69 C10 swb stepside project 45 ACP

[RCbowtie69]

Looking good,keep the pictures coming,& keep on truckin'

[68 TT]

Made a whole lot of changes to the truck but lost a hard drive so no pics from the progress.

Currently buried in a foot of snow and ice so no new pics to get right now.

She runs and drives but I need to rebuild my vacuum pump so I can get some air out of the brake lines as they are a little softer than they should be. Once I am happy with the brakes I will take it in for an alignment and then it is off to put on some shake down miles and work out any bugs in the build.

I ended up putting the 1969 factory A/C cab from my beater work truck onto the stepside and made the system functional with a combination of parts from the 69, the left over parts from my 89 C1500 build where it got converted over to R134a and with some new square body parts as needed to make things fit and be functional to the 1989 component specs.

I put a freshly rebuilt 400 small block into it that I built for my Malibu a while back but the Malibu is getting a more modern EFI drivetrain so this engine had no place to go and the stepside made a great home as the Camaro wanted its big block back. I ripped that apart and am done with the long block build of the fresh roller cam 427 for the Camaro too so when the snow goes away the Camaro will get its heart back.

The 400 sounds great in the stepside with a full mandrel bend 2-1/2" exhaust system I built tucked up tight passing through the cut-outs in the trailing arm crossmember and going up and over the trailing arms and through two more cut-outs in the crossmember above the rear axle. I need to mount the hidden trailer hitch before I can build the last little bit of the tail pipes but the system is complete to over the axle.

The 400 made 320 hp to the wheels in my Malibu with the same trans and headers as I put in the stepside but with a smaller rear end. The stepside does have a better flowing exhaust system though so that probably makes up for the extra parasitic loss of the heavier rotational weight of the 12-bolt in the truck. Should be a fun daily driver. Can't wait for the snow to go away so I can get behind the wheel of this thing.

[Mcmour67]

Good to hear she runs and drives! Looks like we started with a similar pile of parts. Cant wait to see more pics. Love the shorty step sides. I too am having a hate/hate relationship with my computer. It sucks loosing good pics.

[68 TT]

Been really busy with a whole lot of stuff including buying and moving into another home with a shop big enough to put my Camaro and stepside in and still have room to work on them.

Got a few things done on both vehicles including a TH400 swap into the truck and building the full tail pipes out the back and installing & wiring up the tail lights & reverse lights then rebuilding the turn signal switch so they work properly. Getting really close to having the truck driveable but there are a ton of little things left to do on it still.

It's running and sounds fantastic but I still have to pull the tail pipes off and fully weld them up. They are just tacked together right now.

I will have to make a video file of it running as I can't upload the mp3 file only.

[raggedjim]

Glad you are still at it, it's looking good.

[68 TT]

Thanks, I have done a ton to it but have just been up to my eyeballs with moving twice and four job changes in the past few years that I just haven't been on here in a while.

I took a bunch of pictures a while ago to kind of replace the ones I lost when I had a hard drive failure. I will start putting some of them up soon with some info on what I did along the way.

[68 TT]

I upgraded to the long water pump and aluminum mount bracket serpentine accessory drive system on my 400 small block from the short water pump and V-belt accessory drive so I could more easily run A/C with the parts I had.

I ended up putting the factory A/C cab from my 69 C20 onto the stepside and the heater only cab from the stepside onto the 69 C20 that I am in the process of converting to 4x4. I figured the A/C would be better for the summer vehicle so it made more sense.

As part of the accessory swap I upgraded from the light duty lower output CS-130 alternator to the heavy duty 140-amp CS-144 alternator. The unit I used was from a 1997 Tahoe with the police package. It bolted right on in place of the CS-130 with no changes to the main bracket but needed some mods to the rear steel bracing as the larger alternator didn't align with them and the mount pads were in different places.

Biggest change was that it needs substantially larger wiring to handle the output. I ran 1-gauge power and ground wiring for it back to the battery with an additional ground to the frame.

I also have 000-gauge battery cables and military type battery terminals with 3/8" bolts for cable attachment. The battery tray is reinforced with steel angle and the battery is held down with a secondary steel trap tied to the core support in addition to the stock type base clamp.

[68 TT]

Part of the rebuild of the front suspension on the stepside was the conversion to 5-lug disc brakes. I found some square body 5-lug parts on an early 90's G-series van that were in great shape as well as some square body A-arms and the matching center link.

The square body A-arms were rebuilt with new bushings and ball joints and installed with the larger square body U-bolts after drilling new alignment pin holes as far rearward as would clear for better caster.

Rebuilt brake calipers and braided flex lines were installed along with new wheel bearings and seals.

The square body center link was installed along with the matching larger square body inner & outer tie rods, idler arm and a square body power steering gear box to replace the original manual steering gear box.

I also found a square body 1-1/4" front sway bar so that was also installed with shorter sway bar frame mounts to go with the lower ride height.

[68 TT]

I rebuilt the best set of trailing arms that I had and reinforced the top, back & bottom surfaces with 1/8" steel flat bar. I also reinforced them with a few 1/2" bolts along the center web to help keep them together as I have had a few come apart in the middle.

I have built full tail pipes out the back since these pictures were taken but don't have any new one yet.

I also had to remove the trailing arm mounts and panhard bracket that I had installed years ago as the pinion angle was off too much with the lower than stock ride height. I set the proper pinion angle and installed new trailing arm mounts and reinstalled the panhard bar bracket formerly from a spare Eaton HO52 housing I had sitting around. The rear axle brake line was also relocated out of harms way too as it was OK with the stock ride height with H.D. leaf spring suspension but not with the lower ride height of the trailing arm conversion.

The rear sway bar is from an OBS 1999 Suburban and fits perfectly. The NBS version is far too wide and does not even come close to fitting.

Those exhaust clamps suck and I have V-band clamps to go in their place when I finish weld the tail pipes.