I've got this Chevy C10 truck....

I bought this old fellow off of Craigslist, from an old fellow. That old fellow (the man, not the truck) had purchased the truck new in 74 and owned it every day since. The truck came with every document from day 1. The dealership documents when he bought it all the way through every brake job and oil change from '74 to '16. The truck has 77k miles on it. It came with 25 documented oil change receipts.

Honestly, I overpaid by probably 500 dollars, but I just wanted the truck. Finding an honest old truck that you can trace every day of it's life is pretty uncommon anymore. That said, I have owned more than a dozen old Chevy trucks in the last thirty years. I overpaid on this one (2000 dollars) because it's my last one. I'm not as young and energetic as I used to be. I wanted one that I could live with for a long time. I probably put less concern into choosing my first wife.

It was bought here in Fort Worth Texas at Hudiburg Chevrolet and spent it's entire life here. It's never been painted and, ugly as it is, no sins are hidden underneath a shiny repaint.

So, first off, stage zero, or catch up on maintenance as I see fit.

-Radiator serviced at local shop -All new hoses -Thermostat -Rebuild carb -Repair every leak on the truck -Replace all fluids -Replace all brake hoses and fuel hoses -Replace fuel gauge sending unit -New clutch -Reseal transmission -New fuel pump -New water pump -Convert to electronic ignition -Replace driveshaft center bearing

That got it caught up and got me comfortable with driving it reliably.

Wow! I don't think you overpaid at all. That thing is great!

Now, this is the stage where people sometime criticize my trucks. I have a certain style that I've done to every truck I've owned since the 80's.

This truck wasn't factory equipped with a front sway bar, so I fixed that with a trip to Pick-n-Pull and a Rockauto order.

A pair of used 3 inch drop spindles that I cleaned up and painted.

I also trimmed one coil off of the front springs. I have tried all the lowering springs over the years and for me, I prefer trimming the stock springs. They ride better. The drop spindles and trimmed springs gave me 5 inches of drop up front. In the rear, I relocated the axle above the leaf springs. That gave me 6 inches of rear drop. I also used some nice Belltech drop shocks all around.

Remember, I mentioned, I have kind of a personal style. Some like it, some don't.

A few other little details like a bed mat.

Comfort grip steering wheel (the original wheel was sticky like they get when they are old and have seen too much sun and heat)

And, Bob is your uncle.

A couple of artsy shots like the hipsters do nowadays.

This one was taken sometime early on as evidenced by the transmission being on the workbench.

A short post, before I go into the big changes.

One of my buddies gave me a chrome front bumper that was just scruffy enough to not look out of place on this old truck.

I love it!

I had a '64 C-10 and I miss it, even though it tried to kill me a different way every day.

Please keep it Three-on-the-Tree!

And I need to put a set of Cragars on something some day.

Woody wrote: And I need to put a set of Cragars on something some day.

I run Cragars on all my trucks.

True story, back in the 90's I was building my orange truck (scanned picture).

Well, Al Gore hadn't invented the internet yet, so I was on the phone with Summit Racing ordering the Cragars. When I told the sales guy what I wanted, he responded with "Are you sure ? Cragar SS are those old style wheels like they used in the 60's". He thought I was mistakenly ordering wheels that my grandpa would like. Of course, now retro is cool, and more folks are back on the bandwagon. But I can say I beat the Cragar drum before digital pictures and the internet were mainstream.

Another of my trucks from about 15 years ago.

Yo cuzzin' E this is perfect.....especially da patina !!!

You didn't overpay at all for what your got. I like the direction you are taking with it.

Looks good to me, i like lowered trucks and tires with some sidewall.

I'll agree that you did not overpay. If that truck had a/c, I'd give you six grand for it tomorrow.

I've been wanting an old truck in the worst way recently, and this thread isn't helping.

Also, I'm a believer that Cragar SS's don't look good on everything, but they have their place in the vintage speed parts bible. That said, they look GREAT on your truck. In fact, they look good enough that I want to slap a set on an old C10 myself. New plain front bumper looks great as well.

Holy E36 M3 - a 3 pedal, straight six, one-owner Chevy. $2K was not over paying!

The title of this installment is "...and then I got hurt".

I was at work about 1am and dead tired from the last 18 hours of work and I fell off my firetruck and into the street below. It was all my fault. I was just exhausted. Snap, crackle, pop. The results of the MRI on my leg and knee took two typed pages to describe the damage.

So, I got surgery to screw it all back together again and splice in new ligaments and some other doo-dads and hardware installed to make the leg and knee work.

Once I got to where I could walk again, sort of, I drove to truck to a swapmeet to hang out with my buddies. Leaving the swap meet I was stuck in an extended uphill traffic jam trying to leave the swap meet grounds. The six cylinder and three speed lost all their luster in my eyes at that point due to my bad clutch leg. By the time I got to the top of the fairgrounds and out onto the highway I vowed to make some changes.

(insert ominous music...)

I still like where this build is going. Sorry about the busted leg thing though. That's not nice. Also, if you're going to bust up your leg it's too bad you don't have a better story to go along with it. You know, something like;

I was the first man into this fully involved building and the floor gave way and I fell two stories. We wouldn't have gone in at all but there was this room full of nuns that needed to be rescued so in we went. I don't think the initial break was that that bad but the forth nun I carried out after I broke it was a little on the heavy side and she refused to let go of her Great Dane. I think that carrying them out exacerbated things a bit.

Love the three-on-the-tree! I paid $2k for a 1990 with 63,000 miles. I may have overpaid too, but I'm happy with it. Don't worry about other people.

Glad you lost the Roo Bar up front.

Dan

Who would have complaints about this style of truck ownership? It seems so right to me.

That is fantastic. Not even sure what to say besides that.

So I had been keeping this thing in the corner of my shop for a couple of years. It's a 350 crate engine.

The reason I even bought it (long story actually) was that GM was obsoleting that engine and I snapped one up before they were all gone. It's the four bolt main HD 350 used in trucks >8000 lb GVW.

Then I found a wasted TBI350 on FaceSpace for 100 bucks. There wasn't much I could use off of it, but I still bought it for the serpentine brackets, pulleys, etc.

Then I started hitting the junkyards a lot. I used my little wagon to drag my crap. I'd walk a ways then sit down and rest my leg for a while. I got a lot of concerned looks at the junkyards so I can only imagine I looked pretty pathetic.

I wanted this install to look completely OEM GM quality. So I belabored finding all of the little trinkets to make the install perfect.

87-91 Suburban squarebody exhaust manifolds.

Then I tore down the burned up core engine for all the hardware and stuff that I could use. I'm fortunate to have a local plating shop that does work super cheap so I had all hardware replated.

High pressure fuel lines from an 87-91 Suburban.

Weeks of clean, media blast, and detailing of parts.

Factory fuel pump wiring harness. This one came from an S10. Thankfully GM uses the same colors and plugs pretty much across the board.

Now, here is where I threw cubic money at the project in the name of reliability. I RockAuto'd all new Delco sensors and electronics, alternator, power steering pump, and all of that. New Gates idlers and tensioner, water pump, thermostat..... Basically all of the little bits that are 10-30 bucks each but contribute to reliability and a painless swap.

New motor mounts and repainted brackets. Replated hardware.

1991 Suburban ECM, bracket, and PROM (junkyard)

Pulled the engine and trans out.

Slipped in the new engine and a used Turbo 350 trans that I had been saving. Notice the coating on the used exhaust manifolds. That's one of the things I'm most pleased with.

Calyx exhaust manifold dressing

It's a 20 dollar wonder product.

The fuel system took some time and effort in hopes of ending up sanitary and reliable.

I used a new 87 model truck gas tank from Rockauto. It was 60 odd dollars. 1987 was the only year that these half ton trucks were fuel injected, so using an 87 model tank allows it to fit the earlier 73-86 model trucks but it has the baffles internally for the electric pump. The issue that arose though, was the fuel filler.

Earlier trucks like my 74 used a 1 3/8 filler tube and the gas cap was mounted right on the bed. The 87 truck used a 1 3/4 filler tube and the gas cap was recessed behind a fuel door.

So I grabbed a later model fuel filler and cut and welded my gas cap bung onto it.

Note, I used the shorter 16 gallon fuel tank for a short bed truck so when I cut the frame down to shorten this truck I'll be a step ahead of the game and won't have to buy yet another fuel tank.

The Suburban fuel lines cleaned up, cut shorter, and generally manipulated to fit the truck. Note, Gates Barricade high pressure fuel injection hose and clamps are expensive. I used a factory GM EFI filter and filter bracket.

All wiring was loomed in split braid loom. It's more expensive than normal split corrugated loom but the results are worth it I think. Not like baller rock star expensive, more like 13 bucks a roll at Amazon expensive, compared to like 5 bucks for plastic corrugated loom.

Some things not specifically pictured or mentioned already.

I used a Suburban wiring harness which I disassembled and thinned out as appropriate and reloomed.

I used all GM parts where I could. In the picture below are two relays. There would only have been one on the Suburban installation. I found the dual bracket and second relay on some GM car in the junkyard. The added relay on the left is the 12V keyed power relay for the ECM. The right hand relay is factory Suburban fuel pump relay. The little fuse box is a Bosch part from Amazon (12 bucks) that protects the two power circuits (keyed and all-time hot) for the added EFI harness.

The beauty of the 87-91 Suburban wiring harness is that it is pretty much separate and stand alone. It's easy to single it out from the truck and integrate it into another truck, using just the two power wires, speed sensor, and park/neutral switch.

I used an inline VSS from JTR (the V8 S10 swap people) to allow me to run my mechanical speedometer cable and still have an electronic signal for the ECM too. I drastically overpaid for this. I paid 100 bucks only to later find out they are more common than I realized and that eBay shops sell them for half that price.

The starter is off a 98 Tahoe with a 5.7. It's a factory Delco gear reduction starter that is literally a fraction of the size and weight of the old stlye starter. It's a straight bolt on deal.

Junkyard steering column from a 78 model truck. I had to swap columns for the automatic trans conversion. I did add a new Delco key and tumbler from Rockauto. The beat up paint fits the truck better than if I had made it look new.

The ALDL connector and check engine light are under the dash. Looking at the picture, I can see that I need to tuck that harness up a little higher out of sight.

Overall pictures

I'm sure I left out a lot of details. There are so many little things to address on a project like this that some of them surely slip your mind.

When I finally went to start it, no deal.

No fuel from the injectors. No spark from the coil.

Diagnostics on these are dead easy and it came down to a bad pickup coil in the distributor. If the ECM doesn't see the distributor turning it won't play ball. The internets told me that these distributors are known for having magnets get weak as well as the open circuit in the pickup coil. I can't even remeber where I even got this distributor. I have had it for years laying in my box of distributors. So, I just threw in the towel and Amazon Prime'd a new one for 70 bucks with Sunday delivery.

When I dropped the new distributor in, the engine fired right up and smoothed out. No issues. No leaks. Nothing funny. I held the RPM elevated for a bit to break in the cam and performed a couple of heat cycles to get the cooling system all burped.

Later this week I'll drive it to the exhaust shop for a pair of 2.25" duals with Dynomax Super Turbos (I'm getting old and quieter is better to me).

Then, next project is to build up the short stepside bed from pieces that I have collected over the last year. Once that is done, whack 14 inches out of the frame and I'll have me a shortbed stepside pickup.