'66 K20 - Project Old Blue???

[66K20]

My name is Brett and this is my K20 project, Old Blue.

Wait, what? Blue? The dang truck is orange! The project name is sentimental, so let's start there.

I was introduced to the most stylish Chevrolet pickup at birth. My father had just completed his '66 K10 show truck when I came along and some of my earliest memories are of rides we took in that truck. The truck was known as 'Big Blue', primarily because it was rolling on 38" mud tires. He ended up selling the K10 and bought a worn out, multicolored, rusty '66 K20 that had a giant '01' painted on each door. This K20 was known as 'Old Blue' because a faded blue was the dominant color on the truck. The truck was primarily used as a wood hauling truck where we made many more memories. Over the years we collected rust free body parts (including NOS fenders) in preparation for a rebuild. The truck was stripped and put in the garage as a rolling chassis with a good cab. Time slipped away and the truck (or rather the parts to make a truck) was sold to a family friend. It was reassembled by our family friend, painted orange, new wheels and tires installed and a local flatbed was dropped on. Our friend unexpectedly passed away and the truck was stuck in the estate's mess for many years. I was able to buy it back a few weeks ago. It may not be blue any more, but it will always be Old Blue to me.

Here it is in all of it's glory. It is a pretty original truck despite all of the replacement metal. Original 292 with the SM420 and Rockwell T221 with 56k miles. I do not know what direction I want to take with the truck, but I first want to fix known issues and do preventative maintenance.

[66K20]

I spent a couple of weeks going through the truck to get it road worthy. I had made several 10 mile loops through the country side by the time I felt comfortable driving it to town. On my first drive to town the dang 'hot' light came on so I had to ride the strap back home behind a friends Dodge. I mentioned this fiasco to my father and he said that the 'hot' light had never come on in the past, but he also never drove it when it was 100°.

The truck still has the Harrison radiator, so it may need boiled out and refurbished. I also found the thermostat was a 195°. I replaced it with a 180° thermostat since my research led me to believe this was standard issue. I know the truck isn't running lean, but I do want to verify the timing isn't too far advanced.

[Captainfab]

Welcome to the forum

That's great that you were able to buy the truck and keep it in the family. It's a good looking truck too!

[67pete300]

Great story and great looking truck as is!

[jimmythompson1964]

Congrats on goetting the family truck back look forward to you adventure

[61K10]

great story------have fun

[66K20]

Thanks guys!

I installed a fresh pair of lap belts from Andover Restraints. The belts that were in the cab had seen better days. Yes, I know the interior is filthy.

Leaking radiators have always scared me since you never know when the leak might really open up. My end goal is to get the Harrison radiator refurbished, but am having a hard time finding a local shop to do the work. In the meantime, I elected to install an aluminum aftermarket radiator. I chose a Champion EC284. I removed the original rubber isolators on the 3 saddle mounts and lined the mounts with a thin closed cell foam tape I had in the shop. This allowed the radiator to fit snuggly in the mount saddles. Since the radiator is 1" taller than the original I had to create a spacer for the top mount since I did not want to modify the original top mount. There is plenty of hood clearance for the radiator and cap.

I did a test run with the new radiator with the ambient air temperature at 100°. The 'Hot' idiot light never came on! It may have been a warm evening, but the Kansas sky still did it's thing.

[jcramsey]

K20 with a 292 and a flatbed? So much want!

[jimmythompson1964]

What did you get your seat belts out of I need to install seat belts in my truck....never mind I see the link lol

[66K20]

As a life long Jeep enthusiast I really dig 6 in a row

Originally Posted by jimmythompson1964

What did you get your seat belts out of I need to install seat belts in my truck....never mind I see the link lol

I actually purchased them on Andover's eBay store.

[jimmythompson1964]

Originally Posted by 66K20

As a life long Jeep enthusiast I really dig 6 in a row

I like the 6 banger's in the Jeeps as well my 90 Wrangler was bored 30 over w/forged pistons, comp cam, aluminum intake, 500 cfm holly carb, and headers with flow master mufflers....one tuff little torque monster

[66K20]

The instrument panel was disgusting so I cleaned it up. I simply used fine rubbing compound to clean up the painted surfaces and touch up the needles with Model Masters Fluorescent Red paint. I did get a little rambunctious and rubbed off some of the high speed speedometer lines...whoops. The warning light lenses were faded pretty bad, so I replaced them with a few sheets of colored velum. Unfortunately I could not locate green velum for the cold side light so I opted for blue, which makes more sense to me. I also sprayed the inside of the light tubes with a 'chrome' spray paint to help with reflectivity.

The inside of the cluster seemed as if it had been worked on in the past. There was fine sanding marks on all of the painted surfaces and the GEN and OIL light lenses looked like they were cut by a 4 year old. The bezel is black and dates on the cluster read March 1965, so it is not the original cluster for the truck.

All in all it was a good indoor project that did not require excessive sweating in the shop.

[72cs20]

Very nice work on the instrument panel!

[DPowers]

Looks good.

[66K20]

Thanks guys! I have been driving the truck more and am thoroughly enjoying it. But I cannot manage to go anywhere without somebody commenting on the truck or by telling me a (sometimes) breif story about their connection to a 60-66 truck.

One thing I have missed driving the truck was the lack of a radio. Even if the terrestrial radio stations don't play your preferred tunes, the sound is nice to have. So, I set out to install a non intrusive radio.

There was a metal plate riveted over the radio opening in the dash. I didn't think there was any damage to the dash behind the plate so I bought a factory AM radio to install. Unfortunately when I removed the plate I was greeted with a 70's era dash cut out. Since it will be some time before I am ready to weld/paint on the interior (I plan to go back to fawn), I went to eBay to find a radio and scored big time. Picked up a Medallion AM/FM/CB radio manufactured in 1976 that looked like new. It included 2 sets of knobs, owners manual and the stripped ends of the wires were straight. To top it off, the radio fit the hole in the dash perfect and would drive two 4Ω speakers!

The speaker gave me trouble. This cab had none of the factory brackets and I did not want to do anything extreme, so I studied the factory speaker configuration and those silly aftermarket speaker brackets and built my own. The speakers are two 4" Rockford Fosgates mounted on a left over piece of work bench top with foam cups, some bent up metal and FatMat left over from a Jeep project. I styled the design off the factory set up utilizing two rubber stoppers that fit into the dash lip and a j-hook/wing nut under the windshield. I finished it off with some weather stripping around the edges for a tight fit against the dash. Tip: remove the glove box for easy access to the speaker area under the dash.

I won't win any audio competitions with this set up, but it doesn't sound half bad... especially being installed in a tin can, er cab.

In keeping with the woodgrain of the new radio, I wanted to share the key 'chain' for the truck. My mother bought the keychain for my father at the state fair in '85 for his show truck. Luckily he kept it when that truck was sold and put it in this one a few years later where it has since remained.

[jdl71]

Not sure how I missed this one. Looks great. There's a few of us here still with stock running gear K trucks. Happen to know which front axle you have?

[66K20]

Originally Posted by jdl71

Not sure how I missed this one. Looks great. There's a few of us here still with stock running gear K trucks. Happen to know which front axle you have?

Thanks I have not yet dug into the front axle, but I do know it has a Dana 44 housing.

Right now the truck is waiting for me to rebuild the ol' Rochester. It has had some driveability problems that needs fixed.

[jdl71]

If you get a chance to snap a pic or two I'd love to see what your front brake hose looks like where it attaches to the wheel cylinder. I'm having a whale of a time finding brake hoses.

[66K20]

Originally Posted by jdl71

If you get a chance to snap a pic or two I'd love to see what your front brake hose looks like where it attaches to the wheel cylinder. I'm having a whale of a time finding brake hoses.

I am not sure if these original style brake hoses or not, but this is what both side of the truck has.

[straight6chevyguy]

Nice truck!

Gotta love those straight sixes!

[TJ's Chevy]

Subbed, love me some 292.

[jdl71]

Originally Posted by 66K20

I am not sure if these original style brake hoses or not, but this is what both side of the truck has.

Looks like you have the more common small knuckle 44. Those are the correct hoses for that. Mine are totally different. Thanks.

[66K20]

Towards the end of 2018, the truck started running terrible. It was constantly miss firing and struggling to start. I jumped into a carburetor rebuild with parts from Mike's Carburetor Parts. I also replaced the aftermarket inline fuel filter, swapped out the spark plugs, replaced the rotor and cap and replaced the condenser and breaker. Set the points and timing and now the truck fires right up and runs great!

This old Chevy didn't know what to do with a giant Australian bumper on the bed

[straight6chevyguy]

This truck is really cool!