Old School Hot Rod Truck (1964)

[Arekusu]

Thanks! It's finally starting to come together.

Alex

[Arekusu]

double post

[jesseo]

Love the color and the progress. Looking great.

[61_FL_Apache]

Originally Posted by jesseo

love the color and the progress. Looking great.

x2

[azdude1964]

lookin awesome

[1963c-10]

Great looking truck....when are we going to see the big block in it?

[markeb01]

Wow! That is really beautiful. Nice job.

[Arekusu]

Time for an update. Thanks to all who actually know this thread existed / kinda follow it.. I've been slow for updates and the build in general.

Motor is almost done. And we have the cab back on the frame finally.. Everyone has gotten a swift kick in the @ss there lately as I found out the Army has selected me to attend Warrant Officer Candidate School, and after that pilot training. Ultimately I get to trade up my USAF Enlisted wings for some Army W-1 rank and a set of Pilot wings if all goes according to plan. Soo I leave for that in 1 month.. and I have no fuel lines or wiring in the cab right now.. Thank god for leave. lol Anyway, to the pics!

Alex

[Arekusu]

Some pics sowing the painting of the frame, the Porterbuilt front control arms, QA1's, and Moroso front springs. (Springs were installed using an inner spring compressor with a hole drilled through the top of the cross member.. mod is needed to install these springs as they are pretty tall)

[Arekusu]

Pics of my friend Keith's awesome painting skills / my blocking skills . :P We've both learned a lot during this project. The assembled truck should be amazing. Hopefully in 2 weeks or so I'll have a complete / almost complete truck to post.

[Arekusu]

Starting to strip the hood and do body work. I started with my surface rusted hood and ended with a steel hood again. I used a wire wheel on a grinder. I know it takes off a bit of metal, but used lightly I like it the best to strip off old paint as you know the metal doesn't have rust spots.. as it'd make them show when you put the wheel on it.

[chevyrestoguy]

You've been a busy boy!!! The truck looks great. I can't wait to see more pictures.

Congrats on your selection to WOCS. It's too bad you've got to leave the USAF for the Army, though. I'm just kidding with you on that. I spent 10 years in the USAF, working F-4s for my entire enlistment. Although I have loyalty to my Alma Mater, I greatly respect all of the military branches.

[likaroc13]

Good to see you still making progress, & it's all coming together nicely! Good luck with your new military changes.

[nxtruck]

First of all, thank you for your service to our country! Second, you have a very cool truck coming along! Thanks for the updates and pics!

[Arekusu]

Thanks for the kind words all. Rain here in Florida this weekend .. soo no painting for me. I'll show the newly installed stuff tonight after I get done. Everyone likes pics, and this clean install stuff is pretty sexy.

Alex

[Arekusu]

Update again.

Got more of the bed painted. We messed up the paint about 3 times on the bed prior to clear.. so I wet sanded each piece 2-3 times. Then final paint and 2 coats clear.

I purchased the vinyl 3M tailgate stickers.. they went on nice but after installation it had a bunch of air bubbles in the letters.. which I popped with a needle and squished out some water / air from most of the, . We laid one sicker down and had to pull it mostly back up.. this stretched the sticker and made it a true pain .. it was disfigured and we had to trim it once we got it right.

The tired pic of me is in the bed side.. I think I could shave in that. A week longer with the beard I think.. then it's back to clean shaven.

Alex

[Arekusu]

Here are the edges of the doors that my friend Keith did.. talk about masking. I love them. It's such a simple line but the gold, white and turquoise breaks are dramatic. A 3 color paint job done right and then some is some serious work. I have no idea how GM made any sort of production deadline building these things.. They are way simpler, but just the painting and masking is a nightmare.


Alex

[Arekusu]

I tore down the old vent windows . I drilled out the swivel rivet with an 1/8" drill bit and it came out. Like everyone says, note the position of the flat washer with the flat edge on it (bottom of the vent in the "U" shaped bracket), it locks out your vent window from over extending.

I took them down to bare metal, self etch primed them, and shot them in GM black with gloss clear. The new channel has a bit of a chrome edge so I painted over that edge.

I didn't see the point of new glass in the vent windows.. I went with new front and back glass but the sides weren't all that bad. I wanted to polish the glass though.. The local glass guy didn't have polish but recommended I use what is used to clean glass stove ranges or jewelers rouge.. soo I use "bar keepers friend" on my pots pans and glass stove top with good results so that's what I did.. The pic doesn't show it that well. I washed the glass first with dish soap and then made a watery paste and used a paper towel and hand polished the glass on both sides, finishing with more dish soap to remove the "BKF" residue. It worked a little. If I had one of those headlight polishing foam things for a drill, one of those on low speed might have produced better results.

[Arekusu]

I tar / foil papered the whole floor and had some behind the firewall mat (you may have noticed my fuel tank brackets are missing. ... I cut those things clean off). I then covered it with Ensolite, a closed cell foam, so no water retention, (used spray adhesive, worked great) which I got from here.

http://www.raamaudio.com/categories/...Foam-Products/

It was cheaper than all that boom mat / dyna whatever and I could have layered it if I purchased more.. instead I laid down home carpet mat which I'll put carpet on top.. more pics of that tonight.

Alex

[Arekusu]

Here is the video to the first time we got the engine to fire. Two MSD boxes, verified wiring 3 times and 12 hours of wrench turning .. it fired. But It was extremely late, and we were tired. We both missed stupid little things after trying to get it to fire for so long. But once it did.. well check out the video for a smile.

http://youtu.be/lR0-nBJHBcw


Also, careful, explicit language from the machinist... yet funny.

[Arekusu]

Got the motor home and installed it. Fitting the transmission into the lakewood bell housing was a bit of a challenge. I ended up pulling the motor out again and stabbing it while the motor was out as that was a lot easier.

[Arekusu]

Now comes the fun part that I realized last minute. A note for all you guys wanting to run a Big block utilizing "Z-bar" stock linkage.

The ball stud is the correct one for a V8 1966 C10
The Z bar is from the original 292 I6 with 4 speed
I purchased adjustable rod linkage for better performance I hope.

I ended up moving the Z-bar frame mount from it's stock location, so make sure you do that while you're doing your frame off.. ok maybe not a frame off? Well still remove and retain it.

I shimmed the Z-bar mount UP 1 1/4"

I noticed this right as we were about to tack weld it on to the frame. the tube part of it was very low and seemed to bind a little . I raised it by accident while checking the fit and ensuring I could still remove it while it was tacked in the position I selected. So now it moves very freely and should work great. Of course, more pics.

Alex

[Arekusu]

With the motor and transmission in very solid, it was time to put the front end on.

The passenger side went on great .. the drivers side inner fender required some bending to get it to seat right and so the drivers fender would fit the truck correctly.

Also as a note, the new CPP tubular V8 motor mounts, mostly used for LS1 swaps (usually pictured silver / gray) will not fit a Big block conversion on our trucks if running headers.. if you run manifolds maybe you could geet away with that but I don't have any to check.

[Arekusu]

The drivers side was a complete PITA.. the inner fender didnt fit right and because of that the fender itself didn't really fit well either. We tried making the mounting hole bigger bit in the end we ended up drilling our own hole location so the center and the fenders would line up pretty square.

In any spot that metal contacted metal and didn't have a gasket (inner to outer fenders) I used butal rope (a thin amount) as a vibration and water / dirt gasket. The motor has solid mounts on it so I need all the anti vibration I can get.

[markeb01]

Wow you are really flying on the progress. Beautiful paint work, and those cylinder heads look like artwork! That engine should be fun.

Good luck on your military opportunities. Are you going to be flying helicopters or is that determined later?