One Piece at a Time - A True Friend

[Chief5940]

This will be a little bit of a long story, but it's one worth telling!

I've had a couple of C10s over the years, but nothing nice. I've been on the hunt for the last 2-3 years, chasing down every lead, and even going to a couple of Barrett-Jackson auctions, only to find out I have a wine-appetite on a beer budget. The biggest part of my problem is that I know exactly what I want!! A red and white, 1972 C10, with bucket seats, tilt-wheel, tach, A/C, disc brakes, headliner, rally wheels, cargo-light, etc! The next part is that I'm a little bit OCD! And lastly, I'm completely incapable of doing any of the work myself. Not that I wouldn't help, i just don't know how to weld, do body work, paint, build an engine...you know.... all the things you need to know to build a truck!

A couple of months ago, my buddy (Spoon3210) posted a picture of an incomplete C-10 short-bed. The frame, cab, wheels, and bed were there, but not much else (see attached). It looked like a great starting point. I hit him up and asked if he was going to build it? More specifically, would he build it for me?

He had already built one for himself a couple of years ago and it turned out fantastic! It was a blue and white, 1972 C-10 long-bed that he cut down to a short bed (see attached). When he bought the project, it came with a set of blue bucket seats. I begged him to let me get them reupholstered in red, because I'm not a fan of blue and I knew as soon as he was finished, he would want to sell the truck and move on to his next project. If I could just convince him to build it red and white, from the outset, I could buy it from him and we would both be happy.

Unfortunately, he had his heart set on blue and white and he actually kept the truck!

Fast-forward to the partial truck on the trailer.... it looked like an okay starting point, but we couldn't have been more wrong. Upon closer inspection we realized that the truck had some damage we weren't wiling to look past, given the end=product we had in mind. We ended up selling the truck to a guy just a few blocks away, but not before we stripped the wheels, which were exactly what I wanted to use on my truck.

[Chief5940]

Even before we had sold and delivered the first misfire to its new owner, my buddy had already located our new starter-kit. A 1972 C10 cab with all the right options. The guy we bought it from had already taken a stab at changing the rockers and cab corners, and had done a pretty decent job!

We also purchased a long-bed frame from the same guy. He also had fenders, two sets of doors, core support, and tons of miscellaneous parts - all in great or near perfect condition. Now we are off and running!

[Chief5940]

Where to begin?!?! Once he got it home, he immediately went to work stripping everything off of the cab to get it ready for media-blasting. We couldn't have been happier with the condition of the cab, no rust and nothing had been cut on by any of the previous owners.

Oddly enough, the last registered owner of the truck was a guy I went to high school with, and I graduated in 1990 - it's definitely a small world!

[Chief5940]

The cab was sent out for media-blast and, just as we had hoped and suspected, we had a great cab to start building from. Everything was in great shape and looked to only need a moderate amount of body work to be perfect!

[Chief5940]

The next step was to get the cab shot with epoxy-primer!

[Chief5940]

Next, the frame was completely stripped down and sent out for media-blasting.

[Chief5940]

Next up! It's time to order some parts!! I'm not really sure what all we bought, but it came to about $1,400 on my credit card. Part of the fun in all of this is that I have given my friend my credit card and access to an account with the funds for the build. This will save him time and, not doubt, cost me MONEY!!

He just buys what he needs and I find out about it whenever I check my bank statement...lol

[Chief5940]

I only had one real job in all of this.....well, maybe two!

One - stay out of the way!!

Two - find those elusive bucket seats I just had to have and get them rebuilt and ready to install.

Luckily, I had found a guy near my house who had purchased 18, yes, that is eighteen, parts trucks to build two complete trucks. On my first trip to his place, he mentioned having a pair of bucket seats, in one of the many truck carcasses on his property that he wasn't planning to use. I was able to trade him out of them and made a great contact in the process.

I've delivered them to Sew it Seams, here in New Braunfels, Texas, and Brian Dallimore is in responsible charge of stripping them down, media-blasting and powder-coating the frames and re-upholstering them. I ordered the new foam kits and custom covers from Southwest Classics in Arlington, Texas.

I'm going for black with the red/black hounds-tooth inserts! I think it will look great when it all comes together!

[cornerstone]

Welcome aboard Chief! Looking forward to your updates! For 20 years I dreamed of painting my Ochre 72 red and white. Once I got serious with my build, and started going to shows, I changed to blue. I think in my earlier years I really liked the idea of the boldness of the red, but as I've aged I don't like the attention as much as I used to, and blue feels a bit more laid back.

You are blessed to have a friend who is willing to undertake such a huge process! I will say this though, the second time you build one would be much more streamlined. If I decide to do another truck, I believe it would take a quarter of the time. Who knows, maybe the next one will be red!
Brian

[flashed]

Im in to see the rest . Can I borrow you credit card too ?

[spoon3210]

Hey Brian. This is Ron from Westworth Village. I am the friend building the red and white truck. The owner Les Stephens is a River Oaks boy that did well and he is now the Fire Chief in San Marcos. It is a small world. Ron

[cornerstone]

Originally Posted by spoon3210

Hey Brian. This is Ron from Westworth Village. I am the friend building the red and white truck. The owner Les Stephens is a River Oaks boy that did well and he is now the Fire Chief in San Marcos. It is a small world. Ron

My o my it is! So you built the blue and white short bed? It's practically the spittin image to my current build! Chief mentioned that you kept the truck... do you still have it? Are you building his truck right there at your house? All the more reason to come and pay a visit! Being a fireman, the red and white are a perfect match.

I'd bet you and Chief know another River Oaks buddy of mine, a retired fireman, Royce Shields?
Brian

[TexasLS1]

I’m watching this one, love the work and the updates!

[notsolo]

Coming together fast, Blue and white truck turned out awesome...I am also Big fan of the red and white. Finishing up her big sister.

[Chief5940]

While Ron (Spoon3210) has been hard at work, I've been falling behind on my job of keeping the progress updated here. So, now that I have a few minutes (thanks CORVID-19) I'm going to try and catch up. Ron has made a ton of progress. I'll break it down into small pieces so I can post the pics to show all the work he has done. First up, was the prep on the cab!

There were a couple of small imperfections in the cab corners, so we bought a couple of new ones and made the needed repairs. We also purchased the small metal patch to cover the factory fuel-fill.

[Chief5940]

The next big undertaking was preparation for the Old Air A/C system and smoothing up the firewall.

[Chief5940]

Ron had the A/C in and the firewall smoothed, but he wasn't happy about the three bolt heads that were still visible on the outside of the firewall. So, he fabricated a bracket to attach the A/C system inside the glovebox without any bolt heads visible on the firewall.

I really wanted to hide the A/C hoses as much as possible and Ron found a way run them inside the fender and bring them up into the cab/glove area through some water-proof grommets (last pic). All-in-all I don't think there was any room left for improvement on the set-up he came up with.

[Chief5940]

The majority of the work on the fabricating the bracket for the Old Air A/C unit and cleaning up that side of the firewall is complete. The fuel fill cap is long gone and a few imperfections here and there on the cab have been addressed.

Also, if any of you are reading this and know the secret to keeping the pictures all oriented correctly, I would greatly appreciate the hint. I've checked the FAQ and e-mailed the admins to see if I'm just doing something wrong. I've even experimented with only using 3 or 4 pics, but I keep running into the same issue. Once I learn how to fix this, I will go back and edit all of the posts. This is killing my OCD and it makes some of the pictures really hard to understand.

[Chief5940]

The BIG question??? What engine are we going to use???

Well, we settled on a 5.3 Vortec engine and 4L60 transmission out of a wrecked 2002 Chevrolet pick-up. It was running and driving when we pulled it, so we know we started with something that works. It had about 120,000 miles on it when we pulled it out.

One of our old buddies, Scott White, came over and got in on the fun of pulling the engine. We had to take the salvage truck back to the owner that night, so we were under a bit of a deadline to get everything we needed removed.

[Chief5940]

Next step was to clean up and go through the engine. While he had it out, Ron went ahead and put in a new high capacity oil pump, timing gears and timing chain, water pump, etc. He also cleaned up the outside and repainted it, so everything looks new when it goes back together. The inside of the engine looks great! We paid $1,100 for it and are very happy with that. It should be more than enough power and super-dependable for this truck.

[Chief5940]

Once everything was cleaned-up, gone through, parts changed, and a fresh coat of paint, we are ready to go back in the truck! It looks great!! I have to admit I'm pretty excited to see it back in the truck and hear it run!

[Chief5940]

The seat overhaul has also been going great! Brian Dallimore at Sew It Seams in New Braunfels, Texas did the work on the seats. I bought new foam and custom covers from Southwest Classics out of Arlington, Texas and the final product turned out great!

The first step was to strip off all the old upholstery and foam and see what we were actually working with.

[Chief5940]

Once we got them stripped down and back from media blasting, we shot them with a coat of paint. There was some rust, but nothing we weren't able to repair.

[Chief5940]

Once the rust was cut-out and new metal welded in, we painted them one final time before starting upholstery.

[Chief5940]

The springs were in great shape and overall the frames were good. We addressed the small amounts of rust and then put on the new foam and seat covers. They turned out great!! Can't wait to see them in the truck!

In the end, we had found a couple of sets of finished buckets for $2,000, but they weren't in the exact color(s) we wanted. By going this route and finding some seats that needed a little love to start with, I'm right back at the $2,000 mark, but we got exactly what we wanted. Also, I do recommend an upholstery shop to do the actual upholstery work, Brian took the time to add foam to the kit as needed and really get the covers on there exactly right! I'm sure i could have done it, but I'm afraid the end result would have looked like i did it...lol