Project Goldilocks, '66 C10 SWB BBW Build

[theastronaut]

Just got home and checked the original engine's block number (I've got the protect-o-plate) vs the engine I bought and they're only 92 engines apart, probably built on the same day!! How cool is that!! Also found out more on the whereabouts of the original engine; the truck it was installed in is now being parted out, and supposedly ads were put on craigslist so it could have been sold again. We talked to a previous owner today, he's trying to find out more and is supposed to let us know what he finds out. I put a "wanted" ad on craigslist tonight explaining what I knew about the history of the engine since it was sold the first time, maybe someone who knows the engine will see it and call. Its a long shot but it can't hurt.
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[66redw/white]

mines actually gettin a 5 spd right now

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by 66redw/white

mines actually gettin a 5 spd right now

Sweet! Guess mine will have to wait til I do the Vortec 4200 swap. One day...



I towed the frame to our shop this morning and got the C Notches and adjustable track bar installed. Hopefully the airbags will be in by next saturday and I can get rear bags installed.


Bump stops cut off and marked for trimming.




Rough cut, still have to round out the corners.




Corners rounded and notch bolted in place. Going to pull the off later to paint them, and I'll be welding a 1/4" plate on the inside of the frame to strengthen the area.




Back on the ground.






What are yall guys doing for upper shock brackets and shocks? I know I'll need shorter shocks; what are a good brand/length to use for the rear?


Also got the engine set in place temporarily to get it off of the shop floor. Had to make some 1x6 engine mounts and a 2x2 trans crossmember until I can get the right parts for it.

[66redw/white]

please take at least one picture of it laid out with those mudders on the back!

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by 66redw/white

please take at least one picture of it laid out with those mudders on the back!

I'll prolly have the stock wheels and those tires on it until it's all back together and everything with the suspension is sorted out so I can get some final measurements for backspacing on the 18's. I was thinking it would be cool to see a bagged truck aired out over some mud grip tires so they'll definitly stay on long enough to see how it looks!

Originally Posted by FRENCHBLUE72

Another great build from you keep it up..

Thanks dude!


The bags and brackets from Jason at AVS came today. Going to get the brackets powdercoated before I install them. I'll take the C notches back off to get them powdercoated and I'm going to pick up the bed wear strips from a local shop tomorrow as well so I can get everything coated at once.

[theastronaut]

Got the four short boards cut to length and the edges trimmed, then feather-edged the seam where I had to glue the filler strip in. Skim coated the edges and sanded them smooth so they're ready for primer.






Also got some paint mixed up for the engine. I found a spot of original paint on one of the valve cover hold downs and took it to a local paint shop to get it matched. It's a little brighter than what's on the hold down so I may add a little black paint to darken it some.





I've been researching hop-up parts for the 250 and it seems like Brazil is the place to go if you want a hot six. I'm thinking about a set of triple two barrel webers for it, billet rods and pistons, cylinder head work, 13:1-ish CR and a big cam on E85, a tuned header, and get everything balanced. I can't find anybody that makes the intakes to mount the weber carbs though. Crower makes a few different cams and billet steel rods for it, and pistons wouldn't be hard to find.

This guy is running a 250 in his Chevy Opala and it runs mid 11's in the 1/4 mile.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCwGUlEvcI8&feature...

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Another great build from you keep it up..

[likaroc13]

nice work, & i'm tuning in for continued progress! good to see a fellow 60-66'er who is relatively in my neck of the woods, doing quality work

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by likaroc13

nice work, & i'm tuning in for continued progress! good to see a fellow 60-66'er who is relatively in my neck of the woods, doing quality work

Thanks! Charleston isn't too far away!


Made a little progress today. Got the front springs out and the front bag brackets and C notches blasted and painted. I had some parts to blast at work today anyways and I already had the paint so I decided to go ahead and paint them instead of waiting for powdercoat. This way I'll be able to install them sooner.

I ground the welds down on the C notch before painting.










The paint is still wet in this shot so it looks glossy but it'll dry out to a low gloss finish and match the frame pretty well.




Springs out, sitting on the bump stops. Didn't realize it would sit that low!







Also pulled the manifolds off the 250 and this was what was inside the intake ports. Not what I wanted to find. Hopefully the block can be salvaged.





More soon. I called and ordered the bed wear strips today and they'll be ready to pick up on monday. I'll test fit the wood floor once I get them so I can mark the fenderwell openings and perimeter holes for cutting/drilling. Then I can get the wood painted and get the bed back on the frame. I'll get the cross channels and the wear strips powdercoated before the bed goes back on the frame, and also clean and undercoat the inside of the bedsides with Duplicolor truck bed liner like I used on the blue '65. Hopefully the powdercoater doesn't take too long and I can have the bed back on in a couple weeks.

[likaroc13]

Originally Posted by theastronaut

Thanks! Charleston isn't too far away!

true dat, haha...maybe one day when my truck makes its way to SC, we can meet up....

those notches look great smoothed up & painted...hope the engine works out for ya

[65Pickup]

Great project, love the 6 plan. That Opala completely rocks, hope you get your six to that level, I'll definitely watch with interest.

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by likaroc13

true dat, haha...maybe one day when my truck makes its way to SC, we can meet up....

those notches look great smoothed up & painted...hope the engine works out for ya

Thanks! I checked out your '66, I love me some black/white custom cabs! Awesome truck!

Originally Posted by 65Pickup

Great project, love the 6 plan. That Opala completely rocks, hope you get your six to that level, I'll definitely watch with interest.

I finally found the build specs for his engine, he's running 15.5:1 CR on methanol! I'm thinking around 13:1 with E85 should be doable and 105 octane E85 is pretty easy to find around here. Compression that high would help out with bottom end torque with a bigger cam so it would still be streetable. Just wanting something different than than a small block, everybody has those.



Got a little bit done this afternoon, worked in the yard most of the day. Flipped the frame up on its side so I could drill the bottom holes for the C notches and bag mounts. Man I hate drilling holes in steel this thick!




Here's a mini tech tip. Put some wide tape over the part that you will be mounting (bags in my case), and mark where the holes are. Then transfer the tape and use the markings as a template to drill your holes. You can center punch the part while the tape is on there too, and I was able to peel the tape off and use it again for the other side.




Center punched:




And here's what the notches looked like once the paint dried, its a fairly close match to the frame.

[chevyrestoguy]

Very, very nice work! I really like your attention to detail. All of that extra work will really pay off in the finished product.

Your tape template trick works well, as I have used it before. Another trick that works is to use a scrap piece of sheetmetal and double-back tape it or loop some duct tape to keep it in position.

I work in aerospace, and when we transfer holes, we use a drill bushing that has an O.D. that fits in the hole in the part (in your case, a 1/4" or .250"). The I.D. of the bushing has a small hole, usually around a .080". When you pop the holes, it's dead center in the middle, and then you remove the part and the bushing, and then step-drill to the final size. You can find drill bushings on-line in places like ebay.

A lot of times, guys fight drilling holes in steel because they try to drill the final hole size at the start. Always step drill, and work slowly. It'll save your drill bits from wearing out, and it'll keep you from breaking your fingers when the drill catches at the end. Been there, done that, but usually with a drill press. Those things can be evil

[likaroc13]

Originally Posted by theastronaut

Thanks! I checked out your '66, I love me some black/white custom cabs! Awesome truck!

thanks!

[MalibuKasey]

well Im doing a VERY similar build.... Stock "looking" but lowered. My Little V8 will "Look" like a stock 283/327.... MUHAHAHAH.
You do AMAZING work!!
So on mine I ran CPP's shock relocators with CPP shocks... It rides AWESOME! Better than my 03 dropped half as much!

[FRENCHBLUE72]

Nice find...

[65Pickup]

Outstanding...have fun.

[theastronaut]

I started cleaning up the lip around the fenderwell and bedsides last night. The lip is still the original paint, I guess the guy who painted the truck didn't want to mask out all the bolt heads so he just masked off the whole lip. I used 0000 steel wool and CLR to take the rust stains off which worked pretty good. I'll go over the whole thing with Johnson's carnuba paste wax to seal it up once I get the whole thing done. I'll have to resize the pics before I can post them, I'll edit them back in here.


Also got the backside of the wood floor painted last weekend.

[theastronaut]

Couldn't figure out how to edit the post to add pics (I've done it before?) so here they are.






*Edit* I guess you have to edit a post within a certain amount of time or before logging out. It let me edit this one...

[65Custom]

nice project!!! subscribed

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by 65Custom

nice project!!! subscribed

Thanks!


I got the engine torn down last night. The cylinders had a touch of rust around the rings but nothing that won't clean up when its bored. The crank journals look pretty good and I can't catch any scratches/gouges with my fingernail. I used a set of numbered dies to mark the main bearing caps and the main webs in the block to keep track of their orientation before taking them off, definitly didn't want those getting mixed up. The lifter bores look really good and the lifters were nice and tight in the bore. I had been looking into putting a solid roller cam in it, but I've only found one company that will custom make them, and listed the price as "call for price". That usually means $$$$$ so I'll probably stick with solid flat lifters. Hoping for 375+ horsepower, does that seem doable with this combination of parts?

Plans for it so far include:

Bore the block enough to clean up the cylinders.
Balanced stock crank.
Lighten the flywheel.
Eagle forged 4340 rods, 5.7"
Forged pistons, haven't found any "off the shelf" yet.
Head bolt boss removed from intake port, lump port kit installed.
Larger valves, ported heads, decked for more compression.
Block decked for .040-.050 quench.
13:1ish compression (will be running E85, 105 octane)
Solid flat cam, wanting it to pull to around 7000-7200 rpm.
Comp Cams Aluminum roller rockers, 1.75 ratio.
ARP main and head stud kit.
Triple Weber/Dellorto 2 barrel side draft carbs
6 into 1 header, single 3" exhaust, magnaflow/dynomax straight through muffler?

[theastronaut]

Since we're on the subject of look-alike trucks, here's a pic of one I found on ebay that's a similar color. I also did a rough lowering job with MS paint. I posted some pics in the photoshop thread hoping someone would be able to drop it and swap 18's with stock caps on it, no luck yet.

[theastronaut]

Got the rest of the bed floor support rails out tonight, no pics but they'd be pretty boring to look at anyways. Gunna take them and the new strips to the powdercoater monday and hopefully they'll be done within a couple weeks. That should give me time to get the wood painted and the bed sides undercoated before it all goes back in, that is if its warm enough! All the work on the bed has been done under an open shed so far, and its been gettin pretty cold once it gets dark so I'll probably start loading it up and hauling it to our shop when I work on it. My VW doesn't have heat so it'll be nice to get to drive this thing through the winter next year!
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[MalibuKasey]

Hey Man give Doug a call... he can cut you a cam to whatever spec you want. Roller too!
877-497-2787 Ask for Bruce, tell em Kasey sent ya... He'll hook you up!!

[MalibuKasey]

They can help with Pistons too!