Project "insert catchy name here" TBD

[amberkalvin]

Well, I sold my CC Dually.... but all is well, provided some funds to acquire more tools and another project.

The Good: No Rust! (let me elaborate a bit, no real rust, except the driver cab corner, I can tell they Fiberglassed it in a small sport) No Bondo! (from what I could tell, there may be a small spot here or there, but we'll find out once we dig in)

One owner had it for twenty something years, the second owner is who I bought it from. Not sure if it is a 305 or 350, but other than the normal tune up things, it runs pretty good. Needs Vacuum advance fixed or something, maybe carb cleaned. Sputters bad when floored, but if you ease into it, it rips pretty good.

First on the list is to fix small things:

Headlight Relay Mod
Make sure Fuel Gauge works lol (been there done that)
Basic Tune Up/Oil Change
Speedometer
Oil Press. gauge
wipers (new motor and wipers work, but continuously squirts whenever wipers are on)
polish glass (currently hazy)
Get tunes working
Slowly but surely work on paint (does anyone have a recommendation for a good epoxy primer that I could get in a can? preferably in white.)
Clean
Clean
Clean!
Clean More!


Any Recommendations for Mods/Upgrades Should be done? I want to drive this truck while working on it so a complete teardown probably isn't going to happen for a long while. Next year I may be looking into LS options for engine so not looking to do much as far as that is concerned.


The project after I drove it home:























Now I know what you're thinking.... Why buy a truck with a Moonroof? Well, the deal was right, and the Moonroof was installed by the original owner by a shop here in town that does awesome work! Would I rather have one without, of course! But since it doesn't leak, i'll roll with it for a while and worst case scenario I'll skin the roof.



































Inspiration:

[aggie91]

Looks like a solid start...

[amberkalvin]

Originally Posted by aggie91

Looks like a solid start...

Thanks! Hopefully it comes out half as nice as most I see on here

[amberkalvin]

Well, took it for a little stroll after getting the windows much much cleaner!

[amberkalvin]

Before and after polishing the turn signal lenses up front. PO had them out so I figured why not?

[amberkalvin]

So, No High beams.... High beam switch wasn't working correctly so I went ahead and pulled down the steering column and adjusted the dimmer switch and now it's like a brand new truck switch!




Remember when troubleshooting that sometimes it can look like it's making a connection... but it's not!

[amberkalvin]

Fixed the tailgate latches so that they close much easier and are even on both sides.... much better.

[amberkalvin]

Sooo..... These are the old battery terminals. Not very happy with those. Cheap! Who would even buy these crappy things? Anyways, Replaced those!



with these!

[amberkalvin]

This is where I will turn to you guys for help.

This white and orange pair of wires goes to my dome light. I'm assuming there is somewhere on the multifunction light switch mounted on the dash it should plug in to? It also looks like it may plug right into the fuse panel?

I will fix this wire and put it where it belongs if someone from this wonderful place can tell me where it should go

[amberkalvin]

Originally Posted by amberkalvin

This is where I will turn to you guys for help.

This white and orange pair of wires goes to my dome light. I'm assuming there is somewhere on the multifunction light switch mounted on the dash it should plug in to? It also looks like it may plug right into the fuse panel?

I will fix this wire and put it where it belongs if someone from this wonderful place can tell me where it should go

Well I found out that this wire just goes to the battery positive at the fuse panel. Power runs straight up to the dome light and ground is controlled via door switch and the light switch.

Now I need to get the valve covers and exhaust to stop leaking.

Drove it to work today for the first time. Seems pretty reliable, the classic wing window whistle and occasional vibration (probably due to tires), but all went well.

[Matt Man]

I'm curious as well as to what that green wire with the orange connector goes. I have the same exact wire on my 81.

[amberkalvin]

That leads me to this Green wire...

Where does it go and what does it do?

[amberkalvin]

There is also a pair of Yellow/Purple wires under the column near the dimmer switch. Any idea what this belongs to?

Thanks ahead of time!

[amberkalvin]

Since my wife and I had a little girl 5 weeks ago (our first) I hadn't stepped in the shop for over a month until I brought this project home. Before bringing this project home, I was working on some CNC stuff. Just as a hobby, but now I find my CNC router becoming a bench to set things on lol

I know I'm not the neatest person ever, but oh well.

[amberkalvin]

One more thing. I know I'm killing it with the questions, but I also found that the Oil light switch (I think it is) has 3 wires coming off of it on the side of the block just above the oil filter.

Well, all 3 wires are super frayed. I'm sure shorted out and what not.



What a pain.

[amberkalvin]

So after a little debating about how to go about this project, I think I just want to get it all in one primer base so that I can work on the body and mods here and there.

Plus if it looked just a little better I think I would be tempted to drive it more.

First things first, I figured I'd start with a bedside and go from there. Couldn't make it look much worse than it did anyway right?

This is how it looked before I started:


And this is after filling some holes:


I did find a layer of bondo under the first repaint job, under the primer. I tried my best to make it fairly straight so all I should have to do is a thinner skim coat of filler than was on there to begin with.




So you can see it is fairly straight. Far from perfect, but good enough for me


I hope to get the bed stake pockets filled and filler/primer on today. For the short amount of time I've worked on the bed, I'm making progress.

Feel free to give constructive criticism, or just be a smart ass lol. I can take it. I want to learn from you guys so give some pointers or feedback if you want. Won't hurt my feelings. Well, maybe you will, but whatever.

[SCOTI]

Bed rail looks pretty straight. Definitely good enough for moving forward w/body work. Be careful & choose primers that can withstand the elements/moisture or you could be wasting your efforts.

Cheap primers will soak up moisture. The surface will 'dry' but moisture can/will remain trapped under it. Moisture on metal = rust & that will be under all your subsequent layers of materials.

Be sure & use some sort of epoxy & keep it out of the rain/moisture as much as possible.

[amberkalvin]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

Bed rail looks pretty straight. Definitely good enough for moving forward w/body work. Be careful & choose primers that can withstand the elements/moisture or you could be wasting your efforts.

Cheap primers will soak up moisture. The surface will 'dry' but moisture can/will remain trapped under it. Moisture on metal = rust & that will be under all your subsequent layers of materials.


Be sure & use some sort of epoxy & keep it out of the rain/moisture as much as possible.

I wish I would've caught this post a day earlier. Since I was out, and not wanting to spend a ton, I bought a pint of ready to spray rustoleum primer. Although I don't think its epoxy primer, I didn't take the entire bedside down to metal.

This is probably fine considering after spraying the primer, it really just shows how much more blocking I need to do to get everything straight. I see durablocks and epoxy primer in my near future.

Thanks for the heads up.

Here's the pics from this afternoon:



Still a very small low spot. Looks bad but it isn't.

[amberkalvin]

well after leaving this truck in my garage for quite some time, not driving it, I decided to throw a battery in it and get it running good.

Once I did that, I threw the back bumper back on it and decided to let someone else take care of my paint problem since I do not have the time (or a clean enough shop) to knock this out on my own.

Here it is before sending it off to paint:


and here it is after my paint buddy knocked out a good bit of work:










I went ahead and bought a Raptor Bedliner kit from Amazon for about $120 and add $15 for the gun and had him do a bedliner so I wouldn't be so concerned about the bed condition:




And the pretty much finished paint job, it is 2015 Arctic White (corvette color):

[amberkalvin]

I personally think it needs a blazer bumper, that would clean it up alot.

I have 25 ft of white PEX tubing coming (if anyone in Fayetteville needs some let me know lol I'll have plenty).

I ordered new carpet, door seals, window seals etc. I'm hoping that helps alot with the feel of the truck. I've never owned a 73-87 that had new window seals and all of my windows would rattle and make tons of noise.

Slightly off topic, does anyone know if the following K5 is on this forum? My brother in law was able to pick this up for what I think is a decent price for what it is. Has an 8 lug conversion, disk brakes in the rear, new motor, new tranny, new exhaust, new paint etc:

[amberkalvin]

Can I also get a recommendation on tire size for the c10? Im not looking to lower it in case the next owner doesn't want it lowered and want something decently aggressive looking but on a 15" rim. I know thats not super possible, lol but trying to keep the 15" wheels.

[aggie91]

If you want all 4 to be the same size, I would go with a 255/70R-15 on those rims if they are 8" wide. That is the size that is on this tan and red '84:

[amberkalvin]

Originally Posted by aggie91

If you want all 4 to be the same size, I would go with a 255/70R-15 on those rims if they are 8" wide. That is the size that is on this tan and red '84:

Perfect. Exactly what I was looking for. I think that'll look awesome.

[amberkalvin]

Here is the list of things I wanted to get done, I'll update that list here:

Headlight Relay Mod-----------------not done, but upgraded to H4 bulbs I have yet to install with the Relay mod.
Make sure Fuel Gauge works-------works
Basic Tune Up/Oil Change-----------not yet, cleaning engine bay (hopefully like the 12 day transformation thread but I'm not counting on it lol
Speedometer-------------------------works, needs a needle
Oil Press. gauge---------------------works
wipers (new motor and wipers work, but continuously squirts whenever wipers are on)
polish glass (currently hazy)-------Glass is clean!
Get tunes working------------------Fixed
Slowly but surely work on paint---Done lol
Clean
Clean
Clean!
Clean More!

[LT7A]

Cool truck. I like how you said clean clean clean. Sometimes that's all it takes for one of these rigs to look pretty good. Yours looks great with the new paint tho.