“Castro” my new 72 build

[GSFMECH]

I should have started this thread long ago. I built my new truck last year and never started a build thread. I documented the build with photos and now I’m playing catch up. The reason for this build as you can see from the below photo is I lost my blue 72 in September of 2019 thanks to a drunk driver. I was on my way back from C10s in the park when this dude decided to turn left 100 ft in front of me while I was going down the highway at 55 mph. Here’s a photo of the carnage below. It was damaged heavily, frame bent, cab tweaked, left bedside bent and all of the front sheet metal was destroyed. Lots of people told me to fix it and I could have but I figured it would never be the same again. I would have likely had to paint it all over to make it match and I wasn’t prepared to go through that again. Besides I always worried about it getting scratched or something happening to the paint and I wanted a patinaed truck. I figured I would salvage everything I could and sell off the rest. The insurance treated me right. You can see my original build of the blue truck in the link below. I had owned that truck for 20 years.

[GSFMECH]

Anyway, to pick up the pieces I bought this ochre and white 72 long bed. A buddy of mine bought the truck locally back in 2011 with the intention of making a SWB out of it for his son but never got around to it, his son didn’t like it and wanted something newer. He had even picked up a matching ochre and white short wheel base bed with original paint and a powdered coated SWB frame. He had lowered it with an ECE kit, new exhaust, a set of 20” Coys which were later sold, redid the interior and got it running good. Anyway, he sold it to another buddy and it sat outside in his driveway for a few years and not driven much. I bought the complete package off him and now it was time to build it. My intention was to do the SWB conversion along with my drivetrain, wheels and suspension and basically be identical to my blue truck except for the color and the patina. However, I decided to do a lot of upgrades over the blue one which you will see as I go along. Here’s a few photos right after I got it. My buddy had a set of 17” TTIIs on it which he kept but I got a set of 18 and 20” Coy’s with the deal which I didn’t use. The reason I call it “Castro” is that if it weren’t for old “Castro the drunkard” which caused this debacle I wouldn’t even have this truck. Hope he enjoys jail, it was his 4th time DUI. Here are a few shots of the truck when I got it. I’m not a huge fan of ochre but it was in good enough shape to leave the paint as original as possible and fix only the rust through, if I were restoring it I would have probably went with a different color truck. Having said that I’ve grown to love it. When I was a kid I worked part time for a man who had one the same color, so it brings back a lot of memories.

[GSFMECH]

Here’s the bed I got with the deal.

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Here’s the frame, it had been powder coated probably 12-14 years ago and had sat outside and faded but it was still nice and clean for the most part.

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It already looks better with the 20” Coys off my blue truck

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Old blue looks mighty sad, at least she still moves under her own power in this photo

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Getting the body ready to come off

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Away to my bone yard. I later sold the bare cab and doors

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Body stripped off in prep to swap everything over

[GSFMECH]

Got the new frame pressure washed and everything moved into the shop

[lolife99]

Very cool build.

[GSFMECH]

Originally Posted by lolife99

Very cool build.

Thanks

[GSFMECH]

One of the upgrades I wanted was the QA-1 coil over setup. After seeing Ernie (C10 ustacould) and Conner(C10_Punk) long haul the Underhauling truck (Old Girl) on Hot Rod Power Tour 2019 I had to have it. That trip beat the devil out of it and it performed with no complaints. Here’s where the boxes started arriving

[GSFMECH]

Now for the hard work, this is where the cursing and busted knuckles start with chiseling/ drilling out rivets, these plates are a pain to get off, these are riveted in with old panhard mount on the LH frame rail.

[GSFMECH]

Now for the c-notch. The entire spring pad has to come off unlike the normal c-notch that I had before.

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A template comes with kit to cut the c-notch, it bolts on into the old bump stop mount holes, just mark it off and cut. I drilled holes in the corners of the cut for stress relief.

[GSFMECH]

I mounted the c-notch into existing bolt holes and marked the rest for drilling

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Trailing arm brackets are off.

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Upper a-arm bracket removed

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I used the new upper a-arm and coil over mounting bracket for a template to cut the hole for the coil over to pass through and drilled the bolt holes

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This is the new bracket set in place that takes the place of the factory one

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Welded in some very short pieces of tubing for the exhaust to pass through

[GSFMECH]

After completing all the cutting and rivet removal I finally got this junk painted and ready to start bolting stuff on. This was a lot of work that you'll never see. I scuffed and repainted the frame right over the powder coat with epoxy. I had to paint it because of all the cutting I did and also because it had sat outside and had weathered.

[GSFMECH]

I started pulling stuff from the old frame, I needed the rear end to mount into the new frame. The frame was bent so bad I had to jack the back of the trans up to get the header out. It didn't look that bad just looking at it. The rear trans mount was broken from the wreck so it was easy. I have 2” Hookers for a Chevelle, lucky they were not damaged.

[GSFMECH]

I swapped in the motor I had in the blue truck for now. This is an almost stock 454 I built to long haul HRPT in 2019. The fan clutch failed me in traffic in Sparta Kentucky and I severely overheated it, so it was wounded, using oil and smoking a bit. We call this motor “Helicoil” because of the many head bolts that stripped when I was building it thus the installation of many helicoils. However, it got me by for a while until I got my 496 freshened up that I previously had in the blue truck. More to come soon.