Azar's 69 C10 - Backyard Find

[Azar]

Hey all,

I guess this is where I'll begin my tale. But before I really get elbows deep in this, just a bit of backstory...In college I built a LSx/T-56 RX-7. Beyond buying the car and the motor/tranny combo outright, I basically just put everything else on credit cards, as such...Money was not a concern. Things got silly pretty quickly, I stopped counting after I put 12 or 13k into it (not including the motor and trans) It was an awesome car, but my wife and I wanted a bigger home and needed to be a bit more liquid, so I sold it 2 years ago. I had a nice lifted Jeep Cherokee that was my daily, so I still tooled around in that...until I found out I was gonna be a dad. Needed a more family friendly vehicle so I sold that a year ago. Recently, decided it was time for another fun vehicle and kinda landed on an old truck....Thus begins the tale.


Last year my company moved to a temporary location in a business park behind some homes on a busy road. When I was leaving a few months ago, I decided to go out the long way and when I did, I noticed a truck behind one of the homes.



I drove by the front of the house, no cars in the driveway. Put a mental note to check on it. I would randomly see a Saturn in front in the driveway, but never at a time when I could stop. I snapped a few pictures from the front in the suicide lane. Also, a FOR SALE sign sprung up in the front yard, so now they're trying to sell the house.



Finally, one Saturday morning the planets aligned and I was able to stop. The home owner advised that it was actually her sons (she was an older lady) and he didn't have room to store it at his house so had to have it there, but she wanted it gone to help sell her house, and his wife wanted it gone. I called him and gave him my number. He said he'd call me back the next day after he thought about it. I went out back to get a closer look.







He never called me, my sister-in-law ended up knowing him through a friend, so she sent him a message on facebook...no response. I sent him a message on facebook, no response. I decided he probably didn't wanna sell it so I moved on.

Out of the blue, almost 2 months later he asked my sister-in-law what I'd give him for it. I decided to lowball him a bit and see what happened. We ended up meeting in the middle, upon the fact that it could run and drive. He said it had been sitting almost 2 years, but it did run and drive before then. He went to move it and the brake pedal went to the floor. Sooo, one of the wheel cylinders likely leaked. It also wouldn't start, I picked up a battery and re-negotiated the deal. It fired up but wouldn't stay running.

I ended up buying it anyways. He covered the tow to my parents, and after a bit of dicking around with a missing title, he got the rest of his money and I got my title.



From there, the work started.

But first...here's a few more pics.

[indymachinist]

Hello sir. Nice to see a fellow no rotor guy.

[Azar]

Thanks...no idea why my pictures are so freaking huge. Usually they get resized to a halfway non-stupid size.

EDIT: Fixed! Using wrong image link...

[indymachinist]

Yeah I can't even shrink those small enough to see the whole truck on my phone.

Ps this is theantirotor from the other forum

[Azar]

Anyways...

Started off by bleeding the brakes. The rear half the master cylinder was bone dry, so it took a bit of doing to get it bled all the way. The fronts were also bled while we were working on it.

Next up was the battery, surprisingly. Every so often, the starter would just crank but the engine wouldn't even try to start. The wiring was pretty shoddy, so the terminals on the wires were removed and rewired. That helped a lot.

After that it was figuring out why the engine wouldn't crank off a cold start. The choke cable was stiff, so that was removed, cleaned up, shortened, and rerouted. Even on full choke, the truck wouldn't start until we poured a bit of fuel down the carb, then it would fire right up.

Having never owned a carb'd car I figured I would do a bit of research and see what I could pull up. Well, the least expensive fix was to just rebuild the entire thing. So eff it, that's what I did. After re-installing the carb, letting the fuel bowls fill up, it fired right up. Now that I have a truck that will start with brakes, it was time to take it on the maiden voyage.


After I came back from that, I decided I needed to load up my faithful companion, Loudog, and head to get some fresh gas for the old girl. On the way back, I tried to quickly downshift into first and ended up jamming the 3 on the tree. I limped it home in 3rd gear and got it in the driveway. Where I popped the hood, adjusted the linkage arm and then pulled it into the parking spot. That's where it currently sits.

The linkage still needs adjusted and I think the bushings need replaced as well. Then it needs all greased up for smooth operating.

Beyond that, the speedo doesn't work, so while I'm down working on the transmission, may as well pull the cable and see if that's good or I need to replace the speedo gear. That's pretty much it for now, then I'll start saving up for stuff.

[Azar]

Originally Posted by indymachinist

Ps this is theantirotor from the other forum

Seriously?? There goes the neighborhood.

Hey, machine up some new bushings for my 3 on the tree, wouldya?

[flashed]

That is a nice looking truck ,good buy on your part.

[Azar]

Current plans for the truck are:

1) Improve safety: Add 3 point harnesses, fix broken things, re-locate gas tank to rear (or maybe get that done when re-doing bed.)

2) Add drop spindles and convert to discs, new shocks, new springs

3) Clean up rust spots: right now, due to the half ass restore 15 years ago things are halfway decent on the paint side, but the bed supports aren't in the best shape and one cab support is showing it's age.

4) Wood bed, I'd really like this but I feel this may pull away from the utility of the truck. We'll see how I feel about this.


5) LS swap. Hoping to get everything in order to do an 6.0/4L80e swap in the future.



With my RX-7, I threw money at it and tried to build it as fast as I can. I think this will be a much slower, more deliberate build because now...I have bigger obligations (family, house payment, etc) But we'll see.

[Chris92]

Very cool truck!

Can't wait to see more!

[Azar]

Forgot I had these in the glove box from the previous owner, when he bought it from a buddy in 99 and did a bit of a "half-ass restoration" on it...

When he bought it (6/10/99)





Fixing the cab corners and rockers (8/05/99)



Progress on rust fixing (8/14/99)







Paint begins (8/??/99)





Done (9/2/99)





First pic after first storage (4/6/2000)





Went over to do a bit of work, got sidetracking scanning these in and cleaning up a bit. Also, here's the current pics of the interior, also found the owners manual and original warranty paperwork. Haha.

Drivers side



Passenger



Instruments (choke is below column)



Options??



Eh??



NEATO! Original owners manual and warranty!

[Justin@EntropyRad]

Killer tale on the truck

[Azar]

Worked a bit longer on the three on the tree (last time I drove it it jammed, evne after alignment) the bushings were worn so we (my pops and I) made some new ones and aligned it and snugged everything up. Crazy what a difference that made. Also the speedometer never worked per the old owner, I unplugged the speedo from the trans and ran it in the drill...speedo never moved.

Before we ordered a new cable my dad decided to check the back of the speedo and see if he could see something amiss. He immediately saw the issue...the speedo cable wasn't connected! Plugged that in, tried the drill again and BOOM! working speedo.

Took it on a drive to make sure everything was still good.

Thing feels so floaty, I'm sure the shocks are bad, the steering is really loose too. Those will need fixed before too long. Haha.

Also, you really need to get on braking early with these manual drum brakes.

[Azar]

Forgot to include the first drive day vids...

Official First Drive

2nd Drive to the gas station