65 c10 SWB step side

[dsterley]

Originally Posted by Johns66

Good progress, I know about Michigan winters, I lived in Grand Rapids 21 years.

Following this build.

I grew up just north of Grand Rapids, Sparta to be exact. Love that side of the state, but moved for work after college.

Originally Posted by Captainfab

I don't think I have ever had a TH400 that had the kick down hooked up. If I needed to drop down a gear, I just do it with the shifter. If you want to hook it up, you will have to mount a electric switch either on the pedal or at the throttle linkage on the carb. I believe it was '72 and earlier had the switch on the carb and '73 and up had it on the pedal inside the cab.

This seems to be the general consensus. I need to replace the case connector because its broken and was leaking, but maybe I'll leave it disconnected for now and worse case hook it up later.

[dsterley]

Haven't made a whole lot of progress on the truck since the last post, but figured I'd give a quick update. After replacing all of the fluids and plugs the weather was perfect so went for a short cruise around town with the woman and the pup.





Saturday rolls around and I get some goodies from the fed ex man.



Tubular upper and lowers, 2.5in drop spindles, and new rear coils. Truck currently has a 3/3 drop, now it will be 5.5/5.

Got all of the front suspension pulled and set aside with the other old parts/scrap.



I cant see anyone wanting the old arms, but I do have a set of western chassis disk brake spindles, stock height, new ones seem to be pretty cheap so I'm not sure what my plan for them will be.

Scraped the 50+ years of grease, dirt, and god knows what off of the cross member. I was going to clean and paint it, but next spring it will most likely be coming out for an engine swap. At this time I will also be upgrading to the larger U-bolts for the lower control arms. Slapped the uppers and lowers in place and set the spindle in before painting them.





Took the spindle back off and shot them with some black paint and put them back on the truck once they were dry. This was when I realized I forgot to order the caliper brackets... Went and picked up inner and outer tie rods and ordered some adjusters to match the different threads (went with 73-80 front suspension). Put in an order for my caliper brackets. And now we wait. Adjuster should be here Saturday, Wire harness will be here Monday, and caliper brackets will most likely come Easter weekend. So the truck will be immobile for another week or so, but this gives me time to put the new harness in next week.

[dsterley]

Got my tie rod adjusters in the mail and got the steering put back together. Decided to start pulling all of the wiring out of the truck while I waited for the harness. Decided to relocate the battery to clean the engine bay up some.



Came home Monday from work and my wire harness was waiting at the door for me. Went with a Bare Bonz front Ron Francis, it's been a super east install so far and comes with great instructions. Had a buddy come over who has used the same harness in his truck to try and cut some time out of the install. We got most of the harness rough ran and split, still have to do the front light section of the harness.

[aggie91]

Great build. I sent you a PM.

[dsterley]

It's been a little while since my last update but I've made some progress. Got the new harness installed and tested everything before pulling it back out to loom the harness. Got it all loomed and reinstalled over the last week. Went Friday afternoon and picked up some bucket seats from a 2014 Cadillac CTS coupe to replace the bench seat. Also picked up a set of new wheels from a buddy so I decided to roll her out into the drive to see how it sits after increasing the drop. (5.5 front 5rear with 255/55r18's) Still need to finish the battery tray I'm making to relocate the battery to the rear frame and pick up some new battery cables. Also need to do an alignment and install the new seats. Then starts the body work. Once the truck is driving again it will be spending a good amount of time on the road to work out any issues before heading across state the end of June for a vintage truck show.

[dsterley]

Well haven't been to good about posting. Got the seats installed and the battery tray mounted to the frame. Finished up all of the small loose ends and started driving the truck again. Had some intermittent issues with the distributor (assuming that's the issue), but now that I have tools in the truck to chase down the issue it wont do it again. Took the truck to a couple cars and coffees and have been putting as many miles on it as I can. Started digging into the rust on the fenders last weekend and decided I need to try and find a donor fender for the passenger side since the front is all rusted out around the grill. I'll upload pics next week.

[dsterley]

Well haven't been any better about posting, but at the same point there hasn't been much to post about. Finished the fenders and sprayed them with some paint that was a close enough match. Replaced the distributor and ended up having to tear into the carb because the secondary was constantly dumping fuel. Got everything fixed and have just been driving as much as I can.

First picture is me and some buddies from work at our employee car show.



After the show we got an invite from the truck marketing team to showcase our trucks in the Chevrolet booth at the Woodward Dream Cruise with other GM employees (largest car show in Michigan if anyone doesn't know). There were some really cool trucks in the display.




As of now I'm driving as much as I can, which is limited to the week due to hunting season starting. I've also started collecting parts for this winter. The truck will be getting new disk brakes in the front and the rear converted, as well as a new master cylinder and all new lines.

I'm also keeping an eye out for a good deal on a new motor and trans. Current thoughts are to go with a stock 5.3 and run that for the summer until its put away for the year. After that it will get some work done and most likely a pair of turbos.

[dsterley]

Well have some updates.

Picked up a 5.3 out of a suburban with 121K for a steal. Got it cleaned up and set aside till its needed. Go figure the guy I bought it from had a 72 sitting in the garage next to it.

The frame currently under my truck is racked and the front passenger rail is bent, the only shop I found that would touch it wants a small fortune. Luckily I check the local craigslist for c10 parts pretty regularly and came across a 65 swb frame from texas that was local. Went over and talked with the guy for a while about trucks and looked at all of his projects and parts. Picked up the frame including front cross member and a adjustable trailing arm cross member that was still in the box.

Plan now is to clean up the frame and get some paint on it then start swapping parts over.