69 C10 - Old Navy truck

[Baker819]

Well after 11 years I am finally taking my truck down to it's frame and at the very least taking care of the rust in the frame and suspension and making sure all vital components will function as they should... brakes (including all new lines), mounts, wiring etc. A under bed tank, paint and other stuff will hopefully come with in a couple years.

My brakes and steering box were the main reason I began the tear down. They were in barely working order and new I would total the truck soon if I didn't do some thing. Well brakes and steering box turned into all new front suspension... everything besides a-arms, crossmember, springs and a couple parts of the steering were replaced. I researched and almost everything I bought was made right here in the good ol United States of America. Even the rotors (ECE). Suspension/steering stuff came mostly from Moog or Early Classic.

I begun tearing down the front end last week end with the plans of dropping the front crossmember out and having it blasted and put back in after fully painted. Plans changed when I noticed that the frame was starting to develope a lot of rust. I moved from eastern Washington to western Washington over 6 years ago and my truck has been pissed ever since. haha. So the frame is getting stripped bare and blasted and than painted. I bought this stuff called Rust Bullet a while ago with plans of trying it on the suspension and steering parts. Now it will be tested on the frame as well. The worst rust was where the water drops off from the back of the hood and rides the little channel down and rusts everything on the way. Other than that the bed got it pretty good too. I have always been up in the air about the step sides anyways and I found a LWB fleet side with a metal bed for a decent price so as long as I can finish the deal that will be shortened and installed on the truck. It will actually be cheaper than replacing the parts I need to for the step side bed so I was sold on it. The step side panels will be hung on the wall tell I die probably haha. I dont want to get rid of them but I dont really like step side beds after the 50's.

Anyways that's were I am at. I have a decent amount of time in the near future to complete what I want to. Hopefully I don't get carried away and end up doing a full rebuild on every thing. Hopefully 2 months and the truck will be on the road again... 4 months max.

I have some questions though -

I want rear disc brakes eventually. Should I rebuild my rear drums for now or just invest the money in the discs now.

Has any welded up the split on the trailing arms? I haven't searched yet but was curious if you guys ran into any problem. I'd imagine if you kept the heat down (like welding body panels) every thing would be cool.

Any one have 6 lug 15x8 (width +/- a inch) Aluminum slots for sale in Washington? I missed a sweet set for sale on craigslist 2 months ago for a really good price and they were only 20 minutes from me and have been kicking my self ever since.

The other thing I haven't searched for yet but am kinda curious about is my the straightness of my frame. It's never been wrecked, only had a 8' camper in the back for a month or two. And hauled an engine, trans, t-case and both diffs from a scrapped out truck all at once before... Poor little C10... but she never missed a beat and had plenty of power left.

Thanks

[Baker819]

[Baker819]

So this is where I am currently at. Last night I scraped the frame with a putty knife to make it easier for me when I get done taking parts off and and I take a wire wheel to the wire before it gets blasted. I forgot to take pictures of the bed before but the floor was wood and had been messed up for the last 30 years. I put a sheet of plywood over it (wish the plywood was 2 inches wider and it would have been made it easier but it still wasn't bad and it really didnt look to bad either. I just nailed it to the wood that was left and it worked for 10 years haha).

I am waiting on casters to come in the mail so I can build two dollies for the cab so I can remove it and move it around.

Today I will drain the oil from the engine and trans because they both need to be resealed. Remove the rear 12 bolt and rear suspension. And get the cab ready to be removed. My plan is to build the dollies almost the same height the truck is at right now and than lower the frame to the ground and roll the cab away. I wish there wasn't a hill to get up to the barn where I am working. Sure would help when I need to roll stuff around.

[Baker819]

Found a long bed fleet side bed 2.5 hours away. Picked it up a week ago and it took a couple days to get some thing to lift it out of my boss's flat bed truck but its sitting in my shop now. Its a pretty decent bed, perfect for what I want. I will post some pics of it soon. Getting rid of a couple other little projects this week hopefully back working on it sunday.

[Baker819]

Life happened and I got postponed on my truck project. Should be back 100% into it. Stripped it down to a bare frame over the last two weekends. And should be blasting the parts out side the barn this week! I will get some new pictures up soon

[Baker819]

Been slacking on my progress. Finished stripping the frame and filed and sanded all the sharp edges. I know it's over kill but I like the extra quality even if no one will ever see it.
I borrowed my brothers compressor and lil 110lb blaster and blasted the frame out side my shop (went immediatly slopes down at at least 20 degree angle, that was interesting). Took way longer than I thought it would and I had to time every thing around the weather (I live on an Island in Washington) it's pretty humid and rainy this time of year. Going to have a local shop do the rest of my blasting.
I am using KBS paint for the and so far I only have the first coat of 5 (1 top coat, 3 rustseal coats and 1 self etching coat because I waited to long between coats). I wanted to be able to see if I missed any spots so I am mixing two colors of the same product to get a slight off black. Final will be satin black. Final is going to be around all next week but I hope to have the frame completely painted by the end of thanksgiving weekend.
Sorry nothing really custom or exciting yet haha. Might build some adjustable trailing arms. And I definately will be building a trailer hitch for 10,000 lbs. It will be like Early Classics Enterprises hidden hitch but thiers is only rated to 5,000lbs. Cutting my new bed down with in a couple months too.

Any how here is some pics of what I have done.

[Baker819]

[Baker819]

Wish I would have cut the hole through the crossmember for the exhaust to run through before I blasted and painted but I had a little window to get the blasting and painting done that the weather allowed. So I will just have to repaint it when ever I put the hole in. I think I will make a dual 2.250" into a single 3 like some one elses on here. It was weird I had just been thinking about doing it than I seen some ones build where they had done it a couple days later. I already have newish good flow master 3" mufflers so that is part of the reason I am doing it. Dual 3" short exhaust on my truck was just to much hahaha Sounded good but I felt a huge lose in power when I switched. O yeah I am going to make custom mid length headers and it will be some what equal length tubes. Might even do a tri y design. I bought headers from Doug's and they stuck down waaaay to far for my liking and I would of had to go with a hydualic throw out bearing so I sold them.

The heater light is made by Infratech. It is awesome. It raises the temp by 20 degrees or so and only costs pennies a hour to run. Its Ultra violet heater so it doesnt heat the air up just the objects. Not affected by wind at all. Was around $550 but I never have to get fuel for it and it doesn't stink at all.

[Baker819]

Cleaned the shop up and sand the frame a little to get the defects out. Started degreasing the rear end and preping it for paint. Using KBS-Coatings Klean, so far its working okay. The product has a slight smell but very tolerable without a mask. Will let you know how good of job it does.

[#70gmc]

Looks good! I just picked up a '68 ex navy truck. I was searching for info on it and came across your thread.

[Baker819]

I dont have tons of knowledge of the military specific info but I have dug around a little and might be able to help you out if the situation comes up. Thats awesome you found another military truck.

[Baker819]

Took some stuff to the blaster. Found out I had two 2" cracks in the front crossmember, just forward of the forward most upper arm mount... in the that 90 degree part. I forgot to take a before picture. They are are welded up now. And have to go back to the blaster because I felt like they missed to many spots. Other than that I found out the 12 bolt needs attention. Was going preping it for paint again because it leaked some oil. I just drained the whole thing and inspected the gears. With only a quick look I saw slight metal in the case and where the metal was suppose to be on the gear. And I thought I was going to get away with out having to do any thing to the rear end besides paint. I will post pictures soon.

Been reading old posts for for the past 6 hours haha. And trying to decide what to do with the 12 bolt... I might change it out but it's not going to be a race machine so maybe I will just do some mild mods, like welding the center section, posi, bearings and axles depending on condition. What do you guys think?

I dont want to spend money into the 12 bolt to just change it soon. I plan on using the crap out the truck as a daily and parts runner. I tend to have a heavy foot at the same time and see how much abuse things will take, but taking good care of it at the same time... if that makes since. Like why go spend 60k on a truck to only wax it and trailer it to a car show... just not my style.

If I do keep the 12 bolt I will use Captainfabs brackets for 6 lugs.

[Baker819]

Wow it's been a long time since I updated. I have still be working really hard on it. Basically dealing with painting everything. Just got all new grade 8 hardware for basically everything that bolts to the frame.

I did lose my old crappy cab mount bolts... you guys wouldn't happen to know the length would you?

I really should have stepped up and bought a 60-80gal 11+cfm compressor and all the right dryers and separators... Rolling and foam brushing 4 coats of paint sucked and took literally months. All is good though I think I have 98% of the parts painted and ready to start assembly.

Reseam sealed the drip rails even though I will remove them in a couple years ( I hope haha). Also seam sealed the firewall channel where all the water runs of the cowl and rotts all the way down. So I patched the holes with fiberglass sheets and paint. And than seam sealed over it. Was running out of seam sealer so I am ordered some more and will go over it all again. The grey matched my exterior color well and I won't paint it on the drip rails but will paint the firewall a light grey. I wasn't worth custom matching the paint since the whole body will come off in a couple years for the 2nd stage of the build.

I will also have to go to the junk yard and get part of the steering "stem"? A lot of the splines were gone... it's not down by the rag joint, next one up from there. The manual steering box is at Redhead getting rebuilt. I love the manual steering, makes it feel like a real truck to me. Can't wait to get it back it was pretty bad before.

Well I bambled enough, I will take some pictures and load them on here before bed tonight.

Finally a member!

[Baker819]

[Baker819]

My painting station lol. 2 4x4 going from my bed to the tool box (and some times boards on top of those to give me just a little more area). Was a little small but only took 3 rounds to get the small stuff painted.







If anyone has an extra one of these... I will buy it if you want to sell it. Its goes just above the rag joint

[Splash4195]

Nice Build!

[Baker819]

Got tired of waiting on the seam sealer to cure to paint the firewall, cab in on.

[Baker819]

Been a long time since my last post. Took a break from the build after I missed my deadline I wanted to have it drivable by.
I didn't take many people advise and cut a long bed I picked up down by 20 inches. I was a great learning experience. And really not that as hard as I thought it would be. It did take a long time... I'm glad I did it once, but I would buy a new bed if I did it again.
Everything is painted and just waiting to be assembled, should be on the road before Thanksgiving as long as I figured out my clutch set up and get my TKO600 rebuilt.

[Baker819]

[Baker819]

You can't see the scribe marks but they are there, the black marker was just a reference line to guide me in the basic direction

Messed up a couple times with layout as you can tell from all the lines

[Baker819]

Prepped the cut edges and put the pieces back together to see how good it turned out... Its not to bad, a little funky on the passenger side because there is a decent size dent close by and the top is folded down some from abuse over the years.

It's short though
Cut lines are lining up pretty good and I will fine tune it this week and take some pictures.

[Baker819]

After I finish the bed. It's on to assembling the front suspension / steering. Than bending my brake lines and installing the brake system.

[Baker819]

Ordered some CPP control arms, didn't really care for the Chinese quality. Returning the uppers and not using the lowers I had ball joints pressed into. Ordering PorterBuilts stock style control arms. Might get the forward 1" option... Need to see some before and after pictures though, don't remember it being all that bad.

Ordered fleet side bed sides as well. I was taking to long to weld and fit mine all back together and than do pull dents and other body work. I took the easy way out and will work on the other bed practicing my body work skills later.

Been busy, looking to have the truck rolling by June at the latest. I guess I will have to start working on it haha.