Truck update

[Stephen717]

Ok so I know it's been a while since I've done one of these. Since my last update I have found a bed for my truck which I am currently saving to buy. Thank you Jeff's bowties for hanging onto it for me. I have gotten a wiring harness from American auto wire. I've gotten a new fuel tank and sending unit. And I have rebuilt the single barrel Rochester. I have to hunt down a throttle linkage rod but I'm pretty sure I know where one is. And I have to hook up the wiring, which is getting done with the help of my boss, who graciously offered to pay for the tow bill to get it to our shop. Progress is slow but she's coming along nicely. I am still trying to sell my 1967 surface rust only fenders or trade for a set of 1969 fenders in the same condition. I have gotten doors when I picked up the fenders along with new patch panels for the bottom of the inner doors. I got a good hood from a salvage yard. Along with can lights. And I am just looking for a good grill now. But until I buy the bed I will work on her and eventually run her with a dented grille. I have also procured a set of 69 Camaro bucket seats to replace the bench. It will become a piece of furniture for the man cave. And I have everything priced out to build the 250 in the truck along with the shop cost. That's all I have for now. I'll try to be better about taking pics

[HO455]

Sounds like your bringing it all together. Pictures are good. Especially for the future when you are trying to remember what you did 5 years ago. At my age it is important.

[Stephen717]

So I actually had a Saturday with no plans. a couple of friends wanted me to come to a bonfire but it's currently raining and I'm pretty sure it got canceled. Anyway I got to the shop this afternoon about 1:30 pm and got it through my head that this wasn't a crazy dream, then I got to work. I first made a run to advanced auto parts to a brass connector to go from my water neck to my coolant temp sensor. Then I took a tap and cleaned out the threads for my oil pressure sensor. then I started running wires. Just got done about 5 minutes ago and was putting everything in wire loom when it started raining. So that abruptly ended my night. I have everything under the hood wired up now with exception of the lights and battery, and most of its is in wire loom. I'll post pics shortly of my progress. To get it into the shop once its running I might take a piece of wire and run through the dash to act as a temporary throttle. The only Snag I ran into today was when I got my wires run I noticed that I have a mechanical oil gauge in the truck instead of an electric one. So my question now is, is there anyone that would be willing to trade me an electric oil gauge and the back plate for the gauge cluster for the mechanical oil gauge and back plate that goes with it?

[Stephen717]

Pics. Will get more when the weather permits. Can't tell you why they're sideways. I was holding the phone right and everything

[HO455]

Sorry to say the 67-72's that came with guages from the factory are mechanical oil pressure guages. If you have seen electric guages in a 67-72 they were someone's conversion. So it is unlikely that you will find a set.

[weq92f]

.
Flip fa ya...

[Stephen717]

My truck is running! It's in the shop I work for. The horn is working the right turn signal is working. I need to get a flasher for the left turn signal. The head lights work great. I'm trying to figure out how to wire up the original AM radio. I have a driver's door handle, a new dome light, led front markers, a glove box, and c clips for the door interior handles and window cranks on the way. I also have led gauge lights coming. I bought a Beed from Jeffsbowties and am looking at a tail gate for it now. And I still have to get shocks, I have to fix the parking brake, and I need new tires. Found out mine are 10 years old. That's all for now but I'll keep you informed. Hope to have it on the road by next spring

[57taskforce]

Good work Stephen, you’ve got more done on yours in the last few months than I have mine. Jeff is a great guy he’s been a family friend for a long time. Keep up the great work!

[Stephen717]

Thanks. It's hard work but I'm definitely loving every minute of it. I'm going to get the bed off Monday and hopefully figure out the radio so I can put my gauges back in. Then it's back to the parking lot until next weekend so I can start going through the brakes and get the parking brake fixed. Then it will be a few weeks but I am getting a new antenna shocks and a polyurethane bushing set.

[Stephen717]

So I did some more work. What started out as making a bracket to hold my choke cable and threading it for a little 4 speed knob to fixing a ground that came loose on my headlight which turned into rehanging what little exhaust is on the truck and that turned into taking the bed off my truck. I also found out that it was painted with Rust-Oleum metallic blue paint. I found that out by pure luck. I also put a chrome knob on my headlight switch and looked at putting the Camaro bucket seats I have in the truck. But I don't have the metal to fab the brackets. I now have to get some steel to fix my frame. It's rusted out in a couple places under the bed that I didn't know about until today. That's all for now. I will get more pics Wednesday when I'm there getting more work done on it so I can try to make it over to heffs for the bed by mid January

[Stephen717]

Still waiting on lmc parts to arrive. Ordered new Monroematic shocks from summit with a gift card given to me for Christmas. Still have to go through the brakes and clean and patch the frame

[LockDoc]

Originally Posted by Stephen717

Still waiting on lmc parts to arrive. Ordered new Monroematic shocks from summit with a gift card given to me for Christmas. Still have to go through the brakes and clean and patch the frame

Lookin' good so far. A little here, a little there, and pretty soon you will be done. Keep up the good work and keep us posted on the progress.

LockDoc

[specialtyretail]

Fix one or two things,,, take a break, do another thing or two. Keeps it from becoming another full time job. Drive it while you work on it.

[special-K]

Nice to see you making good progress. Looks like a nice place to work on it. I see your truck used to have the auxiliary rear springs, by the brackets that remain.

[Stephen717]

It actually still has one auxiliary leaf spring. I have been going back and forth on whether or not to put the second one back on or get rid of the first aux spring and the brackets all together

[Stephen717]

So update time, I finished almost all my wiring I have the rear body harness that I'll install after I get the bed on, still trying to figure out my radio. I think I have to send it off and get it looked at. And I found out my $700 wiring harness didn't come with the heater wiring so I'm buying that next time I get paid. All of the parts I recently ordered from lmc and summit came in and I have installed the led side markers and the new door handle. I've fixed my driver side door so it closes easier and I fixed the connection and replaced the fuses and turn signal flasher so all my lights work. I installed the dome light and got it wired. And I fogged a few things with flat black paint under the hood so it looks better. I am taking a wire wheel to the frame tomorrow to figure out where the frame needs fixed and priming the spots that are still good. Then next weekend I want to get the shocks changed over and I want to go through the brakes. Also my boss has taken to calling the truck tetanus due to all the rust falling off of it. That's all for now. I'll keep the updates coming

[special-K]

I take it your boss doesn't own anything with rust falling off of it. Jealousy, can spot it a mile away. I thought I was done driving my '72 for the year when we got that snow earlier in Nov. But lots of rain followed to wash away the metal dissolver, so I've been enjoying running it. I started to build a carport and have run it out to pick up lumber a few times. I was out yesterday and across thee hiway at a light was a 71/72 GMC C1500 that looked about the same as your truck, color, hubcaps, and all. They got the left green arrow and passed by with both waving with big smiles. There may be rust falling off that truck from time to time, but those boys were smilin' big, unlike the unhappy looks on most faces I saw sitting in their shiny plastic computercraft

[Stephen717]

That's awesome. He has a 69 Camaro but he doesn't remember what it was like restoring it. He also didn't do anything on the car. Our uncle fixed the rust and painted it and his father built the motor. Twice. So he gets a little bit jealous when he sees me working on the frame or doing body work or fixing something under the hood. I have done nearly everything so far by myself on this truck from buying it and the parts to getting it running good, I got it to the point now that even on 20 year old tires she'll do a one legged burnout. With the little 250. I have to finish wiring my dashes and get my new shocks on next weekend but weekend by weekend I'm getting it done. Hoping to get it good enough that by the time I get tires on it I can drive it daily. BTW I can't get my truck to stay running when I am slowing down to stop and turn around. I have a quarter mile road to drive on and get used to it but I don't want it to shut off every time I get to a stop sign. I also can't get it to run good fully unchoked. Could this be a timing issue or a idle mixture issue?

[zicc1835]

been following your thread nice work....as for the stalling check the timing but ...id say its a fuel issue if you have to keep it chocked to make it run keep up the nice work

[Stephen717]

Thanks. Would it be too rich or too lean. As right now it's happiest between half and full choke

[Stephen717]

Update time, I've been stupid busy between work and commitments to friends but I finally got a small window of time to work on the old girl. In the last post I thought something was wrong with the fuel mixture. Well I have it way too rich but I was in the ballpark of what the problem was. I got to digging a bit and after having torn the carb down and rebuilding it I thought the carb was junk and I needed a new one. I found out today that this wasn't the case. While looking it over I found a finger screw where my idle speed screw should have been. I can't tell you exactly what size it's supposed to be but it was too small. Walked into the shop and found a bolt that a 9/16 wrench would fit on and took it out to the truck to find it screwed right in. I now have a truck the will run when the choke is fully open instead of a truck that only runs with the choke closed. It also idles a bit smoother (although it still sounds like someone put a bigger cam in it) and doesn't shut off on deceleration. I haven't done much more as I'm still looking at a possible frame swap. I think next on my list though is exhaust (so I'm not annoying the neighbors with an open mind old even though it sounds amazing), then brakes (fixing the emergency brake is included in that) and tires. Then I can run a farm use tag to drive it around town a little bit. Just so I can tune the carb a bit more and so I'm not running around on 11 year old radials. I also put led side markers in the truck from lmc and am working on the wiring so the left side stays lit. I think I've got it but I may have blew a bulb in my front left turn signal. I think it's time to switch those to led as well. I'm pretty sure that's all for now so until the next update I'll be fixing tetanus up a little at a time.

[zicc1835]

progress nice work ,thanks for the update

[Stephen717]

Thanks, I was able to tune the carburetor today. It's happy at what sounds like 1000-1100 rpm at idle with a half turn out on the idle mixture screw. I'm sure it can idle lower but for now she's running a hell of a lot better than she did before, she drives up and down the service road in front of our shop and it still sounds amazing with the open manifold. That's all the progress I made today.

[rockyrivermark]

Originally Posted by special-K

I take it your boss doesn't own anything with rust falling off of it. Jealousy, can spot it a mile away. I thought I was done driving my '72 for the year when we got that snow earlier in Nov. But lots of rain followed to wash away the metal dissolver, so I've been enjoying running it. I started to build a carport and have run it out to pick up lumber a few times. I was out yesterday and across thee hiway at a light was a 71/72 GMC C1500 that looked about the same as your truck, color, hubcaps, and all. They got the left green arrow and passed by with both waving with big smiles. There may be rust falling off that truck from time to time, but those boys were smilin' big, unlike the unhappy looks on most faces I saw sitting in their shiny plastic computercraft

My one freind would hum the Sanford and son theme song when he came to my house and see the truck.
All stopped when his jaw dropped and she was all pretty again

[Stephen717]

That's pretty funny. And I should mention that I work at our family business and my boss is my cousin. He's definitely jealous cause he didn't do half the work on his car. He got our uncle to do the body work and paint, had a machine shop build the motor several times and his wife buys him new parts when he could refurbish the old ones. I got the seats out of it cause he wanted to go to a pro touring look and put racing seats and 5 point harnesses in the car. The entire time I've been working on my truck he's had nothing positive to say about it. It's always been why don't you take it to someone to have it wired (I work with wiring every day). Figuring out my carburetor all I heard was why don't you just buy a new one instead of wasting your money rebuilding that one. I heard the same old thing about the tune up I did, the oil change, the new gas tank I installed, the throttle linkage (which I installed wrong but it works and looks good so I don't care) I am most likely going to tell him I'm using the welder one day even though I've never gotten the chance to weld before and I'm going to weld up my exhaust cause every time I ask if he'll help me all I here is why don't you just take it to the exhaust shop. This truck is a learning experience for me. I'm learning everything I've ever wanted to learn mechanic wise on it and putting to use all the knowledge I've learned from tutorial videos and Chilton's manuals and this very forum. Later this summer I am planning on doing the prep work on the body and laying down the primer on it myself to get the feel of doing body work and painting. Then I'm having our uncle paint it since he's done it for over 30 years but I'm supplying all the paint. Before he clears it I want to put our shop logo on the doors and have coach lines done in gold leaf and outlined in silver leaf. My father has been wanting to practice building for years so I told him to do it and make it look like it was done back in the 30's or 40's. I am getting the new glass installed professionally and having it tinted professionally so I won't mess it up. And I'm having the Gen 6 big block out of my totalled work truck looked over by a machine shop I trust but I'm building it myself. I am doing as much as I can to this truck myself to make it mine. By the time I'm done I want to be able to roll up to any of my friends houses or to any car show and have the pride to say I did that myself. That said I know it will be a lot of work but I'm willing to take that challenge cause I see it as a fun one. And unlike everyone who says I can't do it or take it to someone professional I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Sorry for the rant. But I can't stand when people get jealous and say I can't do it.