1980 Chevy K20 Farm Truck

[willem445]

Had a set of 33" tires and American Racing rims that I threw on to see how 33s looked. I'm digging this combo! Just need to get new tires as these ones are shot.

[Shifty One]

Agreed, 33"s do look better.

[willem445]

Some more project work for the weekend!

Rebled my brakes and master cylinder, much better but could still improve. Took it for a test spin.





Did my first bit of rust repair. Started with something easy. Went pretty well! (can also see in pictures above)





Today started with what I thought would be an easy job of relocating my license plate light to a more "permanent" spot (vs. zip tied lol) but ended up completely redoing my taillight wiring harness.. When I last replaced the wiring, I didn't have a proper crimper nor did I use any heat shrink. Things were already starting to corrode..

Here's the relocated license plate light.


Some wiring before shots:

(my "crimps" were so bad I was able to just pull most of the wires out of the butt splice, which was actually convenient because I didn't have to re-strip )





And after!






I ran out of wireloom so I'll have to finish this week at some point.

Also bought some new tires, got two of them this weekend from Fedex. Sneak peak:


They are Toyo Open Country A/T III. I run BFG KO2's on my Silverado so these tires will be new to me, hoping I like them!

[willem445]

New tires on on!

[Getter-Done]

Originally Posted by willem445

New tires on!

Looking Good.

[willem445]

Bunch more pictures







Added some braces for my already bent hood, hopefully prevents further bending

[Shifty One]

Fantastic!

[willem445]

Decent amount of progress but I've been neglecting posting updates.

Some cool pictures I got from the farm last weekend





Using the squarebody to scavenge some parts from my parts trucks!



Rescued some emblems from the weather, not sure if I'll use these but at least they are warm and dry now!



I'm not a hubcap person but I know some people are so I saved those as well.

[willem445]

Fixed some more wiring as well. Tackled my front lighting harness, all weather sealed and improved grounds as well.

[willem445]

Had the truck looking nice and driving.... but not anymore

Tackling some rust so got er ripped apart again.















Also doing door bushings and pins. Old ones were metal on metal and sagging BAD



Should be all caught up now!

[Getter-Done]

Great Progress.

These trucks are probably the easiest to Replace the door pins and Bushings.

[justaburbn]

Farm trucks are cool, man! I've got an old gal myself. 81 GMC K35. 454 TH400 205 No she's not for sale. LOL... I get that all the time.

She has pushed a lot of snow in her day. She has a lot of outfits too. Right now she's wearing a gen 1 boss V plow and a forklift loadable lumber rack. She's also been known to strip off her plow and put on a camper top to do a little fishing around.

[willem445]

Couple more updates. Have been working on the truck more frequently as I have a tentative goal of having it "done" by May (done as in usable again). Unfortunately, it seems any progress is negated by finding more things to fix!

Some new parts for maintenance. Trying to take care of this leaky 350 so also doing doing oil pan gasket and valve cover gaskets.



New body mounts as well since I've been lifting up the cab for rust repair, might as well do them while everything is apart.



Also doing new valve covers and air cleaner, I don't have pictures of those right now though.

Oil pan dropped, oil looked better than I was expecting!



Had to drop the starter to get the pan off. Probably a good thing I'm doing all of this maintenance. There was a huge mouse nest packed into the starter, was working fine but probably not good for the starter!



Unfortunately when I popped off the first valve cover, I noticed two chucks of metal sitting in the head. Discovered the base of one rocker broke out, looks to have been a perfectly clean break but definitely some wear due to it.







I was thinking of just swapping the one but I figured since I'll already have things torn apart, might as well do all new rockers and pushrods. Should be here Tuesday.

Since I plan on using this for towing things around, I decided to buy a good heavy duty receiver hitch rated for 1600 lb tongue and 16000 GVWR. Should be plenty enough!





I got the 7 way trailer plug all wired in as well as a trailer brake controller (no picture right now)



This hitch is way better than the factory bumper hitch. The factory brackets both broke at one point and were welded up. Ditching that junk!

Finally got the driver side floor completely welded in, not too bad but very tedious work. Hoping the other side is easier since the rust doesn't look quite as bad.



Weld are improving! Really impressed with this cheap YesWelder



Since I'm waiting for parts for the engine and I'm waiting on the engine to pull the bed to finish the cab corners, I decided to start rust repair on the bed.



Not a fan of removing spot welds but getting more efficient at it!



Here is the side all cleaned up:



The inner fender panel is solid but has some really bad pitting, this is a bed from a '75. Looks like they improved the design later on by adding some slots for draining. I tossed around the idea of just throwing some Rustoleum on the pitting but I figured I might as well buy the patch panel and replace it while I've already got the bed cut apart...

I also decided to buy another 7 wire plug to add inside the bed. Eventually I plan on adding a gooseneck hitch to pull a stock trailer. Figured it would also be easiest to do this now while it's easy to access everything.

So waiting on more parts now!

One final update. The gas tank access for this '75 was the just screw in cap style where as my tanks are set up for the later door style. So I headed out to the farm to scavenge the gas tank shields from the old bed. Was having a heck of a time getting at the bolts so I flipped the bed over. Going to be sore from that tomorrow, pretty heavy! Got what I needed though!

[Getter-Done]

Great Progress.

I put a 7 plug near the rear of the bed in my Square.

Great Idea of installing it while you have this open.

[Shifty One]

Nice progress! I dig this truck a bunch!

[willem445]

Been quite a while since I posted an update. Been busy working hard on the truck to get it "finished" before spring so I can actually use it for some work!

Rockers and pushrods installed:


Got the engine maintenance done. New gaskets for oil pan and valve covers, fixed my vacuum lines (thanks to help from this forum), new air cleaner, new fan belts.


Don't really have picture of body mounts but replaced front cab and radiator mounts. The rears were feeling pretty frozen and didn't want to break off another bolt...


Got the filler neck mounted up, getting rid of the hole I cut in the bed side!


Some rust repair:














I also replaced the front grille with a 73-74 style grille. I go back and forth on the grille style I like most but settled on 73-74. This truck really is a hodge podge of many different years lol

Which leads me today.... finally finished what I had planned and is back to road worthy! I still need to finish up some welding and do the cab corner but I was getting so stressed out trying to get it done but I'm considering this "done".

Did some test driving today, took the family for a ride and even pulled my 20' flatbed to test the brake controller. Everything is working! Huge relief!!!!!

[Getter-Done]

Nice work.

I had a 78 with parts from 75 to 86.

My FIL asked me what year it was the first time he seen it.

I quickly said (Which Part) ?

The 73 - 74 grills are Definitely the toughest grills.

You rarely see one chipped or broken.

Great work on the gas door also.

[jerry moss]

you have been busy and it is looking good , keep up the good work AND posting progress pics too.

[willem445]

Hi folks, apologize for not posting any updates in a while. It's been a crazy summer between working on the truck, much needed yard work, helping on the farm, and a new baby!

I'll spam a couple updates here:

Glamour shot:



Used the truck to pull a Bobcat 773 on my trailer now that I have all of these towing upgrades. Worked great but I noticed on hills I basically had zero power. Foot was to the floor and it was really lacking.

[willem445]

Decided to rebuild the carb to see if that helped with the power loss issues. This was my first time rebuilding a Quadrajet. Always seems pretty daunting to me but once I got into it, it really wasn't that bad!





After rebuilding, I did some actual road testing and was still suffering from a huge lack of power, mostly in highway gear when flooring it. It felt like it was just totally cutting out. Spent a bunch of time and money chasing that issue. Installed an AFR gauge, fuel pressure gauge, vacuum gauge to help diagnose. Spent a bunch of time tuning the Quadrajet too. Nothing help. Finally decided to check the filter and I installed the dang thing backwards! Duh! That fixed it but on the plus side I've got a bunch of sweet gauges and totally resolved any bogging or hesitation from the "quadrabog".



Back together and ready to work!



Did quite a bit of yardwork with it



Also bought an old '99-00 Arctic Cat 500 ATV



Did quite a bit of towing, including the Bobcat and it runs REAL nice now!

[willem445]

Found this picture on a random forum and I believe this is what my truck is supposed to look like! I go back and forth on painting it a different color but I really should paint it to look original.

[willem445]

The city got upset with my unregistered truck sitting in the yard so back to the farm it went. Got my butt in gear to actually do something with it.





Side note, cherry pickers on gravel are worthless. Had to bring in backup.







The blue Chevy had a 454 in it. Discovered that it was re-manufactured and is already bored over .060". I was hoping to just run it but upon inspection, there is some rust in the cylinders so I'll have to bring it to a machine shop to see if I can bore to .070" or .1" and rebuild.

[willem445]

Put it to work again helping to build some fence

[willem445]

And now..... its all tore apart AGAIN!

I'm getting rid of the bolt on glasspacks and doing real exhaust on it. While I was under the truck, I said "what the heck" and decided to do the rear cab body mounts that I skipped last time I had the truck tore apart. Turns out I need to remove the front clip to get the cab jacked high enough to get the old mounts out. So tore apart again.

And then decided, "well I've already got it torn down, why not fix some more rust". So that is where we are at now.

I guess I'm the master of starting like 3 big side projects all at the same time on this truck haha







I keep getting the smell of mouse crap when I'm on the highway with the windows open so I might tear open the heater core now too. I'm sure it's full of mouse nest. Really want to get this truck actually clean instead of just covering up the smell with air fresheners.

[willem445]

Oh and I bought a Go Pro to start filming some truck content. There really isn't a whole lot of squarebody towing videos out there so I'm going to try to fill that void. Here is my most popular video so far:

(I'm not sure how to embed so here is a link)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GxcQ_LzzXw