Road TRIP! Headed west after a 69 GMC

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Very cool score keep us posted..

[eagleuh1]

Nice truck. Might be doing a road trip out west myself soon for a truck.

[In The Ten Ring]

What a great trip man! Congrats. Glad you and your wares are safe. Posting "Carhenge" to FB.

I once drove my 1975 Pontiac from WV up to MI to see this girl.....honestly....she wasn't half as much fun as the trip!

After growing up in the mountains...then driving across Indiana.....I had a weird feeling the wind would up and blow me away!

ITTR

[Chrome8]

Originally Posted by 1972RedNeck

You're keeping the flaps, right?

Hell Yes I'll be keeping the flaps! I might be keeping them in the shed but I'll keep em!

Originally Posted by eagleuh1

Nice truck. Might be doing a road trip out west myself soon for a truck.

I hope you have as good a trip as we did! Make sure to take extra time than you need, something will come up.

[Chrome8]

I'm sorry I didn't post sooner for those who might be wondering how it went. I got an email from AT&T on Sunday morning about my internet usage on my iPhone, apparently I had used 4 times my allotted data while in a data roaming area. I didn't realize that I was roaming that whole time. So needless to say I stopped accessing the internet and uploading photos.

We had a fun trip but it was really draining because we were trying to make sure we made it back for work this morning. On Saturday night we decided we didn't want to sleep in the truck in a parking lot like we did the previous night. We were determined to take it easy on the way back. What we didn't realize is the difficulty during Sturgis to find a hotel room within 200 miles of the Bike Rally. Unbelievable! We called like 30 hotels and just kept driving from town to town along our way, calling the hotels in the next town or driving around jumping out to check with each front desk. So, we ended up pulling into a wayside rest at about 2.30 AM Sunday and sleeping in the truck. Really not what we wanted to do but hey, that's what we get for Road Trippin during Sturgis. The funny thing was that we tipped the seats back and I looked out the window and saw a transport truck with what looked like a 68 chevy on the top of it. We just had to laugh about that one.

We hauled the mail and finally got some decent food on Saturday night and Sunday, the first 15 hours we lived on gas station stuff because the route we chose took us through towns with not much for options, note to self "take larger roads next time".

It was a blast and after picking up the truck we had the whole way back to think about what we were going to make this truck into. Every time we stopped I had to take another look and inspect this or that on the truck. It's still amazing to me that I actually got the truck bought.

We got back to Park Rapids at about 3.45 on Sunday and unloaded the truck and moved all our gear out of the Duramax. We tucked the truck into the shop at the dealership and both went home to shower and pass out! We were both exhausted from the trip, we clocked 33 hours with the truck running, traveled 1800 miles and burned close to 500 gallons of fuel. It was totally worth it. Totally worth it. Stay tuned for a breakdown of what we think this old 4 eyed girl should be made into, I'm thinking it will involve some parts from the old 69 K20 wrecker I learned to drive in. Thank you for all of the great comments and well wishes. I had a lot of fun posting our progress and reading everybody's comments while we were rolling down the road.

[Palf70Step]

Very nice looking truck you got. Can't wait to see your detail look over and what you are going to do with it.

[NC_John]

Nice truck - congrats!!!

[72 tigger]

Glad you made it back! Those Duramax's are hogs- 500 gals. of fuel!?

[Chrome8]

I totally biffed that fuel amount! Oops, I was going from memory when I looked at the DIC the day before when we got home. I did write it down, I just didn't have it at work with me when I posted. It was 147.3 Gallons of fuel not 500. I don't know where I came up with that. Sorry. Also 1784 was the exact miles. 32 hrs 56 min in total engine run time.

[Chrome8]

We recovered from the trip and last night we both stayed late after work, I changed oil and filter on 4 eyes and Chad tried to find the power steering leak on his wife's car. We got the old girl up in the air and did some inspecting. Solid metal everywhere you look! I'm more pleased all the time. The PO had shoved the tailpipe back on the muffler and had it under the axle because of a broken hanger. We loosened up some clamps and twisted things around and ended up ditching the tailpipe. At least it's drivable this way.

The truck didn't run nearly as well as it did when we test drove it in Wyoming so today I adjusted the mixture on the carb with the guidance of our old timer service writer Arlan. He's semi retired and very experienced with carburetors, I'm a fuel injection guy, I started with a scanner and a diagnostic flow chart. Somehow the SBC developed a dead mis, I suspect a wire but we'll look at it tomorrow.

We were chatting while working on the truck and I remembered that I had seen some company stake pocket bed boards up in the rafters of our warehouse last fall, the last time I was out there. Our parts manager has been with us 30 years and is a terrible pack rat. He saves stuff that shouldn't be saved. Well this time I was damn happy about it! I climbed like a monkey over stacks of aluminum wheels and shelving to up to the boards. Cool find, they were made shortly after Dad bought the place in 76. I know this because the next year he hired our Service Manager and he remembered them very vividly from his first year working for us. We had to install them!

My next project is to get the finish looking better. Does anyone have experience with faded single stage paint like this? I would really like to make it shine. My old time body man told me today that he thought the color was all gone from this paint so we rubbed a small section of the hood out with compound and it came back a little but not like I was hoping. Any help with paint restoration will be appreciated.

[Palf70Step]

Very cool with the side board!
That is one clean truck.

[Chrome8]

I took a few other pics but I think the sun was a little too low, I'll have to try again another night for some better ones. I was trying to get artistic but I don't think I have a knack for it. Thanks for the comment, I love the sideboards too. I just can't believe we still had them after all these years. There is a ton of old stuff in the warehouse that needs to be cleaned out. I plan on selling some of it. Hopefully some board members can use some of the NOS parts. Most of it will be newer than our trucks tho.

[Chrome8]

For fun I looked to see if the PO had removed the Craigslist ad, nope. I asked them to remove the ad before I left town because I didn't want to drive all that way to get there and find out they sold it to someone else for more money. They assured me that they would not sell it to anyone before I got there, they did have someone lined up to buy it if I didn't show up. We left kinda hastily for that reason. I'm glad there still are good folks out there that stick to their word. http://fortcollins.craigslist.org/cto/3922387818.html

[Vintage Windmills]

Sweet score and thanks for the nice pics! Is the tilt going in this truck? My buddy and I drove to Washington state last year to haul back his Longhorn and a rustfree cab for me. Roadtrips for vehicles are a lot of fun for sure!

Jud

[Chrome8]

Yup the tilt is planned to go in this truck, my body man claims he can match the factory paint code. He should be able to, he's been painting our used cars for 37 years. I learned a lot from him when I drove to the body shop today to drop off another used car. 67 chevy's had white bumpers 68 chevy's had gray bumpers 69 chevy's had white bumpers but 69 GMC's had gray. I was trying to figure out why my hubcaps were painted gray like the bumper. I was worried that someone had changed something since new. Davey set it straight though. He said that they changed the trim colors a lot back then from year to year.

[Lemield]

That is a sweet Wyoming truck! Looking forward to seeing what you do to it.

[Z10]

Road trips are great! I picked up my 72 in Missouri about this time last year and drove it 900 miles back to W.Texas. What fun that was with 100degree temps and no A/C. The truck didn't see a gas station it didn't like.

Flash forward, the 400 small block gave up the ghost and a new ZZ4 with vintage should be installed in the next month or so.

Great story. Glad you save another GMC.

[slow-1]

From the pics it looks like it would shine up pretty good leaving the original paint....?

[Chrome8]

I am going to leave it in original paint. I'm just trying to decide what products to use on it. I plan on buffing by hand. I've heard on here that Meguires has a 3 step paint restoration process. Has anyone had any experience using it?? My body man tells me not to use anything with silicone in it because I'll never be able to paint it if I decide to in the future.

[slow-1]

I used "Liquid Glass" on a car one time, made it look like, well, like it was wet glass.

[eagleuh1]

Man, I thought I just saw that transport with the orange and white truck on it going east on Interstate 40 in Arkansas. I was on my way to Casino in Oklahoma with the wife. did a double take when I saw it go by. Looking back at your pick though, yours didn't have a Benz convertible in the front. Truck looks really nice. Yours I mean.

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Love the bed signs very cool..

[slikside]

Originally Posted by FRENCHBLUE72

Love the bed signs very cool..

X2!! Those bed signs are the next best "find" you've had....next to the truck itself, that is. Talk about making it your own! Those things are awesome. You guys are going to have the coolest parts truck in the whole.....well, ever!

Congrats on the uber-successful trip. Sounds like a great time.

[Chrome8]

Thanks guys, I'm really glad I found the bed signs too. It's like bringing back some of my own family history, kind of neat. My grandfather was a Chevy dealer too so we are going on 3 generations now as long as Dad sells me the place eventually! I hope one of my kids will want to work for me some day. My dad saved a lot of old signs and stuff from back in the day so it will be fun going through our warehouse and finding some other cool stuff. I did find a stack of rubber mud flaps that I thought we were completely out of so those will be going on the back as soon as I have time to mount them. They aren't nearly as wide as the flaps that are on the truck now but they say Thielen Motors on them so they are going on it. I'm still trying to figure out why the truck isn't running right. I put new plugs in it last night and that didn't help. I hooked it up to our SUN engine scope and did a cylinder short test and number 6 and number 2 didn't respond when the scope put a load on them. HMM....I swapped wires around and did it again with the same results so I don't know what's going on. I'll do a compression check this afternoon if I have time.

[too much stuff]

"its like stealin from thielen"
Nice looking truck! did you find any other goodies on the trip?