1968 redo

[68Gold/white]

Riveted front drums just mean that your drums are original.
Job well, done, so far!!!
Taking something all the way down can be a bad thing, depending. Since you had a 13 year lull in your work...you understand. Fix what you can, when you can, keep it roadworthy as possible. My 68 has been apart since mid 80's, but I have all the old and new parts for it.
I like original pickups, but never see a problem with a V8 swap.
Carry on!!!

[Dude68]

Today, we replaced the wheel cylinder and shoes. I picked up a new master cylinder, front wheel cylinders, and bearings for the front. I'm a little disappointed that everything is made in China. I am in such a rush, I don't have time to search for parts. I wish I had planned ahead and found some NOS parts. We ground the rivets off of the drums and the hubs came loose. My Daddy turns 81 in a couple of days. Neither one of us are in great shape and this humid Arkansas heat prevents us from putting in more than a few hours each day, plus I am still working 12 hour night shifts. It's a little over an hour from my house to his. My Dad was a paint/body man in late 60s thru mid 70s until he got hired at UPS. He retired from there. He has painted the hood, grill, cowl and fenders back when we first started. They look darn good. Gonna go back Saturday to replace the front brakes, hoses, bearings, and master cylinder. Gonna pull the heater core and take it and radiator to shop next. I will probably install an aftermarket a/c unit as well. Engine, transmission, power steering addition, more paint, buddy bucket reupholstering coming as will. I'll post some pics soon.

[Dude68]

[IMG]C:\Users\VHALITBrannJ\Pictures[/IMG]

Here is how the drum looks after grinding.

[Dude68]

Dont look like this is gonna work

[Eddie70]

Very cool story about your truck. I understand about losing interest after finding something unexpected like the drip rail rust. Sounds like you've moved on to other stuff to keep the fire burning. Keep up the great work. Looking forward to more progress and pics.

[Dude68]

A close up of the marking on the firewall. I am practicing loading pictures.

[Dude68]

I got a set of buddy buckets, gonna need paint, new foam and some covers. I need one of them iron mike handles as well. I just set them in here to see what they would look like.

[Dude68]

Here is the next step. I know I have bounced back and forth on the engine. Initially I wanted to change to a 350. I bought one with a 4 bolt main, had the heads redone, block checked, rebuilt lower end, and left it on a stand. It needs an intake, exhaust manifold or headers, and a hei. If I did this I was gonna change to an automatic transmission, something with OD, change the column, add ps. Something turned my sentimental switch on and I decided that I would just try to keep it like may grandpa had it, for memory's sake. It's an heirloom. So, the next step is gonna be to have this 250 checked out to see if it's ok. It ran up until I broke the timing gear. It has been sitting with the head off since 1992. If it is ok, I will find an appropriate cylinder head and get it going. If not, I will look at other options, one of those being the 350/auto plan. More pressure washing/degreasing the front engine/frame. Stay tuned.

[68bowtie]

Pictures, fantastic.

[Dude68]

A little degreaser and some more pressure washing. Took the alternator off, took some wires off solenoid. I think we will pull this motor out this weekend, clean up the fire wall and get it ready for paint.

[Dude68]

Here is a peek at the front cap. Dirt dobbers got on my grill.

[Dude68]

We have one fender left to paint. Went with a repop. This is the only sheet metal that will not be original to the truck. We plan on doing it after we pull the engine and get the fire wall painted. Gonna pull the doors off and paint them when we do this as well. The original inner fenders are done as well as the radiator support stuff.

[Dude68]

Dear fellow truck nerds,

The motor is out. After some help in the message board, I have verified that the motor is NOT the original one. It was an exchange. I was able to verify that it is indeed a 250, 1970 model by decoding the serial number stamped beside the distributor. It also has the dished pistons that you guys pointed out for further verification.

We pulled the motor and transmission. Removed transmission, bell housing, flywheel from motor. Pistons are out, rings removed and cleaned the grooves. There is a faint groove at top of cylinders. Can't hardly feel it. Gonna have a motor guy look at it and see if it needs boring out.

I also located a head that has supposedly had a recent valve job. Casting number 331184, 72.76 cc chamber volume.

We will start working on the firewall soon. I am getting better with uploading pics, so I will try to keep the visual aids coming.

[68Gold/white]

The tops of those cylinders don't look good, at all...

[Dude68]

That’s where the groove is, we honed them and look better. Not sure if it’s gonna need to be bored out.

[Dude68]

We are not doing a frame off restoration. We decided to clean up the frame and apply Eastwood rust encapsulator. We brushed this on today. Not sure what to do with the control arms and stuff, covered in grease. I have scraped, degreased and pressure washed twice. There is still a lot of grease. If I had broken it down, I could have cleaned each piece individually, but we decided against this. Cleaning up the firewall and prepping for paint are next. Head will be here next week.

[Dude68]

I had planned on painting the firewall, last fender, and doors, installing engine and reassembling everything under the hood. After we completed this we wanted to put the front cap back on to get all of the pieces out of the wsy in the shop. Rust in driver side cowl and both vents will prevent us from reinstalling the front cap. We will need the fenders off to patch this, so front cap mounting will be delayed until all of this is patched. Welding patches in place will not be an option for us. Epoxying patches and blending in or using fiberglass are two options we are considering.

Attachment 2393383

[Dude68]

We decided to cut the lower portion of the of the outer cowls out. We did not want to get into the vents or any of the fender mounting holes. We used a step bit to cut out the spot welds and air chiseled to separate. It worked out nice. We had both panels off in 10 minutes. Both panels were full of leaves. Vacuumed them out, wire brush and wheel to the inside areas. Rust kill applied as far as we could reach. Grinded down to shiny steel in areas with rust. Used a dremel to do a little dental work on the tiny holes. Washed them out real good and sprayed them with rust encapsulator. The driver side was bad, passenger side did not have any holes.

[Dude68]

The blower motor hole was bad. From 1:00 to 6:00 was rusted away, as well as the rail on the firewall. I could not stand it so I applied the rust kill, wire brushed it, put the grinder to it, and did some dental work on it with the dremel, then put some rust encapsulator over it. I left a small piece that I could have broken off attached so there would be something to attach a patch too. I have not decided how I am going to patch the lip of the firewall yet. I cut a half donut out of some sheet metal to apply to the blower motor hole. There were a bunch of small areas in the "gutter" area between the firewall and cowl that required some dental work as well. They were small enough to apply epoxy in.

[Dude68]

After a couple of pressure washings, some light sanding, and wiping down the firewall we applied 2 coats of 507 blue!!!!! Still working on the blower motor hole. I have learned a lot. If I had to do this over, I would have removed the firewall and outer cowl and patch with panels welded in. I think I could do this after this refresher. I forgot how much I know about these trucks. I knew my 67 inside and out when I was 18, but life happened and I moved on, not having a place nor time to spend working on vehicles.

[Dude68]

I got a head of FB marketplace. They guy said he bought it for a 230 he was fixing up and it had a valve job done by the previous owner just before he bought it. Good news so far, the machine shop looked at the head and could tell it had had a valve job done, new seals are visible. But, they said it was not cleaned and the spring keepers needed to be different. I have lifters and push rods that have been in a box for 30 years removed from the cracked head. They have some light surface rust, don't know if I should use them or not. Any thoughts?
I had planned on keeping this as original as possible, like my grandpa had it. I have ran into a kink. There are zero radiator shops in my area that service these old radiators. It looks like I am gonna have to purchase a aluminum radiator as well as a heater core since I cannot find anyone to work on them. Anyone know of a radiator shop in the central Arkansas area that does this?
I broke my heater control switch, had to order one from Brothers. It is on backorder. Anybody have a spare?

[68Gold/white]

I bought and installed a new control panel w/ switch and cables in my friends 71. Got all the parts from LMC.

Paint looks great!!! I like that color. A friend of mine had a 67 with the medium 67 blue color. The pickup was in pristine condition. paint was perfect. It drew attention where ever he went.
I need to find the pictures I took of it...

[clay68c10]

Looking good.
You can get the levers and switches from GMC Pauls or any of the parts suppliers that frequent this site.
I got my radiator from Advance/CarQuest. Its a plastic tank rad like everything has these days. I'm sure it'll be fine like they've been since the 90's
It does require 4-core hold downs since the tanks are wide.

[Dude68]

Finished repair in firewall. After some time consuming brushing with the wire wheel the inner cowl and firewall seams got a good coat of seam sealer and sprayed with Eastwood's.

[Dude68]

Sprayed the firewall and cowl area. Waiting on the blower and other gaskets.
Had planned on doing the passenger side fender today. Gonna hold off on that until the doors are ready. Need to do a little body work on passenger door, so it's gonna stay on the truck until we can pull a little dent out and get it finished for paint. Driver door will need to be removed to finish rust repair on kick panel.