Grandpa's 72 restoration

[Snake72]

Here's a few before and after pics

[builtbyKane]

Wow

[Advanced Design]

Looks incredible!

[Jason7121]

Looking really nice!

[cericd]

Excellent progress!

[knomadd]

Nice work!

[Snake72]

Was able to get up to the shop this weekend, only a few hours of work but got the delco HEI installed, ran new M&H engine and front lamp harnesses, sealed the heater box with 3M strip caulk, installed radiator and fan shroud, battery box and a few other small items. Also hung the fenders quick just to look at it. Please ignore the dirty shop and empty boxes...

Can anyone tell me what the yellow, blue, green, and purple wires on the engine harness attach to? I know the pink is HEI power. Harness is great but wish each lead would be tagged for simpler installation for rookies like me

[Joesjunk]

Green is temperature sending unit
Yellow and purple are starter
Don't remember what the blue one is

[Knight72]

Great read through and awesome build so far. Condolences for losing your father in law. Keep up the good work. I'm subbed and looking forward to the finished truck

[knomadd]

Originally Posted by Snake72

Can anyone tell me what the yellow, blue, green, and purple wires on the engine harness attach to? I know the pink is HEI power.

Originally Posted by Joesjunk

Green is temperature sending unit
Yellow and purple are starter
Don't remember what the blue one is

Joe is right, Green is water temp sender, purple to the starter, and blue is for the oil pressure sender for an electric gauge.

I'm not looking at a factory wiring diagram, but rather an American Auto Wire diagram (attached), which is supposed to be similar to the factory colors, so take this lightly, as it might not be what you need. That diagram shows a white wire going to the coil negative (TACH side of HEI unit). If you have points and a ballast resistor, the white would go to the negative side of coil & pink to ballast resistor. A wire would be connected from coil positive to other side of ballast resistor and yellow from same terminal to the R terminal of the starter. The yellow wire isn't used in the AAW harness if you have HEI.

Again, be careful as this isn't for a factory harness, so the colors may not be exactly the same.

[Snake72]

Thanks guys, appreciate the diagram. I'll have to dig up the factory diagram as well. One more solid weekend of work and should be ready to turn the key for the first time

[Snake72]

Finally had a free weekend to tinker, finished up running exhaust, finished wiring and new grounds. Also decided to get the dash pad installed. What a horrible job...I hope to never do another one. The color matches my OG interior paint very well though. I painted the metal dash flat black, and hate it. I'll have to mask and spray flat blue, just doesn't look right black. The whole interior is ready to go back in, restored the instrument cluster and looks great. The original medium blue interior paint was cleaned and buffed and came out fantastic.

[68Gold/white]

Hope you didn't have to dodge any of those 'tornader's that were going on up there in last month or so....

[Snake72]

Nope, all the "tornaders" were west of us. Had some pretty bad ones

[rustytruck50]

Man, you do nice work!!!

[cornerstone]

Just read the whole thread. Hats off to you staying stock. I considered doing the same with the truck that I am building, but honestly the original color (ochre) is my least favorite of ALL options. If my uncle had chosen any other color I probably would have went the same direction you did. I've gone the other way, with long to short conversion, air ride, L83 direct injected 5.3 and 6 speed auto, and blue and white like yours. I'm really looking forward to seeing you fire this truck back to life. Your work is inspiring and I think your F.I.L. is proud!!

[Snake72]

Thanks guys! I'm happy I went the stock route as well, couldn't bring myself to chop it up, but I came close! Had the sawzall in hand and a crazy look in my eyes... Just need to clean and install the fuel tank and gonna try to turn the key and hope I didn't mess something up too bad. Looking forward to getting back to painting and finishing body work.

[landarts]

Snake72 - very nice work on the truck. I like the fact that you stayed in the original lane. Also sorry to hear about your father in law. Maybe you could get his initials on a custom classic license plate for the truck if they do those there in Iowa. Every time some one ask what does the plate stand for you have a life story to tell, which will help keeping his memory alive.

[Snake72]

Landarts I have thought about license plates with initials and his old race car number, but I just found a mint set of 1972 Iowa plates that I really want to run but I'll have to check with DOT first to see if I can use them.

Also finished my cluster refurb. $35 from rock auto. Tried using "chrome paint" on the original but it looked like satin silver, not good enough. The clear plastic gauge covers were polished with flitz, came out great and very happy with it.

FYI rock auto has the cheapest ACC carpet I could find, I think it was $160 with mass backing upgrade, should be delivered today.

[Snake72]

Made some good forward progress this weekend. Redid my plug wire routing, I used Delco 75 corvette wires that routed WAY better than my previous wires that were for a 78 C10...was able to tuck them away nice and clean. Ran some more ground wires/straps, went through the wiring again and ran a temporary exhaust using stainless downpipes to cheapo turbo mufflers, will have a good system put on after the truck is running.

I threw the ACC carpet in quick but is not in permanently yet, just wanted to let the carpet rest. It fits well but was quite wrinkled which I should be able to work out pretty easy. Cut and buffed the original interior paint and cleaned up awesome. The steering wheel will be cleaned but not repaired or painted. Took many miles of my grand parents hands to get it looking like a beat up chore boot.

Cleaned the nasty gas out of the old tank and now looks brand new. There was a solid layer of varnish crud on the bottom but after draining the tank my Dad and I dropped a log chain in there with fresh gas and tilted back and forth, flushed, and repeated. Worked great. I wire wheeled some minor surface rust from the bottom outside of the tank and sprayed acid etch primer and painted silver.

Reinstalled the instrument cluster, glove box, radio, and glove box door. While doing this I noticed the heater control plate was loose, all 4 rivets were broken. So I pulled that assembly out and tore it apart. Already drilled out the rivets and will just use stainless button head bolts through the face plate. I dont really care if there are bolt heads visible, just want a solid assembly. I ordered new steel heater selector levers from GMC Pauls that are supposed to be unbreakable and will lube the cables when I re install.

One question however, I used an engine and fwd lamp harness from M&H that were already set up for HEI and internally regulated alternator, my original harness had another small harness from a separate hole in firewall (see firewall pic below, large black grommet covering this hole next to speedo cable) that connected to a small dark brown wire and then a larger gauge red wire ran to the front of the carb I think? Idle stop solenoid? (see carb pic, front left solenoid on carb) What is that and do I need it? Also another connection that ran possibly to trans? TCS wiring? Do I need these or can I discard? I don't think they're necessary but confused on what this harness controlled. What is the small brown wire coming from the engine harness plug? Any help would be great.

[72 tigger]

Making nice progress! Looks like you have a great shop to work in

[Snake72]

Thanks Tigger, the shop was my father in laws, every tool and piece of equipment you could ask for. I really need to clean up the parts boxes..

After doing some research, my mystery wiring harness that went into the firewall by speedo is the TCS harness. The wiring connected the idle stop solenoid on carb, TCS switch on trans, passenger side water temp sender to a relay inside cab and the fuse box/ign on plug. I'm tossing this whole system, not needed for my set up. Sounds like most TCS were unplugged soon after the trucks were bought anyway

[NewType72]

Amazing attention to detail and I love the feedback on parts and what companies they were bought from. Excellent work my friend

[RedRider]

Can't wait to see this thing fire up, great progress.

[cericd]

Looks great! Great progress!