Projects Father/Son 63 Chevy C10 SWB Build Thread

I assume you mention that for safety reasons, or is there another concern I am not thinking about? I have actually driven several pickups with the tank behind the seat as a daily driver and never had a concern. I may need to rethink that at least for my kids pu...

 

108* lobe separation... that’ll have some chop!


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

Yea, this cam was actually recommended by a mutual friend that works at Comp Cams. I know a lot of what my son is looking for is a mean sound and good power, but he also has to drive it every day. This was a specialty cam that I think should work well for what he needs and sound plenty rowdy.

 

Here you go Jeff.
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=558629
https://gmcpauls.com/fuel_tank_&_related1.htm
https://www.lmctruck.com/1960-66-chevy-gmc/cbe-1963-66-rear-mount-gas-tank
http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=453832&highlight=gas+tank
https://www.stovebolt.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=623730&page=all

 

Little by little... Every day we get to work on this thing, I think we can finish at least something. I just knew we could finish assembling the motor today and paint it. Then, we couldn’t find the oil pump bolt and no one in town seemed to have one. That ONE bolt kept us from putting the pan on which then led to us not putting in the lifters, push rods, rocker arms, etc. I thought of putting all that stuff in, but didn’t want all the oil just running out the bottom after soaking the lifters. The frustrating part is that I know I have some of those bolts...just finding them is the trick. We did end up splurging on a Summit pan and timing cover instead of cleaning up some nasty beat-up and rusty ones I dug out of my junk. This kid doesn't know how good he has it.

 

Dude, that makes a huge difference using a new Summit pan. I keep one on hand at all times. For what they cost, I won't spend the time beating out the dents and scraping the crud off.

 

Yea, you keeping one on hand and Clay using one of yours a few years back is part of what convinced me to just get one instead of spending a lot of time cleaning an old one up.

 

One other small accomplishment...correct lug nuts showed up today so the “look” is now as intended by my son. And, I figured out what to do with the “temporary” lug nuts I bought to hold the wheels on this thing... Now my 56 has new lug nuts too. Not sure where he gets his taste in wheels...

 

I am still torn on the 55. I love that look, plus I don't have to search for Lincoln caps.

 

Got the bolt we needed for the oil pump today, so that let us button up the bottom end and then flip it over to put the lifters, pushrods, and rocker arms on. All of those but the lifters (new) were in a motor I pulled apart right at 20 years ago and the one I am putting back together as soon as I get it back from the machine shop for my own pickup. The poly locks are probably 25 years old, but were still new in the package. I knew I kept all this stuff for some reason. Kind of cool using it for my kids builds now. But, I now have to buy more stuff when I go to put mine back together since we keep robbing parts.

We will adjust the valves tomorrow since 4 am comes early for me to get up for work...

 

Well...we went to adjust the valves and I am glad my son was doing some other things while I was waiting on him and looking things over. Pretty sure we would have spent too much time adjusting valves to just drop them all as soon as we started it up. Not sure whether the valves have just been ground a lot or the design of the rockers isn’t great...or maybe both, the combination won’t work.



So, we will be finding some other rocker arms before we do any adjusting. Since I didn’t feel like digging through my junk to find other rocker arms, we decided to just clean it up and make it all one color so we could say we at least did something today.





Now, we need to find the other rocker arms, strip and polish the valve covers, and bolt the intake on. We are finally about done with the motor build. Next, on to the cab rust repair...

 

Looks like those rocker arms were made for lash caps.
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/...1321357441546&utm_content=GSAPI+5ba262769f0d8

 

Thanks Tim! I’ll look at that and I even ran across a set of those the other day in my junk looking through stuff. I remember running lash caps on another motor years ago, but I can’t remember why I did.

 

No time like the present to get started on the cab. The more it comes apart, the more rust we find to fix. And, for any that thought the gas tank should move out...it has. More later, but looks like I didn’t order enough patch panels.

 

Got the doors off, glass out, fuel tank out, instrument cluster and glove box out, sill plates and door weatherstripping off, and cleaned up some of the mess. Now, to start cutting and replacing sections of the floor and rocker panels.



We also decided to use some aircraft stripper to get rid of the orange on the valve covers to end last night. I didn’t get an after pic, but got 99% of the paint off before I hosed them down so we could go eat dinner.

 

Nice

 

Great project and build, especially being father/son.

Want to pass on one of my favorite truck builds. Different generation but, @hotrod 49 has some very creative low buck solutions in here, and its a fun build to read thru.
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/project-no-buck-49.327069/

 

Thanks! I’ll definitely look through that thread and am building one of those soon too with my younger son who will turn 16 in November. It has a long way to go! This pic was right after we swapped to a dropped axle with disk brakes. That was a while back, but sadly it looks about the same today.

 

No real progress yet this week on the project other than we did do some better inventory of what patch panels we need and what we can likely just make. I’m thinking we can get away with just the outer floor patch panels that butt up to the rockers and make everything else to fix any areas in the floor. Only one floor brace appears rusty at all, so I think we will just patch it in as well instead of buying a new one. I did dig my argon bottle out of my storage trailer, so need to go get it filled I guess before we start lots of welding.

Otherwise, we have just been mowing our yard and a couple others as well as working on chicken pens, etc. Hopefully we can do something tomorrow evening.

Oh, and one pic, since we know posts with pics are way better than ones without. Trying to decide how much of these tank mounts/floor support to cut off since we are moving the fuel tank out. I think we will just cut off the part that bends back up and toward the front and try to make it look factory.

 

Here we go...



We also took our parts bed apart last night to get the cross braces and inner fenders while we were waiting on patch panels to show up.

 

What a mess! I will be glad when the rust repair is done.

 

If you haven’t picked a tank out already, I highly recommend looking into one from Boyd welding in Florida. I put one in my 63 and it’s beautiful. Great build quality and tons of options.


Habitually procrastinating

 

Thanks. I’ll check them out.

No real progress again other than I did swap out my argon bottle today to get ready for lots of welding. Sadly, I think the last time I needed argon was about 20 years ago. I have been blaming my crappy welding skills on flux core wire recently, but will have to find something else to blame now...like bad eyesight or something. I have been teaching my son to weld some and sticking sheetmetal together is probably a decent lesson...trying to keep from blowing holes through it or warping it up too bad will be good to learn. And, the floorpans will be a place we don’t have to worry about being as pretty as some areas.

I remember how I learned to weld when I was about 19. I needed to replace a quarter on a car that someone t-boned me in and checked with a few buddies that did bodywork to see what they would charge me. That led to me buying a cheap mig and learning how on my own. It apparently worked since that was almost 30 years ago and the quarter hasn’t fallen off yet.

 

Oh, and that one brace that looked a little rusty that I mentioned previously was a lot worse than it looked. It pretty much fell apart as I was using the air hammer to knock out some of the floor we had cut. Trying to decide whether to order that brace or just make as much of it as needs to be replaced. It is no wonder those braces rust out. They pretty much just fill up with dirt. Also, as you can see in this pic, we will have to make some other small patches to fix areas that still have rust beyond what the patch panel will take care of.

 

I'm late to the party, but enjoying what you guys are doing. I've had more than a few C10s and other trucks along the way. The last I had was a 1965 C30 panel truck. I'm interested in finding one for myself, looked at a 1969 C10 panel truck locally for a home for a 427 build, it was pricey at $6500, but someone bought it. The good thing is that almost anything you need is available.

 

The fun begins.

Looks like pretty standard Missouri rust there for one of those trucks. I always assumed GM packed the cab supports full of mud and leaves at the factory! You guys will get it tackled... one bite at a time.

 

yeah there is just enough gap to get dirt in there and rot them out and its amazing how quickly a little bad spot ballons on these trucks. I'm doing a 68 C10 and the kick panels had tiny pin holes that turned into a decent patch. Oddly its the only rotten spots on the truck.

 

Silas learning how to weld on the old metal. I now know how much better mig is than flux core. I had actually never used flux core until I bought this new welder. It wasn’t just my crappy welding skills like I thought it might be.

And, yea I told him he will sunburn his legs and burn holes in his shoes.

 

Other than standing around out in the shop some last night after getting frustrated that we couldn't get my loader or tractor to run to move stuff out of the lean-to on the backside of the shop in preparation for a load of gravel to show up soon, we haven't accomplished much more. I did find the lash caps that Tim pointed out we might be able to use in conjunction with the roller rockers we were trying to use, but after putting them on last night, I don't think there is enough stem on a few of the valves to even keep those in place good. I think we will be best to just run stock-style stamped rocker arms and call it good. I know I had a fairly new set on an engine a few years back that I took off when I put the rollers on...we just need to find them.

Also, thinking of heading out to a salvage yard a buddy owns in town and picking up this GMC for parts. We noticed it back in December when we went out there to pick up a set of doors to replace some on my father-in-laws car that got side swiped and asked my buddy about it. He told me what seems like a good price on a complete truck that happens to be a big back window truck with a pretty much perfect chrome grill that could probably be sold for close to what we would have in the truck. It also would give us all the column shift parts we need since the 60 parts truck we have was a floor shift truck.

 

GMC only hood, all the GMC cab trim... there's a lot of folding money sitting there if you parted it out.