My "new" ride - a 4-door yellow squash!

[bake315]

Courtesy of Photoshop, here's some idea of where I'm heading, color wise...

[bake315]

For anyone out there wondering "What th'....?", my original thread got corrupted somehow, so Chris had to lock it down and move me into a new one.  Thanks again, Chris.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....


Okay, I have finally begun working my way into the resto on this yellow beauty.  In doing so, I have discovered several interesting things.

First, whichever previous owner thought they were a wiring whiz needs to be flogged with the endless strands of questionable wiring and really really bad 3 and 4 way splices.

Second, at one point the truck was set up for propane injection, and there were a few vestiges of it remaining.  The tank for this didn't come with the truck, and it isn't something that interests me, so I pulled all of that out, and have not decided yet whether to sell it, give it away, or toss it entirely.

The temp gauge was all over the map, so I dug into the cluster and determined that a poor ground at the gauge was the culprit, and ran a separate, second ground for it.  Now it works perfectly.

Located a clean '73-74 grille for it, but it had a 350 badge.  Member dumbucket helped me out with this by sending me a 454 badge.  It's for a GMC, but that is not a big deal for me, since I plan on refinishing it.  Thanks again, dumbucket!

The truck was originally yellow gold/white, as evidenced by the back of the cab after I pulled the bed off.  I have pics of this, but not with me at the moment. I'll post 'em up later.

The frame is in positively awesome condition, given the trucks age.  Mild surface rust, dirt and grease came right off with a pressure washer, and left a surface that is virtually ready for some Chassis Saver.  I may hit it with a light blasting in some of the crevices though, since I have the equipment.

The hood, though it appears to be GM, is not the original for this truck.  Has quite a bit of surface rust and body filler in it.  I'm going to clean it up and get all of that out of there, and see if it can be saved with a little bit of effort.  In the meantime, I have a fiberglass hood on it, which actually came extra with some other parts, that I fixed up some and installed until I can figure out what can be done with the steel one.  In all likelihood, I'll go with the steel, and sell the fiberglass one. It also came with a NIB Cobra King left front fender.  The other parts that I'm getting rid of are a set of shorty Edelbrock headers, and the camper shell.  I already got rid of a single plane Holley intake that came with it.  That thing was definitely not suitable for what I have in mind.  Lorne was absolutely right, and now I know why.  Thanks, Lorne!

It looks as though someone was preparing to set it up to be a hot rod, and/or convert to TBI - there are inline fuel pumps for both tanks, in addition to the stock mechanical.  Had to replace the mechanical one because it was leaking around its middle seam.  I'm going to pull the electrical ones soon, since I don't really have need for them, given the direction I'm going with this project.  I also need to pursue a rather temperamental fuel gauge issue, but I'm about 98% sure it's a ground short somewhere - it almost always is the case.

I'm still going for the factory look, with the original wheel covers, but I can't use the 16.5" wheels for it.  Nobody widens steelies anymore - at least around here, so I'm getting 16x8 8-lug wheels for the front and 16x10 for the back.  I don't like the "skinny wheel" look as they are now, so I'm thinking 3.5" backspacing on the front in order to push them out a bit, fill the well better, and give them a deeper look. I think the stock backspacing in the rears will be fine since I'm running a little wider wheel back there. Wheels will be painted to match the primary color of the truck, which will ultimately be hawaiian blue/white.  Original hubcaps and stainless trim rings to finish them off.  I think it'll look pretty darned sharp.

I scored some ceramic coated headers locally on craigslist for $100.  A guy was trying to install them on a '72 and they weren't made for it.  Anyway he managed to crush the #1 tube to where there was about 60% restriction.  I fashioned a slug from a 1" galvanized pipe cap, and with a come-along and some strategically applied mapp gas, I've gotten it to where it looks almost normal.  I'll probably touch up the areas I heated with ceramic spray paint, and those will hopefully be good for a couple of years.

The bed that's on it had a little bit of rust on the fender behind the rear wheels (and it wasn't the original, anyway), so I found a bed off an '86 also on CL that's in near perfect condition, and came with a nice hard tonneau cover for only 4 bills.  Going to ditch the "grampa" camper shell and throw the proceeds towards a new cam and lifters, and likely will do an intake that would complement it as well. 

So, some pics should be forthcoming here and there on progress.

[bake315]

I think so, anyway!

Found a local guy selling old Chevy/GMC truck parts (he had a CL posting for chevy grilles - which I don't actually need, but was curious to see what else he had).  Anyway this guy has about 50 vehicles on his property in various stages of wreckage or deconstruction, but has a shop within which he's been accumulating parts for like the last 30 some-odd years.  Some of this stuff literally has like an inch of dust on it because it's been in there for so long.  It looks like a disaster area, but this guy knows where the smallest part is.  While I didn't come away with a second original Chevy 454 grille (it was a 73-74 GMC 454 grille), I did come away with:

A factory axle jack with crank and fender mounting brackets
An early 70's air cleaner assembly
A 73-80 tailgate with near perfect trim moulding and 'Chevrolet' badge
A complete set of trim for an 8 foot bed

Paid $110 for the whole kit 'n kaboodle.  I was pleased!

I'm off this entire spring break week, so I'm really digging into this thing.  Pulled the old bed and took it to the scrapper this morning, now I'm about to begin blasting the frame (or at least the half without a bed presently) and apply the chassis saver.  I'll post some pics before, during and after.

[Flamingbig10]

nice crew

[ccz145a]

Nice score on the parts!

[bake315]

OK, so I did prep work on the frame today.  I was only thorough enough to allow me to install the new bed.  I figure i can get the rest later.  Anyway I began by sandblasting the right frame rail, but couldn't get consistent flow from the sandblaster.  So I picked up a wire wheel brush that fit into my 4" angle grinder, and went to town on it.

Here are some "before" pics.

[bake315]

And here are a few more:

I can't get over the condition of this frame!

[bake315]

Next, here are some shots of the frame before application of the Chassis Saver.  One side is sandblaster, the other side I hit it with a coarse cup wheel in my 4" angle grinder (ran out of blasting media).

[bake315]

And finally, some shots of the applied Chassis Saver.  This stuff ROCKS!  I coated the other 20 gallon steel gas tank that I'm putting in (previous owner had made a 25 gallon one himself) with it tonight, and will be reinstalling it into the truck tomorrow.  My biggest problem with the homemade tank is that it bolted directly to the underside of the bed, instead of the frame rail.  So when I installed my new bed, I didn't want to have to do that, so out it came.  It works fine, though - just doesn't fit into my plans.

[oldwhity]

Great job. I love the deep dish wheels.

[JRConnieK10]

Looks great. Keep up the good work.

[campcrf]

love your project.... and to think i bough a supurduty to haul my 81 shortbox and dirtbike ... dang, I am looking for a 3+3 now.

[bake315]

After a looong layoff, I'm back working on the CS again.  Motor's out and in the garage, waiting for a trip to the machine shop.  Picked up a super clean bed from an 85, and a clean tailgate from a 76.  Also, this week I stripped the hood that I was originally going to scrap due to so much hidden damage (and a ton of body filler).

[bake315]

I already knew about the front edge being sort of rough, both from the initial damage and the half-baked repair attempt.  The crease in the center ridge is considerable, but I think I can get it back pretty close to where it needs to be.  Originally, it was filled completely with the plastic filler, and an area about 10-12 inches surrounding it was filled with it as well, to attempt to compensate for the depression created when the ridge line took a hit.  I'm hoping a lot of that will go away when I pull out the crease.  I may need to come up with a solution on the underside.

[bake315]

Today, it was about cleaning up the firewall and front suspension.  I pulled the A/C box off (which ultimately will go back on - this is Texas).  I haven't yet decided whether to go with a black firewall or do it in the Hawaiian Blue.  I'm thinking on doing that Spectrum coating that Vile did on his 74 which looks awesome, and then color coating that.

The front suspension had over thirty years of grease and dirt caked up on it.  I decided to start cleaning that off, so I could see what I had to work with.  Like the rest of the truck, it looks awesome - should be easy to get it squared away.  First image is the "before" and the last one is the "after".