82 C10 Build

[BidEquation78]

I received my truck as a huge surprise on my 16th birthday from my grandfather who no longer needed it, and wanted the truck to be fixed up rather than sitting and collecting rust(which isn't hard with PA winters haha). The truck was originally a 305 with a TH350, which was switched to the current 350 with an RV cam backed by the original tranny(which likes to fountain ATF from the front seal). The truck has factory equipped power steering which is amazingly smooth even by today's standards!....

 Fast forward to 6 months later (roughly April 14'). The truck sat all winter with it's sad looking dry rotted tires and old battery, but still started just fine and drove straight as an arrow....  first order of business was getting this gem all one color(drivers door was a pale blue), so some of my buddies and I spent 2 solid nights prepping and painting it with 2 cases of 96 cent Walmart spray cans, which actually work great when prepped right.... the truck sat most of the summer with new tires and all, due to me getting a cheap 3 cylinder beater car and I've just now starting buying parts to lower it and fix the rough body panels. So far I have...1 drivers side door, new tailgate, new tires and 15" rally wheels( which I got for a steal at $60 with rings and center caps). I traded my neighbor some yard work over the weekend for rocker panels and cab corners he had sitting around for his 73' k20. I also just purchased 2.5" drop spindles, a flip kit, all new bushings, ball joints for the front end, along with brake hoses etc.This coming week I'm looking at spending part of my past 2 pays on a supposedly patch free bed that needs fender lips replaced(I grazed a tree with the rear passenger bedside, which unearthed the godawful bodywork done by the owner prior to my grandfather.)

The build is slowly coming together, but it's been difficult working 5 days a week, being in high school, and taking care of 4 yards on top of that. I plan on getting this going in full-swing after I get a passenger side door and hopefully locate the new fender that is somewhere in storage. Feel free to give me any pointers along the way, as I'm a newbie compared to most. More pics are to come, thanks for reading!

[FlatBlack77]

welcome!

looks and sounds like its going to be a pretty nice project im lookin forward to updates

where at in pa are you?

[bake74]

     Welcome to the forum and nice to hear about the grandfather's truck story.
     Next time use some paragraphs and break up your sentence's more so it is easier to read.

[BidEquation78]

I'm located in Lewistown, PA which is 30 miles south-east of State College(looks like you're not too far away!). And Bake74 thanks for the tip! It was quite the run-on paragraph!

[BidEquation78]

All the parts are here!! Spindles, flip kit, brake hoses, ball joints, control arm bushings. ! Will be installing in the next few weeks and I'll be sure to keep everyone updated!Also got a gasket set for the TH350 until I get my hands on all the parts for the manual swap.

[FlatBlack77]

you are 85 miles north of me. your close enough to Carlisle to get to go to the shows and swap meets.

quite a collection of new parts. i started with a bunch of stuff earlier this summer and slowly but surely the pile shrunk down to nothing

in for more pics!

[BidEquation78]

I still have a door and body patch panels laying in my bed... get alot of weird looks at school with half a truck in my bed LOL!My commuter car took a crap this past week so I'm currently working on buying a Festiva so the C10 can be parked all winter.

[BidEquation78]

just picked up 2 nice assembled doors... the C10 is half apart and should have a completely new front-end, and be lowered in the next few weeks. Just bought a 93' Festiva for my daily driver so that is my parts runner haha!

[bake74]

     Nice

[BidEquation78]

Well after a long period of no progress due to a hectic schedule... The C10 is finally under way and almost ready to get put back together! We're at a stand still until the remaining bushings get pressed out of the control arms because burning them out took almost 2 hours per because the sleeves were rusted solid...so far we have all new tie rod ends and adjusters, idler arm (which was a pain), brake hoses, and the ball-joints will be in right after the bushings. I bought all new hardware for the leaf springs so the back half should be a breeze!

We also had a scare with the acetylene torch ... the regulator coughed and made the flow stop.. needless to say the check valve caught on fire LOL. Fastest I've ever ran to shut off a tank!

[BidEquation78]

Buying a patch-free bed that needs wheel well lips for $175 this weekend ! Trying to eliminate as much bondo as possible

[Broken84C10]

 Nice truck, keep up the good work man. Im going to be doing almost the same stuff to my c10 in the next few weeks.

[BidEquation78]

Thank You! Just a warning... Unless needed, let the control arm bushings alone ... Not worth the hassle! My neighbor who is a very close friend baked out my old bushings in an industrial oven, and he's sandblasting the control arms so I can paint them up nice! The control arm shaft also got stripped in the removal process so we're getting it re-threaded at a local machine shop versus the $75 for a new one..

 I picked up some Vortec 062 heads recently to throw on my 350, but instead I'm pretty set on just saving for a carbed 5.3 setup (which in the veryyyy distant future might become a blow-through turbo setup) . I'm also grabbing a th400 from a 454 bread truck for $50 this weekend to replace my th350 that likes to shower the tailgate in atf...

Thanks to everyone for checking out my build and more updates should be coming later this week!