New Build Project 82 GMC C6500 Rollback

[Stevedwnng]

Here are the pics of the truck I just picked up about a month ago. It's a 1982 GMC C6500 TC7D042. It's got a 427 Tall Deck motor, Clark 285V 5 speed w/ a Eaton 2 speed rear axle. It needs some TLC as you can see from the pics. Odometer left off @ 56,932 but the speedo adapter is broken. Got it off a guy I work with. He bought it about 12 years ago and barely used it. He had new front leaf springs put in and new tires all the way around. He had made a deal with the guy who worked on his cars and had lost his wrecker in a fire, so he let the guy use the truck in exchange for repairs. Long story short the guy had the truck for almost ten years. He was definitely a hack and it shows. The wiring is a mess, wires spliced together with electrical tape, home made brackets mickey moused together, and a plastic PVC pipe as the PTO lever. After my friend took the truck back 2 years ago it's just been sitting out behind his barn. He ended up giving me the truck for free with the agreement that I would move vehicles or equipment for him if he ever needed. I couldn't say no to free. So I went over his house for a couple weekends and worked on the truck getting it ready to bring home. I threw a new battery in it, made up new cables, changed the starter solenoid, installed a new choke cable, and got all the lights working. My uncle threw his dealer plate on it, threw 5 gallons of gas in the tank and we drove it home. It ran perfect. Engine starts right up, the hydraulics work awesome. The bed rolls and tilts pretty fast at idle but the PTO pump whines. I checked the oil level but I'm afraid the gear mesh isn't right. I'm guessing the guy that did all the hacking didn't replace the shims when he had the pump off at some point. (He must have because one of the support brackets have the corner tabs broken off and replaced with washers). I also installed a new throttle control cable cause the original was missing. So now I'm going thru the truck and getting everything mechanically sound before attacking the body work. (there is a lot of bondo). I couldn't find a data plate on the bed so I'm not sure if it's home made. Anyone recognize it by any chance? I have seen another truck like mine online with the same body, but this one sits 3 1/2 ft behind the cab. I really want to extend the bed and install a headache rack. It's only 17ft and I'd really like to add 3 feet to the front. So here are some pics. I will keep updating the thread with lots of pics of my progress along the way. Please feel free to comment and I'd love to hear any advice or tips you guys could share.

[willett]

Cool man, I want to make one of those into a pickup


One problem though....
There's no pictures.

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[Stevedwnng]

I actually ended up with another truck this weekend, it's a '79 C70. It was a dump truck so it's got the shorter frame, which would be a perfect candidate for the pick up conversion your talking about. It's got pretty much all the parts I need for my truck. I'm going to swap the tilt nose from the dump truck onto mine. It just makes it easier to work on, and saves me all the time from repairing the dents and rot on my hood, doors, inner fender wells and fenders. After I part the yellow truck out it would make a good project for a pick up conversion.

[Stevedwnng]

Yeah, I had to go back and resize my pics. lol. Have you seen bigasstrux.com? The guy that does all those conversions is a member on here although I can't remember his screen name. Pretty knowledgeable if you have any questions on doing the conversions.

[6 Door King]

I dig the big trucks that Chevy/GMC built. I had a CrewCab C6000 with a utility bed that I bought for heavy hauling and dump runs. I had several issues with the folks at my local dump though, they kept trying to make me pay commercial rates even though the truck was non-CDL and private registered. It got really frustrating, so I just traded it for a Crew Cab 3500 Chevy. I had a longbed to go on the C6000 chassis, but could not bring myself to cut the frame to shorten it to the appropriate length. Are you planning to scrap your other chassis once you switch it out?

[Stevedwnng]

Yeah the rolling chassis I'll sell once I finish pulling my parts of it. We picked it up last night and brought it home so I got a jump start on the weekend today and power washed it and pulled the hood and fenders of the rollback. Swapping the fiberglass tilt nose from the dump truck over to mine. Then I'm taking the PTO pump, power steering pump, shifter floor panel, guage cluster, doors, and exhaust next. I'll post some pics when I finish cleaning up. I think the yellow dump truck would be a good project to turn into a pickup, although if I did it, I would put a 5.9 Cummins in it.

[Stevedwnng]

Here are some pics from today

[Stevedwnng]

I really lucked out cause this truck has alot of parts I need. The power steering pump on the roll back was replaced at some point with a different style one and it looks like it came from a small block but the top where the cap would be was cut off flush and looks like they used JB Weld to attach a plate to close it off. The yellow truck as the original factory pump with the correct brackets and also has the correct brackets for the alternator. Both the p/s pump and alternator on the rollback are home made jobs and the belts are no where close to correct alignment. The rollback as an external band style parking brake and virtually all the linkage is hacked together. So I'm also gonna use the drum style brake assembly from the yellow truck. The rollback ( 1982 GMC C6500) has a Clark 285V 5 speed tranny and the yellow dump (1979 Chevy C70) has a GM 5052-C 5 speed. (that's what i got off the data tag but my bust guess is it's a Spicer) They look just about the same and I'm hoping the parking brake and drive shaft will bolt up. If you guys could shed any light has to what exactly this trans is I'll post a pic of the data tag. Any help you guys could give would be very much appreciated! I'm also swapping the starter and the exhaust system. The C70 has the correct full exhaust with mufflers, shields, and turn downs and it's in excellent shape where as the GMC is thrown together with mis matched parts, rotted off ends and car mufflers. Then I'm going after the PTO assembly. The PTo on the GMC whines, I checked fluid level and it was full and looked good, so I'm guessing it wasn't shimmed correctly and the support brackets have all the corners broken off and is held by larger flat washers. The GMC pump is r/s direct drive hydraulic and the Chevy has l/s shaft driven.
Tommorow I'm swapping the radiator supports and using the radiator as well off the Chevy cause the other one has leak stains. The Chevy also has a plastic see thru expansion tank and the metal one on the other truck as been brazed in the past. The Chevy also has a clutch fan. If anyone is near me and interested in parts they might need let me know!

[Stevedwnng]

Well I got the radiator and supports off of both trucks. The front crossmember on the rollback was hacked. The original crossmember was cut and welded onto another crossmember and the power steering brackets were welded to the moto mount plate. Why I have no idea.

[Stevedwnng]

Here's what it looks like with the correct crossmember in place.

[Stevedwnng]

Next I'm going to sandblast and powercoat the brackets and put it back together with new hardware. I also got the doors and fender extentions mounted. I'm going to paint the radiator support, brackets, and braces and mount the tilt nose.

[truckfan]

I will lurk. I love rollbacks.

Looking good!