project orange crush 76 crewcab build

[520-k5]

Project orange crush

here's my 76 c20 crewcab 350,4 speed 3+3 that i picked up in February from the 2nd owner. Plans for it are shortbed conversion, 4/6 drop, keeping it 8 lug, completely redo the interior, paint/body work, auto swap and later down the road ls swap,overdrive. This will most likely be a slow progress build over the next couple of years. here's how it looked as I bought it

[520-k5]

Interior was in pretty bad shape but all complete and other than a battery splitter unmolested underhood.

[520-k5]

So fast foward here a few months I started to buff the orange paint to see if it would shine and sure enough there's still some life left in it. I still have the roof,white and bottom to do but the upper orange is mostly buffed out.

[520-k5]

It now has HD wheels and fairly new tires. And the quadrajet took a dump so i rebuilt an old carter 625 carb I had and topped it off with a cheap edlebrock aircleaner.

[520-k5]

Pics

[520-k5]

Since the interior needed major work I picked up a better dash pad and dash mat. Painted all the door panels and headliner trim. Bought new window cranks, picked up some nice seat belts and had the seats Reupholstered.

[walkerb]

Nice work and truck

[travlinman]

Looking good. What did u use to clean/paint the interior? Color? I need to do mine soon.

[rajincajintj]

those seats look great.

[520-k5]

Originally Posted by travlinman

Looking good. What did u use to clean/paint the interior? Color? I need to do mine soon.

I used dish soap and a scotch brite pad to clean the door panels and trim. Then just rattle can valspar paint from lowes. I can get a pic of the can and color for you later.

[520-k5]

Originally Posted by rajincajintj

those seats look great.

Thanks

[520-k5]

Originally Posted by walkerb

Nice work and truck

Thankyou

[Eyegore]

Nice looking rig, nice job on what you have done so far. Will you be adding AC especially for the Old Pueblo. With the way it looks I would keep it stock since their are not to many running around like that. But just my opinion.
Keep posting!!!!

[520-k5]

Yes ac is definitely on the list of things to do. I'm not looking foward to 110+ days on leather seats and no ac. I just haven't made up my mind on whether or not I want to peice together a factory system or just buy the vintage air kit. From what I've researched the vintage air kits flow alot more air than the factory systems can anyone confirm this? Thanks

[greg64]

Nice truck and great looking seats.

[520-k5]

Got the dash pad,dash mat and bezal all back in this weekend. Also had it on the lift checking things out and changing the oil. I didnt do much this weekend but it's getting there. Hopefully within the next week or two I'll start the shortbed conversion

[520-k5]

Well yesterday I dove into the tear down. I sold my longbed to a friend who sells at some of the major swapmeets back east. Pulled the bumper and saddle tanks and got it ready to measure.

[520-k5]

Few pics of it without the bed. And got the frame cleaned of all the dirt and rust in the front.

[520-k5]

Next i cut the rivit heads off that held the tailpipe support bracket and got that out of the way. Then we got the frame stripped to bare metal. So we could lay out our measurements.

[520-k5]

I've read just about all the threads online that I could find. After alot of speculation on measuring 6" back from the rear cab mount it put the line right on the rear edge of the front bed bolt hole so we decided to mark 7" back and start there.then we measured 14" back and layed out our lines. We did a z cut method with 7" on each side of the z and a 4" height on each as the frames 8" tall. We used 3 cutting methods started out with the plasma cutter until the tip burnt out and being late at night and no replacement we decided to finish with a 41/2" cutoff wheel and a sawzall. Gotta thank one of my best friends ed port for setting time aside in his busy schedule to let me use his shop as well as help me out with this project.

[520-k5]

And with the z cut we set the frame back together and called it a night. There's a little clean up work to do before we weld it back together and we're going to fish plate the inside of the frame. More photos to come later on today stay tuned.

[520-k5]

And with the z cut we set the frame back together and called it a night. There's a little clean up work to do before we weld it back together and we're going to fish plate the inside of the frame. More photos to come later on today stay tuned.

[Hoods69BadBowTie]

Wow looking good looks like you did dive in head first. Great job on it so far going to be an awesome truck to cruise in when you get it all done and put back together.

[Average Joe]

Cool project! I had a chance to purchase a clean 2wd cclb 3 months ago for 2k. Factory 454 with TH400 and AC. I kick myself for not buying it, especially after seeing yours. Nice work!

[520-k5]

So after a long weekend and many late nights I'll start with were I left off. We came in Saturday morning to realize we only cut 7" out of the frame duh. So then we marked another 7" which ended up giving us a straight cut at 14" and not a z cut. So in all the confusion we decided to z cut another 3.5" thinking our centerline would stay the same. Long story short I ended up cutting all the rivits out of the spring hangers,shock mounts and brake line bracket and rolling the axle back 3.5 inches. It created another day and a half of work for me but lesson learned. If you never make mistakes how will you ever learn from them right? So with that said I know have a crewcab shortbed with a 150.5 wheel base.