Introducing myself and my truck

[jdale1]

Hi everyone, I joined a few months ago but was pretty shy and nervous to post anything but here it goes. My name is Jackson and I am a 17 year old junior in high school and I drive a 1970 GMC truck. The truck is special to my family and I because it was owned by my dads best friend before he passed away. For my 15th birthday I got the truck. It didn't run and needed some work but I can proudly say I have since got it running and it is now my everyday driver. It is a longbed with a 350 with forged pistons, comp cams cam and lifters, an edelbrock intake, hooker competition headers, and holley 600 double pumper with a turbo 350 trans. It is a power steering truck, no a/c, 6 lug drum brakes and stock 10 bolt rear end. I just purchased a 1976 C10 for the disc brakes and 12 bolt rear end to put on it. My future plans include a motor rebuild since the motor is close to 30 years old and is a tad worn out (and i want a bigger, lumpier cam to idle through the high school parking lot haha) and hopefully 17 or 20 inch wheels (open to suggestions), i'd like to go a little lower and add some handling and suspension parts. Here are a future pictures, thank you to everyone who posts, most of my questions have been answered by searching through the forum!

[FlameOut]

Welcome Jackson, that's sure is a nice looking truck. Sorry to hear about your dads friend, but glad you were able to get the truck

[ck5566]

Originally Posted by jdale1

Hi everyone, I joined a few months ago but was pretty shy and nervous to post anything but here it goes. My name is Jackson and I am a 17 year old junior in high school and I drive a 1970 GMC truck. The truck is special to my family and I because it was owned by my dads best friend before he passed away. For my 15th birthday I got the truck. It didn't run and needed some work but I can proudly say I have since got it running and it is now my everyday driver. It is a longbed with a 350 with forged pistons, comp cams cam and lifters, an edelbrock intake, hooker competition headers, and holley 600 double pumper with a turbo 350 trans. It is a power steering truck, no a/c, 6 lug drum brakes and stock 10 bolt rear end. I just purchased a 1976 C10 for the disc brakes and 12 bolt rear end to put on it. My future plans include a motor rebuild since the motor is close to 30 years old and is a tad worn out (and i want a bigger, lumpier cam to idle through the high school parking lot haha) and hopefully 17 or 20 inch wheels (open to suggestions), i'd like to go a little lower and add some handling and suspension parts. Here are a future pictures, thank you to everyone who posts, most of my questions have been answered by searching through the forum!

Welcome to the site and good looking Truck. Wow our engines must be brothers. LOL

[Stocker]

Welcome to you and your truck! Looks like a very nice clean straight four-eye. Congrats!

[gable74]

Nice truck Jackson!

[garyd1961]

Welcome, I like the truck. If the motor runs good and isn't using too much oil I would leave it alone. A big lumpy cam sounds good but isn't so great for driving, you will need a stall converter and a bigger gear in the rear. I just went through all that with a 383 in my truck. I pulled it back out and installed a vortec crate engine and I way more happy with the crate engine.
You don't need a big lumpy cam to make HP either. The best way to make power is with good heads that have more flow. Not saying a bigger than factory cam doesn't make more power just that a really lumpy cam brings more trouble than they are worth.

[djeCST]

Welcome aboard, Jackson! That's a nice truck - I like the idea of idea of scaring all the 4-bangers at school with a properly cammed small block.

Good luck with your project! Let us know how things are going from time to time.

[leftybass209]

Welcome! Looks like you have an awesome project truck! You won't have to worry about being shy around here, this forum has some awesome members. No matter how simple the question, "where is my high beam switch"?, or "how do I put oil in my engine"? You'll find answers here, without the crap some of the other forums have.

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by FlameOut

Welcome Jackson, that's sure is a nice looking truck. Sorry to hear about your dads friend, but glad you were able to get the truck

Thank you! I see you have 67' Chevelle, awesome car! My top dream car!

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by ck5566

Welcome to the site and good looking Truck. Wow our engines must be brothers. LOL

Wow! I almost bought that same dress up kit before I found the Chevy one!

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by Stocker

Welcome to you and your truck! Looks like a very nice clean straight four-eye. Congrats!

Thank you!

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by gable74

Nice truck Jackson!

Thank you!

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by garyd1961

Welcome, I like the truck. If the motor runs good and isn't using too much oil I would leave it alone. A big lumpy cam sounds good but isn't so great for driving, you will need a stall converter and a bigger gear in the rear. I just went through all that with a 383 in my truck. I pulled it back out and installed a vortec crate engine and I way more happy with the crate engine.
You don't need a big lumpy cam to make HP either. The best way to make power is with good heads that have more flow. Not saying a bigger than factory cam doesn't make more power just that a really lumpy cam brings more trouble than they are worth.

Thank you Sir! You make a good point, I have the bigger gear (3.73) and have looked at stall converters and everything too. But it does burn/leak some oil

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by djeCST

Welcome aboard, Jackson! That's a nice truck - I like the idea of idea of scaring all the 4-bangers at school with a properly cammed small block.

Good luck with your project! Let us know how things are going from time to time.

Thank you! Haha, thats definitely what I'm going for. Thank you and I will!

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by leftybass209

Welcome! Looks like you have an awesome project truck! You won't have to worry about being shy around here, this forum has some awesome members. No matter how simple the question, "where is my high beam switch"?, or "how do I put oil in my engine"? You'll find answers here, without the crap some of the other forums have.

Thank you very much! And lol its funny you say that, one night out with a couple friends a friend riding with me was amazed that I knew where to put oil in my engine!

[RenoKeene]

Welcome Jackson! Glad you got a GMC.

[jdale1]

Originally Posted by RenoKeene

Welcome Jackson! Glad you got a GMC.

Me too! I love the grilles!

[Trevor]

Welcome Jackson ! You're a part of the best trucks forum/most helpful bunch of fellow-enthusiasts on the planet, there's nothing about these trucks you can't find an answer to on here.

Great to hear you started working on your truck at 15, same here.
I bought my first vehicle, a '65 c10, from a neighbor/good friend of my Dad, it didn't run so I pulled it home with our tractor, worked on it pretty much all by myself, got it running, did some body work and started driving it the day after I got my drivers license (at 16) and kept driving it for many years after ...

[ck5566]

Originally Posted by jdale1

Wow! I almost bought that same dress up kit before I found the Chevy one!

The Edelbrock Kit was already on when I bought the truck. If not I also would have bought the Chevrolet kit, I like it better!

[yuccales]

Originally Posted by jdale1

But it does burn/leak some oil

It's not leaking oil, it's sweating power! Nice truck you got there.

[Elliot949]

Glad you jumped onboard... Truck looks great... I love to see young guys getting involved with these truck opposed to the "tuner" stuff... LOL

Sounds like you have a perfect vision for this truck... The only suggestion that I can make to you is to carefully pre-plan what it is you want for your truck to be in the end... Make your plan a realistic and obtainable plan then stick 100% to that plan and do not vary from it...

When you start varying from a plan the your project can spin out of control very quickly costing you ALOT of money and Frustration... All of that sometimes can result in loss of interest in a project that you were extremely excited about ending up into selling the project only to regret it later...

I am not trying to be a downer for you I am just speaking from experience and always want to help others have that issue...

Hope this helps and I will be looking forward to seeing your updates as you go along the long process...

Dan

[MattPSU]

Great looking truck Jackson. Looks like a good solid start, and it sounds like you have great plans for it.

As other's have said, this forum is a great resource, and there are no dumb questions here. One of my first posts after buying my truck was that I couldn't get it started. Turns out it wasn't in park! But I had lots of help rather quickly, and no one made me feel like the idiot that I was that day.

Someone else suggested making sure your 100% about what you want to do before you do it. Most of us don't have tons of money to throw at our trucks, so it really hurts the wallet when you do something twice.

For your suspension - Find pictures of truck who's drop you like and keep in mind the fact that you're driving it daily. Slammed looks awesome (in my opinion) but it's not really practical for most roads & parking lots.

Same thing with your engine. If it's running OK and not getting you in trouble at school for leaving a big oil stain, maintain it and drive it. Rebuilding a motor can be costly, and there are tons of options out there. Many of us have done LS Swaps, due to the similar cost to rebuilding a small block, but the huge gains in HP, torque, MPG's etc.

Make sure it's safe - brakes, seat belts, etc. Then research, read & learn for a while before you make any huge changes. In the mean time, drive the wheels off of it, and enjoy owning one of the best trucks ever made!

Welcome, Congrats & Good Luck!

- Matt

[cruisinthe34]

Welcome Jackson. As you mentioned, you seem to have learned your way around the forum......tons of knowledge here. Best of luck with that great looking truck

[Ol Blue K20]

Welcome Jackson, you mentioned a stock 10 bolt rearend. Are you sure it's not a Dana 60? Post a pic of the cover for us. If it's a Dana I would leave it. They're stronger than a 12 bolt.

[cypressbog]

Welcome to the board! Looks like you got a good truck to start with, enjoy!