Project Texa Go

[Billett]

Finally getting around to making a build thread for my new truck! I used to roll around in a '99 s10 and loved it. It was my first vehicle so I put tons of time and effort into it, but after a while I realized it was just never going to be anything more than an s10. Saw a pretty good deal on this '68 lwb and couldn't be happier right now. It definitely needs some work, but for the price I just couldn't pass it up.





It used to be a service truck for a Texaco station down the road from me and has stayed with the station through the years. The station eventually shut down, but a used car dealer/restoration hobbyist bought the station and the truck along with it. He took the station and brought it back to life and he would take the truck to shows, but it just didn't get that much attention, (from him), so he decided to sell it. The guy he sold it to had it for six months and sold it to the guy I bought it from. He had it for a whopping week and a half before putting it up on CL, said he needed to buy a trailer for vacation. So, $3500 later and I have my own little piece of history.









As of now the only mods I'm doing are restorations. There are quite a few things missing that I need to put back on before I can start using it as a reliable DD. It needs all new molding and weatherstripping in a few places, but it's just easier to replace it all at once. There is no glovebox since whatever idiot owned it previously decided to bolt what appears to be two computer speakers under the dash instead of just replacing the normal one... I'll get picks of that tonight. The original drivetrain was swapped for a relatively new 350 and Saginaw 3spd. Unfortunately I have no idea what the original drivetrain was because the p.o. also had very poor painting skills... Many of the turn signals and trim pieces have white over spray on them, and the entire back of the glove box SPID and all is just covered in white paint. All in all though it seems to run quite well and I'm fairly certain with a bit of TLC she'll be right as rain.

[Billett]

don't worry I love pictures haha. And yeah, I normally like everything to be fairly original, but I have no idea what this one came with in the first place... I'm not going crazy with it, but since it isn't original to begin with I'm not against adding a few things here or there. Right now my priorities are the weatherstripping (replacements from lmc), the radio and speakers (possibly a retrosound radio), cleaning up the disaster of wires left hanging under the dash, and just a general cleaning. I took the bedliner out the other day to clean the bed and who knows the last time that has happened haha i have a few ideas about what I would like to do to it, but right now I'm still just researching.

I'd love to make it a bit better of a daily driver with either a different trans like a 4,5, or 6 speed, or just adding a gear vendors kit to it, but right now I haven't decided yet and I don't mind the old 3spd. Eventually I may put an lq9 in it, but that's way down the road. Bags are a possibility, but that is also a long way off.

Right now I'm a bit nervous to bring it to work actually. I drive about 50 miles to work in Ocean City, NJ so it's pretty hot and she's acting up a bit. Every time I get her up to around 45-50mph in 3rd it starts to lose power for some reason... The engine is still running, but it seems to sputter on and off until I drop back down to 35-40 or so and then its fine. As soon as I bring it back to 50 it sputters again. Sometimes its closer to 40 mph, and sometimes it trundles right along all the way up to 65. I'm looking into a few things right now, but I haven't figured it out yet and since most of my drive is highways I don't want to be stuck at 40mph lol. On the way home I'm going to pick up some spark plugs since they look pretty nasty, but I don't think that's the problem. I do have a small leak in the rear main seal too, but again I'm not sure that's what's causing this...

[Billett]

Got some things I'd like your thoughts on guys. First off I finally took some pictures today of the truck and all its lovely misguided repairs. I guess I shouldn't really expect anything different since it was a service truck, but its still annoying to see what people will do to avoid getting something fixed properly...

Riveted the hood instead of getting a new bolt...



Wire cover isn't screwed in even though the screws are already in the hole...



Plug wires are just laying all over the block







Bare wires and connections with no protection



No coolant overflow or even a stopper



Wiper fluid isn't plugged in, although even if it was the hoses just run right into the cab... where there is no pump. They just hang right in front of the pedals



No idea what this spring is there for but I took it off and its hanging from the mirror now lol



One of the worst wiring jobs I've ever seen and a bunch of holes filled with foam







Leaking vents



But hey the seat and roof look gorgeous!





Steering wheel is put on crooked. That is with the tires dead straight



And my favorite! He removed the entire glove box to screw in computer speakers instead of just replacing the damn dash speaker. And painted over the SPID in the process. Note all of the over spray in just about every picture



Lots of work ahead of me...


Now on to the question I have: I just bought a set of steelies from a late model silverado.



Just by looking at them I had an inkling that they wouldn't fit, especially with the offset, but I got them for $50 for all four with tires so I couldn't pass it up. Got them home and they wouldn't fit, no surprise, so I was thinking of selling them out at Carlisle but then I remembered another set of rims I currently own...



These are a set of 17x9.5 C5 corvette z06 rims. The tires on the steelies are 275 so I know they will fit on the c5's. However the c5's are obviously not the right lug pattern. They are 5x4.75 so even if I did the later model disc swap it wouldn't work right.

My question is this; I want disc brakes and these z06 rims, but I don't know what route I should go. I recall seeing a swap kit that changes from 6x5.5 over to the 5x4.75. I also know there are plenty of kits for regular disc to drum with the same lug pattern and also the later model swap to the 5x5 pattern. With any of the ones above I would need some of the billet adapters for the wheels to fit. Discs on the rear would be nice also, but again I could just use the adapters if I needed to. The adapters themselves are 2" to 2-1/4" thick so that gets rid of the problem of the offset and tires rubbing, hopefully. Also my truck (supposedly) has a 2" drop with aftermarket drop springs, but stock spindles. I don't know what the benefit of drop spindles over stock would be aside from the fact that some kits need drop spindles. I am assuming it allows bigger rotors but please fill me in!

What seems to be the best approach? I know several people who run adapters on their s10s in order to fit vette rims so I am not worried about the safety of using them, but practically will it be more beneficial to have one lug pattern over another on the actual brake rotors? I apologize if this seems like a simple or dumb question but I haven't worked with brakes much aside from bleeding lines and changing pads. Any criticism is good criticism as far as I'm concerned. If it's a dumb idea just tell me up front haha

[67c10rustbuket]

Cool truck! That spring is a "custom" throttle return spring for the carb.

[Billett]

That's what I thought too, but it wasn't really doing a very good job. It was so loose I'm surprised it hadn't fallen off already. I assume that he had the hose clamp rotated farther but it worked its way back. Either way its just...bad.
Posted via Mobile Device

[Tinkermc]

man it took a professional a lot of time to screw that wireing up like that

[Billett]

tell me about it haha. I'm going to take a trip to Bristol this weekend so tonight those wires are my project... I'm pretty sure I'm just going to have to pull everything apart so I know that it's all done properly, but that can wait. Tonight I just want to clean it up so it doesn't look like a 4 year old put in my radio

[ERASER5]

The bare wire thing is not much to worry about. One is ground of course and need no attention. The second is 12vdc, but it is not going any where. It is mounted solid. Fairly normal for that kind of installation. I would worry more about where it comes from. power source is important. Tap the wrong place and you have a no-start or a run-on pretty easy.

Love the rivit fix. Classy even.

Bristol? As in Tennesee? I'll be in Kingsport this weekend. That's about 20 minutes from Bristol.

[Billett]

nope sorry, Bristol PA. And yeah I know the bare wires off the carb isn't a huge deal. There are more sprinkled around the cab, but my Dad is an E&I guy so I'm just a bit anal when it comes to wiring

[Billett]

N2TRUX convinced me not to swap on those c5's. Can't believe I was going to in the first place... I really just want to put them on a truck! Anyway, going a slightly different direction now with the rims. Keeping the 6 lugs so I don't need to worry about the rear just yet.

[Billett]

Got my parts in from GMCPaul last night! Desperately needed new rubber all around so I got the whole kit from them. Great deal and awesome customer service.

Old door trim was a bit past its prime..





Just like the window molding



And I found out that my rockers are riveted in! yay...





Gotta clean all that crap out... Oh well. New Parts!





Ordered the push on style. Actually ended up with about a foot of extra trim which is way better than being too short. It works great by the way. It's a little tough to close right now, but it feels so much more solid. Hopefully I can get some more done later today. Took me a hell of a long time to get the driver side window out. First time I had done it and the bottom half of the vent window had rusted to the side of the door, (probably since I had no weatherstripping ), so it would not come out. Kept thinking I was doing something wrong until I got so frustrated I... convinced it... to come out haha. Gonna blast it with some glass bead today to see how it turns out. If it works alright I'll do the rest of the stuff in there too. It all needs to come out to be cleaned and greased anyway.

[Billett]

Showed up to work today and went home with a free set of 6 lug wagon wheels! They are rusted to hell but a quick media blast should have them looking good again. Any thoughts on what color you would do? I know a lot of them are white but since my truck is white I was going to do something else just not sure what. I like the black that's on there now
Posted via Mobile Device

[RHGuyettejr]

Really love the 23.5 hr service, are you planning on keeping the texaco lettering on the truck when you are done? Im also with you on the repairs, my wiring is just as bad, the truck had one header and one manifold, about 37 clamps holding the tailpipe that wasn't even hooked up together, and the lower radiator hose contains solid PVC sections. haha, guess that is how it goes. I like this truck though, looks like a real piece of history.

[Tinkermc]

I see signs of progress

[Billett]

Originally Posted by RHGuyettejr

Really love the 23.5 hr service, are you planning on keeping the texaco lettering on the truck when you are done? Im also with you on the repairs, my wiring is just as bad, the truck had one header and one manifold, about 37 clamps holding the tailpipe that wasn't even hooked up together, and the lower radiator hose contains solid PVC sections. haha, guess that is how it goes. I like this truck though, looks like a real piece of history.

Yeah I'm probably going to keep the Texaco style. Not sure about the exact paint job, but I definitely like the fact that it makes it stand out a bit more. It's not just another truck, its "that texaco truck" haha. I'll probably end up going with a mainly red paint job and black and white lettering since that's what most of the texaco stuff I see is painted. I'm not entirely convinced that it is an original service truck the more I take it apart, for example it used to be blue, but I like the idea and story nonetheless.

Right now my head is going in a million directions on this one. 2wd or a frame swap to 4wd, auto or manual, lift or lower. It's killing me because I always try to think things through and I usually over think it. I don't want to spend a ton of money on trying to make one thing only to end up wanting a completely different style truck. On the upside, at the moment all I have to worry about is making it pass inspection and making it a decent daily. NJ requires a 7.0 for co% and I got 9.3. Looked at the carb and it was turned up a ton, I imagine to make it sound like it had a bigger cam. Cut that down and it dropped to an 8.9 yesterday. I could probably cut it back a little more, but I don't think that's the reason it isn't passing and I'd rather fix the big problem instead of just sneaking through inspection.

I did get some more of the weather stripping in last night along with the cig lighter and glove box. Oh and a dome light cover. Tonight I'll try to strip those wagon wheels of the powder coat and put up the other ones on CL. Still need to put the s10 up too...

[Billett]

Finally made some decisions and got a bit more done. After reading the most recent Hot Rod magazine I was inspired to continue on my original path of just making the truck a fantastic DD. Maybe another inch or two of static drop with some good, quality performance suspension components, adjustable panhard, swaybars, etc. I'd like to swap out the sbc 350 for a more economical and more powerful lq4. I thought about adding a GV unit to the 465, but at $3000 I'd rather toss in a tko/t56/nv4500. I don't really tow much and it's only 2wd so I'm not super concerned about the granny gear. Air con would be nice and I think I'll relocate the tank to the bed so I can put some speakers in the cab. Disc brakes all the way around and a decent rear with s locker will round it all out. Still trying to figure out what to do with paint though..

Obviously this is going to be a long, expensive process, but I like to plan way ahead and take things one step at as time and unless I write it all out so I can look back and go "hey that's why I wanted to do that" I'll end up going crazy.

First step in this process? Readjust the timing... I took her into the shop last week since I couldn't pass emissions for high co%. I checked fuel pressure since the edelbrock 1406 I have doesn't like it high, and readjusted a few setting on the carb. Still wouldn't work so I was going to go out for a timing light, but decided instead of wasting a ton of time I'd just take it in. Last time I went to the station I got a co reading of 8.9%, 7% is passing. Got it back with a co% of .34, but my co2 jumped up to 13.5%! I'm thinking that the shop just retarded my timing a ton to make it pass inspection, but now I have to keep my big toe on the throttle at stops or it wants to die every time. I've tried to adjust the carb again to keep it alive, but it just feels really off still. I realize that it was wrong before so what I am used to is not correct either, but it seems like they took my timing to the other extreme... Going to head out for a timing light this week and have a crack at it.

To keep you interested though here's a nice pic!

[Billett]

Hopefully solved the problem bogging down with help from geezer on this thread

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=538509

Carb was pretty nasty on the inside so I'm glad I took the time to do it. Took me about 6 hours all in all, but that was my first time. I imagine I could do it in closer to 4 next time. Also changed the jets out from .098 to .101 to give it a bit more power instead of economy. Seems to be working so far. Still has a bit of hesitation if I jam on the gas. Might need to go with bigger secondary jets, or change the rods. I'm sure I'll get back around to messing with it eventually.

Changed the oil Sunday as well. Absolute disaster. PO had a fram filter on there cranked down so tight it took me three hours and a dinner break to get the %$^%$^%$@^ off. Replaced it with a Purolator gold and 5 new quarts and everything ran fine. Still have that rear main seal leak though so I'll be purchasing a new seal tonight. Hopefully it is actually the rear main that's bad and not a different seal...

In happier news I took first in the Full size truck class at the End of Summer Bash here in Woodstown!

[Billett]

Toying around with the idea of painting my valve covers soon. I'm thinking of either using the old style chevy font (http://www.dafont.com/air-conditioner.font) and spelling out Texaco or TexaGo. My other idea was to use a chevy font to spell out Chevrolet, but to make the T a Texaco symbol. Thoughts?

For a bit more info I'm going to be painting the whole truck one of these two colors with an earlier texaco logo on the side.

[Zoomin]

Originally Posted by Billett

N2TRUX convinced me not to swap on those c5's. Can't believe I was going to in the first place... I really just want to put them on a truck! Anyway, going a slightly different direction now with the rims. Keeping the 6 lugs so I don't need to worry about the rear just yet.

I just ran across your thread. We seem to have parallel interests.

Check out my 96 GS wheels:




And a Texaco theme I was toying with:



Good luck with your build!

[Billett]

That color scheme is pretty awesome! I was considering doing a two tone, but the red and white seemed pretty overdone to me. The pin striping really sets it off though

[VA72C10]

cool looking truck! nice progress so far and congrats on the win!

[Billett]

Exhaust fell off Monday night on the way home





Used to be true dual glasspacks out the back. I just bought a set of Super 44's and I'm going to throw in an H-pipe. Still up in the air about where I want it to exit and whether I want turn downs. Also ordered the rear main seal, a new accelerator pump for the carb, and some new trailing arm bushings. Oh and a $2100 battery for my fiance's hybrid... Damn thing better last another 10 years.

Messed around with photobucket yesterday

[Billett]

Oh and Zoomin, hope I didn't insult you with the red and white comment. I reread that post and that wasn't my intention at all. I have a couple of guys I normally go to shows with an two of them have red and white 60-66's. I really like the colors, I just wanted something a bit different than the stock two-tone which is why I really like the photoshopped pic you posted with the pinstripe.

[Zoomin]

I took it like you meant. I think. LOL!

Like I said, you and I have similar tastes.

[Billett]

$600 bucks later and my s10s exhaust is fixed and the 68 is in the shop getting put back together now. Got the super 44s and I'm having them run the pipes out the back that way I can do turn downs or slant tips depending on what tip I buy. Also found out that I don't have a top mount for my rear drivers side spring... and that the PO ran the battery cable right next to the manifold so I need to move that. As they say though, keep on truckin. At least the time and money I put into this one makes it worth more!
Posted via Mobile Device