Intro and the longest build thread you'll ever see.

[bluesfella]

Originally Posted by xratt

Cool truck! Great to see more guys in FL. I'm about half way though my rebuild. I have a 1966 C10. It's a lot bigger project then i first intented. This is suppose to be my daily driver. But i could only keep it running 3 weeks or so and gave up. Decided to tear it apart and redo the motor. Then my eye were bigger then my budget, and i tore everything apart. I'm slowly getting it back together. I just decided i want a spare grill. I want to keep my stock one, and i want one i can modify. If you have a spare one from your parts truck, let me know.

Good luck on yours. I will check back often.

I actually do have a nice spare grill. I've just started pulling the parts I don't need off the truck, and will start getting them all together and take pics. I'm selling all the parts I don't need to pay for the stuff I'll need to finish the truck. Other than the cab and the doors (and maybe a driver front fender), I'm pretty much getting rid of everything I can, so if you need parts, let me know. I have almost no space here, so the stuff I can't use has to go.

Originally Posted by Byronic

Welcome Vance. Sounds like we both are on the same track. I'm down here in Panama City and plan on taking trips to your town for parts and such. if you need any help just holler.

Byronic, I'm actually from Panama City, and my whole family still lives there!

[bluesfella]

Got a little work done this week. My daughter was born on Monday (woohoo!), so things have been pretty crazy around here, but I did get some sheet metal removed from the donor truck:



How it sits at the moment. I'm really amazed at how much of this truck is in great shape. I haven't had to cut off a single bolt so far (but I have come close). I just use some aero-kroil (similar to PB Blaster) on each nut/bolt a few minutes before trying to loosen them, and so far, everything has come apart pretty easily.



Driver's side finder, one small repair in the corner:


Passenger fender, same deal:


The front headlight panel is in great shape:


Pretty good tailgate, too:


Check out the electric fan attached to the radiator!


In various boxes in the cab, I found a Rochester Quadrajet, an older Holley carb, and this '68 cast iron intake:


I haven't been able to figure out what it's off of, the numbers don't match any lists I can find from that year. Anyone know of a good place to figure that out?


That's "819803"...doesn't show up on any list I've found so far. The date stamped is '68, though.

Anyway, the plan for this weekend is to pull the truck into the garage, remove the rest of the front sheetmetal and bed, and start patching the few rusty bits on the cab. I can't wait to work on this thing in the garage, and NOT the side yard...I need my air tools, and plenty of light!

Thanks for looking.

[bluesfella]

Also, here's a crappy photoshop of someone else's truck that I modified to match my vision of what I want my truck to end up like:

[Alan's Classic]

Congrats on the new addition. Nice progress!! That green was my other choice but went with orange. i love that green.

[TwiggyTheDrummer]

Welcome from North Central Florida! Congrats on the new daughter! The story and intro was great and the plans sound great also. That rendering looks pretty sweet too, I'd definitely be driving something like it.

[Corts60]

I dig the color scheme. And CONGRATS on the baby girl!!!

[onequickchevy]

Man, I saw that parts truck on craigslist and didn't have the space to store it. Wish I would have now! Nice score, and welcome from a fellow newbie from North Florida.

[Bugeyev8]

Great score on the parts truck...looks like it will save you lots of time fixing rust, I am new here to but I have been reading a bit here everyday, welcome to the forum and good luck with your project..looks like a great start

[daverod]

If you want to have the longest build thread ever your going way to fast you need to sloooow down. Welcome

[bluesfella]

Originally Posted by onequickchevy

Man, I saw that parts truck on craigslist and didn't have the space to store it. Wish I would have now! Nice score, and welcome from a fellow newbie from North Florida.

Yeah, I actually didn't call when I first saw it (I check CL every day) because I was frustrated on two previous attempts to get a donor truck like this. One got sold right under me, and the next one I drove HOURS to go get, and it turned out to be in worse shape than mine. I let this one sit a few days, and finally changed my mind and called him. I'm glad I did!

Originally Posted by Bugeyev8

Great score on the parts truck...looks like it will save you lots of time fixing rust, I am new here to but I have been reading a bit here everyday, welcome to the forum and good luck with your project..looks like a great start

Yeah, that's what I'm counting on. It will still need a few small patches, but it's nowhere near as bad as my other truck!

Originally Posted by daverod

If you want to have the longest build thread ever your going way to fast you need to sloooow down. Welcome

Thanks! It will definitely slow WAY down once I get to the upgrading and painting stages. I have ZERO money for this project, so I'm going to have to sell bits of the donor truck to afford any new parts I buy for my truck. I'll get there eventually.

[xratt]

If you still have the grill, im interested. Let me know what you want for it. I will try to arrange picking it up. Thx alot

I almost have mine to a roller. woohoo

[Chevyman680063]

I wouldn't say you have the longest build ever...I've had my '63 since '03 and haven't even gotten half of what you have done. I say it's time and money but if I had the money I could make the time, lol. Good luck on your build...looks like you've gotten a good start.

[bluesfella]

Well, I finally got the donor truck into the garage last week. I pulled all the rest of the front sheetmetal off, yanked the doors, and starting sanding off the paint to find out what I really had.



The Good: The doors aren't too bad.

The Bad: LOTS more rust than I thought in the floorboards and rockers!

The Ugly: Some "Bondo Artist" really layered it on thick and covered up a lot of poor repairs. This cab is much worse than it looked - I don't even know if I can use it.




You can see here the corner of the passenger door - about what I expected, and totally fixable.





Here's the passenger cab corner - that's one massive chuck of bondo. I knew this area would need to be replaced, I didn't know it was solid bondo.





Here is the real disappointment - someone really masked this area well with the pink stuff. I really thought I could use this cab to replace mine...mine has the exact same problems, so no sense in even trying.





Looks like I'll have to purchase a full rocker for this side. And that's what I was trying to avoid by getting this truck in the first place.




Someone just filled the floorboard section with bondo to hold it together. Don't people know this doesn't work?





And here's another surprise - I'm not sure what this is called, it's a drip rail in front of the door, I guess. This area is perfect on my cab, but the donor cab is completely rusted through in parts. Only on the passenger side, though.




How do you even fix areas like this? I can't get to the backside...





The driver's side is better as far as the rockers and under seat area. I think I'll just cut this whole area out and put it in my truck. It's about the only usable thing on this cab.




Driver's side floorboard. Just as bad as my truck.


There a still a bunch of good parts on the truck that I can sell. A guy is coming by to get the seat and gas tank this weekend. My plan now is to just sell of everything I can, and use the money to buy the patch panels for the rockers and floors.

I guess I can use this as a learning experience. There are no rust free cabs left. This is my third try, and I guess I'm going to give up and just spend the dough on the parts to fix up my cab. At least on mine, I know exactly where the problems are - no bondo hiding poor repairs. I'm the third owner of my truck, the previous two owners were my buddy's grandfather and great-grandfather. No work has ever been done to the truck by them, it's still wearing the original paint, so at least I know what I have.

[onequickchevy]

Don't feel too bad, the entire passenger rocker on mine was bondo and wire lathe. I am just patch paneling everything, and making my own where patches are not available. Stick with it though, it will be great!

[ol Curt]

How do you even fix areas like this? I can't get to the backside...

I recognize that damage...I'm going to lay some fiberglass over my vent cover, but I suppose you could cut the rust out and weld in a small patch.

[sams60gmc]

Congradulations and welcome to the board! Keep us updated with lots of pictures!

[jbgroby]

I don't know IF you have the longest build thread. I bough the truck in January 2000 and he cab just got to the paint shop 2 weeks ago I still got to assemble it and put in all the interior and finishing touches. Let's see....... been 8 yrs. 11 months and counting, she may be the only truck to have 2 complete off frames in less than 5 years?

Thanks to Hurricane Katrina.

[shortbed70]

Dang I agree with everyone you need to slow down to call it the longest. Looks like fixable stuff if you want to take some time. And money.. These trucks get expensive quickly,trust me. I'm going through the same thing along with a few others. Congrats on the new addition to the family and I dont mean the truck LOL..

[shortbed70]

BTW if you weren't so far I would love to help with the build.