The Family-Room find

[justa dumb hick]

I guess you’d havta call this one a family room find. Kinda like a “barn-find”, but the poor old 1964 C-10 was dying a slow death in my family room, albeit a pleasantly climate controlled demise. Story goes like this: about 25 years ago I moved into this house with a 2 car garage. I had way too many old cars/projects and needed a place to put the nicer ones in a hurry. Since I don’t have a family, I certainly didn’t need a family room. So I knocked a big hole in the family room wall, installed a garage door, and stuck the old truck in there and sorta forgot about it. Well, the story is always the same, years of life’s infinite mysteries and demands got in the way… along with 25 years of accumulated crap, and that brings us to today.

My apologies, I can get a little wordy at times, so if you get t’feeling yer losing precious minutes of your life that ya ain’t gonna get back, then quit readin’ this drivel and go do something productive.

Anyhow… where was I? Oh yeah, I retired a year or so back and started building myself a little shack up in the mountains to escape this damn desert heat. I’ve been using the woman’s Grand Cherokee as my work truck, but the girly thing won’t take a full 4X8 sheet of plywood… and the “pretty” Jeep was beginning to show damaging results of my blue-collar construction efforts (uhm… that tear in the head-liner really pissed her off). So I started looking around for a gently used truck or a small trailer to pull with one of my tired, worn out old cars. A few weeks ago as I was stacking more crap on the old truck it occurred to me: “You dumb hick! Ya got a fine truck sittin’ right there!” Well, I ran a mechanical to-do list in my head and decided it wouldn’t take much to get ‘er back on the road. The first dilemma would be better brakes. Remember the part about where I’m building my little ol’ shack? Yep- in the mountains, with numerous 6% grades both ways.

Dang… this is takin’ waaay to long, sorry folks. Well, Since I don’t know nuthin’ about these old trucks I did a quick search on the internet for 1964 C10 disc brake conversions and found yore lil’ ol website dedicated to old Chevy trucks. Hopefully I can root around in here and find a simple way to retrofit front disc brakes in order to prevent a violent downhill parting-out of said C-10. Success in that mechanical endeavor will most likely lead to additional research into power-steering, trailer hitch, etc. provided your patience will endure my learning curve of questions.

Well, that’s the truck. And me? I’m justa dumb hick, nothing too exciting there. I’m guessin’ pictures of it’s pending extraction from the tomb would be nice, but I’ve no idea how to add those.

-JDH (Insomnia is a terrible thing to waste)

[phlegm]

Welcome ..............

[rpmerf]

That was certainly an entertaining read. Welcome!

Disc brake conversion FAQ:
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/s...d.php?t=444823

[68bowtie]

That’s hilarious. I’m in to see pictures.

[justa dumb hick]

Damn.... I really hate electrons. The only satisfaction is how much I am currently inconveniencing them! I'm a Mechanical guy, so I'm better with being able to see the physics of what is happening. Well here goes: attempting to upload a picture.

Attempt no. 1

JDH

[truckster]

Welcome. This should be fun.

[justa dumb hick]

Hmmm... well, that seemed to work so I'll try another. This is looking down the hall from the laundry room. You can see the woman does her ironing in there. Dang-it, shoulda removed the ironing board lest someone requests that I surrender my "man-card". Our ex-family room is also the general junk collection repository of the household. We all have one of those right? Things go in ….but never come out.... until it's time to sell/move.

JDH

[justa dumb hick]

Hang on Fellers- I'm going for broke on this one! Uploading TWO pictures! Seems this fancy forum tool resizes the pictures for you. Well, that certainly makes 'em far easier to attach than the way I've been screwing around for the past hour.

And yes, it's a bit embarrassing to accept my burden to reveal this pig-pen to a bunch of total strangers. But what the hell- we're all human and no doubt have similar situations in our own environments that we can relate to. At least I have provided a safe and dry home for this old gal, even if she did slip off the radar for a few years.

JDH

[Myself]

Your willpower must be godlike!! There is NO WAY that I could let something like that sit for that long without at least busting it out to go cruising!

[mongocanfly]

What I can see of it looks to be in very good condition..and welcome

[BAD1916]

Originally Posted by justa dumb hick

Hmmm... well, that seemed to work so I'll try another. This is looking down the hall from the laundry room. You can see the woman does her ironing in there. Dang-it, shoulda removed the ironing board lest someone requests that I surrender my "man-card". Our ex-family room is also the general junk collection repository of the household. We all have one of those right? Things go in ….but never come out.... until it's time to sell/move.

JDH

NOBODY can take your man card when you have a truck parked in your living room. Just saying��

[toolboxchev]

Hell, I have parked my Crotch Rocket in my bedroom for a day. Ha!

Glad to see she has her own room. You know how it gets when things get unruly!

[justa dumb hick]

Perhaps further insight as to why this nice ol’ truck has been neglected would be in order. Quite simply, too many other automotive related distractions. I've spent a lifetime being a "car guy", it all started with muscle cars in high-school, then drag racing, then circle-track racing, then road racing. All this time I was never a "truck guy". Power-to-weight, speed and competition were the primary focus. To me, a truck was only for pulling a trailer and parts runs.

So you’re still wondering: OK Dude, then why do you have it?

This particular truck was purchased new in late 1963 by my Grandfather. He was a contractor/builder in San Diego and used it for that purpose. After a few years as his work truck, my grandparents drove it around the country after they retired in the mid 1960’s. He was a skilled wood worker, and having witnessing the depression in the 1930’s they were always conscious of financial limitations, so he built a nice camper-shell for the back (which I fortunately still have) in order to save on motel bills etc. As is common with that era of men, he took great pride in his tools, so naturally he took very good care of the truck. This family connection is why I am the current caretaker.

It only has about 60k miles and is basically still virgin… except for the damn paint! Soon after I took ownership (and lemme tell ya, that was a chore- ol’ Gramps had no intention of parting with his baby!) ….anyhow, soon after I brought it back from San Diego, some housewife plowed into me from behind at a stop light. The tailgate was mangled and the bed slammed into the back of the cab. Being a small window truck, there is still evidence of the big dent behind the drivers seat where the back of my head made sudden impact, followed quickly by same head (forehead this time) slamming into the steering wheel rim. At that point unconsciousness took over until some nice fellow stopped and woke me up to see if I was still breathing. The C-10 was going to require body and paint work and I got caught up in the new hype of base/clear urethane with lots and lots of block sanding which became so popular in the 1990’s, so I stupidly repainted the whole truck (a regret that I’ll just blame it on the concussion). But now it no longer resembles the wonderful single stage enamel of my youthful memories.

Then the house/move happened and it got shoved into the family room. That’s about it.

Now I find my participation on this web-page is helping to keep me focused, and hopefully the old ’64 will be exhumed from the junk-room in the next month or so. Naturally I have a few other projects that I MUST complete before I start this one. I’ll do my best to take some photos once it’s out in the sunlight again and post them. But for now, as usual, I have become a bit wordy in the details, so I better shut up before I wear out my welcome!
JDH

[68bowtie]

Hey as long as you post as many pics as paragraphs you will be welcome here.

[1971 GMC SHORTY]

What a Beauty Can’t wait To See Whole Truck

[Liz]

Originally Posted by justa dumb hick

Hmmm... well, that seemed to work so I'll try another. This is looking down the hall from the laundry room. You can see the woman does her ironing in there. Dang-it, shoulda removed the ironing board lest someone requests that I surrender my "man-card". Our ex-family room is also the general junk collection repository of the household. We all have one of those right? Things go in ….but never come out.... until it's time to sell/move.

JDH

needs to be titled peek a boo! lol

[Killer Bee]

at least turn it around so the missus can do her ironin' on the tailgate

this is best thing I've seen on the internet in a long time, cheers to you!

[Keith Seymore]

No judgement here.

I've spent a few minutes myself trying to figure out how I could store my GTO in the dining room.

K

[57taskforce]

This was well worth my time! You’ll fit in fine here! I’m sure this is something most of us have contemplated at one time or another. Mine was a spare bedroom...then the kids came...

[prairewolf]

good read and fun pictures, you are so far from being a dumb hick you could change your user name. Muscle cars, Drag racing, moving to mountains after retirement, a life is good story, thanks for sharing and welcome to the site

[toms68cst]

Great Story! I have a feeling you will fit in around here just fine. Welcome.

[special-K]

Looking forward to seeing you out there in the forum with the rest of us fools.

I see people convert garages to family rooms (fools), so why not the other way around? My buddy has a family room on a slab right next to his 2-car garage. We looked at adding that 3rd door and a partition, but his woman won out with a nice cherry floor, chair rail, and wainscot (he built a big shop)

[justa dumb hick]

If a picture says a thousand words, how much does a 19-minute video convey?

Reaching deep into my bag of creative enthusiasm, I’ve decided to make you fine people a YouTube video of the first attempted restart of Grandpa’s old truck in the Family Room. My insomnia has come back with a vengeance recently, which adds 3-4 more hours each night for peaceful puttering and the learning of some new technology.

This video was created specifically for the 67-72chevytrucks.com web community. It is not a ploy to take you to a YouTube channel, there are no pleading requests to “subscribe” or “like” and the video was uploaded as non-commercial. It is primarily for your enjoyment. Although hitting the subscribe and/or like buttons could certainly inspire additional videos. Feel free to share it with whomever also might find it interesting. I humbly dedicate this video to everyone who has survived this far into my indistinct prose and prior ramblings. If anyone would have told me this is what I would be doing at two o’clock in the morning, 18 months into retirement, I’m sure my response would have been that the possibility was utterly ridiculous. And yet, here we are.

Many thanks for your warm welcome and positive comments. Now let’s go welcome the real star of the program, Grandpa’s 1964 Chevrolet C10. Below.. I hope.. is a link to the video on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWYVs7widI0

-JDH (insomnia is a terrible thing to waste)

[cwcarpenter98]

Dadgum, you've got 2 nice classics. That was funny how you stole the battery from the HEMI Coronet for the C10. I enjoyed watching your video, and congrats on getting the truck back running again!

[Greg58]

"Runs like a Singer Sewing Machine"
Love it!