"BUILD: 1970 C10 LWB--->SWB “Jumping Cholla”

[loudchevy]

It's hard to stop and take pictures when you and everything around you is covered in filler dust. Overall the body is in decent shape. A few dings here and there but nothing crazy, except the drivers door. I did my best to pull out the dent in the middle of the panel and got it within 1/8" of being straight. The dent was centered on the body line in the middle of the door. I tried to shape it and keep the bodyline without toooo much filler. I just have the top of the cab to fill a couple of spots and then seam seal the drip rail. I still have some body gap lines to adjust around the quarter panels, cowl, and hood.

I'll be happy when this body work is done. Once these last couple things are complete, I'll cover everything in a reduced coat of epoxy and then spray some high build primer for a final sanding.

No wonder why this costs so much for professionals to do. It's a ton of work.

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by loudchevy

It's hard to stop and take pictures when you and everything around you is covered in filler dust. Overall the body is in decent shape. A few dings here and there but nothing crazy, except the drivers door. I did my best to pull out the dent in the middle of the panel and got it within 1/8" of being straight. The dent was centered on the body line in the middle of the door. I tried to shape it and keep the bodyline without toooo much filler. I just have the top of the cab to fill a couple of spots and then seam seal the drip rail. I still have some body gap lines to adjust around the quarter panels, cowl, and hood.

I'll be happy when this body work is done. Once these last couple things are complete, I'll cover everything in a reduced coat of epoxy and then spray some high build primer for a final sanding.

No wonder why this costs so much for professionals to do. It's a ton of work.

Looking great Scott!! That is why it is called "Body Work"!! This is definitely the worst part of the project!


Clay

[loudchevy]

Some decent progress was made on Saturday. The firewall is now filled and sanded smooth along with some wavy portions of the top of the cab. I stripped all the panels off and started over with just the cab on the frame making sure it was level and square on the fame mounts. Then I slowly made my way to the front bolting and shimming panels to get the gaps to look nice. It's the best I got in me and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

We'll be pulling all the panels back apart soon and fitting the 454/700R4 between the frame rails. I still need to clean up the engine block and throw some fresh hugger orange on it. At the same time I'm gonna ditch the leaky chrome oil pan, clean up the serpentine belt accessories/brackets, and block off the mechanical fuel pump. Once the drivetrain is installed on the frame I really don't want to remove it, just add other ancillaries to it!

[Chaparralman1974]

Looking great Scott! That truck is coming together nicely.


Clay

[loudchevy]

Final item of test fitting....PO must have bumped into a pipe bollard or post because there was a big dent in the hood (where the filler is) on the passenger side and it continued down into the grill. I have put in a lot of time and effort into trying to re-use the OG grille, but it was just too banged up to get straightened and cleaned up to put back on the C10 and I gave up.

I bought a new reproduction piece from LMC as I didn't want to break the bank for a NOS piece. My expectation wasn't very high for it fitting right out of box and it's being the same thickness of metal, and I was right. However, after a few hours of tweaking here and there, I had it fitting pretty well. I had pulled off the mounting brackets from the OG grill, cleaned, and painted them to re-use on this repo. Once I got the mounting backets bolted to the fenders, most of the rivet holes on the new grill matched up to the holes in the brackets which was a nice surprise. I'm pretty happy with the end result even though I didn't drop the extra 150 bucks for the grill stamped with "CHEVROLET". The repo has the black color offset around the light bezels which I actually like better than the OG as it breaks up the shiny aluminum mass. The old grill will now become garage wall art!

[Chaparralman1974]

Looking great Scott!! I really have to step up my game a bit more to keep up with you!! :-)


Clay

[loudchevy]

I wasn't gonna do anything with the bed for a while, but I needed a change of scenery from bodywork. It's only going to get warmer from here out in Phx (90*ish in the garage already) so I decided to break down the bed so I can get it cleaned up and shortened. I only got (4) carriage bolts to come off cleanly. The rest took a combination of drilling, grinding, punches, and a BFH. The best approach was cutting a slot in the top to use a flathead screwdriver to hold the bolt and impact the nut off from the bottom, but that didn't always work out as some the bolts couldn't get a cutoff wheel on them. Overall, it took around 5 hours to break the whole bed down. If anyone needs the fiberglass toolbox insert that comes with the LWB toolbox option, hit me. The one I removed is in good shape.

[loudchevy]

Couple more pics....I also removed the stake pockets from the driver's side panel. I was going to cover the openings on the top rails anyways. The passenger side panel is banged up around the wheel well and it has the giant opening from the toolbox, so I'm not going to cut that side down. I'll be looking for a LWB or even better SWB panel to use in its place. The crud pile from the bottom of the bed was smaller than I thought it would be. At least it's a dry heat, right?

[raggedjim]

Nice work, it always amazes me how much crap can be hiding in the nooks and crannys!

In western KY it's 55 with 43% humidity!

Rg

[Chaparralman1974]

Great work Scott! Tearing down the bed is more work than it looks. It took me all day to do mine doing the same thing you did.


Clay

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by raggedjim

Nice work, it always amazes me how much crap can be hiding in the nooks and crannys!

In western KY it's 55 with 43% humidity!

Rg

Originally Posted by Chaparralman1974

Great work Scott! Tearing down the bed is more work than it looks. It took me all day to do mine doing the same thing you did.

Clay

Thanks Gents.