup]

Time for some sound!

There was a chrome faced Dashmate 8-track player in the dash with two speakers cut out in the doors. Nothing worked. We removed the radio and set it aside, but left the speakers - to keep the holes filed.

I had seen a thread on here where folks bought a cheap bluetooth amp that could run two speakers. Friends of mine poo-pooed the idea, but I bought one anyway. Here is the one: https://amzn.to/4l9HKRk

We tested it with the speakers - one speaker worked with terrible tin sound. We hoped it was the speaker, not the little tiny amp.

Meanwhile, we also discussed how to fill the holes left in the dash bezel where the old school radio went. My son decided it would be cool if the old school radio filled the hole and actually could be used to power the little amp. Back to the threads in this forum and we saw how a guy did that. But a commenter suggested it might be easier just to hijack the grey wire that runs to the light in the orignal radio - BUT we dont’ have the oringal radio. But could it work with the 8 track player?

My son took the radio apart, used a multimeter to find some higher voltage spots inside the device, then we soldered a power wire from one of the good spots and out of a hole in the radio shell. We reinstalled the old radio, connected our new power wire from the radio to our little amp, connected the amp to some 6x9 stock speakers from a 2009 Toyota that my brother had laying around and… well, here is a video.

Yes, I’m sure a RetroSound device and some new 6X9s would be awesome but for $16, with some used parts, 4 hours of father son time and some McGyvering, we’ve got something that works.

There was a hole already drilled in the dash where I put the amp so that we have a manual volume knob.

The speakers don’t fit nicely, so I just tossed an old towel behind each one and left them laying there, not secured, for now.

Magic! Thank you forum posters, and youtube! Here is a quick video demonstrating how it works.

[straight6chevyguy]

Cool truck and great work so far!
Im liking it!

[dakattack7]

Great work. This is the fun way to work on an old truck and not keep it off the road long! I have a 75 GMC K10 short bed in Moss gold. Don't see the color often at all!

[Mike80D]

Nice work. Glad to see a truck being brought back around to a life it deserves.