Hey guys, new here. Recently picked up a 1959 GMC 100, pretty well optioned truck. Local guy had the truck shipped from California 25 years ago. He drove it 6 months til the steering box went out and parked it, til I got my hands on it. It's got the factory optioned Big back window, 347 Pontiac V8, automatic transmission, deluxe heater, fleetside bed, task force rear bumper, and deluxe trim package. I have everything that isnt on the truck. The pictures aren't great, and actually make the truck look pretty bad. This truck is solid beyond belief and the frame is unreal. The worst part of the truck is the driver's door bottom. My neighbor builds tri-five pontiacs so Ive got the hookup on motors. My basic plan is to yank the intake and heads, do up a set of 389 heads so I can run a more efficient intake, and a set of headers. I was wondering if I could also do an electronic ignition for a 389 if Im still using the 347 block? I know Pontiacs used the same block til the end of carbed production. Anywho, I cant afford a paint job so it'll stay as it is for now til I can afford to have it coated in a mirror black. Gonna lower it, do the glass, make the interior look like absolute new, and get it as dependable as possible. I know im gonna have a helluva time trying to track down the front marker lights, anyone got a set laying around? Any help or suggestion is much appreciated fella's. Thanks, LJ.
Nice truck. Looks like the fancy version of my '59. I dig the V-8. I didn't realize that Pontiac had their v-8s in the GMCs in '59 until I got my truck. It's kind of interesting.
Thanks for the kind words guys, it's sure gonna be a fun little driver when all this snow and garbage disappears. Link to this NAPCO forum? Thanks for the info.
http://napco4x4.org/ That is the home page. Nice score on the big-window Fleetside by the way. Link might work now. You have to click on "Home" to get to the new site. PM me if you can't get there.
Thanks for that, surprised Ive never heard of that Forum, my old man's had a NAPCO since '87. Lol No, definitely not. The more I look into the truck, the more I find out about it. I work absolutely horrible hours, so I dont have much time to work other than my days off. I rode down to my shop after work (just got home ha.) to discover that 1) The rear window was tinted from the factory & 2) I cant get the hood to open any further than the picture I posted. Looks like I'll be investing in a set of hood hinges! Now for my question, does anybody run the 4 speed Hydramatic thats in these V8 trucks? If so, any complaints or positives to them? Other than the clunking you get when you put them in reverse haha. more detailed pictures to come.
Cool GMC. My 59 is a long bed step side, with a small back window. Planning to replace the 270 six, with a 326 Pontiac and a Muncie 4 speed. Maybe try some PB Blaster on the hood hinges, before replacing them?
Pontiac V-8's were in the GMC's from '55 through '59 and the Chevy's bigger than a 4400 had a Buick nailhead during the same period. Some of those were the 266 and others the 322. We had both as fire engines and both did their job well. We had one COE '56 Chevy with a larger Buick that was a replacement engine with a manual 5 speed and a 3 speed auxiliary transmission. It would fly!. Normbc9
Lemme know how that 326 conversion goes, or at least when you start a build thread? I'll definitely sub. to that and check that out. The hinges themselves are jacked (for lack of a better term) and want to LIFT the hood straight up instead of TILTING the hood. I never knew that about the nailheads! That's too cool! So small progress today, talked to my neighbor about the distributor and if worse come to it he told me just to convert the distributors guts to electronic guts and go from there. Bought a 389 down in Uniontown so im eager to see the modification Im gonna have to do to get the headers to work. I'd like to run long tubes but have heard the D. Side Poncho headers are a SOB to get in. Also, i plan on taking this thing down to Texas come June to do a little slice of the Hotrod Power Tour, so i was considering power brakes. Just add a booster to a dual master, but will i run into any issues with braking pressure? Ive heard that you had to run the front lines to the rear reservoir and vice versa. Any help's appreciate, LJ.
Subscribed! I'm putting a '62 Pontiac 389 & HydraMatic in my '55 soon. I love the stump-pulling power the Pontiacs have over the small-block Chevy. I'll definitely be watching!
Awesome! I will agree that the pontiacs had monster torque but Im primarily keeping this engine because I dont wanna be "that guy" that opens his hood and has just another SBC tucked in. Poncho's for life! So I shot down to the place the truck is before work today, snagged a few more in-depth pictures and did a little evaluating on what im gonna need to know for the head swap. Also, can anyone tell me if that spare tire holder is factory? Im stumped on that. I took pictures of the worst spots on the bed, just dents and folds, some shots of the frame rails, and a couple just cuz they were cool Anyway the picture of me pointing to the head proposes my first problem, 389 heads were cooled through the manifold and 347 bore and below were cooled through the heads. I'll have to get a new water pump to accommodate but im not entirely sure if a 389 water pump will bolt to this block. Does ANYONE have experience with these motors? Anyone at all? Also figure on having to do a little bit of sandblasting around the rear window just for my own peace of mind. Thanks, LJ
If the front cover is changed the corresponding water pump and manifold can be used. My 389 is a '62 engine, I pulled it from a totalled '62 Star Chief and I miss that car. Someone performed a head swap on it at one time, and it has large chamber, large valve 1972 400 heads & intake. Done properly, the Pontiacs have a huge degree of interchangeability. Your heads will need the water ports blocked or a set of later heads that will work with the later manifold if you're swapping front covers to update the cooling system. I don't believe the large-valve heads will work on a small-bore block like yours due to interference with the block but small-valve 350 or 326 heads would likely work very well. The nice thing about the 326 heads would be the early (pre-1967) valve angle, which would eliminate worries about the valves hitting the pistons. Intake bolt patterns (and thus, heads) changed in 1964 also, so the later heads would need an intake to match. This may help a bit. http://www.crankshaftcoalition.com/wiki/Pontiac_V8_engine ...There's a lot of good info out there, keep researching!
Sure will. The plan is to start sometime this summer, depending on the economy. Hopefully, my rusty old S-10 daily will last that much longer. Here's a pic of my GMC.
So the real story comes out... Today I met with the guy I bought the truck from, just to pick up some small parts he had for me. Turns out, his son (who gave me the first story) had things a little bit wrong. The man proceeds to tell me that he had first seen the truck around town only a few weeks before he ended up buying it, and this is where it gets somewhat disheartening. 1973, he see's the truck in our small towns Knorr's Arco Station, notices the at-the-time owner in distress mode pacing around the truck with the hood open. He pulls in and yells to the man, "That truck still running?" to which the man tells him that the steering box had just gave, and he couldnt make any left turns. Minutes later, he bought the truck for $400.00, with the owner explaining how he had moved to PA only a month before from long Beach, California, he had bought the truck brand new in '58 and the truck was always garage kept and he hardly ever used it, He had to sell his daily commuter car for the big move, which is why he was driving the truck. He parked his truck, drove my 59 home, and again to his mother's house later that night, being the last time this truck was ever driven. He worked as a machinist and had a heavy rollback, so he towed it to a building in Rosslyn Farms, PA in an abandoned turnings processing plant that he owned, and that is the last time the truck's tires ever rolled, until I got ahold of it. He gave me a box of parts, all in mint shape might I add , the ash tray, the full gauge cluster with the gauges, and the chunk of metal cut from the inside wall of the cab that was cut for a whip antenna from a CB the Cali. owner had in it. He apologized to me for not having the original cali. black plates that were on the truck when he got it. He also apologized for what he let happen to the truck, the shape its in, the dents, etc. He told me how the truck was absolutely stunning when he got it, and how he could just sit and look at it all day long. He was genuinely sorry. But, when I got home, I took a look at the gauges and the odometer reads 11,720 miles, So now my mind is racing...what exactly do I have? Do I have THAT virgin of a truck? And more importantly, why didn't he EVER do anything with it? Anyway, I pulled the seat out, cut out what was left of the glove box cardboard, and got everything that moves, to move like new. The tailgate was especially bad, it was literally frozen in place, haha. I also scored a parts truck. A TOTALLY rotten '57 with the Poncho v8 and hydramatic. Had a GORGEOUS red and white interior, which basically hit the homerun for me. Im gonna blow the interior all white, top half of the dash and door panels in black, with a red carpet, red/white seat, red/white steering wheel, red sun visors, red headliner. Should be killer. I've ordered basic stuff, like the glove box, door locks, wiper motor, brakes, etc. Also, being a Cali. truck, there's no freagin heater. So that throws me for a little bit of a curve. Here's a picture of the floor, just to show off what Im pleasured to work with More pictures and shit to come. Later, ElJay.
Very nice, I'm the third owner of mine and #2 just let it sit for 20 years. Makes life a lot easier when you don't have to "undo" too much. You got a good start, will make a nice truck. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
I have a 1955 GMC longbed with the 288 V8 and Hydra-matic. I have 2 bulletin boards you need to check out. http://oldgmctrucks.infopop.cc/eve http://forums.performanceyears.com/forums/ (Specifically the 61 & older Pontiac Tech)
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