The Hawaiian Blue 1978 GMC.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Now that we are back from that little detour of core supports, hood latches, and rear windows.. back to door butchery and repair.(?) I had to leave the area for a few hours at a time, I was not a fan of cutting the door open.

[raggedjim]

Ouch, been there, still doing that.

Good luck, Rg

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I think I'm going to post all of the problems we found with the bed in stages and then show the repair process.

I'm sure most of you all know what brazing is, I had never heard of the process before and never want to see it done on body work ever again. My bedrails were a bondo mess.. what was it hiding? Brass. Lots of brass. From what I can tell, I guess bondo does not like brazing. While my dad was focused on the bedfloor I took the angle grinder and ground off what I could from both bedsides. The dust was EVERYWHERE!


My guess is the top of the bedside was beat and they drilled holes for the brass to set into in each dent and went to town.. this was a night mare. I discovered them by picking at some bubbles on the bedrails. Stress followed.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

So.. after the holes in the bedfloor and all the bondo on the bed I was getting pretty skeptical about my bedsides. It looked like the bondo from the top of the bedrail was feathered out pretty far on the driver side so I had my dad go savage on it with the angle grinder.

It looked like the truck had been ran into or ran into something and then someone beat it out with a hammer and used the bodyfiller to smooth it. It was pretty beat up and warped. After some long discussion and looking a few times we found the filler held moisture and it would be easier to replace the piece.

We taped them off and measured to try and see if I could get a hold of some OE sheet metal instead of patch panels but didn't have any luck.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I guess now is the time to share how we attacked these issues, I had gotten in contact with a forum member here on 67-72 named KrazyRay. He cut up some bed patch pieces for me and had them at my door very quickly. They weren't pristine NOS by any means but they didn't have holes and were solid.

[sambrutay]

good build Hunter. Love Hawaiian Blue. If your on Facebook check out the c10 Kentucky group

[mattcrp1]

Looking good.

[HunterRotten]

Originally Posted by sambrutay

good build Hunter. Love Hawaiian Blue. If your on Facebook check out the c10 Kentucky group

Originally Posted by mattcrp1

Looking good.

Originally Posted by Dads79GMC

Great work!!! Keep it going!

Originally Posted by matthew.doan

Looking good keep it up! I'm also from ky out of rockcastle co.
Got a few c10's myself hope to get my done soon also..

Originally Posted by rusty76

You finally get done with rust repair come over and I'll let you start on my ole pick up. Ha. Good job by the way.

Thanks guys! I'm going to organize some more photos tonight and update the thread.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

I saw the state of my photos and really didn't feel like searching through them until today. I have them all sorted out and resized I just have to get them all fixed from being sideways which I will correct as I upload.

Last time I updated I left off when I had gotten my patch panels, so I'll pick up from there when we started replacing the bad pieces of the driver bedside. It was super cold so this wasn't a whole lot of fun, even if I did a whole lot of watching during the welding process.

Here is a before, during, and after of the first patch which took some time to complete. These were cut from the patch I purchased from Jegs which covered an impressive amount of the bedside.

Sorry for the lack of photos for the updates to come, it was super cold and I didn't pull my phone out much in the garage.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

It's crazy looking back on this thread, seeing how fast it makes things go by when a lot of these processes took days and sometimes multiple weekends.

The next patch wasn't entirely necessary however the panel was really beat up and there were tiny rust holes and "pock marks" throughout the area from the surface not being appropriately prepared for the bondo. This area still needs some hammer and dolly work but it's better off with this patch for sure.

We replaced both the inner part of the fender, outer, and a couple of areas inside of the bed. We found that the door patch we had used earlier had the same bend.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Sorry if that seemed like a rush, but I really just didn't take too many photos! Did not want to take my gloves off and I was really tired of all the body work. Here is an overview shot of the bed floor after the welding was done for the most part.

Now it was finally time to get around to some of those Christmas goodies, and man did I have some great Christmas goodies! First thing on the menu was changing out my rear leaf springs, which I bought from https://www.thesuspensionking.com/ and were partnumber CHE50 I believe. They are the 4+1 1950 lb rated spring pack. The springs themselves were cheap however shipping was not and they arrived with some heavy duty sticky tape. The tape made the painting process WAY longer than it should have due to all the residue, I ended up giving up and painting over a lot of it.

I needed new springs because my truck was sagging towards the gas tank. I thought these springs would give me a small lift with the flip kit - don't get me wrong, they did.. just not very much I think I gained 0.25" of lift. I was looking for an inch or inch and a half. I should have bought a 1" lift set.

In that last picture you might notice something cool, that something cool also is why this process took a lot longer and we ended up removing springs, adding springs, removing springs, and adding springs again in one day. It wasn't too fun.

[HunterRotten]

I plan on catching this thread up to speed later tonight but I figured I would take the time now to ask about headers for a big block. I think I am going to give the ebay stainless headers a shot and try to mate them up with my pipe using those header buddies. Does anyone have any suggestions? I found a thread talking about these cheapie ebay headers but it's 6-7 years old and about small blocks.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Stainless-St...NXmvLG&vxp=mtr

http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=412188

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Time for a little more catch up! After seeing the condition of the big block and some thinking, we decided that we were in fact going to build it and this was going to be Blue's new heart. We rolled out the 350 from the corner of the garage and did some dusting and decided to post it on Craigslist. (for those just joining, this is not the original block. My truck had an inline 6 from factory.)

It sold in less than 24 hours for around $600. I guess cleaning and painting goes a long way when you're selling. It was just a previously rebuilt 2 bolt main 350 with 400 heads. Mileage unknown.

I also sold those pretty hedman headers I purchased earlier, some swirl port vortec heads, and a few other odds and ends on eBay.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

We got in contact with an old friend of my dads here locally and asked if we could bring in our block to get cleaned. He let us come in one Friday to get everything cleaned up, I think it cost $85. It's kinda cool how well everything cleans up.

Some of the guys at the shop were saying they never saw rods that looked like that before, my dad said it was because in the factory they took off too much material and brass was added to even them out.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Well, if you haven't noticed yet we don't have our own shop. Since we don't have our own shop and the work is being done by ourselves (+ this is a huge learning process for myself) it is really hard to find time get the block work done.

I'd estimate that it took us about a month before we started to touch the block again. Here is what we accomplished in the meantime.

We made a trip or two to Lowe's for some casters and bought some treated fence posts and we had plans to remove the bed in a similar way we removed the cab. Here's a really crap photo of the frame we made.

The following weekend we rolled out the frame for the first time since the Cab was removed from the truck. We did a very necessary cleaning to the entire garage (I hate bondo dust) and picked up the bed by ourselves (it was really heavy) and struggled it onto the "dolly" with minimal injury. Take note that the casters are not on.

[Dads79GMC]

Great work!!! Keep it going!

[matthew.doan]

Looking good keep it up! I'm also from ky out of rockcastle co.
Got a few c10's myself hope to get my done soon also..

[rusty76]

You finally get done with rust repair come over and I'll let you start on my ole pick up. Ha. Good job by the way.

[NewType72]

Very sweet setup with the bed rails definitely a rare option and very nice to have!

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

Time for some back peddling, I saved the best (and the worst) for last. My parents were out of town and they visited a big car show down in Florida and a few months later an awesome gift had arrived - a set of cragars. There's one issue with the cragars. They don't quite fit. They look awesome but the back spacing is off on the rear and I have no idea if they will fit on the front, I do know it will need a spacer.

I plan on trying to use them, the tires that are available for a 15x10 for daily driving are cheap anyways. I'll just have to check to see if my fender is digging in or not. My dad and I are a bit optimistic and think with weight on the front end the bed wont be so low. If they don't work out then I'll sand and refinish the polished aluminum ones that came off while there's no tire mounted.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

So, for awhile the truck didn't have much progress made. I have been waiting for the cab to come back from the body shop so things can finally start going back on and we can stay busy this Summer.

With all the free time I had, I had time to think.. and I mean REALLY think, Big Block sized thoughts and ideas. I checked craigslist everyday for a deal on a 454, at first kind as a joke and slowly becoming a reality. Sometime later I found one, surprisingly big blocks aren't that common on my local craigslist without costing a small fortune.

I somehow talked my dad into a 2 hr drive up into Ohio to pickup a block for $500, and to weld up an engine cradle out of an old bedframe. We quickly learned they were powdercoated and hardened steel. It wasn't fun, especially at 10 pm the night before the trip.

It held up me and my dad pretty well but I don't think us with a bare small block compares to a complete iron head big block.

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

We left out the next morning at about 6 A.M and took a quick drive up to Dayton, OH for this block. It was advertised as a block out of a 1982 truck and had about 112,000 miles.

It was about $700 by the time I left as I also bought a Edelbrock Performer RPM intake from him for about $200. He also tossed in a sliding back window and a AM/FM radio. I am convinced he threw the radio in because he knew what was to come.

We couldn't get the block to turn but he assured us it had never been sitting outside and he had a reasonable explanation for why it was pulled however I've since forgotten.

Here's the greasy block and our travel companion. He's gotten a lot bigger since you all saw him last!

[HunterRotten]

HUNTER'S 1978 GMC C15 SIERRA BUILD THREAD

We spent the ride back thinking about what we were going to do with this block. The original plan was that I was going to run the 454 stock with the peanut port heads, we were just going to refresh it like we did with my small block. New gaskets, seals, maybe the camshaft.. but since the block didn't turn we knew it would need more just not what.

Soon as we got home I hopped in the back of the truck with my dad and we started to take it apart, we don't have an engine hoist readily available so there's not a chance we could pick up a complete cast iron 454 off a 3/4 ton truck.

What was found was not good.

We still took it apart and planned to use it regardless, I think most people would have pitched it then and there but we're special and like a challenge.. apparently.

This is the last photo I took that day, most likely because my hands were too greasy to grab the phone.

[NewType72]

Yikes.. heads up tho! Big block are a big PITA and rightfully so. Just keeping believeing in the rumble she'll have in the future and all the curse words and machine shop bills will be worth it