1972 K20 "Diamond in the Rough"

[nitrosport_5]

Originally Posted by Tinkermc

lots of hard work ahead

you can say that again!!!


Does anybody happen to know if there should only be one door jamb vent on my 72 cab? there is one on the driver side and not on the passenger side. as much filler/rot/half ass work done on the 72 i would not put it passed the last person to have filled the hole in.

Is there a page that shows where to drill for 72 door panels? I want to use them on my 70 cab that is going to be swaped on, but the holes in it are for screws and not the push retainers. Ive got a huge reprint assembly manual and i cant seem to find it. unfortunately there are no page numbers or a list of what is where.

Not much more progress to report. Slowly patching holes in the firewall and holes for the old 70 mirrors. Im just having too much fun driving the truck as is. Plus i start school Wed, so i will only have weekends and possibly weekdays after class if i want to drive back home.

[nitrosport_5]

One more thing, is there a certain line in the floor pan i need to cut for the high hump cover to bolt in? Or should i just wait till i tear down the truck and put the high hump down, draw a line, and cut about 1" inside the line leaving enough room to get a screw to grab?

[nitrosport_5]

Slow progress on this, just put my cluster together. All GM parts except the outer bezel. I think it turned out pretty nice. Wish i had the vacuum gauge, but it isnt the end of the world. Its got the 80lb oil gauge, and a 5k factory tach

[72KAY20]

Wow, that looks great. Always wanted to upgrade mine and add a tach and vacuum gauge. Will do it one day. Very nice job.

[nitrosport_5]

Originally Posted by 72KAY20

Wow, that looks great. Always wanted to upgrade mine and add a tach and vacuum gauge. Will do it one day. Very nice job.

Thanks! Looks like my truck is going to be about the same as yours. I am planning on the red-orange/white as well. I really like the thread you have on it!

[nitrosport_5]

Almost forgot, got my 72 door panels installed in the 70 cab. Crappy lights in my shop make for a bad picture, but you get the idea!

And i will be adding A/C to this truck. Summers can be hot around here. Just picked up this http://www.ebay.com/itm/1967-1972-Ch...vip=true&rt=nc looks like a very nice stock setup. Cheaper than most aftermarket setups.

[67ctener]

Awesome truck looks great I'd love to have a k20 some day. Did you clean up your gauges or are those new? I have 2 ac cabs but I did a search and were a good distance away from each other, 5 hours.
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[nitrosport_5]

Originally Posted by 67ctener

Awesome truck looks great I'd love to have a k20 some day. Did you clean up your gauges or are those new? I have 2 ac cabs but I did a search and were a good distance away from each other, 5 hours.
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The gauges are a combination of 3 clusters i had here. Took apart and chose the best pieces. All of the gauges are old, just cleaned up. the lens is used gm as well, just cleaned up. Only the bezel is aftermarket.

I am going to modify the current donor cab for AC. Just bought all the parts. Im sure it wont be too difficult? I guess i will see when the parts get here. maybe i am crazy and should do without AC. haha

[nitrosport_5]

Got my AC Firewall welded in. still gotta clean the welds up a bit more and finish things up, but it is in there and solid.

[67ctener]

Looking good
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[nitrosport_5]

So continuing on repairing the white cab before i tear down the truck, i am replacing the passenger rocker panel. there were a few pin holes in it and i knew that if i tried to patch them i would just end up fighting it in the future, so i am beginning to tear the rockers off. I am extremely glad i did not just attempt to patch it. IN fact, i think i may go ahead and replace the driver side as well, If it is as bad as the passenger side was on the back side then it wont be long before i get a nice rust hole.

I dont have a spot weld drill, and i didnt feel like waiting for one to come in the mail, so i ground off the welds. Im an hour from any decent store that would have somthing like this. I havent gotten to the bottom ones.. need to figure out how to get to them, or ask my step father to grind em off for me. Hard to get that low from my chair.

And you can look at this as a good or bad thing, my college campus doesnt get the snow shoeveled well enough for me to get around.. so im more or less forced to take the quarter off. give me a few months of free time to hopefully get this body ready for paint. Would love to have this thing done this spring, as long as i can stay as motivated as i am right now it *should* be doable.

[sgaylord]

Good progress

Steve
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[ryanroo]

You can take a appropriate sized drill bit, something like 3/8" ot 7/16" and flat grind the point like you are sharpening it with no angle and it works pretty well as a spot weld cutter. you have to pre-drill the spot weld with n 1/8" hole. thats what i did while i was waitng on my cutters to come in the mail
Ryan

[nitrosport_5]

pretty decent sized update here, will try and add everything that i have gotten accomplished in the time being.

First off, i got my rockers replaced and they fit pretty good. Purchased from Brothers i believe. I decided to do sortof a "Cheyenne Super" clone/tribute and am going to be putting the woodgrain dash and emblems. Put the super emblems on the fenders along with fixing the butchered Cheyenne holes and engine call out holes. I also cut the headliner trim holes as well as the cargo light switch. Working on the cargo light cut now. and Finally i picked up a little treat, a set of bucket seats! need recovered and driver side needs foam, but still they will be a nice addition.

Tach/Vac, tilt, buckets, AC...what more can i get distracted with and install!

and because everyone likes pictures.

[nitrosport_5]

Almost forgot about my slots. I finally have a full set (plus some) of the 9.75x16.5 An sen Slot mag wheels. off and on workong on sanding/polishing. I have some 35x12.5x16.5 BFG MT tires that will be going on these wheels. Should look great!

[jayman68]

Looking good! Nice slots!

[DeadheadNM]

Cool!

[nitrosport_5]

It has been a while since i have updated this thread. been working on it slowly when i can.

Since i last updated, got the AC dash installed, cut the holes for the cargo light and switch, installed the marker light fuel door, and started to tear the ol girl apart.

First is my A/C dash. I cut it behind the dash pad and welded it back together. Turned out good. Once the dash pad is in the weld seam will be covered. This pic is just the dash tacked in. I later smoothed it out quite a bit better.

Then the fuel door, i decided instead of using the factory flange for the light mounting, i would weld a mount to the inside of the bed. gives more room for the fuel filler and looks much cleaner IMO.

The next 2 pics are of the truck just before it got parked in the shop for disassembly. Sad day to see it get tore apart, but it was in serious need of some help. At least i will be repairing it instead of just parting it out running it into the ground.

And last, this is what we did sunday after getting it into the shop. Not a whole lot of progress but the bed bolts were quite stubborn. At least i didnt have to worry about saving the bed if a bolt was in need of being cut out!

More to come. My next few weekends are going to be just tearing this thing apart. Once apart, i will have the frame sandblasted, going to put new seals in both differentials, transfer case, and possibly the transmission. The engine seems to be about the only thing that does not leak.

[Tx Firefighter]

If you don't mind me asking, how do the hand controls work ?

I guess I'm trying to figure out how you use a handle under the dash for accelerator, brake, and clutch. It must be a complicated mechanism.

[nitrosport_5]

there is a handle under the dash sorta below the turn signal for brake and gas, no clutch this is an auto. pull down toward my leg for throttle, push straight forward for brake. luckily can still power brake it for a burn out haha. will get pictures of the mechanism when I get to taking the cab apart

[nitrosport_5]

Got the front clip off of the truck. The further i get into this the more parts i am going to need to replace. thought the inner fenders were salvageable.. drivers side is pretty thin, radiator is about ready to burst, core support thin on the drivers side. guessing a battery leaked or somthing since the AUX battery tray was rotted out as well. Luckily i bought a fender off a local guy this summer and picked up the core support he had in fear that mine was junk. I have an inner fender that needs a little repair but it should not be too bad.

And i caught the cat checking out my work.. she crawled into the door through the large hole from the speaker.

Hope to have the cab off this week, or weekend. If i had it my way id spend christmas in the shop!

[mx289]

I just gotta say you,your truck and your cat are awesome.
Have a great holiday,Tom

[red87gmc]

nice job !

[nitrosport_5]

Wow! cant believe it has been almost a year since my last update.. and it seems like i have not accomplished much. Been a busy summer. I would like to be able to make it to shows next summer with this truck.. so we will see what i can get done over the winter

Lets see where i left off......

After getting the truck all stripped to only a bare frame, i went to cleaning up the frame and getting it ready for the sandblaster. The Frame overall was in decent shape for somthing this old and the body being as bad as it was. The first issue to address was the fact that someone carved the frame for poor fitting cheap ass headers... Purchased a set of Hooker headers that clear the frame with ease so i repaired the frame damage.

After i had the front of the frame repaired and to my specifications, it was onto installing my fuel tank. I have never been a fan of the tank in the cab, so i decided to do the suburban tank install. Initially i was going to go with the 40 gal tank, but that sucker is MASSIVE! It was going to not fit as cleanly as the 25 gallon tank so i went that route... but ended up changing that out for the 31 gallon tank. Turns out the 25 gal tank that i had was for a diesel, so the gas sending unit would not work. Oh well, i will need that extra 6 gal of fuel with the 396

The way i mounted the tank was to flip the rear crossmeember. i had seen that done by another member on here and it seems to work great. For the front, i ran a flat bar across the top and a piece of angle iron along the bottom for the straps to mount to. Tank seems to fit nice and snug and should not have any problems

[nitrosport_5]

So i was initially going to have the frame sandblasted, and then paint it with some semi gloss black paint. A friend has a large powder coating oven so i ended up going that route. semi gloss black powder coat. Not show quality by any means, but nice driver quality and should hold up a bit better than paint.

The front and rear axles were in good shape. Basicly just took them down far enough to re-seal them and paint. Had the HO52 cover re-chromed and purchased a new one for the front D44 as it was cheaper than having one rechromed.

Rebuild my rear brake pistons, powder coated most of the parts in my shop powder coating oven. Probably more work that i should have gone though on parts you will never see, but im just nutty enough to do that stuff.