Frankentruck

[cwcarpenter98]

Ever since we bought the truck, the windshield has been cracked. I want to fix it, but I would have to fix the rust before I can put a new one in. I need to learn how to weld

With no tie downs, I decided to add my own. I took some U bolts, bedlined them, and bolted them into the bed sides. I used a piece of aluminum on the back side so that it wasn't just the nuts pulling against the sheet metal of the bed.

The spare tire I chose for the truck is a full size spare. It does not fit in the stock spare carrier, so I used the idea of a Nissan chain style carrier that I found on this forum. I found a carrier in a junkyard that looked like it had never been used before. I cleaned it up, cut some angle iron to hold the carrier between the frame rails, and bolted it all together.

[cwcarpenter98]

The paint on the carrier was still in great shape, so I painted everything else I added on black. The piece of angle iron that I cut off to make it fit between the frame rails ended up getting used as a spacer to keep the tire tight against the frame while still allowing the carrier to be accessed by the tool. I cut a slot in the bumper so that the tool could fit through, but when the license plate is on, the access point is hidden.

To reward the most recent modifications, I went to pick up a mini fridge for my dorm room.

The last picture is from the night before I moved into the dorm as a freshman in college. I was sad because I couldn't drive the truck for awhile. I didn't trust the drive train yet to last the 2 and a half hour trip down mostly interstate.

[cwcarpenter98]

Being 2 and a half hours away from the truck left me little time to drive it, but whenever I went home, I always took the truck for a spin.

One weekend, I drove home just to meet the C10 Club Georgia at Caffeine and Octane. It was my first time going to that show, and I really enjoyed it.

You can see how the bondo and fiberglass repair done by the PO on the driver's fender has held up over the years...

[cwcarpenter98]

Over the fall break, I decided to drive the truck down to Milledgeville. The trip went great with no issues, but it sure was scary driving down I20 with everybody else flying by me because I can barely do 65 at a comfortable engine rpm. The truck really stood out in the sea of more modern vehicles.

The reason I brought the truck down is because there was a car show in downtown Milledgeville that I wanted to go to. I also saw a beautiful 67 Plymouth that was the same color as my grandpa's old mail car. He was a rural letter carrier in Stephens County long before I was born. My uncle currently has the Belvedere, but I hope that one day I will be able to fix it.

I kept the truck with me in Milledgeville until I had to drive back home again. When I got back home, I went to pick up the engine for the Dakota after it was finally finished. I forgot to take a picture of the engine in the bed of Frankentruck.

[cwcarpenter98]

Not much happened after I drove the truck back home. I did finally get around to installing the new lock set that I got as a birthday present, but didn't finish the install until I came back for Thanksgiving break. I finished up the install, then drove the truck back to Milledgeville.

The only reason I drove it back was to drive up to the Atlanta Dragway in Commerce, GA, to meet up with the C10 Club Georgia again. On the way up there, I ran out of oil, but quickly shut the engine off before too much damage ensued. I put more oil in, and made it to the swap meet, but was worried about driving it back to school. Ended up doing it anyways because I figured it would be ok. The trip was a success, because I found a pair of 15x7 Western Wheel slot mags for cheap. I still need to find another pair.

The semester ended in the middle of December, and I was extremely nervous the entire way home. The truck made it home, but I decided that the engine had had enough. Also, I was getting fed up with continuously pouring oil in. I found another 283 for sale on Facebook from a C10 Club Georgia member. I got a good deal on the engine, and wanted to get the swap done and get the truck back on the road. I had seen the engine running in the truck it was pulled out of, so I bought it. It was only replaced for a 350 that had more power. As a budget build, the 283 was perfect for me.

[cwcarpenter98]

Here's the new engine for the c10 sitting next to the Dakota engine.

Ok, so now we are caught up to Christmas of 2017. I'll post up some more tomorrow.

Thank's for checking in.

[okndn]

What was the bed wood and measurements LxWxthickness

[cwcarpenter98]

Originally Posted by okndn

What was the bed wood and measurements LxWxthickness

I went with the factory measurements. I don't remember each measurement due to several boards being a different width, and I did all of it over a year ago. The length depends on whether you have a long or short bed. Mine is a long bed, and I remember having to get 10 foot long boards because the 8 foot boards were a couple inches too short. It should be easy to find them in the FAQ section of this forum. That is where I found it the first time.

The wood I used was just some Pine from Home Depot. I would recommend using something a bit nicer/more expensive, and make sure that you get planks that are not warped. At some point I will have to do it again, but that will be in a few years when I can afford some nicer wood.

[cwcarpenter98]

It's currently raining pretty good, so it's the perfect time to finish getting caught up.

On Christmas day of 2017, I spent a good six+ hours attempting to put the engine back in the Dakota. I ended up not being successful because for some reason, I could not get the engine and transmission to line up.

The next day, I went back outside and re-positioned where I had the jack on the transmission. I had originally put the jack at the bottom of the bellhousing because it looked flat. I didn't realize that there was a slight angle completely throwing off my alignment. I moved the jack to the tranny pan, and the engine and trans slipped together fairly easily.

The next couple of days saw a lot of progress to the engine, and by the end of 2017, the Dakota drove under its own power again after over a year and a half of sitting.

[cwcarpenter98]

After getting the Dakota running again, I spent the rest of my Christmas break driving it around and breaking in the engine. I kept running into issues though with the truck shutting itself off and turning on the ac when I didn't want it to. The heater core is clogged up as well from rust and such, so I just bypassed it when I put the engine back in. With no heat, driving in the winter was really cold. It turned out that the computer had failed, so that was replaced after I went back to school. Ever since I replaced the computer, everything has worked great, and it runs like a brand new truck.

I had also decided to park Frankentruck until I could get to the point of the engine swap, so it sat in the front yard for most of the semester.

While down in Milledgeville, I visited a private junkyard that I had found on a trip to Athens for a Georgia football game. He had a lot of stuff, but it's all been sitting so long that pretty much everything in the yard is only good for parts. I was able to score a radio delete plate that is still in fairly decent shape.

[cwcarpenter98]

Spring Break finally rolled around, and instead of going to the beach like most people do, I spent my week pulling the engine out of Frankentruck. It was fairly easy to get out, and I was able to do it all myself except for needing help to remove the hood so that I could get the engine completely out.

[cwcarpenter98]

After pulling the engine, I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to complete the engine swap over spring break. To make everything work, I was going to have to do a lot of parts swapping that I had not planned on doing.

Returning to school quite disappointed, I continued doing research and trying to figure out what I needed to do. Dorm room decorations consisted of license plates I've collected over the years, a headlight bezel from a 1980 squarebody, and some signage.

With the semester being close to the end, my dad and I drove up to the Atlanta Dragway again for the Gear Jam Vintage Drags. It was a great time and happened to be the first time both my dad and I had ever seen a drag race in person.

We also scored a new fender for the truck than is 99% rust free. It just has some good surface crust. The best part is that it came off a 63 Suburban, so I didn't have to drill any holes for the fender badge. Once I got the fender installed, it improved the look of the truck a lot, and with the engine out, kinda gave it a vintage gasser look.

[cwcarpenter98]

With the semester over, I came back home and started working on the truck again. I also had to scramble to find a job for the summer because I was led on for 8 weeks by a company who said they were going to hire me, but ended up not hiring me at all. I was able to land a job with Advance Auto Parts, which helped a lot because of the team member discounts.

I also finally figured out why the choke never seemed to work right. The exhaust cross over was completely clogged. I was planning to use the 2 barrel manifold and carb to get the truck back on the road quickly. I wanted to make at least the Atlanta stop of Hot Rod Power Tour 2018, so if there was something that didn't need to be done, I skipped doing it.

I broke off a carb stud and a thermostat housing bolt in the process of removing the intake, so after finding the exhaust cross over port was blocked off, I decided to use the quadrajet manifold that came on the new engine.

I cleaned up and painted the parts that I had removed from the engine. At the time, I didn't want to strip, clean, and paint the block and heads due still trying to make it to Power Tour.

[cwcarpenter98]

I got some spark plugs and wires to work with the new HEI dizzy. To make everything work with the ram horn manifolds, I followed the advice from other members here on using 77 corvette plugs and wires. It worked out great, and I complemented the install with some zip tie wire separators.

I finally got the engine back together and in the truck, but before that, I had to fix some issues that I ran in to. The PO of the engine had put a new oil pan and timing cover on. He also used a long water pump. I wanted to use the short water pump so that I could keep the alternator on the driver's side. That way, I wouldn't have to mess with any of the wiring. The timing cover on the engine ended up being too thick for the short water pump, so I had to change the timing cover. In the process, I snapped the harmonic dampener, so I just used the one from the new engine instead of the one from the old engine. I cleaned up the old timing cover and chiseled off the timing tab to fit the newer style dampener. Everything went back together, and I was able to put the engine back in.

I had also attempted to use an adapter to go from the Rochester 2 Jet to the Quadrajet manifold. The 2 Jet ended up not clearing the adapter at all, so I went ahead and got a reman Q Jet from Summit Racing. I chose Summit because I was still trying to make it to Power Tour. Once I got the carb put on the engine, I realized that there was no way to connect the linkage together in time to make it to Power Tour. I was crushed, but after stepping away for a day or so, I was able to jump back on and start figuring it out.

[cwcarpenter98]

The carb that I got was originally intended to be used with a cable style gas pedal. There seemed to be no good option for me adapt the original mechanical linkage to the cable linked part on the carb. After reading through Markeb01 's thread about his cable style install, I went to a junkyard and found a good pedal out of an 83 Blazer. I got a new cable from work because all the cables at the junkyard looked bad.

I trimmed off the excess material off the mounting piece, and ish positioned the pedal where I wanted it to go. After puling back the floor mat and firewall pad, I discovered some original paint that was unharmed by the PO's beige respray.

[cwcarpenter98]

I don't recommend using a squarebody pedal unless it's the only thing you have on hand, or if it's cheap. In my case, it was 10 bucks, so that was ok. I already want to replace it with a pedal from 71 or 72. The 71 and 72 pedal has the metal part of the arm going straight down from the left of the mounting point. Mark shows it in better detail in his thread than what I can describe. The squarebody pedal angles back towards the right of the mounting point, so it was hitting my floor. In order to keep from bashing the floor in with a hammer to achieve WOT, I just moved the mounting point over.
It is only bolted through the firewall with two bolts, but the third bolt still holds the mount together. I don't think I lost any structural rigidity by doing it this way, but I would like to have the pedal a little farther away from the brake pedal.

With that all figured out, I got everything ready to start the engine. When I reinstalled the water pump, I had put a new seal on the back side of it. That seal ended up leaking, so I decided to replace it anyways. It wasn't worth it to me to try and fix up the GM water pump from 1964 when I could get a new one for less than 30 bucks.

My buddy found a Frankenstein head from some Halloween decoration I think, and after drilling out the base of it, it fit perfectly on top of the antenna.

Once all that was figured out, I was ready to start the engine. It started right up, but I had a massive vacuum leak. I did not realize that when using a "hot slot" intake manifold, that I also needed a metal gasket to seal off the base of the carb from the exhaust gases running through the intake. I got the correct gaskets, bolted it back on, and then the engine ran great again.

[cwcarpenter98]

I also picked up a hood that was not as rusty at the back corners where the rear brace attaches. The front lip is still rusty, but the back is not, which is what mattered to me. Also it was cheap since I got it from the same guy who sold me the engine.

I also took a few pictures of how I wired in the electric choke. I wired it up to be run off the alternator field wire so that the choke only operates as long as the alternator is working properly. The field wire from the alternator triggers a relay which sends a full 12 volts to the choke coil. I could have just run it off of any fused 12 volt source, but I wanted to add the extra protection in case I turn the key on but don't start the truck for a while.

[cwcarpenter98]

At this point, the truck was running and driving again, except for one major issue... Massive oil leak

I spent some time scraping as much caked on grease, dirt, and oil off the trans crossmember and related components. I also took some time to install new door check links that I got back in October. I also got new arm rests because the driver's side was old and cracked, and the passenger side didn't have one (sorry, don't have a picture of those).

I tightened up the valve covers and oil pan to spec, and thought I had fixed the leak. I then drove it to the Varsity in Dawsonville for the weekly cruise in. The engine ran great the whole way there and back, but was still leaking a lot of oil.

I took a break to do a little yard work, then started tracking down the leaks. Unfortunately, at this point, I lost all my pictures of the work I had done except for what I posted on my Instagram. My friend dropped my phone in the lake last Sunday, and it is still down and out.

Anyways, back to the truck. I started with the front seal of the oil pan. I had bought the wrong one piece pan gasket for the pan I was attempting to use. To fix that, I got the one piece seal that would fit the pan and timing cover from the old engine. I cleaned and painted the old pan, then threw it back underneath the truck. Drove it around again, but it was still leaking oil.

Moved to the pcv port thingy on the back of the block by the dizzy. Thought it was leaking from there, so I took that apart, cleaned it, slathered on some more RTV, and put it back together. Still leaked

At this point, I realized that what I feared most had happened. When I put the intake back on, I attempted to use the rubber end gaskets provided with the kit plus a little RTV. That didn't work and was leaking oil enough to douse the top of the bell housing with oil every time I drove it. I pulled the manifold, cleaned the mating surfaces up, and put it back on with new gaskets for the sides. On the ends, I did about a quarter inch bead of RTV only.

I finished that up last Friday, and started to pour coolant back in. Ever since I got the truck running again, I've been fighting a slight leak at the thermostat housing. At first, I had accidentally painted the mating surface, so I thought it was that. Then I noticed that the bolts I had were just a couple threads too long. Trimmed those down, and it still leaked, but this time it leaked a lot worse. I pulled it off for the 3rd time and saw what went wrong. The thermostat housing ended up being warped. Got a new housing that Friday night, but didn't get a chance to put it on until this past Monday.

Over the weekend I moved most of my furniture from my grandparent's house to my house in Milledgeville. No more gross dorm room for me! I also spent some time with friends at the lake on Sunday and Monday, so I didn't get a chance to drive the truck until today.

I still need to get up underneath and check again for leaks, but hopefully by that point I'll have this phone situation all figured out so I can post up some more pics because

[cwcarpenter98]

Sorry for the pics being orientated weirdly. I'm not sure how to fix that.

Thanks for checking in,'
Christian

[cwcarpenter98]

So some great news happened today. My phone was able to charge and work enough that I can call and text again. There's still some water in it because it likes to do some things on its own, but I think it will work after it completely dries out. The best part is that I didn't lose any of the pictures that I didn't have saved on my laptop, so here's the pics of trying to track down some leaks.

After I found out the front seal was leaking, I swapped from the newer pan to the older one. The new pan was an aftermarket one, so it had the thicker front seal. I did not know that was a thing until it started leaking because I originally used a thin front seal.

I decided to use the old pan and just clean it up, because I was already using the old timing cover, and I could get a new seal for it within a day instead of having to wait a couple of days.

[cwcarpenter98]

After getting the oil pan back together, it still leaked. Pulled the intake out, put on some new gaskets, ran just a 1/4 inch of rtv on the end walls, then put it all back together. I think that ended up fixing it, but I still haven't had a chance to confirm it. It has rained pretty much all day today, so I can't drive the truck unless I want to get my feet wet.

This engine swap has not been smooth, but it has been a great learning experience. The best part about it though, is I have a truck that runs better than it did before, doesn't burn oil, and can do a burnout now (it's only a peg leg, but maybe one day I'll be able to fix that). The next thing will be to drive and enjoy it. I want to go for a few months before I have to buy anything for it again.

[franken]

I love the Nissan spare tire carrier idea.
You stole my name. Waa.
From the looks of the grease fittings in the control arms, I think you may want to get out the grease gun and find all the zerks, then pump grease in til clean comes out. You might need a manual to tell you all the grease points.

For the person who asked about bed wood dimensions see the link for some info. Bed Wood Dimensions - Cutting wood to fit MAR-K bed strips
http://www.mar-k.com/index.php?p=tips-and-tricks
Found another.
http://www.gmcpauls.com/47-72_BedWood_Info.htm

[cwcarpenter98]

Originally Posted by franken

I love the Nissan spare tire carrier idea.
You stole my name. Waa.
From the looks of the grease fittings in the control arms, I think you may want to get out the grease gun and find all the zerks, then pump grease in til clean comes out. You might need a manual to tell you all the grease points.

I got the idea from someone on here, but I don't remember exactly who.
Lol I guess I did. Oops
Also, I think pretty much every thing that has a grease fitting has been replaced, except for the control arm bushings. Thank's for the reminder though, I'll need to do it this week.

[flashed]

Where did you find the old toys in back of the truck , those are pretty cool ? Did you put your phone in a bag of rice to dry it out ?

[franken]

BTW, there's a short throw shifter mod available. Advance also has a shift lever that's solid that might be a bit less risky to bend. The GM one is a tube and might be easy to buckle.