My 1967 Chevy K20 Build Thread

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by Chaparralman1974

I found a nice bed in Denver and I am going to do a road trip on Thursday to go and get it!

Hopefully the windshield time saves countless hours of body work!

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by loudchevy

Hopefully the windshield time saves countless hours of body work!

No doubt! I am so tired of sanding filler that I can't see straight.

[Chaparralman1974]

My new bed is home!!

So, I was able to find a near pristine bed on FB marketplace earlier this week. He lives in Denver, and had purchased this little trailer to use on one of his builds. His plans apparently changed and he is moving so he put it up for sale. It is off of a 1968, and according to the title the trailer was assembled in October of 1981. I believe that it was stored indoors and really wasn't used that much. There are virtually no dents in the bed, no filler that I can find, and the wood floor, while old, is still sound and can be cleaned up. The rails in between the boards look perfect with no dents at all that I can see. Anyway, I couldn't pass this up, so I jumped in the truck and made a beeline from Phoenix to Denver to get it. I just got home a few hours ago.

I have realized that when you spontaneously jump in your truck and drive 36 hours there and back to get a part for a truck you are working on it transcends a mere hobby and becomes a sickness. LOL


Clay

[Getter-Done]

Originally Posted by Chaparralman1974

My new bed is home!!

So, I was able to find a near pristine bed on FB marketplace earlier this week. He lives in Denver, and had purchased this little trailer to use on one of his builds. His plans apparently changed and he is moving so he put it up for sale. It is off of a 1968, and according to the title the trailer was assembled in October of 1981. I believe that it was stored indoors and really wasn't used that much. There are virtually no dents in the bed, no filler that I can find, and the wood floor, while old, is still sound and can be cleaned up. The rails in between the boards look perfect with no dents at all that I can see. Anyway, I couldn't pass this up, so I jumped in the truck and made a beeline from Phoenix to Denver to get it. I just got home a few hours ago.

I have realized that when you spontaneously jump in your truck and drive 36 hours there and back to get a part for a truck you are working on it transcends a mere hobby and becomes a sickness. LOL


Clay

That is a (Over the Top) Great purchase.

That camper top may have/ Did saved that wood floor.

You will at least have the original pattern to go by.

That is if you want to make new boards for the floor.

You are close to Right on the (sickness).

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by Getter-Done

That is a (Over the Top) Great purchase.

That camper top may have/ Did saved that wood floor.

You will at least have the original pattern to go by.

That is if you want to make new boards for the floor.

You are close to Right on the (sickness).

Yeah I think that it did save the wood. It even still has paint on the wood. I still have to get everything cleaned up and then I will get better pictures.


Clay

[Ol Blue K20]

Nice buy! Welcome to the sickness....

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Nice buy! Welcome to the sickness....

Thanks! :-) Yeah, my wife keeps trying to "cure" me of it, but my immune system is fighting her back...LMAO!


This bed is really nice. I just finished pulling off the camper shell and the bed sides look almost flawless. A few small dings to work out and I have to weld up the holes where the camper was mounted. It almost borders on sacrilege to weld up the marker light holes on it, but they have to go.

Question for everyone.....what do you all think about dustless blasting on the bed? I learned my lesson on blasting with the hood as it destroyed it. But what about the bed sides? They do seem sturdier than the hood. I am really thinking that I will just attack it with the SCT and a DA to take the paint off but it would be nice to find a better, faster way.


Clay

[68bowtie]

Nice find! The inside of the bed is amazing.

Yep you’ve caught c10 fever lol

[loudchevy]

Clay, that is a heck of a score! It should clean up real nice from looking at the pics on the computer screen. Does it need to be taken down to bare metal? Or will a quick scuff with a DA with some 80 grit do the trick before filler/primer?

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by loudchevy

Clay, that is a heck of a score! It should clean up real nice from looking at the pics on the computer screen. Does it need to be taken down to bare metal? Or will a quick scuff with a DA with some 80 grit do the trick before filler/primer?

Thanks Scott!

Honestly, I am not sure....the top layer of paint looks brushed on. I am not sure if it is house paint, or rustoleum or what. I am going to take the DA and the SCT to it to see what happens.

My plan is to pressure was the bottom and wire brush it really well, and then I will raptor line the bottom like I did with the cab. The inside of the bed is another story. The wood is really good, so I am not sure what I will do there. I hate to replace it if it isn't really necessary.


Clay

[clay68c10]

Nice score on the bed. That was well worth the drive time to save you a ton of refinishing work.
I bet the SCT will clean the outside up just fine. You could probably just scuff and shoot the inside walls.

[Chaparralman1974]

7/5/2024
Stripping the bed!

Well, I opted to take the bed down to the local blasters and have them do the inside, underneath, and the front panel. I used the SCT and a DA to do the bed sides themselves. I did discover a little bit of filler on the sides. I was initially going to just take the bed down to the point where I could build on top of the old filler, but I discovered that the filler was actually applied to the 2nd layer of paint and was flaking off with my fingernail. So, I ended up going all the way down to the metal.

I also discovered a bit of pitting on the bed wood strips, so I will probably just replace those. I am also going to end up going with new wood as well. My buddy down the street is doing a "Patina" K10 so I am giving him the wood as it will go nice in his project. I will likely just go with new pine in mine given the crazy cost of oak. It is $9/BF right now which is just crazy. My father in law is a wood worker, so we will be able to cut everything on our own and just use the existing wood as a template.

My shoulders are killing me from all the DA work, so I am taking a few days off to rest now...LOL! Then it will be on to more body work. Hopefully, I can get some color on this thing before winter.

[loudchevy]

The bed sides look nice and straight. $9/BF for wood is crazy. I know it wasn't cool out the last couple of days either, nice job getting that dirty step done. The drive to get the bed looks like it's paying off.

[Getter-Done]

Looking good.

You won't regret pulling that bed wood.
Now you know there is nothing lurking under there.

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by loudchevy

The bed sides look nice and straight. $9/BF for wood is crazy. I know it wasn't cool out the last couple of days either, nice job getting that dirty step done. The drive to get the bed looks like it's paying off.

Thanks Scott! Yeah, I am thinking that the drive was worth it as well. The original sides were just too far gone to fix.

Clay

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by Getter-Done

Looking good.

You won't regret pulling that bed wood.
Now you know there is nothing lurking under there.

Thanks Dwayne! Yeah, after going back and forth a dozen times I figure that just replacing the wood will make me happier in the long run.

Clay

P.S. Thanks again for the hood letter stencil! :-)

[rodstored-72]

clay, the bed find was perfect!, it looks to be VERY clean & STRAIGHT!! Great job so far!

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by rodstored-72

clay, the bed find was perfect!, it looks to be VERY clean & STRAIGHT!! Great job so far!

It is definitely better than what I started with for sure! :-)

[Chaparralman1974]

7/6/2024 - 7/31/2024
Body working the bed
The past month has been focused solely on getting the body work done on the bed. For the most part, the bed was in pristine condition needing only a small amount of metal and body work. The areas of concern were the top rail that had several holes to be filled in from the camper shell that was on it, and the welding up of the side marker light holes that were not present on the 1967 models. Even though I was careful with welding and did not apply a lot of heat at one time to the panel as I was welding, there was a bit of warping that did occur which required a bit of hammer and dolly work along with a small bit of heat shrinking. I then began the arduous task of applying filler and sanding it down.

The inside of the bed needs very little work. There will be a few dents that remain as well, but I am not totally concerned with making the inside of the bed laser straight. It is a working man’s pickup truck after all.

I also began taking out the wood floor. As I suspected, the bolts were all seized up so I had to cut them off. The wood is in really good condition and I will be giving it a buddy of mine who is doing a “Patina” restoration on a 1968 K10, so these boards will get a new lease on life. I am still undecided as to what wood that I am going with. I really like oak, but the purest in me wants to go with yellow pine, but I have a little bit of time to decide that. The inside of the bed will be blue (the entire truck will be “Grabber Blue” from TCP Global and the cab roof will be “Championship White” from the same company). I will also be painting the bed strips and all the hardware the same blue as well.

As of today (7/31/2024) I only have a little bit more body work to complete on the inside of the bed. I will be removing all of the cross braces and getting them ready for primer and paint. The underside of the bed and the wheel wells will be coated with raptor liner along with the inside of the front wheel wells at the same time.

I also should note that I changed tactics here just a bit with the body work on the bed. For all the rest of the truck, I went to bare metal first, then epoxy, then filler, then epoxy again, and finally high build urethane primer. With the bed, I changed things up a bit in that I skipped the initial epoxy priming of the metal. I instead went from stripping the metal, to abrading everything and then applying the filler directly to the metal rather than epoxy. I have spent countless hours reading the pros and cons of each method and came to the conclusion that there are equal camps on which one is “right”. At the end of the day the TDS says that you can do either, and there are respectable body shops that do it both ways. So we will see what happens. After I finish the filler, I will coat the entire bed with at least 2 coats of epoxy, and then will follow up with 3 coats of high build. This methodology has worked well for the rest of the truck, so I will continue doing it that way.

My plan is to actually paint the bed first. My reasoning here is that by using the inside of the bed and the front panel, it gives me good practice on how to lay down color on some areas of the truck that won’t be given as much of a critical eye. My hope is that following this thought process, I can do the rest of the paint in an acceptable manner.

[loudchevy]

Hell ya dude! It's good to hear the bed is just about done and almost ready for primer.

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by loudchevy

Hell ya dude! It's good to hear the bed is just about done and almost ready for primer.

Thanks Scott! Yeah, I have just a little bit left on the bed, then I have to do the tailgate. Once that stuff is done, then the body working phase is pretty much done. My plan was to finish all the body work at once. Then I can start to put paint on it and do body panel alignment. I am really hoping to have color on it all before Halloween. Fingers crossed!! :-)



Clay

[72 tigger]

That bed is sweet!
Glad you found it

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by 72 tigger

That bed is sweet!
Glad you found it

Thanks Kirk! It was definitely a good find.


Clay

[Chaparralman1974]

8/3/2024 - 8/4/2024
Final body work on bed and priming
For the most part, the body work on the truck is now done. All that is left is to complete the tailgate. I was able to spend a good chunk of the weekend getting the final sanding done on the inside of the bed where I had to make some small repairs as well as lay down 2 coats of epoxy primer followed by 3 coats of high build primer / surfacer. There are some imperfections that I may try to fix later on, but one thing is for sure…body work on the bed was probably the toughest part of all the body work due to the large surface area. With such a huge amount of sheet metal on the sides, getting it all blended in required a bunch more work and a ton more scrutiny.
There are some dents on the inside of the bed and I am not going to worry about those. I actually think that it gives it a bit of character and will serve as a constant reminder that the bed is original and not a reproduction.
I have also determined that for the bottom of the bed I will be applying raptor liner in the wheel wells and everything below the lip / flange that the bed wood gets bolted to. This includes all of the bed support rails.
The top rail of the bed as well as the tailgate have a bit of damage and I intend to do the best I can to get that all cleaned up, but ultimately it will have bed rail caps and a tailgate protector that will hide everything nicely.

[loudchevy]

Clay, Bed sides look great!