My 82 chevy

[92GMCDriver]

Well heres my first project truck guys. 82 chevy half ton. had a 305 with a broken crank so i threw that into the scrap bin. got it for free from john, a good friend of mine who owns a large shop in the city of lethbridge alberta. those of you from lethbridge or southern alberta probably have heard of connors fleet service or if you like to go to the raceway you can see a few of his sprint cars racing there.

Anyway heres the deal. so far ive gotten the truck, and a 350 block with the crank and pistons in it. its got pop up pistons so i should have a good compression ratio once im done. i yanked an old 350 out of another truck that was being sent away to the crusher for some heads and got started on those the other day. i have no idea really what the valve diameter is but i know the combustion chamber is 76cc if i am not mistaken, the compression should be about 9.5 to 1 john says.

Ive been collecting all the parts i need for the project over the last couple weeks. heres a list of what i have so far
edelbrock performer intake
edelbrock performer plus cam and lifters 420/442 lift if i remember correctly
ARP bolt kit
Fel-pro gasket set
new sbc oil pan
comp cams double roller timing set
edelbrock sure seat valve springs

so far ive been working on the heads only, porting the heads and polishing the valves. ive also started on the bodywork at school. im painting the truck flat black so i got the tailgate ready to go today.

heres some pics


Nice hole in the floor

Frame is very solid despite the rot elsewhere

Interior is very rough and neglected.

Heres my tailgate shortly after the first coat of flat black

valves after a polish, ruined the one in the top right, hit the stem with the grinding stone while grinding the face got a different one though so no worries

Heres the underside of my heads after being cleaned up

A few parts


Thanks for looking it over guys ill have an update on the heads by friday hopefully. ill be porting them that day

[92GMCDriver]

Hey guys its been a while since ive had an update but the snow has been keeping me from making any huge progress, anyway i bought a parts truck today for 250 bucks and i already found a guy that wants to buy the tires for 200 so 50 dollars for a truck isnt that bad. the parts truck has a very solid cab nearly rust free except the corners. the main thing is that the rockers are mint and so are the floor pans. i probably would have well over 200 in fixing my cab alone as it needed pretty much everything. the box on the parts truck is OK but it is much more fixable then the box i have now.

I also bought a set of roller tip rockers and got some edelbrock valve covers from a friend of mine for free.

Ill get some pics of it when i get it on saturday. thanks.

[spudz]

sounds like you know what you want and how to get it! lets see some progress pics!

[92GMCDriver]

Originally Posted by spudz

sounds like you know what you want and how to get it! lets see some progress pics!

Ill get some pics of the parts truck this weekend but other than that the only progress i could show is my wallet getting thinner

[92GMCDriver]

Heres the parts truck, good solid cab except the corners. floor and rockers are near mint.
The box is decent but will need a little patching up. not a bad find for 250 bucks seeing as it had nearly new tires on it. i would have liked to start unbolting some things today but its minus 25 degrees here today and the shop was full.

[mooseknuckles]

thats well worth $250

[92GMCDriver]

Hey guys, not much progress lately, had a long cold winter and just recently got rained out for over a week straight but i managed to get just about everything off the front except for 1 fender. The truck was parked too close to the car beside it and i wasnt able to open the door enough to get the bolt out. i also started the body work on the drivers side fender i pulled off another truck only to find there was an inch of bondo spread on it because it was in a fender bender or something, but luckily my parts truck has a good fender.



I got the core support out and checked it over only to find that it has too many dings and is slightly bent. the wiring harness was ripped out as someone used electrical tape on the entire thing instead of wire loom and it was just a mess, not something i feel like dealing with. and the inner fenders and all other parts that i do not need anymore got thrown in the trash and sent to the scrap yard.

now that i have gotten this far with the build, i decided i would take my time with it and do it right, im not really a fan of having to fix little things here and there continually so i might as well give everything a good once over and be able to enjoy it.

[Chris Guthro]

That looks exactly like the truck ive started out with other than my first parts truck which was 4x4. I need to get a camera so i can take some more pics! what are your plans with it? what color?

[92GMCDriver]

Originally Posted by Chris Guthro

That looks exactly like the truck ive started out with other than my first parts truck which was 4x4. I need to get a camera so i can take some more pics! what are your plans with it? what color?

my plans change daily as i am quite a dreamer and i see cool ideas every day on this site . so im not entirely sure what my long term plans are but as for short term im build a high torque high compression 355 sbc and im working on getting all the panels cleaned up and ready for body work. a friend of mine works for a big sandblasting shop so im gonna get some rims and the frame blasted this summer and get those painted up. im gonna be working slowly at this for a long time so i have no idea how it will turn out.

[Chris Guthro]

Yea my builds changes daily too but I think I have a set plan for now! I was rushing it trying to get it done for summer but since its not likely its going to happen im going to have another cheap beater and make mine exactly how I want it and not rushing! I cant wait to see how your build comes together! Did you decide on any color ideas? I say go back to a dark brown!, they seem to look good in brown.

[92GMCDriver]

Originally Posted by Chris Guthro

Yea my builds changes daily too but I think I have a set plan for now! I was rushing it trying to get it done for summer but since its not likely its going to happen im going to have another cheap beater and make mine exactly how I want it and not rushing! I cant wait to see how your build comes together! Did you decide on any color ideas? I say go back to a dark brown!, they seem to look good in brown.

Id go back to brown but a friend of mine just bought an 81 swb thats been resprayed the same color and i dont wanna copy haha.

[92GMCDriver]

Made more progress today folks, nice weather today so i took full advantage of it.

got the fenders pulled off, one of the original fenders was almost pristine as far as rust goes, theres a little ding on the lip of the fender but its nothing that cant be fixed


Also got most of the stuff in the cab taken out, the seat was too far gone for my liking so im just gonna junk it and get some buckets. the cab mounts were also a pita to get off, 29 years of moisture certainly doesnt help, but i managed to get them all off without having to torch holes in the floor.


Out of 6 doors i was only able to get 1 good one, the pass side door on the truck was 25% bondo and body work is not my forte so im trying to keep it as minimal as possible. the other doors i had to choose from were full of holes.


and last but not least the dirty frame, a few minutes with the pressure washer should get 30 years of crap off it and after that its por15 for the entire frame.

[Chris Guthro]

Lots of progress so far! Check out ''Rootbeer Brown metallic'', very nice color on this id say