'73-'87 Low Buck 4X4 build AKA Lesson Learned

[ffp00ch214]

From what Ive seen most of the builds on here are somewhat mild mostly resto's ,but not all. This is far from stock ,and by no means a high dollar build but probably enough to make Louis Chevrolet roll over in his grave. Ive collected a few junkers and done alot of junkyard diving in order to piece this thing together. It started when I was in high school and it still contiues, the never ending build if you will. With that being said Ive learned alot about GM trucks mostly 73-91 and its been a nice experience. My senior year in high school I found a 1978 k10 for $700 ,I just had to have it so I wheeled her home. I wanted to restore it back to stock but keep the 4" and 35's ,but the more I dug into it the more I realized I was in too deep. So I tracked down a 1978 c10 with an excellent body and frame , I figured with all these good parts I can finish her up. Wrong! School Work Fiance New House etc etc ,so she sat for a few years. Now Ive been back at it for about a year now and Ive changed my mind, I want to go offroad. So I guess this means I need some more parts ... you guessed it another Chevy, I drove home a 1985 k20 Suburban. I guess thats enough BS, so Ill get onto the build now .........





Man I was happy when I bought that thing.

[ffp00ch214]

Sorry the early pictures are from a disposeable camera, and I didnt quite take enough pics of the build progress. Ill try to keep ya posted as the build goes on.

[ffp00ch214]

And now for the rust .......


On the good side I guess I did aquire a 4X6' 3/16" sheet of diamond plate out of the deal ... not too shabby.



The cab corners were full of bondo ,newspapers and beer cans.

The cab was pretty bad the rockers were gone but had the slip ons covering it up. The floor support was basically gone ,and there were road signs cut to fit the floor with bondo smeared around the edges ....... inginuity I tell ya

All the crossmembers under the bed were gone the PO had used some 4X3" tubing along with the lift blocks and bolted straight through the bed and into the frame.

The rear shackle mounts were rotted and cracked ,Im still not sure what held them together.

[ffp00ch214]

And now for the C10 ........

Here she is and in pretty good shape for my neck of the woods



This bed side was the worst part about the truck


And a huge step forward ,sorry for the absence of pics. To catch you up there was alot of wirewheeling ,painting ,engine and tranny swapping and a few trips to the pick and pull to finish up the front clip.

[ffp00ch214]

During the process of whipping the C10 into shape I stripped the K10 .....

Saved the GM 10 bolt ,lift springs and of course the mounts.


I had pretty well given up oh this cab , it was difficult to work on it with out the proper tools.

[ffp00ch214]

4X4 conversion ..... again another huge jump in the timeline.

At this point I had all the mounts in place I just needed to drop the 2WD front suspension out of it.


Sliding my D44 (freebie) and lift springs under.

Sittin perty ..... On all fours again and 4WD!

Some leaky gumbos later ........ but sadly this is as far as she made it for a long time.

[ffp00ch214]

And time for another jump

Halfway painted solid bed tires that hold air .... lookin good


My homebrew shackle flip good thing I saved a few of the C10 parts.

Needed a quick cheap fuel tank ,thank goodness for tractor supply.

Another one of my saves from the C10.

I think shes finally pretty much finished ,but I guess nothing good lasts forever. The glory was short lived when the maiden voyage was cut short due to some engine troubles.

Stick a fork in it, that tired ole tree fitty kicked the bucket. back to the drawing board!

[ffp00ch214]

Some time later the Suburban (Sally B) rolls into the picture. She was a former West Virginia state employee that was sent to the junkyard.




She may look rough but I drove her home.

And did she run good too, just what I was wanting. Along with having a strong motor, I got some other goodies as well; SM465, 14BSF, 8 Lug hubs and rotors up front for my Dana 44 and some doors to replace my cobbled together doors Im currently using.

[ffp00ch214]

At this point I was at a stand still on what parts to use and where. Originaly I wanted to just replace my motor and keep on keepin on. But on the other hand I wanted to use the 3/4 ton drive train as well, and it would be alot of work to change it all around. So I sat on the idea for awhile until I figured out what I wanted to do. The longer I sat the more ideas I had and the wilder they got. Basically I was leaning toward starting over again.

[ffp00ch214]

First things first .... ditch the burban body!

My dog protested the removal of the body since thats where she sat when I worked on it. But as much as I hated to toss her dog house , it had to go.

We torched the body mount bolts and slid the body back to clear the motor.

Time to start pulling it over.





Done!

To unwind after a long day of demolition we used one of the rear doors for target practice, with a nice combonation of .22 .22 hornet 30-30 .357 and lastly .444

[ffp00ch214]

With the body out of the way its time to start cleaning and painting. Along with the dissassembly of my chevy, to get everything in order to begin the build once again.

[ffp00ch214]

Chevy tear down time.

Pulled the front clip.


Pulled the bed off of it and pulled it out of the weeds.

Set the cab on the rear portion of the burban frame.




Thats as good as it gets

[ffp00ch214]

My beer drinkin buddy and the tool fetcher ....... although I dont know which ones which.

I have the Burban and the Chevy stripped and parts EVERYWHERE its time to start the assembly line; clean paint and assemble.

[ffp00ch214]

Using a NP208 for now but Im currently in the middle of pieceing together a NP203/205 doubler, I have every thing accept a 32 spline input 203. For some reason I keep finding 203's that were behind TH350s ,so they all have 27 spline inputs.

Got the cab sitting on it but I need to fab up some rear cab mounts.

I used this for a mock up to do some measuring.

And heres the rear cab mounts/crossmember I made.

[ffp00ch214]

The rear shackle flip was an easy 4" and I used all factory parts accept for the shackle itself which I fabbed up. Hopefully Ill get around to buying a set from ORD to replace them.

Got the crossmember bolted in ,the orginal crossmember was rusted and cracked so I again improvised. I used the crossmember from my chevy and I used a tranny/t-case crossmember and flipped it upside down slid it into place and bolted everything together ..... perfect fit.

Bolted on my shackle mount which used to be a spring hanger on the C10 , I decided to use it since they were shorter than the 4X4 version.


This is everything pieced together using 52" springs instead of the 56" suburban springs since they broke during the disassembly process. So as of now Im looking for a set of 64" springs from the rear of an '88+ Chevy truck. That way I can move my 52's up front and put the 64's in the rear, that should make it flex decently.

The broken 56's

[ffp00ch214]

Swappin out the stock springs for some 4" rough countrys ..... the name says it all


I relocated my brake line bracket so that the liine exits the bottom of the frame which gave me about 4" so I can use my stock lines ... for now. I plan to buy some longer ones F/R.

[ffp00ch214]

Moving right along

Cutting up perfectly good sheetmetal

All cut out

It looks like alot and the wheel isnt really centered in the cut portion ,but I plan on moving the axle forward a couple of inches to get the tire away from the cab. Ill also be ditching the body lift ,the only reason I used it was clearance issues between my cab and transfer case. After that the tire aught to sit nicely in the fender.



Everything all put back together ,roughly I cut about 18" out of the front. It turned out quite nicely, better than I expected anyways.

The pile of leftover sheetmetal

[ffp00ch214]

That concludes the narrowing process. Now Im ready to play dress up ..... with the motor that is

If you remember correctly this is what the motor looked like when I brought the burban home.


And here she is after a new edelbrock performer intake, distributor, valve covers ,air cleaner and a good cleaning of the trusty ole Q jet. I had pondered the idea of some upright headers, but I dunno if I wanna listen to that all the time. Although I did find a set on Ebay for a 130 bucks ,so I dunno well see I guess.

[ffp00ch214]

The toggle switch and push button for my starter ,this wasnt an original plan I ran into some wiring issues with the factory wiring on the cab. After that headache I hacked all the wires under the hood and wired this up.


That pretty much brings things up to speed ,so Ill just keep yall posted as I make progress.

Ok not really progress but I got some parts in the mail today.
Drum Roll please.....


Man I love Ebay.

Another thought I had ,the factory skidplate for the burban fuel tank. Im gonna weld some sides on it and bolt it back into the original position, that gives me a place to store tow straps, chains and stuff.

Let me know what yall think any input is appreciated.

[BurnoutNova]

Why didn't you just use your factory 4x4 frame? Seems like way more work to use the suburban frame. Is it because you are moving the wheelbase? I'm not to farmiliar with serious rockcrawling type of stuff thats why I'm asking.

[msgross]

wow, you've changed that one truck more times than most do in a lifetime...

looks mean, how well do you think that corp10 bolt will hold up to rock crawlin though? I'd keep an eye out for a Dana 60.

[ffp00ch214]

Originally Posted by BurnoutNova

Why didn't you just use your factory 4x4 frame? Seems like way more work to use the suburban frame. Is it because you are moving the wheelbase? I'm not to farmiliar with serious rockcrawling type of stuff thats why I'm asking.

The rust and cracks on the K10 frame were pretty severe, thats why I swapped the 4x4 mounts to the C10.

[ffp00ch214]

Originally Posted by msgross

wow, you've changed that one truck more times than most do in a lifetime...

looks mean, how well do you think that corp10 bolt will hold up to rock crawlin though? I'd keep an eye out for a Dana 60.

Yeah Ive been keeping an eye out. The 10 bolt and the 14BSF will be there long enough for me to break them then Ill slide my Dana 44 and 14BFF under it.

[BurnoutNova]

Originally Posted by ffp00ch214

The rust and cracks on the K10 frame were pretty severe, thats why I swapped the 4x4 mounts to the C10.

I thought you used the Suburban frame? The pic confused me if you didn't

I was aslo going to suggest atleast a seat of pre '81 3/4t axles but you got it covered! I've always heard the 81 and up 10 bolts are junk but the ones in my 86 are still going strong. It wasn't my truck at the time, but I rebuilt them and put Yukon 4.10's in and a detroit trutrac so I hope they don't break! They cost more than the whole thing's even worth!

[BurnoutNova]

Originally Posted by msgross

wow, you've changed that one truck more times than most do in a lifetime...

looks mean, how well do you think that corp10 bolt will hold up to rock crawlin though? I'd keep an eye out for a Dana 60.

I'd love to find a D60 but here in Nebraksa you can't get one for anything less than 1,000 bucks. I can find 3/4t d44 and 14ff for around $250 all the time! You'd have to break 4 of them before you were money ahead!