Newbie 1965 SWB Fleet DD Project - ROUGH Start

[Dweezle]

Hello everyone. I've been lurker/reader for a while now, but didn't actually register with the forum until yesterday. I want to start by saying how great of a resource this website has been thus far, and that I'm truly grateful for all of the time invested by you all who document your experiences and knowledge.

I guess I'll start by sharing a little bit about myself and this project. I'm a 32 year old husband and father of three. I didn't grow up with a father or anyone who was into wrenching or anything like that. My dad was an Airforce pilot, so we moved a lot and he wasn't around much to work on things around the house. That being said, my grandfather on my dad's side was extremely handy. I remember hearing stories as a kid of my grandmother asking him to clean the fridge, so he took the whole thing apart, cleaned every nut and bolt, and reassembled it. She never asked him to clean out the fridge again, but that's just the kind of dude he was. I didn't grow up around him - with my dad's job we spent a lot of time overseas, but it seemed like every time we visited he had some old truck in pieces in his garage and was sure to make it a rock solid vehicle by the time all was said and done.

I can't really pinpoint when my affinity for classic trucks started, but for as long as I can remember, when anyone asked me what my dream vehicle was, my answer was "a Chevy with wood in the bed". Of course that answer was in my younger years before I knew the different models, years of production, etc. As I got older the answer became a 1960-1966 Chevy. I had always planned on buying one and fixing it up - teaching myself as I went along, and hopefully passing the skills learned down to my son, were I ever to have one. Fast forward, and my third child, my boy, was born on September 8, 2012.

On August 8, 2015, after much research and waiting for some financial things to line up, I headed out on a four hour drive with a good friend of mine to look at and possibly purchase a 1965 Chevy C10 SWB Fleet. The truck was advertised as a daily driver, and seemed to have a lot of the "big" stuff done already, which was good for me since I haven't ever really worked on cars before (I've become quite proficient with framing, flooring, plumbing and electrical work, but haven't delved into vehicles much). The ad stated the truck was equipped with a rebuilt Chevy 350; Mucnie car 4 speed tranny; power steering; power brakes, disk front and drum rear; front and rear sway bars; aluminum headers; repro tach; new steering linkage; leather bucket seats...you get the idea.

We got to the house and the truck wasn't exactly as pictured in the ad. I mean, it was the same truck, but the pictures were clearly not taken recently. Differences were new front fenders, a broken tail pipe bracket (1 pipe straight out the back, one hanging down a few inches off the road), and it was dirty as all get out, inside and out. I gave the truck a look over, best I could anyway with what little bit of knowledge I had, and we took it for a two mile test drive. The truck didn't seem to shift very well and felt pretty primitive to drive, but I figured that was to be expected. I did notice the truck smelt like oil/fuel pretty bad, but again, figured that was to be expected. The only rust I found that went through the metal was in the rocker panels, the driver kick panel, and the passenger floor board (pin holes). The guy wanted $7,500, and included a bunch of goodies: new a arms; inner and outer rocker panels; a new gauge cluster and lens; a front bumper; a wiper cowl; and tons of bolts, hinges, and miscellaneous stuff. I paid him $7,000, loaded the truck on a trailer and made the four hour drive home. I planned on using the truck as a DD and slowly making some repairs and improvements, mostly to keep the truck in good condition for a frame off restoration with my son someday. I never intended to make a show truck or anything, so a few dents or dings don't concern me. I just want a solid, decent looking and decently comfortable truck.

The day after purchasing the truck I loaded up some things into the bed (very carefully as some of the wood is missing) and headed to the dump. The drive to the dump went well, except for some smoke of unknown origin at the time, but I thought I could adjust the carb or something and get that fixed. On the way home I was driving 45mph and the truck died. Managed to coast it into a parking lot, but couldn't get it started again. Had a friend help me tow it to his shop and after half a day of trouble shooting we figured out the ignition module in the distributor was fried. Bad luck? Hope so! We replaced it and all was well. I also bought a rebuilt Quadrajet carb for the truck in hopes that it might fix some of the smoke I was having. It came with an Edelbrock and just seemed to run way rich no matter how I adjusted it. We put the Quadrajet on, but fuel was leaking everywhere, so the Edelbrock went back on and the supposedly rebuilt Quadrajet went to a friend, along with a new rebuild kit, for a "real" rebuild this time.

I continued to drive the truck daily to work, on errands, etc., and about two days later the same thing happened. I took the next day off work, went and got another ignition module and swapped it out (good thing I was paying attention when my friend helped me with this the first time). I ended up leaving the tach unplugged from the distributor and taking off a quick disconnect on the battery to see if one of those things might be causing the problem. All was well again, and the truck ran fine for about a week. I started feeling better about things and wanted to make the truck more presentable. I went and bought a colored 2k primer system, sanded the body and sprayed the truck. Next on my list was possibly a rewire to sort out these electrical problems and a new wood kit for the bed.

Each day I drove the truck I noticed the smoking was getting worse. Research revealed it may have been a coolant leak because I thought I was seeing white smoke. I also noticed some coolant pooling on top of the intake manifold, so I put two and two together and thought I knew what the problem was. Since this truck was supposed to be a DD and I didn't want my wife having to take me everywhere I decided to take the truck to Pep Boys and have them look into the coolant leak since they could have it done in a single morning. They found the leak, replaced the thermostat and some other bits, and told me the truck still smoked. They said it was a blue smoke, meaning an oil leak in the engine. They recommended buying a crate engine and paying them to install it...no thanks!

At this point my wife and I were seriously contemplating selling the truck at a loss and moving on. We are a single income family and don't have a ton of disposable income. Hence, our intent to use this truck as a daily driver and make slow but steady improvements.

I continued to drive the truck while pondering my options with the information about the oil leak. Eventually, I started noticing oil splatter on the rear bumper and tailgate, and on my driveway behind the truck. The smoke was getting pretty bad, and I decided to stop driving the truck until I could figure out what the problem was. My friend came to the rescue again and helped me take things apart and do some trouble shooting. We were able to find that one of the intake valves on the driver's side of the engine was stuck. I was pretty pissed and discouraged at this point, so I just parked the truck and walked away from it for a week.

Once I had my wits about me, my friend and I took the engine down a bit more and removed the lifter for the stuck valve. The lifter was in three different pieces, so we thought we had found the problem. I went to a local machine shop, bought a lifter for $3, and installed it. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem. Today I went back to the same machine shop and bought a new cam, 16 lifters, break in oil, cam lube, a gasket kit, and an oil filter. we plan on installing the new cam this weekend, along with the rebuilt Quadrajet. Hopefully the truck will be drivable again by Monday.

Sorry for being so long winded, but this has been a bit of a rollercoaster of an entry into the world of classic truck ownership. I've had my happy moments, my discouraged moments, and my what the heck did I get myself into moments. I've also been getting over the fact that I way over paid for this truck in the mechanical condition it's in. I guess I'm thinking this post and maintaining this thread may be a sort of therapeutic outlet to keep me going, and hopefully something to look back on and laugh about some day.

Here are some pictures of the truck:

There are from a few days after I bought it. I had cleaned the whole interior with simple green and installed the cowl extensions between the doors and hood.











Here are some during and after pictures of the priming process. It was my first time painting anything like this with a gun and compressor, so it didn't turn out to well. It has a sand paper texture to it. I plan to wet sand the whole thing once it's back up and running again.



















And here are the parts I picked up today...time to get to work this weekend!

[jonzcustomshop]

hey looks pretty cool!
I am putting a Muncie 4 speed in my 61, could you get me a pic of the floor where it comes through?
I am curious as to where I will need to cut it.

[Dweezle]

Sure. I'll get a pic for you and post it. I'm not too familiar with all of this stuff yet, so I'm not sure what the standard gears are in these transmissions, but I find mine to be a little high on the RPM's for driving on the highway. I plan to put different gears in it eventually. It could also just be that my perception is off with all of the interior noise at the moment since it's unfinished. Maybe it's not as bad as it seems to me.

[Dweezle]

Forgot to add in the first post that the broken tail pipe has been re-welded to the brace (as seen in the post primer photos), but I'll need to do a better fix at some point. It looks like the PO must have backed into something because the exhaust is bent under the frame, making the pipe that was broken about 5 inches shorter than the undamaged one. Luckily it's not kinked. I've also taken out the parking brake, brake and clutch hardware, cleaned it up and painted it black (as seen in the interior photos).

[jonzcustomshop]

my 63 has 3:73's I am pretty sure. it is pretty much topped out at 70
final drive is always 1:1 in the trans, unless you have an overdrive, so the reason you are at high rpms is probably the low geared rear-

[jonzcustomshop]

if your heads are still on the motor ( I assume they are , and you just pulled the intake to change the lifters) do a compression check before you get any more time and $$ in the motor, make sure it is worth fixing.
If your valve was stuck, make sure it can move before you fire the motor again, if it is bent and stuck in the head , you will just break the lifter again with the new cam.
your compression test might show other problems with that cylinder.

hopefully some one a little more mechanically inclined than me will post in with some good hints.

even though you feel that you over paid, there are a bunch of things about it that make the value, that would be expensive to do, the 4 speed , aluminum heads, tach, short box all drive up the value.

[Dweezle]

Here are a few pics of the shifter location as requested. Let me know if you need something different.

[Dweezle]

Here is the second one.

[Dweezle]

Thanks for the tips jonzcustomshop. I have been able to move the valve, so hopefully it's not bent or anything. Compression check is a great idea too.

Here is a pic of the tear down so far. Taking me a while since I don't have any experience, but have some more knowledgeable help headed over soon to help with the rest of the cam replacement.

[jonzcustomshop]

thanks! those pics work .
good luck with the engine!

[65sub]

Welcome Dweezie. I agree with Jon do a compression check then post the numbers here. Maybe others can help. Also make sure everything in the valve train is functioning properly. If you don't already have one, a shop manual is a good investment

[rageagainstphil79]

What color of tint is that primer? Progress looks great!!

[Johnny_Lamebridge]

Hi Dweezle. That looks like a good solid truck. Don't let these engine problems get the better of you. Take a break... ask questions... and read, read, read! Lots of guys here want to help. Keep up the good work.

[Captainfab]

Welcome to the forum

Be sure to read up on flat tappet cams and their proper breakin and the correct oils to use with one. You can not run most off the shelf oil with a flat tappet cam. It looks like you purchased a generic cam and lifters which are more prone to failure.

More than likely the issue with your Edelbrock carb was too much fuel pressure. They are extremely sensitive to fuel pressure. They can not tolerate any more than 5.5 psi. Unless you have the Performer RPM Air Gap Q-Jet intake, you will need an adapter plate to install the Q-Jet.

Good luck with your engine work.

[Dweezle]

Thanks for the info captainfab. I bought the cam and lifters at a local distribution shop. It's a corvette cam and the whole deal cost me $200. Not sure if it's no-name or not. I also purchased cam lube for installing the cam and lubricating the new timing kit, and 5 quarts of break in oil.

An update:

The cam replacement process is taking longer than expected, but that's okay. I worked on it the majority of the day for the past two days and am in a place where I'm ready to start the truck, but it keeps backfiring. Pretty sure I messed up the timing, so my mechanic friend will be coming over on Tuesday to helps get all of that fixed. I know the timing kit is installed right (got the dots on the sprockets lined up) I think I'm messing up where I'm stabbing the distributor, or maybe my valves are too loose.

So, when the old cam was pulled, the lobe for the "stuck" valve was completely gone. It was just a perfect circle. With the new cam in, you can see all of the valves moving when the engine is cranked. My cam sprocket was also cracked.

Remember...I bought a truck that was advertised as having a rebuilt 350...HA!

Pretty sure the cam, sprockets, lifters, etc were all stock. "GM" printed on a lot of the parts.

Once the truck is running again I plan to do a compression check and post the results here. Today is a day off from the truck for my son's birthday. Here he is helping me with a headlight the day we brought the truck home: (don't know why it's sideways...sorry)!

[Dweezle]

Originally Posted by rageagainstphil79

What color of tint is that primer? Progress looks great!!

Thanks! It's from the car quest auto parts colored primer system line of products. I can take a pic of the spec sheet and post it for you if you'd like. They have about 80 colors to choose from!

[Dweezle]

Originally Posted by Johnny_Lamebridge

Hi Dweezle. That looks like a good solid truck. Don't let these engine problems get the better of you. Take a break... ask questions... and read, read, read! Lots of guys here want to help. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for the words of encouragement. Definitely nice to hear with some of the recent setbacks!

[DPowers]

Congrats on the truck. Sounds like you have learned alot and done alot already.
While you may not have had the background of working with your father on vehicles, that will not be the case with your son(s).

[65sub]

Nice progress Dweezie. Along with checking that your distributer is in correctly, make sure the plug wires are in the right firing order.

[65sub]

Here's a good discussion on oil for older engineshttp://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=478158

[Captainfab]

That missing cam lobe is all ground up and circulated throughout your engine and likely embedded in your bearings. Don't crank on the engine much without it running. Doing so wipes the assembly lube off of the cam and lifters and sets you up for another cam failure.

[65sub]

Originally Posted by Captainfab

That missing cam lobe is all ground up and circulated throughout your engine and likely embedded in your bearings. Don't crank on the engine much without it running. Doing so wipes the assembly lube off of the cam and lifters and sets you up for another cam failure.

you should probably change the oil and filter too 'cause that cam lobe is in there somewhere

[Dweezle]

Originally Posted by 65sub

you should probably change the oil and filter too 'cause that cam lobe is in there somewhere

Right. I drained the oil, replaced the oil filter, dropped the pan, cleaned it out, put it all back together and put in "break in oil". I found some shavings, but not near as much as I was expecting. My guess is that the cam lobe deterioration was either a slow process, resulting in some shavings at each oil change over a long period of time; or, if it was a more sudden thing, perhaps it was the PO's reason for selling the truck, and he had already changed the oil. Who knows. All I know is the guy I bought the truck from was full of crap.

[Jcox68rt]

Rough start but keep on chugging along, it will be cool.

[Clyde65]

Welcome to the madness! I think just about all of us here have went through something similar as you have with your truck, I know I did!

Ive had my truck 26 years so I know pretty much what has went into it, but when I first got it, I too wanted a DD and it turned ugly real soon. I tell you this because there is light at the end of the tunnel and with these knowledgeable folks here, you have many guys ( and gals!) in your corner!

Good luck, I will be following along.