1969 Chevy Stepside Restoration/Build up

[matthew20061]

Well I installed the radio in my plastic radio plate, but my cutout job wasn't so great....But it will work till I get a better one.
Here's some pics

[matthew20061]

Well over the last few days I've been rebuilding the heating system, I sandblasted anything that had rust on it and painted up everything! It looks great so far. I rebuilt the wiring harness for the interior and wired up the radio. Also ran the wires for the speakers. Today I placed an order with GMCpauls for parts. I ordered; New Glovebox cardbord inside, Chrome Dome Light Assembly, Soundproofing for the floor, all the firewall insulation/under dash, carpet, license plate bracket, rear bumper brackets, tailgate chains/covers, new gauge bezel, and speaker kick panels. I also got the cab mounted and bolted on.




The under dash wiring still needs some more work to get it right.

[matthew20061]

Today I took apart my old ignition switch and installed a new tumbler with key into it. It looks great installed in the dash! Now I can turn on the radio and heater...








From this...

To this!

[matthew20061]

Well, got my wisdom teeth out Monday so I haven't been able to work on the truck much for a couple days, so finally today I went out and installed the new bucket seats! They fit great, except that I drilled all new holes because I couldn't really get any of the stock ones to line up... Heres some pictures of them..


I wired up the power drivers seat...

[texanidiot25]

Just make sure the seats are backed up with some thick plates under the floor for the bolts.

Killer work so far, dig the color

[matthew20061]

Originally Posted by texanidiot25

Just make sure the seats are backed up with some thick plates under the floor for the bolts.

Killer work so far, dig the color

Ya, plan on doing that, there not permanently installed yet just mounted for fitting purposes...

[akman360]

hey,
looks great so far. I can't wait to test out those seats... by listening to on that alpine haha! Just joking though. Anyway keep up the good work; it'll be even cooler with the 5.3 V8!

[matthew20061]

Well over the last few days I've been really busy working on the truck. I combined two of my gauge clusters so now I have one really nice one, with perfect orange/red needles (Need to order the tach conversion kit as well). I also reset the odometer to 99,999.9 so it will go back to zero when I drive it .1 miles. I got my parts order on Thursday so I started putting the interior! I put in the soundproofing and carpet, and all the firewall padding. Then I reinstalled the seats with 9/16 bolts and giant washers on the back side for strength. Next I decided to build a center console, got that mostly finished today, but it still needs some finishing up such as cup holders, and a box inside. Heres some pictures...











Put in some Bose speakers..

[matthew20061]

Heres some more pictures

[texanidiot25]

What ohms do those bose run at?

I'd be a bit leary with them if it's under 4 ohms. I was going to use some Bose subs in my truck, but my dad (Cadillac tech) and I were talking to the dealerships audio contact, and he mentioned since they have a lower impedance, they tend to pull much more current than regular speakers. It's hard on amps.

[akman360]

Wow! That console turned out good. It'll be interesting to see how those Bose speakers sound combined with the kenwoods in the kick panels (possibly). And that dome light looks really good. Keep up the good work.

[matthew20061]

Got the gas pedal assembly out of a 71-72 truck and modified it to bolt on to the firewall of 69, by drilling some new holes in it. Then I pulled the brake pedal and brackets, along with a steering column out of a random cab in the yard (I have a lot of these trucks to take parts off of ). The steering column needs a lot of work but I can rebuilt it. I sandblasted the brake pedal assembly and some brackets and painted them. Also went and bought a completely new (remanufactured) power brake booster.

[72BlckButy]

Awesome work Matt, that thing is coming right along.

[matthew20061]

I installed a new dash bezel on the interment panel and it looks great. I'm still going to order a tach conversion kit for it so its not done yet, but for the mean time it looks great. I also installed the newly painted brake pedal assembly and put on a new brake pad with chrome trim.

[texanidiot25]

How much was it, and where'd you get it?

[matthew20061]

Originally Posted by texanidiot25

How much was it, and where'd you get it?

I got it from GMCPauls and it was $49.95 for the bezel, I had the gauges already. I would say it was definitely worth it, it's very good quality not all cheapy and made the gauges look like brand new.

[matthew20061]

I got my order in from CPP (Classic Performance Products) for a complete front disk brake conversion, and it converts it to 5 lug. I also got a new proportioning valve from them as well. Can't wait to get them installed, also I need to think about lowering this thing to....

[matthew20061]

Yesterday I got the Power Brake booster installed and connected up to the brake pedal, now I just need to get the brake lines fixed and connected. I also need to install the new front disk brake setup still.

[matthew20061]

Today I decided to paint the frame! I used some super heavy duty construction equipment paint that my dad randomly had and used in the past to paint frames. I mixed it up and brushed it on after cleaning the frame a bit with a scraper and wire brush. This was the result:

[67ChevyRedneck]

Looks great! It's coming along nicely!

[matthew20061]

Well tonight I pulled the 5.3 and 4l60e out of the S10 so I can clean them all up and start hopefully starting to test fit them into the 69'!
Here's lots of pics of the process:



Pulled the entire front clip off to make the removal go much easier...



There's me trying to get the exaust unbolted...ended up just cutting it off since it was junk anyway, except it does have a good Flowmaster muffler.








All ready to be cleaned up tomorrow afternoon!

[matthew20061]

Well got the motor all cleaned up today and sorted out the wiring harness. The people who made the wiring harness originally, took out the pins and wires for the check engine light and OBDII connector (not sure why). So I found some pins to put into the connector to the computer. Then I had to find a OBD II port....Thought I was going to have to go to the junk yard but, then I remembered that my dad has a Olds Aurora that had an engine fire and it was OBDII. So I took the connector out of that and rearranged the pins in it to the correct order and wired it up! Bench tested with a scanner and it was able to communicate with the computer, so it works!

Also I bought some corvette style valve/coil covers a while back, but here's some pics of them on the engine. I'm going to paint them body color with silver on the lines or something like that.





The corvette front brackets and intake are looking awesome!

[matthew20061]

Started test fitting in the 5.3 finally, after some cleaning and doing other things.







Header clears, on this side and engine mount lines right up!



This side the header is too low and is just barley hitting the frame engine mount. I'll have to modify the frame a bit to make it fit right.

[killer71]

nice progress!

[matthew20061]

Originally Posted by killer71

nice progress!

Thanks!

Today I bought new rubber engine mounts and sandblasted the adapter plates. Then I painted the adapter plates and bolted the mounts on. I also modified the frame to fit the header on the passenger side. Then I lifted it back into the truck again and bolted it in (took a bit of persuading) but it bolted in. Now it's time to make a trans cross member.