Over 25 Years Later, Finally My 71 C-10 Truck Build

[Ta2Don]

Great pics from the HRPT…

Next time you find yourself in Arkansas gimmes a shout...

[knomadd]

That looks like it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed looking at all the pics... so no worries about boring vacation pics. I think HRPT is an exception.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Ta2Don

Great pics from the HRPT…

Next time you find yourself in Arkansas gimmes a shout...

Will do.

Originally Posted by knomadd

That looks like it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed looking at all the pics... so no worries about boring vacation pics. I think HRPT is an exception.

It was fun. I drive about 40-50,000 miles a year for work and yet I like taking road trips.

Doing stuff like this was always on my mind when I was working on this truck. When I work on my Jimmy I'm thinking about what I want to do with it after its back on the road. Different type of build, different plans for it's use. Maybe thats what keeps me going on my projects. I don't think too much about what they will look like. I already have that image burned into my brain. I think about where its going.

[hgs_notes]

This is hopefully the home for my future shop. It's one of the machine sheds on the place I'm trying to buy. Appraisal guy was out there last week and I'm hoping for the results any day now. Bank has given me pre-approval. Just need to have a good appraisal and get my down payment together and it should be mine in a few weeks.

36 x 98


The temporary shop will be a 3 car garage with a loft and lean to on the back side. It's insulated and heated but needs better garage doors.


Almost 7 acres to play with. The driveway is about 1/4 mile long. I'm thinking about some day paving it and building my personal 1/8 mile drag strip. I should be able to set up some wireless timing lights.

[mcbassin]

I always enjoy your power tour pictures and stories. It's still on my bucket list....one of these days. Thanks for sharing.

[Low Elco]

Awesome! Thanks for putting them up. Hope it goes well on the farm deal!

[swamp rat]

Awesome picks!

[hgs_notes]

Hey everyone, the dream is becoming reality! Gonna get my place in the country. I've been living in town or close neighborhoods for most of my adult life, but now I get to live more secluded. Start moving hopefully in a couple weeks. There is a LOT of work to do. House hasn't been lived in for awhile, water in all the systems drained out, needs some repairs, LOTS of cleaning, etc but I'm looking forward to it. Part of the deal is that the seller will be able to keep his junk out there until he finds a new place to move it to or 1 year from closing. So I wont get to use the machine sheds until after then. Which is fine since the 3 car garage is insulated and heated. I'll at least have a shop to work in until I can rebuild the shed shown above into my dream shop. I have a lot of ideas and hopefully I can bring some of them to life. It's my personal playground.

[old yelr]

Congratulations! That is awesome news

[Palf70Step]

Congrats. Looking forward to seeing your updates and the truck's new house too

[Ta2Don]

Congrats on the Country place!!!

[hgs_notes]

Closed on the new place last friday. It's mine. Still getting things done to get it ready for habitation. Water is on, but the water heater pilot wont light. Still cleaning, painting and taking care of other issues. I'm off most of the next couple weeks to get moved.

[71Sleeper]

Congrats! now the real fun starts, getting moved in.

[Palf70Step]

Congratulations. Good luck with the move and settling in.

[Low Elco]

Glad it went through. Now everyone can park their crap at Mike's place!

[Dieselwrencher]

Mike, I'm glad you were able to get the new place! Congrats! That is going to be so nice!

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by 71Sleeper

Congrats! now the real fun starts, getting moved in.

Barely started with that. Been cleaning and fixing. Finally got hot water today. Had to get an electrician to figure out a few other problems. My first full truck load today was almost all tires from my basement for the jimmy and 4wd crewcab.

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

Congratulations. Good luck with the move and settling in.

Thank you, hope to have the move done before labor day. That way I get a little time to "settle in".

Originally Posted by Low Elco

Glad it went through. Now everyone can park their crap at Mike's place!

Absotively posilutely!!

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Mike, I'm glad you were able to get the new place! Congrats! That is going to be so nice!

Eventually it will. The amount of maintenance just to get the place decent is intimidating. Making daily progress though. Could really start moving in anytime now. You'll have to come check it out.

[mcbassin]

Congrats on the new home and more importantly a new shop!

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by mcbassin

Congrats on the new home and more importantly a new shop!

Thanks, about the shop (3 car garage)... Found out yesterday the south side of the roof has a few leaks, so I ordered some steel roofing to put on it. I have to tear the ceiling out to add insulation after I fix the roof. Got it cleaned out last night and today. The main electrical into the bldg was upgraded but they disconnected most of the old outlets and lights, so I'll be doing some electrical work. Then I need to work on the garage doors.

I really like the place but there is so much to do. It'll be easier when I'm living there.

The future shop is at least a year away from reality but here's some of what I'd like to do. The 36x98 machine shed needs a floor poured and I'd like a heated slab. I plan on installing a geothermal heat pump system for the house and have the ground work done for enough capacity to do the shop also. As much as 2/3 of the building will be walled off as the heated shop area. I'll get a 2 post lift and have room for a lathe and milling machine. I might put a homemade paint booth in there somewhere. I'd like to build a good sized powdercoat oven. Time and money and determination.

That's the plan as it stands today. If the plan changes I think it will only be for the better, not to pull back.

BTW, my driveway is long enough to hit freeway speed and have room to stop no problem and the circular driveway around the one car garage is great for drifting around..

[hgs_notes]

Wow, been a while since I posted here. I've made a few posts on a couple other of my threads, but nothing here.

The past few years I was able to take a nice road trip in my truck and documented it here. 2016 wasn't going according to plan. As I've posted on the other threads, I had to make an involuntary job change. I didn't have much vacation time to use and with making 2 house payments for a year, I didn't really have the cash to take a trip either. The new place needed a seemingly unending list of repairs done, the list of completed things grows, but the to-do list seems to stay about the same.

I've accumulated more project vehicles during that time also. Trucks, cars and bikes.

But THIS project (they are never really done are they) didn't get much love this past year. I really do feel some guilt about that too. It got used though, which was a definite plus. The heater core started leaking. Not a lot, just enough to fog the windows. I bypassed it. I did buy a new one, and also bought a new electric cooling fan for the engine. It has two fans which are staged. I bought a better one to use as a primary fan and will keep the old one as a spare. But those parts haven't been installed yet.

The one area of this truck that has always been an issue is oil leaks. During the restoration I tried for the umpteenth time to correct those problems and it was better for a while, but still an issue. The engine runs fine but leaks so much oil I'm worried about maintaining pressure for another road trip. My plan was to swap out this engine for one of the new direct injection engines in the current new trucks in the not too distant future, but I need to do something now. So I'm swapping in another sbc.

I picked up a rebuilt GM crate engine from a college up north for a song. Unfortunately it's just a standard late 80's TBI truck engine with boat anchors disguised as cylinder heads. The stock cam won't impress anyone either. I told myself it's not worth the effort to change the engine if I'm taking a step backwards in power, so I'm correcting that deficiency.

I had a 1990 suburban I was parting out. I took the leftover hulk to the local yard and traded it for a vortec cylinder head. I bought the other head. A friend of mine (who also helped source the new engine) can do some head work so I bought a head upgrade kit that includes new valves, springs, etc to allow up to .470 lift on the vortecs. The exact same kit I bought to use on my Jimmy 350. It worked great and was only $120.

I also bought a new vortec intake manifold, gaskets and cam and lifter set from Summit to finish the engine build. It's the 1104 cam from summit. I used the 1103 for the jimmy 350 and really liked it. That one had a different profile for intake/exhaust, this new one uses the same profile on both lobes (the higher lift/duration). I really think it's going to wake that anemic short block up and should be a significant improvement over the 283 with 305 heads that's in the truck now.

Another issue with my current set up is the stock torque converter. It works, but with the new cam I need to step up on the tranny a smidge too. So I ordered a 2000 stall converter. Nothing wild but will make the take offs a little more exciting. And I can fix the leak behind the converter while I'm at it.

It'll be a few months before it all comes together. I've got several other projects going on at all times but it'll be ready for another summer road trip. I saved all my vacation days from last year and plan on taking a trip somewhere this summer. Maybe in the other truck (79 crewcab) but this is really a pretty easy swap. Once I actually get going on this I'll post the progress with pics and everything! I'm just excited for the upgrades and had to share.

Happy New Year everyone!

[Low Elco]

This oughta be good!

[1972CheyenneSuper]

Cool build and awesome story to go along with! Spent the better part of three hours going through this. My body aches just reading about all of the sanding you did on that body, but it it turned out awesome. Subscribed for the next chapter in this.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Low Elco

This oughta be good!

It oughta be, but we'll see.

Originally Posted by 1972CheyenneSuper

Cool build and awesome story to go along with! Spent the better part of three hours going through this. My body aches just reading about all of the sanding you did on that body, but it it turned out awesome. Subscribed for the next chapter in this.

Thanks and welcome aboard. It'll be slow progress. A few pics for now but as long as it's done by spring I'll be happy. Spring comes late up here.

For instance, today it's about 0F and I was out swapping garage doors on my one car garage. Picked this door up for $150 off craigslist. Well insulated. The door is just set in place with some nails holding it up until I get the tracks on. The heater is running in there now. That's where my 79 crewcab is waiting for it's rebuild.


Here's the new engine...


The heads are already off. I'll probably finish pulling the cam out this weekend. It's been rebuilt, .030 over pistons installed.


The parts I ordered are already here so I need to haul the heads up to Mikes place sometime soon.






I forgot this engine was missing the harmonic balancer, so I'll be ordering one of those soon.

Time to go back into the garage and finish installing that garage door.

[Dieselwrencher]

Nice new update Mike! Is the crew cab a tight fit in there?

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by Dieselwrencher

Nice new update Mike! Is the crew cab a tight fit in there?

Not too bad, couple feet in back and front. Plenty wide. Still a struggle to heat it up in there. This below zero and single digit crap can end anytime. Supposed to get up around 30 during the days next week.

This engine is not as good a deal as I had hoped. The wear parts were replaced but it wasn't put together very well. I found several problems just looking things over so said screw it and pulled it apart.

I started noticing problems when I pulled the oil pan.


Do you see the problem? The metal rail piece was supposed to be on the outside of the pan, not between the pan and gasket. What an oily mess that would have made.

Next, I pulled the timing chain cover...


They didn't put much effort into cleaning the old gasket off. The new gasket came off easy with the cover. There was about 1/3 of the old gasket still on there.

Then I noticed this...


That didn't bode well so I pulled a piston out...


Could have at least cleaned the carbon out of the ring grooves.

Then looked at the hone job...


Not even close to a 50-60* cross hatch. It's almost flat.

So I pulled all the pistons...


Some had a little more effort put into cleaning them up, but not much in the areas that matter. And I found this issue on #1...


And #2...


The journal got hit with the rod bolts during assembly...


There is a high spot there to file off. And one or two of the rod nuts was a bit tight coming off...


Galled thread, probably cross threaded to start then it straightened out, but the damage was done. But the problems were still coming. How about this rod/piston...


I could barely move that rod. For those of you that don't know, the piston pin is pressed in through the piston and rod end, but it's only supposed to be tight on the rod end, not in the piston. That needs to be free to move.

I doubt that this engine would have lasted long enough to do the break in of the new cam. Good thing I know what I'm looking at and my son works at an engine shop. We checked bearing clearance and it's in spec. I check one cylinders ring gap and it was in spec, on the loose end, but in spec. The pistons seem alright, a little grooving on the skirts but not too bad. I'll clean up the cylinders with a file on the bottom edge and the hone. My son took the stuck rod to work today and said they will press the pin out, hone the piston and re-install. Should be ok. And he'll bring home a couple rod bolts. And borrow their hone. And ring groove cleaner.

Oh well, nothing that can't be fixed. At least I'll know what I got after I put it back together.