Birth of a C10

[pdxhall]

I agree with losthope but I didn't have to get mine out of the way of bags. By locating them further out, it is supposed to make handling better, also. I can't vouch for that yet but Frizzle claimed it made a big difference on his truck.

[LostMy65]

Thanks guys.
That makes sense.
Especially the point that 'the stock location makes the shocks at an extreme angle when lowering'

[dantimdad]

anyone got a link to the shock relocation thread?

thanks,
dantimdad

[losthope]

Originally Posted by dantimdad

anyone got a link to the shock relocation thread?

thanks,
dantimdad

theres a number of different ways to relocate the shocks use the search function and type "lowering shocks" and surf through some of the posts and you could find different ways...

but i liked the way "frizzle fry" did his the best heres a post with pictures of how its done:
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...owering+shocks

[losthope]

Well im still waiting on the paddle switch valves and the front air bags to show up via UPS, so i decided to try and get the rear end buttoned up....

I still have a 1 1/2" more before the rear end bottoms out in the frame c-notch but the pumpkin is hitting the bed floor, and i dont want to cut a hole in the bed because i still want to use it as a working truck to haul stuff, so when i redo the bed wood im going to raise the bed floor up a 1 1/2" so the pumpkin and the axle tube bottoms out all at the same time....I planned ahead that i will add 1 1/2" lowering blocks later on down the road and planned that into the shock relocation......

First i made some brackets to relocate the rear shocks higher then the frame and the future blocks so when aired out the shocks dont bottom out,i used the front shocks on the back since they are short shocks.....


heres the shocks with the new higher mounts and the stock lower mounts drilled and swapped backwards with it aired out with travel left in the shock before they bottom out....


bought this adjustable trac bar before i planned on bagging the truck and this doesnt quite do the job, so i plan on making this into a longer bar that mounts to the trailing arm giving less movement of the rear end when going from aired out to full air...


Then i relocated the carrier bearing, here you can see when aired out the drivline is at a extreme angle:


being cheap and not wanting to buy a new aftermarket drop cross member,i drilled out the riviets that hold the carrier bearing mount and flipped it over....

i took the difference from when the rearend is aired out and and when it is at full air and put the rear end at the middle of those two and drilled and mounted the mount for the carrier bearing with the drivline straight.....

here it is aired out with the drivline angled up slightly:

And dont worry about those air lines that is 1/4 line inside of 1/2 line and im going to put that inside rubber hose...just waiting on it to show up, it wont be rubbing on anything...and thats why the plastic clamps are loose in this picture...

when full air it is angled down slightly..Ive had three of these pinch welded carrier bearings come apart on my old 65, and finally had my buddy weld them together better and never had a problem again so ill have him do that to these one ,instead of buying one of those billet aluminum $100 replacements..

still have to relocate the rear camero swaybar still.......

untill next time!!

[chemlab]

ya, i'm jealous

[losthope]

while still waiting on air ride parts to show up i decided to do something that didnt require crawling around under the truck on the concrete.....I had bought a truck radio for $20 and decided to put it in....i had a butt ugly black plastic cd player holder mounted to the bottom of the dash and didnt want to have a radio in the dash and a cd player under.....

So the card board glove box insert was long gone....... i found a couple scrap pieces of sheet metal out back and i took some measurements and bent and riveted a panel to fit in the glove box opening to hold the cd player:


threw some paint on it and installed it....cd player fits nice nd the door closes,hot glued a magnet to the back of the cd player remote and stuck it to the panel and still have room for my reg. and insurance paper work, and some fuses:


found the chrome chevy glove box emblem in a box of stuff i pulled off the 65 after the wreck and put that on. Its a little scratched up from the wreck but will match the rest of the truck.....need to get a new latch for the door:


put the radio in the dash it is a little smaller then the opening but think thats because its not a 66 push button radio, Its amazing how mush better it looks with a radio then a square hole in the dash:


Still need to rewire the cd player and the radio(see if it even works at all) need to sand down the dash and the glove box panel i just made and repaint everything but for now it is what it is, hopefully later in life ill have a garage that i can tear the whole truck down and redo everything......but for now its a low buck build!

[A.T. RockDriller]

Originally Posted by losthope

while still waiting on air ride parts to show up i decided to do something that didnt require crawling around under the truck on the concrete.....I had bought a truck radio for $20 and decided to put it in....i had a butt ugly black plastic cd player holder mounted to the bottom of the dash and didnt want to have a radio in the dash and a cd player under.....

So the card board glove box insert was long gone....... i found a couple scrap pieces of sheet metal out back and i took some measurements and bent and riveted a panel to fit in the glove box opening to hold the cd player:


threw some paint on it and installed it....cd player fits nice nd the door closes,hot glued a magnet to the back of the cd player remote and stuck it to the panel and still have room for my reg. and insurance paper work, and some fuses:


found the chrome chevy glove box emblem in a box of stuff i pulled off the 65 after the wreck and put that on. Its a little scratched up from the wreck but will match the rest of the truck.....need to get a new latch for the door:


put the radio in the dash it is a little smaller then the opening but think thats because its not a 66 push button radio, Its amazing how mush better it looks with a radio then a square hole in the dash:


Still need to rewire the cd player and the radio(see if it even works at all) need to sand down the dash and the glove box panel i just made and repaint everything but for now it is what it is, hopefully later in life ill have a garage that i can tear the whole truck down and redo everything......but for now its a low buck build!

Nice job, Timmy

[jbgroby]

Timmy, QUICK....Unfold the Cal-state DMV reg. DO YOU WANT TO GO TO JAIL?????? I just bet you're the type to rip off the mattress tags too!


Jake

[DRTYRAT30]

Cool progress man, i dig the guinness shamrock bottle opener. Are you going to cut the bottom of the trailing arm crossmember off and weld in a piece of flat bar, or is it not a clearance problem yet till you drop it more later on...

Oh yeah, the rear grille/roll pan idea is rad bro...

[LostMy65]

I like it.
Posted via Mobile Device

[losthope]

Originally Posted by A.T. RockDriller

Nice job, Timmy

Thank you!

Originally Posted by DRTYRAT30

Cool progress man, i dig the guinness shamrock bottle opener. Are you going to cut the bottom of the trailing arm crossmember off and weld in a piece of flat bar, or is it not a clearance problem yet till you drop it more later on...
Oh yeah, the rear grille/roll pan idea is rad bro...

right now its not a problem but i dont have the front bagged yet so dont know how much its going to drop with bags, so its a who knows at this point?? kinda like cross that bridge when i get there type of guy but it will be close..Also i have long tube headers that came with the truck so the exhaust is below the frame also it will hit before the trailing arm crossmember does but i already planned on redoing that...

havent really done anything to the rear grill yet just been messing with the bags but its still in the plans.
Our car club is the "Lucky Loser's" So i felt the 3 leaf shamrock was kinda fitting....

Im still drooling over your truck it turned out perfect...!

Originally Posted by jbgroby

Timmy, QUICK....Unfold the Cal-state DMV reg. DO YOU WANT TO GO TO JAIL?????? I just bet you're the type to rip off the mattress tags too!

Jake

Hahaha thats the previous owners evidence of liability insurance thats been floating around the cab i just used it for the picture, i didnt notice it said that till you posted I havent really drove the truck that far only up and down the street for test drives and have the reg. sitting in the house i might want to put that in the truck now that im thinking about it...

Originally Posted by LostMy65

I like it.
Posted via Mobile Device

I appreciate the kind words! thanks...

[juanz1947]

Nice your truck is coming out nice how low does it sit and the rear I can't wait to bag the back of my truck and the the white walls look clean

[DLOE65]

Looking good! Keep it up!
Posted via Mobile Device

[losthope]

OK guys got my truck bagged! it is very very slow but does the job, theres no bed wood at the moment so the extra weight might help when i get the new wood in.....the back can down another 1" or 1 1/2" or so,Im waiting on my lowering blocks to show up from "way2lo2"....the front bags raised the front end up compared to the cut coils i had, so cupping the front a-arms are in the future plans and also some better compressors.......enjoy!

[likaroc13]

Originally Posted by losthope

OK guys got my truck bagged! it is very very slow but does the job, theres no bed wood at the moment so the extra weight might help when i get the new wood in.....the back can down another 1" or 1 1/2" or so,Im waiting on my lowering blocks to show up from "way2lo2"....the front bags raised the front end up compared to the cut coils i had, so cupping the front a-arms are in the future plans and also some better compressors.......enjoy!

sweet, i dig it...maybe a little slow for now, but it gets the job done!

[losthope]

Originally Posted by likaroc13

sweet, i dig it...maybe a little slow for now, but it gets the job done!

Ya theres a guy that sells 1/2" manual valves but they are $100 each.....these will do for now ill switch them out later on down the road when money allows...


UPDATE:
I took the bed wood out since it was old rotten and boards were cupping, and i needed to raise the bed floor up a 1 1/2" so the pupkin on the rear end wasnt hitting the wood and could go all the way up in the c-notch..... I bolted some new 3/4" boards around the outside so the bed would stay at the same height:


Then i took some 2x4 pressure treated boards and notched and drilled all the holes for the bolts that the metal strips use, I also bolted the big carriage bolts to the bed braces and recessed the bolt heads under the pressure trreated 2x4's so you wont see them in the new bed wood but still hold the bed down....the 2x4 space the wood planks up 1 1/2" that i needed for the rearend to raise up:


Well i received the lowering blocks from "way2lo2" and the worked perfect! My bags were bottomed out on the trailing arms and the rearend still had a 1 1/2" before it was all the way in the c-notch and the lowering blocks were used to raise the rearend up the 1 1/2" :


Also the old stock "monroe monro-matic #32207" that i bought on ebay for cheap showed up and with the higher shock relocate brackets i made they worked perfect and the shocks bottom out at the same time the rearend bottoms out in the c-notch:


I also got the camero rear sway bar mounted to the trailing arms instead of on top of the rearend it worked out great with the bag setup this way it doesnt limit the bags at all in the full range of the bag travel:


Then my buddy gave me a under dash a/c unit out of one of his mopar trucks, he said that "it will be the best upgrade on the truck because its a Chrysler unit" HaHaHa hes a die hard mopar guy so he was quick to take a stab at my chevy......took it apart and cleaned it up a little think it might be to big to fit but will give it a shot at installing it with all my accessoriesi got going on:


thats it for now i forgot to take a picture of how low the rear is now with the lowering blocks but will get one for the next update..

[losthope]

Well heres the picture of how low you can go with the basic bolt in c-notch this is with the bed wood raised 1 1/2" with the rearend bottomed out in the c-notch(you could go 1/2" more with the bump stops out but i didnt do that)....
This is also how low you can go in the front with d2600 bags and the basic bolt in bag brackets(Not very low).....Im going to modify the front lower control arms with bag cups and should be able to get alot lower in the front:



Next i got the wood planks for the bed, earlier in my thread you can see i spaced the wood up 1 1/2" with 2x4 runners because of the rearend hitting the wood....

figuring out how to notch the planks:

Cutting the notch's:

Primed the wood:


originally the bed wood would of been a black stain, and since im still going to use this truck as a working truck, i didnt want anything fancey so i just painted it a flat black so if it gets beat up i just pull the wheel wells and give it a new coat of paint(has 4 coats now).....I also painted the inside of the bed red:


need to get some bolts for the wheel wells but besides that bed is finished, I think it turned out nice for a driver....also if you didnt notice but the big hold down carriage bolts dont show thur the bed i recessed them under the 2x4 runners...... got about $220 into the bed.

Hope you guys like it

[gostranger]

Sweet I love it aired out keep working on the front redoo the front lower a arms and it will be sick!!
Posted via Mobile Device

[likaroc13]

nice work on the bed!

[losthope]

Originally Posted by gostranger

Sweet I love it aired out keep working on the front redoo the front lower a arms and it will be sick!!

thats the plan, might drive it like this for a little while but for sure need to bring down the front end more!

Originally Posted by likaroc13

nice work on the bed!

Thank you i think it turn out nice also!


Not a huge update not that it really needed it but always feel better with new wiring in a older car,so i did pick up a haywire wiring harness for the truck, I have wired 3 other classic cars with this same harness it is a decent harness and always have extra circuits left over..,the only thing im doing different with this wiring job is that i went to harbor freight and picked up a soldering iron and shrink wrap and some other items to solder all the connections instead of using crimp style connectors like ive done in the past....it might take longer soldering but in the end it will be better, plus ive got alot fast at wiring a car since the first wiring job:

[juanz1947]

truck looking good what the wire harness cost

[losthope]

Originally Posted by juanz1947

truck looking good what the wire harness cost

$139 at the local hot rod shop! I still need to mail off those headlight items to you most likely be monday that ill get by the post office..

[McMurphy]

Man you are tracking in some areas exactly the way I want to, especially in regards to your recent decision on the wiring!
I want to get away from the crimp style connectors but no matter how much I try, I cannot seem to grasp the concept of soldering!!

LOL

Anyways, your rig is really coming along great! Your progress is inspirational to me!

[gofastnut]

Lookin good man! Again, NOT you, the truck! Like the way it looks being lowered, but not sure I wanna go bagged, or quite that low. I also like the stereo-in-glovebox deal. and I'm gonna look into Haywire and see what they've got and where they're made.
Keep the updates comin'!