Mikey's 77 shortbox - Greenie

[mikentosh]

Been so busy lately I haven't had time to continue with the progress that has happened. All these photos are about 6 months behind where its at right now, which I've put just over 1000 miles on it before it got taken back apart 😃

Anyway, back to the point where I started moving body panels over...

[mikentosh]

...and finally made it to the cab and bed swap...

[mikentosh]

This was also a great time to test fit the cab to the frame with the engine in place; I was quite nervous because the engine seemed so far back in the chassis, however it all fit in with a few millimetres to spare 😃

You can see in the photos how rough the firewall was. I left the cab at the shop for my buddy to deal with the rust repair, opening for factory A/C, and paint.

[mikentosh]

...so the remainder of the "truck" came back home with me. This was also the first time I got to see how low it will sit in the back. As the days went on I realized just how low the front was sitting, and had to adjust spring rates and crank up the coilovers to get a drivable ride height. After a few hundred miles the rear has come down about 3/4" from these photos.

[ShortHaul]

Love this truck! Are you planning on having it back out to C10Intervention this year? By the way you’ve been nominated for truck of the month, and you’re currently in the lead!

[mikentosh]

Originally Posted by ShortHaul

Love this truck! Are you planning on having it back out to C10Intervention this year? By the way you’ve been nominated for truck of the month, and you’re currently in the lead!

Yep, if the intervention happens then we'll be there with this one and a couple of others that we've been wrenching on the last few months.

Very cool about being nominated for ToTM! Since this build thread still hasn't caught up to current progress I'll drop a teaser photo of the current state.

[lolife99]

Sorry if you’ve already mentioned it, but what’s the specs on your wheel and tire combo?
Truck looks awesome

[mikentosh]

Originally Posted by lolife99

Sorry if you’ve already mentioned it, but what’s the specs on your wheel and tire combo?
Truck looks awesome

Wheels are from The Wheelsmith and are their OEM replicas in "triple chrome". Prior to the chassis swap I was running:

Front: 15"x8" with 4" backspace, 245/60R15
Rear: 15"x10" with 5" backspace, 295/50R15

After the swap (like in that last picture above):

Front & Rear: 15"x10" with 5" backspace, 295/50R15

It took a lot of work (and some spacers) to get the 10s all around on this truck but I really like the "square setup on a square" look 😃

[lolife99]

I didn’t think it was possible to get a 15” wheel with a 5” backspace up front.
I had a set and they hit the control arm.
What’s the secret to making them fit?

[mikentosh]

Originally Posted by lolife99

I didn’t think it was possible to get a 15” wheel with a 5” backspace up front.
I had a set and they hit the control arm.
What’s the secret to making them fit?

Yep they won't work on a stock chassis. We had to shave down the lower ball joint cup on the chopping block control arm, plus their track width is (I believe) 1.25" narrower per side, and I'm running 1/2" spacers...form over function LOL

Everything clears and there is no rubbing, but turning radius is not very good (some would say terrible).

[malc1080]

Originally Posted by mikentosh

I'm personally not a fan of silver on Squarebody trucks, and I had a color in mind since before starting the Cannonball project. I've really wanted to do the early 70's lime green, as it brings me back to my grandpa's longbox '75 I rode around in as a kid. We settled on code 517 lime poly (WA5229) from the '74 truck line.

Since my plan has been to make this a fun driver, we didn't want to go overboard on the paint job. Rather than stripping down to metal, we scuffed and sprayed all the visible areas of the cab. We also had to patch a speaker hole in one door, and grafted an original shaft-mount radio plate in place of the cutout DIN hole.

beautiful paint color and truck! what brand paint did you use? Dupont? PPG? etc

[mikentosh]

Originally Posted by malc1080

beautiful paint color and truck! what brand paint did you use? Dupont? PPG? etc

I'm not sure what my painter used to be honest. It wasn't PPG cause after he was a few coats into it he was regretting that he hadn't started with PPG product 😃

If anybody can take one learning lesson from me, its to not use cheap product when shooting this color!

[mikentosh]

The C10 Intervention crunch was real this year. I took apart the front end a couple of months back so we could measure up for modified inner fenders, and as per usual, we waited until the last week to get them painted and fit back up.

The goal with these inners was to keep it as close to factory look as possible, including possible storage for the factory jack 😊 But also allow full wheel travel with the significantly lowered stance. I believe these ended up about 1.5" taller than stock height. They were a LOT of effort to build but really finishes things out under the hood!

[mikentosh]

Finally I could put together all the last pieces that have been sitting in boxes for the past year. I'm using a charcoal canister off of an earlier square that only has two ports, which works great with the Atomic EFI system. Still need to figure out the jack mounting brackets which work with the two holes in this new fender...the '77 original ones used 2 brackets with 2 bolts through each. Remaining to-do is paint the underside of the hood and final alignment of everything.

After driving back from the C10 intervention in 100+F heat I thought having cold air coming into the motor might be a nice thing to do, so I also put in a factory snorkel to finish out the look. Regardless of that, the truck ran amazingly well with the heat, and the A/C kept me cool the whole way. Glad to have this back and ready for more miles to be put on!

[SCOTI]

Well done.

[Corts60]

Man, such a detailed beautiful build. I'd be scared to drive it! haha.

[tinydb84]

Ive stopped by a few times during his build and I have to say his level of detail in all his builds is nothing but top notch. I honestly feel like I don't know what I am doing when I look over his work.

[rodstored-72]

Mikey, very cool build thread.... I am glad that I read through it. now you guys have to do one on the blue truck from Dino's!

[mikentosh]

Originally Posted by rodstored-72

Mikey, very cool build thread.... I am glad that I read through it. now you guys have to do one on the blue truck from Dino's!

I have a thread on the blue truck we had at Dino's, but it hasn't been updated since when we completed the Cannonball truck in 2016: http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=684425

[mikentosh]

Engine bay is finally complete!

[mikentosh]

Got the factory jack and tools to fit with the modified fenders 😃

[evan]

You did too good a job! Nobody will have a clue what they're looking at.

[mikentosh]

Originally Posted by evan

You did too good a job! Nobody will have a clue what they're looking at.

LOL yeah so true. There were a lot of questions from people when we had it at Dino's last weekend.

Speaking of that...a few photos from our booth at the Git Down.

[mikentosh]

I had the interior apart again to finish wiring up a hidden stereo, so I took the opportunity to add a few more factory options.

First up is the (U16) Tachometer...

[mikentosh]

...saw this ad for (K30) factory speed and cruise control in the parts section, so I took a chance on retrofitting it.

I had to design up some custom brackets to adapt the cruise servo to this motor, as the factory rear throttle/cruise bracket doesn't work with the vortec-style intake mounting. Rest of the install was pretty straight forward with the exception of having to drill a 1 5/16" hole through the freshly painted firewall haha. I also couldn't find a correct length upper speedo cable being reproduced, so I had one made up by speedometercablesusa.com, which was nice as they added the factory grommet to it so I didn't have to wrestle that afterwards...