1965 Custom Camper

[Flathead Smith]

I have always liked the looks of 1960-66 trucks and prefer the 60-61 models. Of those I like the ¾ tons the best.

Several years ago I saw this 1965 Custom Camper for sale and I have always liked these because they are usually heavily optioned. I took it for a test drive got the man’s number and then kind of forgot about it because even though it was somewhat clean it had a huge hole in the middle of the dash, and there was a noise in the rear-end. By the time I figured out that the huge hole was actually the remnants of the original a/c, the truck was gone. I called the number the man had given me anyway and he said he still had the truck and it was still for sale it just wasn’t in his yard anymore. I made him an offer and he accepted.

The options are:
Ram Assist Power Steering
Power brakes
It had a/c, but most of the components were removed with the exception of some wiring and the dash control.
Front sway bar
Powerglide transmission
The Custom Cab option and whatever that entails
Two Tone 555 Paint code (which has been changed to orange)
The little ash tray way over on the right side of the dash
½ leaf helper springs for the rear coil suspension.

The original engine is gone and I found some paper work in the dash saying that it was replaced with a new (whatever that means) engine in 1986 and that the odometer read 26,000 at the time. I am assuming that it was actually 126,000 back then and that the mileage of today which is around 38,000 is actually 138,000. I don’t know what the current engine is, but my guess is that it is a 350. It runs perfect and may even be cammed up a little.

I’m putting this in the build section and as I do things to it, I’ll put in a few updates from time to time.

[Flathead Smith]

The first thing I did to the truck was remove the wheel covers and then had dual exhaust with some very short cherry bomb style muffler installed.

[Flathead Smith]

I needed something to cover that hole in the dash until I found an a/c system. I designed a cover in a 3d modeling program and then printed it in a 3d printer. The 3d printer I had access could only print something like 8” x 8” square and I needed this to be slightly larger, so I made the cover in two parts with a stepped seam and glued it together with superglue.

[Flathead Smith]

Here is a picture of the designed model and the installed part after some finish work, I was fairly happy with the result.

[Flathead Smith]

When I purchased this truck it was missing the horn ring. I figured out when looking in a 1960's Bel-Air that the horn ring and steering wheel were identical. I found everything I needed on steering wheel from an old junked out car.

[Flathead Smith]

My sister gave this to me for Christmas about fifteen years ago and it has never really had a good home. I guess it came off an Oldsmobile, but I’m not for sure and have never really tried to research it. The other day I was looking at it and I noticed that it had about the same curvature as the hood of the C20.

[Flathead Smith]

I laid it using the eyeball method and sharpened 16d nail (I couldn’t find my prick punch or scribe). I angle the drill to match the angle of the boss on the hood ornament. Fit was near perfect on the hood.

[Flathead Smith]

Here's the pictures

[Flathead Smith]

More Pictures

[cable666guy]

Lookin' good...esp like that cover, looks period in the pic...

[Captainfab]

Welcome to the forum

I'm liking your truck

I like the grill you made to cover the hole in your dash, but I'm not quite understanding how that was created on a 3d printer. Then again I don't think I understand how a 3d printer works.

I draw things in 2d CAD all the time and have them CNC laser/plasma cut.

[Flathead Smith]

In my first post I mentioned that there was a noise in the rear when I bought the truck. I pulled the cover off and the gears looked good. About a year later I pulled out the third member (Eaton HO52) and found that the double row ball pinion bearing had a ball that was damaged. But the bearing turned okay and I figured out that the noise was actually coming from the ring gear bearings not having enough pre-load (I didn’t check things out close enough during the first inspection). The pinion bearing would have failed eventually and probably catastrophically at that, so I definitely needed to replace it. I happened to have another pinion bearing that was in excellent shape (new ones are expensive) and had a set of 4:11 gears, and decided to install them in place of the original 4:56 gears. After I installed the new ring gear, I discovered that the bigger diameter pinion gear would not fit into the carrier and that even if I machined the carrier case there were other issues like the fact that the pinion shaft was longer, which I had failed to notice.

This goes to show that one should look everything over, and talk to others before he strikes out on his own. Maybe someday I will learn this.

[Flathead Smith]

I found a HO72 carrier with 4:11 gears. When I went to put the driveshaft back in it would not fit as the new carrier was about ¾ longer.

[Flathead Smith]

I shortened the driveshaft by grinding the weld at the yolk. The trick here is to hold the grinding disk perpendicular to the weld and cut slowly into it, watch very carefully and as soon as the metal turns blue stop. The metal is turning blue because it is very thin. Do this all the way around the perimeter of the weld. After this you should be able to break the yoke off with a few blows with a cold chisel, if it doesn’t break grind a little more. Keep in mind that drive shaft tubing is usually something less than 0.100” thick, so if you have gone deeper than that, you need to move away from the yoke some. I then cut the driveshaft very slowly with on old Ridged Pipe Cutter so that the inner burr would be small. After I cleaned up the yoke with my grinder, I re-installed it and made sure it was properly timed with some winding sticks. I have a Dana 60 from a later C20 that uses the same size yoke that I used to make sure the yoke was true to shaft using a dial indicator. I could have also installed the drive shaft into the truck before welding and used the dial indicator there. I got it to within about 0.005” and tack welded it up. I then welded it with my buzz box and 3/32 rods. I did a hot pass with 6011 rods to clean everything out and then ran two passes with 7018 rods. It’s been a long time since I have welded very much, and my welds were a little bigger than I normally like, but turned out ok. I need to replace the other two U-joints, but even with that there does not seem to be any vibration, even on the Interstate.

If I would have done it over, I would removed the yoke first and then cut the drive shaft. The reason I did it the other way around is the cutting wheel in my pipe cutter is shot and I was afraid the tubing would crush as I cut. I would also have used a cutting wheel with a thinner disk or used an air powered cutoff wheel. ”. I also seriously need to put a new battery in the welding helmet, that low battery blinker was sure distracting. But as Donald Rumsfeld once said in effect “you work with what you have, not what you want or wish to have at a later time. As far as the welding goes I should have used just one pass with the 7018.

[Flathead Smith]

One thing I did notice is that the driveshafts on these trucks seem kind of smallish as compared to what I’m used to normally seeing. I think in the near future I may replace it with a 3” diameter one. But I’m fairly certain that Powerglide low gear won’t break it for now.

[sodly]

Just curious if this user is still around. Not many 65 Custom Campers around.

[Flathead Smith]

Yes

[TJ's Chevy]

Any updates on this awesome build?

[Flathead Smith]

Right now I have done nothing major except improving drivability and replacing things here and there like the windshield wipers, fuel filler rubber grommet, improving the wiring, replaced all brake parts, etc.

I have done a fair amount of carb work in the past, but the QuadraJet on this truck was missing some parts and was fairly nasty. I decided to let a guy in Birmingham rebuild it. He did a great job putting it back to stock specs. His name is Chip and he is a retired profession GM mechanic and his number is 205-982-7934. I was very happy with his work. I did make several changes to the carb after I got it back that really helped it out in dealing with the ethanol fuel. I drilled out the Idle bypass air to a slightly larger size to allow the primaries to close a little bit more which helped idle fuel mixture adjustment and increased the main jets from #67 to #76. It made huge difference in drivability, though I may need to put slightly smaller main jets. I think #74 would be about right.

The truck came from the factory with air, but at some point before I got it most of the parts were removed. I found a nearly complete OEM system for $65.00 with the exception of the hoses, condenser and original mount for the compressor. So I am on the lookout for those.

[Flathead Smith]

One this that is kind of interesting is:

When I bought the truck the man that sold it to me said he didn’t know what size the engine was that was in it but thought it was probably a 350. When Chip the Carb guy was trying to chase down the specs on the carb I gave him he said it was a stock carb but it was set up very different from what he was used to seeing, and that as far as he could tell it was set up for high performance use. So I looked up some of the parts of the engine which were easily accessible. The intake on the engine is a part number 3927184 which was apparently reserved for higher performance engines. I had also noticed that the engine never did run all that smooth when idling and just attributed to a poor state of tune. But after straightening out the HEI ignition and putting the rebuilt carb on the engine it still ran about the same way just a little smoother. Which led me to believe it may have hot cam installed. I noticed the heads had the later double hump design, and so pulled the valve covers off the engine and it has 3927186 (186) heads which from what I understand were only used on the higher performance engines. I have not looked at the serial number on the engine yet (very difficult to access) but so far it looks as if I might have a fairly decent LT-1 engine in the truck.

[Lokin4AReason]

truck is full of little surprise(s) ( some better than others ) =0)

[Flathead Smith]

One of the next things that I am going to do is something with the transmission:

The truck has a Stock Powerglide, which I actually like probably to the chagrin of many here on this forum. I like the transmission because it is simple, very strong (as in tuff), has a distinctive whine when in park and it kind of neat to tell people I’m running a Powerglide. The transmission works well enough, it just leaks down when if for some reason I don’t drive the truck (punishment??). I have rebuilt Powerglides before and they are relatively simple to freshen up. One other advantage to the Powerglide is that contrary to what people think, they are fairly efficient in that they don’t require much in the way of horsepower to operate; and because Low is so High it’s easy on the drive train when your teenage son is tooling around.

I have both a 350 and a 350C I could put in which would be my next choice. I think the 350C would be the better choice because I could use a lockup converter.
I also have a 700R4 that has a bad clutch that I could put in, but as of now I am not really interested in that.

[sodly]

Originally Posted by Flathead Smith

One thing I did notice is that the driveshafts on these trucks seem kind of smallish as compared to what I’m used to normally seeing. I think in the near future I may replace it with a 3” diameter one. But I’m fairly certain that Powerglide low gear won’t break it for now.

I've been curious about this, too. Did you notice when you cut the drive shaft that it was a thicker metal than normal? I wonder why they seem to be "smallish" like you say.

[Flathead Smith]

An update on this post... that might should be in the technical section but...

A slight problem that I have had with the carburetor on my truck that I never fully resolved was a part throttle surge that occurred while at speed. The truck idled perfectly and accelerated very nicely. The QuadraJet is a 1969 model so the APT was located on the front of the throttle body at the bottom behind a steel plug that had to be drilled and pulled out for adjustment. I turned the adjusting screw in about 1/16 of a turn increments until the surge stopped. My guess is that I turned the screw in about a 1/4 of a turn, if that.

The Truck runs perfect now.

[TJ's Chevy]

Sometimes some fine tuning does the trick.