68 C50 Looongbed pickup build

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by Whamo

Brother! This stuff is cool!...Great work...

Thanks, digging your build as well

-Richard

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

I just checked out your blue 81, nice truck! Thanks for checking out my build.

-Richard

[RDrancher]

per·se·ver·ance
ˌpərsəˈvirəns/
noun
noun: perseverance
steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. "his perseverance with the technique illustrates his single-mindedness". synonyms: persistence, tenacity, determination, staying power, indefatigability, steadfastness, purposefulness; patience, endurance, application, diligence, dedication, commitment, doggedness, assiduity, tirelessness, stamina; intransigence, obstinacy; informal stick-to-it-iveness; formal pertinacity

Yeah...all this stuff is demonstrated in this thread. Though somewhere along the line it left "farm truck" status. Awesome build man!

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by RDrancher

per·se·ver·ance
ˌpərsəˈvirəns/
noun
noun: perseverance
steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success. "his perseverance with the technique illustrates his single-mindedness". synonyms: persistence, tenacity, determination, staying power, indefatigability, steadfastness, purposefulness; patience, endurance, application, diligence, dedication, commitment, doggedness, assiduity, tirelessness, stamina; intransigence, obstinacy; informal stick-to-it-iveness; formal pertinacity

Yeah...all this stuff is demonstrated in this thread. Though somewhere along the line it left "farm truck" status. Awesome build man!

Thanks for checking it out! I took a look at your burb, cool truck. Let me know if you wife gets her way and you get rid of the bucket seats, I might try to talk you out of those....

As for it's stats as a farm truck, we shall see

Oh, I have my new clutch and still trying to figure out what to do about the leaky trans. Stay tuned.

-Richard

[Deer_hunter_088]

Have you done alot of real progress lol, i havent been on here in FOREVER

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by Deer_hunter_088

Have you done alot of real progress lol, i havent been on here in FOREVER

Not much progress to report. Trans is out, flywheel resurfaced, new clutch and pressure plate purchased and trans in the shop getting reworked.

I hope I can figure out where all the bolts go when I start to put it back together.

--Richard

[Palf70Step]

Little bits. Other than driving mine, I have been tooo lavy to deal with working in the heat & humidity we are having here.

[Deer_hunter_088]

Originally Posted by rkn463

Not much progress to report. Trans is out, flywheel resurfaced, new clutch and pressure plate purchased and trans in the shop getting reworked.

I hope I can figure out where all the bolts go when I start to put it back together.

--Richard

I'm in the middle of putting the CORRECT column in mine.

[rkn463]

Trans back from the shop, now I just need to put it back together

-Richard

[Advanced Design]

Good deal. Looking forward to your progress.

[Deer_hunter_088]

Good, in to see some updates. my k10 is gunna see the road for the first time today, on a trailer.

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by rkn463

Trans back from the shop, now I just need to put it back together

-Richard

Just over four months and I finally put it back together over the last few days. So very much has happened in those four months - I'll talk about that in another post.

Amazingly I remembered how it went together. Only lost one piece... a part of the clutch linkage, but I ordered a replacement from LMC, It should be here by mid-week. I have some pictures but I need to resize them and write it all up. Look for updates this week.

Oh, I haven't started it yet. I plan to fire it tomorrow after church.

-Richard

[rkn463]

A whole lot has happened since I posted this:

Originally Posted by rkn463

Trans back from the shop, now I just need to put it back together

The biggest change is I lost my job. I worked for a large software company for 19 years but was laid off when a chip manufacturer bought us out. The news of the buyout was early July and from the beginning they stated that they run a very lean management team. From the beginning I expected that I get whacked and I was right. I was notified the first week of November that my position had been deleted (along with 90% of our management staff!) The severance package was good but the reality of becoming unemployed at my age was tough to swallow. I spent the time from July until November in waiting mode and since the layoff I’ve been laying low and basically just licking my wounds.
Anyway, there is only so long that you can spend feeling sorry for yourself so I finally started working on the truck again.

Here is a bit to start catching up: By July I had the clutch out and was rounding up a replacement. The stock clutch in the 89 was unlike any I had ever seen before:



August 14th, transmission heading for the rebuilder. The bed was/is still in good condition in my Colorado so I went to great lengths to make sure that the trans was secured:



By early September I had the clutch reinstalled on the freshly resurfaced flywheel. The clutch disk is the traditional type, the guy at my local parts store had never seen a clutch disk like the stock one either and the kit he had was a traditional disk. While I expect the factory type was superior technology I doubt if this truck will see many crazy heavy loads and traditional disks have worked well for years so I figured it would be sufficient.



As you can see, by the time I started early in January the flywheel had started to rust:



While the trans was out of the way I took the opportunity to address an oil leak that I had created. The cab came off of a small block truck and the drive train is big block. The small block oil pressure port is directly behind the distributor, on the big block it is low down by the oil filter. The oil pressure line was too short to reach so I plumbed it up near the original location with brass pipe fittings. Several of my connections leaked… I disassembled the lines and sealed them up (I hope). You can see the pipes here:



More to come

-Richard

[Whamo]

Glad you are back on it! Been there...hang tough Brother!

[rkn463]

I cleaned and painted the bellhousing and the front cover for the bellhousing; more parts that no one will ever see the paint on – just more of my weirdness:



I bolted on the newly repainted bellhousing and cover and noted that there is almost none of the cover visible once in place!



I thought the view from under the truck looking up through the access hole at the underside of the dash was “unique”:



Still more to come
-Richard

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by Whamo

Glad you are back on it! Been there...hang tough Brother!

Thanks for hanging in with me!

I installed the starter (as already seen in a previous photo, I also bolted the clutch pivot back in – that is when I realized I had lost what the service manual calls a z-nut, item 3 on this diagram:



I ordered a replacement from LMC (hopefully it is the same between light and heavy-duty trucks). For short term I slid a couple of hex nuts over the shaft to take up the extra space.

Another item I addressed while the trans was out is I fixed the floor that I bent when I snagged the floor on the shifter knob way back in post 142 when I was lifting the cab off of the original frame:



Back then I thought that I would be able to hammer and dolly it back in to shape but because of the bracing under the floor I wasn’t able to dolly it. With the trans out I used the floor jack to push it back up.
Anyway, with all that done it was time to stab the trans back in. It had be sitting so long that the part that the throw out bearing rides on had rusted, so I sanded it down and sprayed it with WD-40 to protect it.



Stay tuned,
-Richard

[rkn463]

Next up was to secure the trans to my cheap trans jack, I did not feel safe when I removed it so I was really careful getting it ready for the return trip to the truck. I used my car lift to get it lifted up in to position on the jack, I used a couple of short pieces of 2x4 on the sides to help stabilize it and cranked down two ratchet straps. It was quite secure!




I moved it under the truck and added the shiny new throwout bearing and stabbed it at the truck. Fail! Try again, fail again, repeat. Although I pride myself on coming up with inventive ways to do stuff by myself, this time I had to enlist my brother’s help and with two of us it still took another half hour. The angle that the motor sits at significantly complicates stabbing the trans in. I hope I never have to do that again!

Finally got it bolted up and connected the speedometer cable, park brake cable and backup light plug. After all of the connections were made, I topped it off with the outrageously overpriced synthetic gear oil that this trans uses. It was almost 100 dollars per gallon and takes over a gallon and a half. Fortunately, I had purchased the oil when I was still employed! That is where I left it last night.



Today after church, I went to fire it up so that I could do the break-in that the trans guy told me to do – idle in 5th gear with no load (not even the drive shaft – this is to distribute the oil throughout the trans. Apparently I pissed the truck off by not starting it for so long. I was shocked at how hard it was to start and it ran like crap after it did. Anyway, I finally got through the half hour break in and then reinstalled the driveshaft and took it for a test drive. It wont idle but is running good other than that, I’ll need to get a carb kit and clean it out good, I’m sure it has a plugged up idle circuit.
The transmission is way quieter than it used to be and shifts better too - glad for that, between the clutch, trans rebuild and gear oil I’m in to this for over $1500.

I’m sure I left out a lot but that is all I can think of for now.
-Richard

[Advanced Design]

Good to see the updates Richard and I am sorry to read about the job situation.

Getting things done on the truck is hopefully therapeutic.

Looking forward to more progress.

[rkn463]

Originally Posted by Advanced Design

Good to see the updates Richard and I am sorry to read about the job situation.

Getting things done on the truck is hopefully therapeutic.

Looking forward to more progress.

Getting back to the truck has been therapeutic indeed. As ffor the job situation - it will work out, the man upstairs always takes care of me.
I've been following your thread, your wire and fire event sounds like it will be a great time. Oh, and congrats on your retirement!


Carb kit ordered and on the way, I may finally get this truck legal to drive

-Richard