1970 C10 2wd SWB budget daily driver

[Farm Shop]

After years and years of wanting one, I finally picked up a 67-72 2wd SWB C10. On valenties day a few weeks ago my wife (who was 9 months pregnant with our first child at the time) gave the the ok to drive 5.5 hours one way to Kentucy and pick up a 1970 C10 I found on CL. It was rough around the edges, but the price was right and I loved the patina'd original paint look.

The truck is a VERY base level C10 with the 250 I6, manual drum brakes, manual steering, and no corner lights. I believe the only options it has are the powerglide automatic, and the AM radio. The truck has a lot of rust, but its different from what we see here in the salt belt, and it is solid in all the right places.


Couple pics from the ad:











Getting it home pulled by the trusty Dirtymax





Unloaded sitting in my yard:







I bought it knowing that the I6 did run and had new plugs, cap, points, condensor, and rebuilt carb, but they were too lazy to clean or replace the crusty fuel tank. The seller and I ended up using a 5 gal gas can under the hood to pull fuel from long enough to drive the truck onto the trailer.

Now that it was home, I wanted to get it running correctly. I bought a replacement gas tank, but first tried to get it running as-is as a sanity check. Turns out, I think the engine is junk. The oil was good when I bought the truck, but after a few min of cranking, it looks like chocolate milk and was high on the dipstick.

I was hoping to address the suspension issues (lowered on heated stock springs), wheels/tires, bring the interior back to life, and drive it with the I6 for a while, but it looks like the LS swap is going to happen sooner than planned.

Another decision was wheels/tires. I have a set of 5x5 17x9.5" TT2's that would look great on it, but the 4 wheel drums are all new, and the 5-lug conversion wasn't something I wanted to tackle right now. I ended up finding a deal on these slotted mags. Its not the look I originally wanted, but they do look pretty tough, and they bolted on in just minutes.

Drove 3 hours round trip to pick them up:







Replacement floor pans, sill plates, driver window regulator, seat cover, carpet kit, and fuel tank are already here, and the CPP 3/5 lowering kit is ordered and en route.

With the engine issue, this might be a slow build, but I'll update it as possible. I have a $260 4.8 in the shop waiting to be assembled that will probably end up in this truck... we shall see.