'63 Long Fleet "Big Orange"

[botsdots]

Greetings from sunny So Cal! Here's my truck and my story...

I grew up on a quiet street in San Diego. The street was quiet but one of my neighbors wasn't. Scott was his name, a nice "kid" in college who had three 64-66 trucks. I was 13 or 14 at the time, my dad had just passed away, and I spent most days in his garage learning everything from shoddy body work to engine building. Scott not only taught me the old car ropes, but encouraged me to figure things out on my own, ask questions, and if the question had an obvious answer he would encourage me to figure it out on my own.

When it came time to start driving, convenience won and I drove the family Honda Accord. I found a group of friends in the "tuner" crowd and enjoyed modifying imports. Fast forward 10 years, a 2000 Civic SI (still love that car), and a marriage. The beloved Civic was stolen while on my honeymoon and I made out like a bandit with insurance. I now had cash burning a hole in my pocket and a father-in-law (FIL) who collects old cars. I spent Christmas vacation of 07-08 building/installing a monster motor in my FIL's '57 Bel Air and the bug bit me. After a couple months of searching and craigslisting, I landed on an orange '63 LWB C20 (not really a C20 anymore) in Orange County. Being twice removed from the guy that did all the work, all I had to go on was a binder FULL of receipts and brochures. It was like the history of the truck unfolded in front of me. I paid $4500 and drove it home.

Come May '08, my FIL flew out to San Diego and we replaced just about every user-replaceable rubber component on the truck. Every hose, gasket, fluid, etc. was replaced. I've done a couple other projects here and there. I added power steering, replaced all the a-arm cross shafts, ball joints and tie rod ends, and changed from C20 body mounts to C10 body mounts.

So here's my truck "Big Orange" (appropriately named by my grandmother) at the CPP Cruise and Shop Tour in 2011. I'm going to try to document additional work here. I hope someone gets some enjoyment out of this.

DS

[sigshooter]

Love the truck, and love the color!

Welcome to the forum

[Modges'66]

Welcome to the forum!
Nice lookin truck!
Post some more pics please!

[Ta2Don]

Welcome Aboard... Diggin' the orange

[botsdots]

Thanks everyone.

I have to say, I can't take credit for the truck or the color at this point. The PO did the majority of the work and everything I've done has been "under the covers." I'll try to keep this thread updated with things I'm working on.

[Racer2172]

Nice truck
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[Jeff La]

Welcome, you have a really nice truck

[Alan's Classic]

Welcome, I'm a little biased on the color. Truck looks great!!

[j.kirn]

Good looking truck and the color stands out

[dr69burb]

Good looking truck man. I love seeing this still cruzin around san diego
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[Chevy Fleetside]

cool truck and nice story.

[Captainfab]

Welcome to the forum

That is a very nice looking truck. I assume by your comment that the truck is no longer a C20, and might have C10 running gear? I look forward to more pics....

[LostMy65]

Orange looks so good on these trucks.
Welcome

[botsdots]

Originally Posted by Captainfab

I assume by your comment that the truck is no longer a C20, and might have C10 running gear?

Maybe that comment wasn't entirely accurate, I'm not sure. When I did the front end suspension rebuild, a lot of the C20 parts I bought didn't fit. So I started using "'63 C10" for the parts counter folks and things started fitting. Also, I've swapped the cab mounts over to the C10 style and I assumed, maybe incorrectly, that the trailing arm suspension I have wasn't found on the C20. Either way, it's a bit of a mutt now
Posted via Mobile Device

[botsdots]

I did a bit of work today. No shots of the in-progress, but here's the final product:


The PO had attached the headlight bezels with drywall screws. I lost one of them on the Coronado bridge a few years ago. Totally bummed that all the replacements are chrome, but I plan on going chrome on the front end at some point, so here we go.

The big brown truck stopped by and brought the following:
Headlight bezels
New parking/tail light plastics
Accompanying screws
Thermostat housing (the aluminum swivel kind)
Lighted license plate bolts (gotta fend off the cops)
Cast aluminum valve covers (and gaskets)
Magnaflow mufflers
Pypes exhaust kit

Tomorrow's task: thermostat housing and hoses, license plate bolts

[botsdots]

Been idle for a while... I think everyone knows how these things go.

I decided to install full length headers, got the headers in and they're interfering with the brake lines. Seemed like a good opportunity to do front discs.. so it sat for about 9 months. And here's the last three days progress:

[NEWFISHER]

Awesome you are back at it! Kinda like the color too

[botsdots]

I think you might be biased Nice truck you've got as well!

I'm in the process of removing the crossmember to have it powder coated. It's not in the best shape, but I want a nice base for being able to clean up oil spills. Planning on powder coating the cross member black. I also have Porterbuilt control arms on the way, so those will be getting powder coated as well. I'm thinking of Silver Vein under an Orange top coat... kind of like this, but in orange:

[buzz in oz]

gday..cool truck.i am chasing a set of stock spindles and drum brakes for my 66..would these fit ok?if so...do you want to sell them?cheers Buzz

[TJ's Chevy]

Cool truck! Glad yer back!

[botsdots]

So I pulled a Camaro rear swaybar from the junk yard. It is, unfortunately, the smallest rear swaybar a Camaro had... 19mm or 3/4" Is that sufficient for the back end of these trucks? I don't want to go to the trouble of installing it and have it be worthless.

[Mike Bradbury]

Glad you are finally working on it. I am happy to help out where I can. You will love that Porter built system.

[botsdots]

I spent most of yesterday trying to find someone to hot tank my crossmember in San Diego, but I struck out hard. There's one place in Anaheim (Ellsworth Truck) that said they'd do it for $250. That's a bit steep for me, so I went to the big box store and picked up some DIY materials:


Last night, I used the oven cleaner, 3M scuff pad and a screwdriver to dig out most of the gunk. It left behind the nastiest sludge I've ever seen. So I wrapped it in plastic, put it in the wife's car trunk and headed to the nearest self-serve car wash. The next part was a risk (chemically), but I figured it wouldn't be too bad: I covered the thing in Engine Brite, let it sit for 5 minutes, then started with the rinse. It did a pretty good job, but still has some thick stuff caked on. I'm going to hit it with the oven cleaner again and probably some kind of brush, I haven't figured out what brush yet. Should I stay away from metal? Stainless? On my angle grinder?

Also, this car wash had a "mat blaster" floor mat dryer. I used that to dry the thing, it was almost completely dry after just a couple minutes.

3M Scuff Pads: $2.70
Generic Oven Cleaner: $3.98
Car Wash: $5.66
Total Cost: $12.34

Not too bad.

[NEWFISHER]

Originally Posted by botsdots

So I pulled a Camaro rear swaybar from the junk yard. It is, unfortunately, the smallest rear swaybar a Camaro had... 19mm or 3/4" Is that sufficient for the back end of these trucks? I don't want to go to the trouble of installing it and have it be worthless.

I had one installed and removed it during the bag drop. It helped some and looked cool. A big front one does %75 of the work it seems.

[bj383ss]

Keep using the oven cleaner. I bought that exact same can. It works well. Spray it let it sit for 10-15 minutes. Do some scraping. Rinse. Spray it again. I have used up 2 cans of this stuff on my front suspension parts. For $4 a can it beats any off the shelf engine cleaner. I cleaned my whole engine with 2 passes of this stuff.

Bret