Project No-buck!

[Ackattack]

I'm sure many of us have seen Rokcrln's great build thread of his truck he call Low-Buck. So I'm going to call this build Project No-Buck!

Last night I picked up a 69 3/4 Ton GMC 2wd. Pretty basic, V8 with what looked likes an aftermarket intake, edelbrock carb, and HEI distributor. I believe its a Dana 60 rear with probably 4.56 gears. As for options, it looked liked it has a posi and the ammeter, voltage, and oil pressure gages. It has power steering, but no power brakes, and leaf springs I bought all of this pile of goodness for $250. Oh, it has a brand new battery too.

I stopped by autozone on my way home and got some power steering fluid + stop leak and added to the resorivor. It was bone dry and no help. I was hopefully that all it needed was some fluid, and after a few minutes of running and working the wheel back and forth it seems to work. I assume that it is continuing to leak....but at least I don't need to be herculese to drive it.

I got home after dark last night, so no pictures.

The basic idea is to fix it up with basically as little money as possible, hopefully using leftover parts from Bruiser, my 68 C-10 and hopefully free parts I can get and/or barter for.

My first projects to tackle are basic safety items.

The rear taillights weren't working correctly or the blinkers. Hopefully its just some bulbs and flashers. No high beams either.

The drivers side door is pretty much falling off. I'd like to get a "new" door. The door is crushed in and the hinge has pretty much fallen off. I may be able to weld the hinge back on, but a new door would be best.

It also needs new seat belts. I dug the seat belt out from under the seat for my mayden trip home. The webbing is torn about 2/3 of the way through. I figured it was slightly better than nothing, so used it for my way home.

Other things it needs:
-Fix parking brake....hopefully that is just a simple adjustment
-Some tunes. The dash is uncut, so I figure I'll put in the AM radio I have and mod it to hook up my IPOD via FrizzleFry's mod
-cleaned out. Not only did this truck include the truck, but it also included a bed load of trash!!!! Luckily there was a tarp in there that I used some zip ties to secure the load with so that it wouldn't fly out on my way home.
-fix the heater controls. basically all of the levers are broken off so its bellowing out hot air
-fan shroud


As for the plans (these are in the distant future)
cut the bed to a short bed
lower it into the weeds (may Z the frame to help get it there)
paint it with some flat paint
would like to switch to some 3.08 gears. I kept it at 50mph on the highway cause I didn't want to wrap it up too much. (no working tach) easiest way would be to switch to a 12 bolt rear.
it needs all the usual floor, inner/out rockers replaced.


Here's the unfortunate part: In building my 68, I also bought a 3/4 ton parts truck. And between the parts truck and everything I took out of the 68 I pretty much had all of the parts that I now need for No-buck (including 3/4 ton disk brakes). I sold what I could and then gave the rest away. Oh well.

[Sinister]

Sounds cool, good luck with it.

[Ackattack]

[Rokcrln]

Thats sounds great I should try that (again)

I was just given another LWB and it is in great shape 95%rust free (can't find any but their must be 5% minimum right) but I have not decided yet what to do with it. First thoughts were to turn it into a roadster blazer, yes a blazer It is a C20 and a blazer needs C10 gear to look right but I do have a new set of Alcoa dually rims in the attic and a NOS set of 67 rear fenders so maybe a crew cab dually is back in order. Who knows but low buck or No buck is always a good place to start. Since Low Buck was finished we have put over 14K miles on it and right now my wife and son are at a car show with Low Buck and our 67 SS chevelle so it can't be all that bad. Good luck I will keep an eye on things.

Kevin
LFD Inc.

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[my67chevytruck]

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[mcbassin]

Originally Posted by Rokcrln

Thats sounds great I should try that (again)

I was just given another LWB and it is in great shape 95%rust free (can't find any but their must be 5% minimum right) but I have not decided yet what to do with it. First thoughts were to turn it into a roadster blazer, yes a blazer It is a C20 and a blazer needs C10 gear to look right but I do have a new set of Alcoa dually rims in the attic and a NOS set of 67 rear fenders so maybe a crew cab dually is back in order. Who knows but low buck or No buck is always a good place to start. Since Low Buck was finished we have put over 14K miles on it and right now my wife and son are at a car show with Low Buck and our 67 SS chevelle so it can't be all that bad. Good luck I will keep an eye on things.

Kevin
LFD Inc.


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Kevin,
I'm trying to figure out how you scored that rig for free? That is just crazy!

Ack,
Great score for $250!

[Rokcrln]

Originally Posted by mcbassin

Kevin,
I'm trying to figure out how you scored that rig for free? That is just crazy!

Ack,
Great score for $250!

Heck Low Buck was a freebie as well and came with a 67 LWB parts truck I had to take to get Low Buck

I think the trick is not having any extra room and not wanting any more is how they show up for free

Kevin
LFD Inc.

[Ackattack]

How do you get free trucks?

So today I did a little work. I tried playing with the tail lights, found a missing fuse and flasher, but the drivers side still isn't working so I'll have some more investigation to do.

I got busy with the vacuum cleaning out the years of crap that was in the cab and elsewhere.

Here is why these trucks rust in the the pacific northwest:



A few minutes with the shop vac:



I also noticed the one drivers side front tire is pretty bad. Luckily I have 3 spare 8 lug rims, so that should be taken care of. The bed is a wood floor bed with quite a bit missing.

Also, as I was vacuuming I was removing some structural rust from the floors. Oh well.

I got the drivers door off. the upper hinge area is pretty bad. I think I'm just going to try to find a replacement for it.

[Palf70Step]

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[Blitz]

Originally Posted by Palf70Step

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X's 2

[Ackattack]

today (so far) i cleaned out the bed making a run to the dump....then i began vacuuming out the bed. as i'm doing this, standing in the bed my foot nearly goes all the way through. So to get any real use out of the truck i need to replace the floor. how thick is the wood supposed to be? I'm hoping 3/4", then i could just get 2 sheets of 3/4" plywood and cut them into the proper sizes.

additionally, the poor condition of the bed floor is actually going to make it easier to cut it down to a short bed and save a lot of welding!

[Ackattack]

I got the tail lights figured out. Basically the bed was not grounded very well. What made it tricky was the frame had enough rust on it that my test light wasn't being grounded well either, so when I'd test the sockets or wiring, it appeared as though it was not hot.

So I finally figured that out and the tail lights are nice and bright.

Then I moved on to the door. I had removed the door a few days ago (ripping the upper door hinge off the door....it was attached by a thin strip of rusted sheet metal. I had to take off the upper door hinge, but I really didn't want to take off the whole front fender. I was able to unbolt it enough I was able to move it back far enough to get to the hinge bolts. Once I got that off, I cleaned up the area on the hinge and the door and welded the hinge back to the door. Nothing pretty, but good enough to get me to Wes's (classic heartbeat) truck show on Saturday.

I've been thinking of plans. Right now I'm planning on doing an axle flip for the rear. I figure that will lower it about 5" or so. I'm not sure what to do about the front. I figure I need to get it down about 3" to level it out. I don't think they make 3/4 ton drop spindles. I guess I'll just cut the springs and see how that does.

I've been thinking about paint too. I'm thinking a flat color. I was thinking a blue body with white cab would look good, but then I got to thinking that the interior is green, and I don't want to take out the windshield to paint the dash. I'll figure something out

[mcbassin]

Where are the pictures???????????

[67chevylongbed]

Looking good so far, good luck.

[Ackattack]

So No Buck got it's first road trip today. I went down to Olympia to Wes's. It was about 170 miles round trip and she made it with no problems. I did change a few of the tires on it before I left. I had a couple of 3/4 ton wheels from my parts truck that had better tires than what it had.

On my way home, I stopped by a pull-a-part salvage yard and got a taillight housing and a set of caprice rear disk calipers and rotors.

Oh, and I won a GPS at the truck show. Good day

[Ackattack]

I got the taillight housing installed. The taillights now work correctly!

I also removed one of the aux gas tanks. Removed both bedside filler doors. No I just have to remove the other aux tank.

I also went to home depot. A sheet of 3/4" plywood that is pressure treated is $49. I'll need 2 sheets......man that is going to nearly double the price of the truck. At least it will make the truck much more useable.

[Ackattack]

finished up removing the other aux gas tank, then I removed part of the bed floor (near the rear)



Then I decided, "why not lop off 8" or so" OK, so it was a little more planned than that. I pretty much followed Rockln process. I removed 8-1/16" (1/16" to account for the width of my butt weld block things. Here are some pics.

measuring it out:


got lucky and got to just cut this dent out!


I used a straight piece of counter top laminate to transfer my line down the bed. I think poster board would have worked a little easier, but this is what I had


rear portion removed


mid section removed


finally got to use my plasma cutter for something usefull rather than just playing around with it


And here it is going back together:


That's all the farther I got tonight. Hopefully I'll get it welded up this weekend

[Ackattack]

Oh, here is my door panel that I sprayed a little paint on. I didn't do any prep work on this. I basically wanted to get a general idea of how a tan door panel would look, and I already had the door panel off. I think it looks pretty good. I may use the same color for the doors on "Bruiser"

[nuke1]

lokin good, a couple more cuts and shes done!

[mcbassin]

Good progress!

[foosed]

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[Ackattack]

Got a little more cutting done. You can also see on the back portion where it is tacked together.

[Ackattack]

Got quite a bit of progress made on No buck over the 3 day weekend.

started by power washing the bed cross members and then spraying on a few coats of paint.

Then I started pulling off the front clip and doing A LOT of power washing. No big surprises while pulling that off. The core support and pass. side inner fender are rotted away as expected. Then I backed the truck into the garage and busted butt to get the cab off. Lots of little things to disconnect, but again no surpises.



Once I got the cab off, I cut the brake line, pulled the front drive shaft, moved the fuel line, removed the exhaust.



Then I marked out my cuts. I started my cut 6" behind the front cab mount. I used the now typical cutting method of a 12" overlap. Once I got it all cut, I was really surprised, the rear portion was almost perfectly balanced on the rear tires, so it was easy to pull forward towards the front end.

Oh yes, plasma cutters are very nice This was really the first time I used it to make more of precision cuts. I found it pretty easy to follow my lines. I left maybe 1/8" to my final marks. Then I clamped the two halves together and began measuring. I had to do a little clearncing on the halves to get them to fit together nicely. I found that using a cut off wheel on a grinder along the seam cleaned up the plasma cut and broght the measurements into spec nicely. I squared it all up and layed down a few tacks, and then burned some of it in.





One thing that I did was alternate the Z cut. I thought this might be a little stronger than having them going the same direction.

Still have some welding on the frame to do, reinforce with a backing plate, relocate the rear cab mounts. I also have a little more welding to do on the bed, but it's coming along.

[Ackattack]

No buck is back together!







After putting the cab on, I pretty much have everything ready to go except the brakes. I need to bench bleed the MC, and then hook up the proportioning valve and then bleed the brakes.

Oh, if you notice in the first picture, you can see where I cut the drive shaft and rewelded it. If I were to do it again, I'd do it closer to the end, rather than in the middle, but I think it will work fine since it is so short. Also, while I was at it, I got a new carrier bearing.

I hope to get the brakes all bled tomorrow and then I can fire it up and move it outside. Then I will clean up the garage in preparation for Project Bruiser to come home!!!!!

I'm getting to a point on No Buck where I've kinda done what I can do on the cheap and going forward with it will involve more money and A LOT more time (cab rust repair). With the other truck coming back (finally) I'm looking at trading or selling No-buck in order to get a car trailer. We'll see if/when that happens.

[nuke1]

Looks really good, to bad you may have to sell, but Bruiser is well worth it!