79 C20 resurection

[toddbgky]

I'm already part way into this project but thought I'd jump into the fray here to share the experience with others here. The truck in question is a 79 C20 that has been in my family for 30 years but quite neglected for the last 15. My Dad had it first and sold it to my brother who then took it to the Baja coast in Mexico for 5 years, which perforated the cab to the point where it's not salvageable. I bought it from my brother and have been throwing money at it for the last four years keeping it going and have gotten serious about bringing it back to life over the last year when I bought a donor truck (79 BIG 10)to raid the cab and bed off of it.

I've swapped the beds and am in the middle of sheet metal repair on the donor cab to correct some rust issues it had before hopefully painting the truck in the spring time. The cab is in far better shape than anything you can find in this part of the country, but still required me to find a third additional cab from which to raid the outer panels off of the A-pillars to transplant onto the cab I'll be using. This was due to a poor windshield replacement that allowed water to get behind the gasket and not be able to drain out from the intended holes in the corners of the window frame. It's been a messy tedious process to fix, but I'm gaining ground on it.

My dad had the hair-brained idea to lower the truck when he had it and put a set of Belltech drop spindles on the front (yeah, they made 3/4 ton drop spindles at one time) and lowered the rear by taking four leaves out of the rear springs and installing taller shackles.

I'll be returning the truck to stock ride height and have already swapped in stock rear shackles and purchased a set of used stock spindles to install along with new set of rear springs.

I swapped over the stock fuel tanks and fuel lines off the donor truck since someone had installed custom extended-capacity fuel tanks and rubber fuel lines all the way to the fuel pump before my dad bought the truck. I wanted to get those goofy parts off the truck, so it worked out well that the donor still had all those parts intact.

The steel brake line that feeds the rear brakes let go last week, so I've replaced all the rear brake lines and hose from the proportioning valve to the wheel cylinders.

The attached photo is how it sits today awaiting the next phase of restoration or parts installation.

[Irish_Alley]

so the truck will be "legally" a big 10?

[Broken84C10]

 Nice looking truck, whats this BIG 10 business??

[Irish_Alley]

Big 10/Heavy half

[Irish_Alley]

[toddbgky]

The donor truck I purchased for the cab and bed for this project was a Big 10, which is where the reference comes from. I have possession of the salvage title for the Big 10, so the DMV here in Kentucky will create a merged VIN's of the two vehicles on the title once I complete the project and go to have it registered. The truck will still be considered a 3/4 ton in the eyes of the authorities since it's the chassis that determines that classification and not the cab/bed.

[toddbgky]

I've started restoration on a 79 cab and thought posting images as I complete the work might be of use to other members. This photo will start it off and shows the driver side A-pillar outer skin removed (the passenger side is also off) so that I could fix a large hole that rusted through the inner structure of the cab due to a faulty windshield replacement carried out in the past. The hole has already been patched and was about the size of a softball. The water incursion also rust perforated the A-pillar skins pretty severely, so I purchased another cab that had good sheet metal ion it's A-pillars and drilled out the spot welds to remove them so they can be transplanted onto this cab. I'll provide more photos as I progress.

[Engineer]

Good luck with your project.

It seems like the biggest hill to climb on any resto involving the 73~87 GM trucks is the cabs. It seems like they suffer the most from rust, and no complete replacement is available.

[toddbgky]

Solid cabs in this part of the country are impossible to find, so I had to make the commitment to dive into this one and just make it right. The guys in the southwest states have it made as there as still good cabs and beds to be found out there.

[Irish_Alley]

man laws suck lol. if it was a big ten it would be exempt from emissions. but idk how they will work for you. sounds like they might go off the newest part

[roundhouse]

That's why we bought a running drivable (barely) K-10 4 speed stepside from Arizona

Zero rust

Totally worth the $800 transport cost

[toddbgky]

A BIG 10 configured chassis was no longer expempted from the catalytic converter requirement by 1979, but it doesn't have much affect on my project anyway as Kentucky does not require emissions testing. The only emissions equipment I will be running on the truck are the evap canisters so I won't have to whif gas vapors from the fuel tanks on hot summer days.

[toddbgky]

Yeah, I hear you on that one. I moved to Kentucky from Prescott AZ and know good vehicles/body parts can easily be found in the southwest. I bought the donor truck out of Texas and it was in really good shape...until I pulled the windshield and discovered the rust perforation under the gasket. That lead to a detailed inspection inside the cowl with a flashlight and mirror, which exposed the presence of the softball-size hole in the bulkhead structure. I could have sold off the cab and started looking for another one, but there would be no guarantees I would not have found similar issues again and I decided to end my search and just get to work on fixing the issues so I could move forward with the project. I have the equipment and skills to do the work, so the time factor is the only negative aspect of this project as there will probably be a 3-4 month investment of my time in the cab work.

[toddbgky]

The process is tedious, but the results make the effort worthwhile. I have to use a TIG welder to fill in the scarring left from the spot weld cutter and then grind every spot smooth in preparation to receive the donor A-pillar closure panels. These steps are shown fairly clearly in the attached photos...

[dvdswan]

nice work.  where did you get the donor pieces from?