Big Plans & Ideas

[MAC71]

Hello all, I am new to the forum and thought I would start a thread. This is mostly because I am obsessing about my truck and my pending frame off restoration that I am going to start hopefully late summer.
Currently I am Military stationed overseas and the truck is sitting in storage and I am on my count down to returning to the states.
I bought my 71 chevy in high school in 1993. It has faithfully served as my Daily driver ever since then. I personally have driven over 300,000 miles in this truck and have meet the first two owners who combined had driven around 190,000 miles giving it about 490,000 miles on it.
Currently the truck has the original 350 with stock TPI cam, S/R toquer heads, forged flat tops giving it around 9.2:1 CR, a 700r4 transmission and has a 3.73 posi. Smooth running with a hint of a rumble and gets a consistent 17 MPG at 70 MPH and about 13 in the city. Engine and drive train wise I plan on keeping it about the same but freshen it all up. The real work is going to be the body, suspension, and interior. This is where I am hoping to get advice and ideas from every one on here.
A little more history of the truck.... When I was in high school I had built my first engine, and 406 small block that with a TH350 and 3.73 gears ran 12.90 on 9 in cheater slicks. After a about 2 years of having the bust tire smoker in high school and tired of braking a slew of transmissions, a drive shaft and a differential....... and getting a solid 6 MPG both city and highway I pulled the 406.
The next engine chapter was rebuilding the original 350 with forged flat tops, a set of world products Sportsman II heads, and a mid sized hydraulic roller, I believe it was around 234 degrees at .050. backed by the TH350 and again the 3.73 gears. Obviously not as strong running as the 406 but it was no slouch. I also was getting around 10 MPG which is good because I was driving a lot on the highway going to college and thinking I had to drive home on the weekends.
I decided to change to change to 3.07 gears which brought the fuel mileage up to around 12 or 13 MPG. Then one night on a 2 lain highway trying to pass about 5 eighteen wheelers I snapped the TH350 input shaft at about 80 MPH! Then came the 700r4. I rebuilt it my self but it was mostly stock and did not hold up well. A old transmission guy helped me with the second rebuild showing me all kind of tricks of the trade. This transmission has held up for years towing car trailers, uhalls across the country and boats in 4th gear.
Well I quickly found out that a big camed engine, which by the way had a double pumper carb at the time did not run well in overdrive with 3.07 gears. I think I was getting about 7 or 8 MPG in overdrive at 70. On a vacuum gage it was only hitting about 2 or 3 in of vacuum. So back to 3.73 gears which worked really well, although the engine was still struggling and would serge a little until about 75 MPH.
I think I keeped the truck set up like this until around 2006 at which time I pulled the heads and pulled the roller cam, roller rockers/lifters and used these parts for my Corvette. This is where the S/R toquer heads came about and then I experimented with a couple different camshafts. I ended up with a stock mid 80s Corvette TPI cam. This works really well with the overdrive and get unbelievable fuel mileage. As stated before I get a solid 17 MPG at 70, about 18MPG at 55MPH and 13 in the city. Also I had towed a 4500 lbs trailer from VA to TX in overdrive and averaged 14 MPG. On that trip I had to still stop a lot because my wife's 72 C-20 Suburban with a 402 only gets 9MPG.

When I bought this truck it had recently been repainted its original color of medium green and white. I liked it quite a bit at first but over the years I thought it was just way to much green. I believe around 2004 I painted it a more modern green and white, the green inspired by my neighbors green 1991 Mustang.......I know I mentioned a ford....
Well I realized about 10 minuets after I finished spraying the paint that I made a big mistake....even considered striping the fresh pant and changing the color but no time for that, off on another military move.

So now on my up coming restoration I am planning on going back to the medium green and white but will add lower trim and white under the trim. This is really inspired by a another forum member from his thread "Blank Slate".
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=353633
So what does every one think of that color scheme???

The other big plan is the interior. Of course the mettle will be all medium green, but the seat, door panels, sun visors, and dash pad will be covered in 1979 Corvette Oyster white inspired by my Vette. I will also go with gray carpet. One think I am going to have to figure out is what to do with the seat. Currently I have a 1991 chevy truck seat in it. I do not like that the seat is not wide enough for this truck. Not sure what to use. I was thinking about trying to find a original seat and modifying it with head rest. Any ideas?

I have a billion different topics to discuses on here from suspension mods, fuel tank relocations to A/C.

Well since this is my first post and I am not sure if there is any interest in this type of post I leave it at this for now.

One last thing that I must bring up is the theme of this restoration. The truck has to be completely functional as it is a daily driver and my primary mode of transportation. In no way is it going to remain original, but has to maintain the "spirit of originality". Has to perform well and have hood manners and fuel mileage is always a concern.

I will try to get a few photos posted here really soon.

[MAC71]

Photos from around 1994 after I got my new rims!

[MAC71]

I think this is around 1995 with the 406 before headers.

[MAC71]

This is the truck being painted around 2004 than what it currently looks like.

[67swb72klb]

nice work thanks for your service and welcome to the site you will have more help than u need by the looks of it have fun and be safe !

[flatfoot77]

Welcome to the site, Your truck looks good now, if you plan on going back to a stock seat I'm sure a good upholstery man could put in head rest, whenever you redo the seat contact American Cousion Ind. they own the machine that GM used to make the foam when the truck was new, I just redid the seat in my truck and used their foam it is just like when the truck was built and their product cost less buying direct. Good Luck and Thank You for your service to our country!

[MAC71]

67swb thank you for the welcome to the site and for the supporting comment.

[MAC71]

flatfoot, also thank you for the welcome to the site and for the supporting comment. I looked up online the seat info, thank you. It really amazes me the amount of resources out there for these trucks. The interior of your truck is incredible, something to really be proud of.

[Officer68]

love the color

[MAC71]

To answer the question why paint the truck, that the paint looks good now. There is some rust that has to be fixed. It needs new rockers, rear wheel wells and lower door skins. Also there are rust holes forming around the inside of the cab above the windshield. The biggest challenge is that there are rust holes in the cowling.

[MAC71]

Fuel tank relocation question.

I have been pondering relocating the fuel tank. I would like the extra room plus it just seems safer to have the tank in the rear.
Dow side to it is that it seems to really take away from a unique feature of this type of truck.

Any thoughts on pros and cons of fuel tank relocation?