Dad's 84 c10 swb

[benoit454]

Well I guess with all the work done to it since we bought it I should do a build post. I got plenty of pics and need to take more lol. I think he's had it about 4 years now, give or take, so here's some from when we got it.



















That was of the first round of body work. A PO had hit a pole on the passenger side, scratching the fender in front, caving it in behind the tire, caving in the door and bedside as well. We also had rust holes to deal with but only in the bed and cab corner. Once done it was painted back blue with the spray cans mixed at the auto body supply store.

[benoit454]

Not too bad elsewhere as you can see, floors almost spotless, nice seat and dash decent. We put in a stereo system nothing bit, that was me hooking up the amp in it.

[benoit454]

Dad got a visor for it and his stick on scoops he had on his 86 to put on and bought some new fender trim to go on it too. It had rally wheels with mud tires on the back. Right after we got it the radiator sprung a leak, so he got a replacement aluminum center/plastic tank one to put in it.










It had a great running 305 in it and th350 transmission, 2.73 rear gears, manifolds, not cat, 3 inch single pipe, into a dual out flowmaster 40 series. Sounded good too.

[benoit454]

I had the tube grille given to me, so we put it to use and also bought an accu-form dash cap and painted it with sem, then installed it.






Next up dad bought the wheels and tires for it. 255/60's all around.

[benoit454]

The quadrajet kept acting up and starving the motor for gas so we put the edelbrokc on it that I rebuilt.







removed the smog and egr crap at the same time. Also threw on some accel wires we had, new cap and rotor and plugs.




It was and always has been a daily driver, and stayed unchanged basically for awhile, year or two I guess. Then dad wanted to fix the rusted areas better and repaint it. The first time was just fiberglass and bondo, to get by next up it was cut out and replace.














yea it had a bad hanger, we had already found this and bought a new one from gm.







Also during this time between the last pics of it together and blue and now alot had changed. I myself got married, we moved, I moved in next door to where we moved after I got married, and dad was having his prostate removed while these pics were taking place, me tearing it apart and paint. I no longer have the nice concrete and carport to work on/in/under, it's back to dirt and outside/front yard crap again LOL.

[benoit454]

It was a great learning experience and trying new products. I tried out rustoleum auto primer on the bare metal spots, well it's JUNK!!!!!!!! after paint was done every area that was bar metal is rusted under the paint. Silaprene because I was told it was a panel bonding adhesive, JUNK, won't hold jack. The bed sides cracked before paint got redone, painted, cracked after, then someone said silaprene isn't for panel bonding lol. I wished I would have known sooner.

[benoit454]

PAINT TIME!!!!!!

[benoit454]

some paint and touch up/clean up under hood...










inside back together...





I guess I didn't get any bed during pics.. but here's after and did a roll in bed liner kit as well. Some taillights mods and parklights in front to match, just like to door panels inside.

[benoit454]

A little teaser, actually it was a while after it was done before I got pics of the whole truck. After the bed was done we did the frame with zero rust and put on the new hanger, and put it all back together, wet sanded and buffed the truck out.

I say a sneak peak cuz you can barely see it together in the back ground...




They were from last year around spring/summer which is when I got my 88 4x4 seen above.

Then I was going to sell the monte carlo so we swapped motors, put the 305 that was in dad's 84 c10 into the mcss and the 350 in his 84 that came out of the mcss.



His 305(blue) and the mcss short tail th350, we were going to swap motor and trans, but them being long and short tail would need driveshaft mods to both vehicles, so we stuck with the trucks long tail th350 on the 350 motor, and short tail behind the 305 going into the mcss.







The 350(orange) ready to have the trans put on and dropped in.






Looking back on it trying to switch motors in the very hot summer sun, I still wished I would have done a good clean and paint underhood of the 84. It all went in and had some issues with the motor mounts, then once done had to pull the trans right back out. Turns out in our rush or something the stock Torque converter from the 305/long tail350 combo broke the snout off in the trans, when the TC and flexplate wouldn't line up we seen the metal inside the front seal area and had to have another pump put in it.

Now here's some complete pics took only a few months ago, we put the cragar ss wheels off my mcss on his tires and put em on his truck.













That's all the pics but here's a video and an update afterwards...




Notice the door panels I mentioned before the custom bowties I put on them? The white on top and the trim in the middle of the dash, not to mention the taillights and also the parklights I mentioned before.

That's the orange 350 you see in it now fully dressed, and note the headers, if you buy the painted ones the paint comes off and they rust, if you paint over the factory crap with high temp it does what you see, the factory paint comes off and takes the new high temp with it, and it rusts. SO anyone who wants a nice looking set of cheap headers, my advice, buy em painted, strip em, paint with high temp paint. Or just get stainless, or coated ones.

Now for a further update, a year later after installing the motor and trans again, well one time only on the block, but remember the front pump story? Well trans never worked right, always seemed like driving with the brakes on, motor under load and barely moving. Well we ended up buying a new ring and pinion 3.90 ratio, but haven't installed it, and removed the old long tail trans and hunted for another th350. Well we found one, for $75 and supposed to came from an 80 chevy truck. It was a NON lockup, came with TC, 9 new quarts of atf, kickdown cable, vac. line, output yoke and ended up being a short tail. So we had to hunt down a 3 inch longer driveshaft since there's no driveline shops nearby. Found one local at a huge junkyard full of old chevys. We got the old long tail out this past thursday, July 15. Friday the 16th we made the 40 mile trip to the junkyard which was in KY got the longer driveshaft, got it buttoned up friday night tested it a little bit in the yard, took it for a spin on sat. the 17th run good, no sluggishness anymore, good power, shifted great up and down(no passing gear hooked up at this time) no leaks. So all seems to be well, I tuned the carb sunday and adjusted the timing first, adjusted the linkage and the kickdown cable, took out about 1/2 aurt of trans fluid since I had overfilled it a bit.

That's it for now, haven't done anything else. I'll update as things change. As of right now we got an upper DS control arm to change due to rust on it, gas tank brackets due to rust, and rear end gear change.

[85_prairieboy]

Cool truck. Good to see all that rust replaced with new metal. Those gears will wake that truck up for sure. I went from 2.73 to 3.42 and the difference was very noticeable.

[benoit454]

Yea I did the same in my mcss went from 2.11's to 3.42's and it was day and night.