New guy; 71 farm survivor Long Horn edition

[andymarkv]

Thought you guys would get a kick out of my friends farm truck!
His uncle bought it new in '72 as a left over and it never left the orchard until 2006.
My buddy Dave's father owned the orchard and now Dave owns it.
The truck came up for sale and in a total stroke of coolness, Dave's wife bought it back for him!

The truck has 49,000 miles on it, pretty rust free considering we are in north central PA. It was still wearing split rims with 7.50-16 tires on it!!

Dave wanted it updated and it looks like I have my work cut out for me....
On the wish list are....
New tires 10ply E rated. Super aggressive mud tread in the back, milder tread on the front.
Power steering conversion/smaller diameter steering wheel.
New front springs/balljoints/swaybar bushings/rear spring eye bushings
All new brake stuff.
HEI conversion recurved.
Tachometer.
Change fluids.
Rear bumper.
Fix small odds and ends like the door handle, broken tailgate strap, interior arm rests, Halogen headlights, nonworking tail lights.......

The timing chain has 8* of slack in it and it needs valve cover gaskets. I have a left over 600 Edelbrock carb so I figure it would be a perfect time for an intake and mild camshaft. (looking at this comp cam)
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CCA-12-230-2/

The trucks basic combo is 307, unfortunately making it harder to pick a cam, 4speed with 4.10's and locking rear.
Other weird thing is it looks like it has a factory extended box? I hear its a long horn edition?

I stuck some craigs list 1980's 3/4 ton 16x6.5's under it with 33" 285's..... Kind of looks tough that way! But the tires are shot and I will be moving to the 265/75/16 10ply's soon.

The main idea is to get it in really good useable shape....and then continue to use it on the farm! Should be interesting to see how it turns out.

















Wow..... I haven't updated in a long time!!
This project was way more work than I thought it was, but its coming along.
Lets hit some of the highlights...
After 5 trips to the junkyard I finally had the correct power steering gear box, pump & bracket. After a new pressure line, fabbed up a return line and a new lower pulley from Summit, I was in buisness! The old gear box took 5 turns lock to lock, the new one only 3.25. Its nice!

Next was the front suspension tear down...

While I was waiting for parts I started fixing some stuff in the interior. Busted window crank, door handles. Lo and behold I found all of the parts in the bottom of the door to rebuild the exterior drivers door handle!!


Parts came in and it was back to the frontend. Ball joints, swaybar bushings, shocks and new springs. Plus new front calipers, and hoses.


I also found an edelbrock performer intake on CL. Some bastard sprayed it candied pepsi blue.....
Lucky for me never degreased it so most of it came off..... I ended up spraying it Al later.

With it back together I actually washed it!!! Probably the first time ever!! Still some weird gunk on the hood, but most of the grille shined back up!



I found a rear step bumper that was in pretty good shape for 20 bucks. With some cutting it fit pretty well. Step bumper really works better on the farm VS a sport bumper

With the power steering working I ditched the 17" diameter wheel for this little 13.75 I had laying around. Also added a mini tach and water temp gauge.

Next step was the motor work.
I tore it down. I added a left over Edelbrock 600 carb and this Comp Cam.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CCA-12-230-2/



I knew the timing chain was sloppy, but check out the cracks in the nylon top gear......yikes!!!

I also am fighting a hard brake pedal..... So I changed the booster and master cylinder right while I was there. The pedal is still hard.....must be the proportioning valve? With the caliper bleeders cracked you have to stand on them to get fluid return, but they gravity bleed fine. We will see.

Mostly back together...

I ran the cam in on Saturday and now am swapping in my Skip White $52 HEI dist.
From the mixed results I figured I had better start and run in the cam on the points dist that I know works!!

I did get one little test drive and it is still very lame!!! But I think I need to recurve the dist, replace the single 2" exhaust with dual 2.25" and dyno tune it with wideband. If it still sucks after that....I guess the 307 is as lame as everyone says!!

I hope to have some video after the exhaust is done next week
Got the new tires on it.
I liked the 285's better, but ended up with 265-75-16's to get the 10 ply E rating. (he hauls 25-2600lbs)
I stuck the factory side mirrors back on after the pics.




Also redid the rear brakes and realized it doesn't have a dana 60..... It has a Eaton HO52. I had never heard of it..... With new brake parts everywhere it stops, as good as a 1971 truck stops anyway.



I also found the original NoSpin documents in the glove box! Pretty cool, a real detroit locker!



I also added a new heater core, and found the original blend door cable had been cut from another heater core repair....
So I used a choke cable and fixed it.


Just got the dual exhaust on yesterday. Sounds pretty good, but they ran 2" pipe instead of the 2 1/4" that I asked for. It doesn't really matter for the 307, and its nice and mild. But I'm tired of paying top dollar for crush bent mild steel exhaust systems and having them not even do it right!!!!! Guess I need to get a pipe bender and start doing it myself.

I got the advance curve close to right and that helped the power. It runs about the same with the duals vs the single exhaust, but I expected that.
It has a nice mid range torque, but the small bore and displacement means its no rocket! Kind of feels like my 2006 4.8 truck without the topend pull.

I took it on a nice shake down cruise yesterday and stopped in to show Dave. He was very happy with the results! He said it isn't the same truck he drove all those years. Which is a good thing!

I should have it ready to give it back on Sunday.


Farm Truck is finished and back home!
I did find a really nice bench seat out of a 70 GMC. Someone pulled the seat to get the gas tank, so I didn't even have to pull it myself!!

I took it over for Dave to check it out and he was very happy! Brakes that work, power steering and enough of an increase in power that you don't have to down shift on small hills makes this thing a lot more fun to drive!
I was pissed at myself on the way home that I had wimped out and not found a light switched power source for the gauges. So I manned up and got it done before I gave it back....

One last crappy over exposed pic with the Dumbo mirrors on!
Form follows function on this truck!!


I found a late model jump seat cup holder like this one.

With a couple of extention mount rods and four holes in the bottom of the seat frame it mounted right up! Never thought a cup holder was that big of a deal until you don't have one!

[BADPURPLE70CHEVY]

Really cool truck. Keep us updated with lots of pics....

[andymarkv]

Oh, I'm totally getting my butt kicked on the power steering conversion....
I bought a 4x4 gear box until I realized the sector shaft was different....
I went back to the junk yard and bought the correct 2wd box and just grabbed the pulleys and power steering pump. I also got a newer alternator bracket.
But this is starting to look like a lot of work!! Is it better to just get 67-72 power steering brackets?

Is there are really good how to writen about this? I don't want to stumble through if someone has taken the time to explain all of it in detail!

[Blue71LWB]

This is listed on the Faq forum .http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=215686

Hope this helps.
Zac

[oldblue1968chevy]

wow it looks a ton better already!!!! keep us updated!

[andymarkv]

Originally Posted by Blue71LWB

This is listed on the Faq forum .http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=215686

Hope this helps.
Zac

Just what I needed!! Thanks!

[68,69 K20]

Cool truck, what part of NY are you from?

[Longhorn Man]

You do in fact have a longhorn. They were built on the 133 inch wheelbase one ton frames. Looking at the VIN I see it is rated as a 3/4 ton though... a one ton with lighter duty springs and brakes. Other than the frame and bed, it is all the same as any other C/20 truck.

[andymarkv]

I'm near Corning NY.

I never heard of the long horn until this week. I mentioned to the owner when he brought it up that the bed looked extended from the factory. He knew nothing about it!

He's not a total car guy, just loves this truck!
I hope to make it really fun to drive for him.

[darush01]

holy carp, tht is my exact truck except mine is not longhorn and factory 350, hope you get it fixed for him Im working on mine to get it lookinggood

[andymarkv]

Wow..... I haven't updated in a long time!!
This project was way more work than I thought it was, but its coming along.
Lets hit some of the highlights...
After 5 trips to the junkyard I finally had the correct power steering gear box, pump & bracket. After a new pressure line, fabbed up a return line and a new lower pulley from Summit, I was in buisness! The old gear box took 5 turns lock to lock, the new one only 3.25. Its nice!

Next was the front suspension tear down...

While I was waiting for parts I started fixing some stuff in the interior. Busted window crank, door handles. Lo and behold I found all of the parts in the bottom of the door to rebuild the exterior drivers door handle!!


Parts came in and it was back to the frontend. Ball joints, swaybar bushings, shocks and new springs. Plus new front calipers, and hoses.


I also found an edelbrock performer intake on CL. Some bastard sprayed it candied pepsi blue.....
Lucky for me never degreased it so most of it came off..... I ended up spraying it Al later.

With it back together I actually washed it!!! Probably the first time ever!! Still some weird gunk on the hood, but most of the grille shined back up!



I found a rear step bumper that was in pretty good shape for 20 bucks. With some cutting it fit pretty well. Step bumper really works better on the farm VS a sport bumper

With the power steering working I ditched the 17" diameter wheel for this little 13.75 I had laying around. Also added a mini tach and water temp gauge.

Next step was the motor work.
I tore it down. I added a left over Edelbrock 600 carb and this Comp Cam.
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CCA-12-230-2/



I knew the timing chain was sloppy, but check out the cracks in the nylon top gear......yikes!!!

I also am fighting a hard brake pedal..... So I changed the booster and master cylinder right while I was there. The pedal is still hard.....must be the proportioning valve? With the caliper bleeders cracked you have to stand on them to get fluid return, but they gravity bleed fine. We will see.

Mostly back together...

I ran the cam in on Saturday and now am swapping in my Skip White $52 HEI dist.
From the mixed results I figured I had better start and run in the cam on the points dist that I know works!!

I did get one little test drive and it is still very lame!!! But I think I need to recurve the dist, replace the single 2" exhaust with dual 2.25" and dyno tune it with wideband. If it still sucks after that....I guess the 307 is as lame as everyone says!!

I hope to have some video after the exhaust is done next week

[bigguy69]

Cool!

[Duncan and son]

If you add a radio Dennis " Sharpie " needs the radio delete cover. He is looking for that color.
Thanks Paul

[JimmyFloyd]

Looks like it's coming along nicely. Good to see there is another member in the upstate area. I'm over in Binghamton, but have family in Elmira/Horseheads area. Let me know if you need any parts. I parted out a 70 suburban, and have many other parts I may not be using for mine.

[QKENUF4U]

good ol rainsylvania rust.. im amazed theres anything left under the doors.. (cab corners/rockers).....
the 307 is lame till ya put a blower on it then it runs pretty good and will actually survive awhile ...... (buddy did this in his pro-street 71)
im originally from the philipsburg/clearfield area (north of penn-state)..

[big_al_71]

Cool truck

[wild4wheels]

Alas another 71 Longhorn on the board...awesome! Keep us updated!

[capev86]

awesome project! yeah....fix her up a little at a time. that truck will be killer once you have her in a fresh coat of paint.

as for the 307.....yeah, not a powerhouse engine, but it works ok. i have one in my 72 burb c20. i swapped the rear to a 4.10 (was a 4.57) and put an edelbrock intake (idle-5500rpm range) and a quadra-jet on in place of the stock 2bbl. the truck runs awesome now.

[factorystock]

Looked better with the 7.50-16 tires and split rims. Old school work horse character!

[andymarkv]

Got the new tires on it.
I liked the 285's better, but ended up with 265-75-16's to get the 10 ply E rating. (he hauls 25-2600lbs)
I stuck the factory side mirrors back on after the pics.




Also redid the rear brakes and realized it doesn't have a dana 60..... It has a Eaton HO52. I had never heard of it..... With new brake parts everywhere it stops, as good as a 1971 truck stops anyway.



I also found the original NoSpin documents in the glove box! Pretty cool, a real detroit locker!



I also added a new heater core, and found the original blend door cable had been cut from another heater core repair....
So I used a choke cable and fixed it.


Just got the dual exhaust on yesterday. Sounds pretty good, but they ran 2" pipe instead of the 2 1/4" that I asked for. It doesn't really matter for the 307, and its nice and mild. But I'm tired of paying top dollar for crush bent mild steel exhaust systems and having them not even do it right!!!!! Guess I need to get a pipe bender and start doing it myself.

I got the advance curve close to right and that helped the power. It runs about the same with the duals vs the single exhaust, but I expected that.
It has a nice mid range torque, but the small bore and displacement means its no rocket! Kind of feels like my 2006 4.8 truck without the topend pull.

I took it on a nice shake down cruise yesterday and stopped in to show Dave. He was very happy with the results! He said it isn't the same truck he drove all those years. Which is a good thing!

I should have it ready to give it back on Sunday.

[WIDESIDE72]

Keep em rollin!

[andymarkv]

Farm Truck is finished and back home!
I did find a really nice bench seat out of a 70 GMC. Someone pulled the seat to get the gas tank, so I didn't even have to pull it myself!!

I took it over for Dave to check it out and he was very happy! Brakes that work, power steering and enough of an increase in power that you don't have to down shift on small hills makes this thing a lot more fun to drive!
I was pissed at myself on the way home that I had wimped out and not found a light switched power source for the gauges. So I manned up and got it done before I gave it back....

One last crappy over exposed pic with the Dumbo mirrors on!
Form follows function on this truck!!


One last thing I didn't find in time is a jumpseat cup holder, you know, the ones that are riveted on the front of NBS jumpseats.
I thought one of those would be easily adaptable to this bench and be pretty handy.
Looks like this....

[Dieselwrencher]

Nice project, and good work!

[andymarkv]

Little update on the Farm Truck
My buddy bought a 12’ stock trailer and wanted a hitch and brake controller installed, so I brought it home and got started.
While I was messing around with it….I took my DA and “leveled” the globs of fiberglass somebody slapped on in spots. I filled half a shopping bag with the sanding dust! I didn’t take the time to really get it nice, because...who cares?!?!? At the time my thought was to get it level, but not touch any factory paint.
After trying a couple off the shelf green spray bombs and not finding anything that matched at all, I had our local auto paint place mix up a spray can of touch up paint. It matches pretty good….which got me thinking about the rest of the paint….
So I bought a cheap, rotary buffer and went to town on 41 year old paint that has rarely been washed and never waxed!
I think I goofed up when I bought the buffer VS. a Porter Cable DA..... I went through the paint a few times....I don't think I would have with the DA.... Although I hear its takes more effort to get through really nasty crap with a DA, that probably would have been a good thing for a newbie like me!
In my defense, the paint is so damn thin and single stage, it just doesn't take long to burn though.
Its interesting that the primer looks to be black on the front clip/box and red on the cab/doors. Which sucks because the black under layer hides much better where the paint is thin. And there are a bunch of thin spots on the cab and doors….

Its not great, but I think its better than it was.
It is pretty amazing where the paint was thick, it looks like new again!!
Like I said, if I had known how nice some of it would turn out, I would have spent more time smoothing out the "spots".
But I'm out of time and I need it out of the garage. So it is what it is.


You can sort of see where I started rubbing out the fender by hand vs. the door. That's when I started to realize some of the paint could come back.


These pics are after compound. (I was washing the wheels and tires, have to shine the tires if I'm doing all this other crap)




During the paint distraction…. I finally got the brake controller wired up! Just need to hook to a trailer and test it. (E1 means no trailer when you step on the brakes)


Took a couple of pics after hitting it with the finishing pad and glaze.
Meh, better than it was, but still pretty rough lookin!
But I guess it IS a farm truck! Maybe next time I’ll straighten out the filler spots and see if I can get the passenger door straightened out a little.
Before





After





Now on to the fun friggin job of changing the driver side manifold studs...
I broke them all and had to drill and retap the holes….



I found this reducer/gasket/adapter in the end of the head pipe? Think this restricts flow?!?!?!!? I trimmed it to where it has the maximum flow, still a small 1 3/4", but its better than the tiny 1 1/8" it was.....




The only answer I could find was the weird donut gasket insert is a "passive heat riser"? That doesn't make sense to me...its basically closed all the time? I guess it didn't matter with a low flow/single exhaust/2 barrel 307.
Wish had know that sooner I could have saved myself a lot of trouble! Because I yanked the starter Monday and busted two out of three studs only to be greeted by a straight through 1.75" ID donut gasket insert on the passenger side!
But at least now I know for sure it isn’t restricted and the studs are changed if I ever need to get back in there for some reason.....




It does seem to run better, and sounds a little louder.
On a different note, I finally really looked for the build date. I thought from what the owner told me it was a very late 71, but it was actually built on 12/70. Which is a good thing! It should have 9:1 compression rather than 8:1 on the 72 and later 307's.
That's probably why the torque feels fairly strong, well....for a 307 anyway!!

I had it down to Dad's to give him a hand with something and he took a quick video of me cranking through the gears.
I'm actually pulling a long straight hill in front of his house. Its a little bit faster on the flats....but not much!

Dave's Truck.wmv - YouTube

[Sicklajoie]

You've made some good progress!
Bad ass looking truck!