Rust NEVER Sleeps: Hilander's '66 C20 Restoration

[Hilandr451]

Greetings!
Some of you know me already from another truck forum, some of you might not. I'm new to this one anyway. My expertise is in electrical (at least that's what I've been doing for a living for the past 15 years) I love helping folks out with their "demons" please feel free to PM or e-mail me for my phone number and I'll be more than glad to walk you through a trouble shoot over the phone (I've got unlimited long distance because my grandaughter lives in Az.) just remember I live in California and I'm in the Pacific time zone. Well, enough of that dribble, let's get on to business shall we?

Today I have officially started the first serious restoration of my 1966 C20 Custom Camper fleetside. I purchased a 1989 3/4 ton suburban front end from a friend of mine and my neighbor's daughter gave me a cherry small back window cab a few weeks ago. Last night another kid from a few blocks over showed up with a good hood, left fender, steel grill and 2 clean cowl corners. This morning I spent $1650.00 on new parts from Chevy Duty, & Brothers to get started.

The Project:
A semi-stock restoration of a 1966 C20 factory TH400, 4bbl 327 V8, factory power assisted steering, power brakes, with custom camper suspension, dealer installed saddle tanks & 'custom cab' trim package.
Modifications:

• convert small back window cab to a big back window cab
• trade "power assisted" steering for standard hydraulic steering box.
• convert front drums to late model 8 lug disc brakes.
• install more highway friendly gear set in differential (410's at least)
• install a gear splitter from Gear Vendors to make it an affordable proposition towing my vintage 26ft. 1965 Airstream trailer.
• install heavy duty reciever hitch
• install modern trailer brake control unit
• design/install fuel level monitoring system for factory saddle tanks.

Budget:
$8,000.00 (less beer & bandaids)

[chevy283]

sounds like a good start. got pics?

[Hilandr451]

Originally Posted by chevy283

sounds like a good start. got pics?

The first mods - hood doors & bed from a '65 doner truck. winter 1994. If you think the 'new' ones look bad, you should have seen the originals!! This became my work truck for the next 6 years.


1999 - Relocation to Northern California: we had to leave her behind on the initial move but pulled her out of storage a year & a half later and brought her up to our new home - sporting a "new" bed. This was taken in May of 2001 in the Mojave desert, where we used to live, just before I started her up & drove her full of junk 450 miles north. Yes that's a genuine Chevron Supreme gas pump sticking out of the back behind the driver's side cab.


New job, new house, new location - I got the old "if-yer-gunna-have-that-THING-in-the-driveway" speech & my wife made me paint my truck. "Rattle can" Gray with spray chrome rims & bumper!


Spiffed up engine compartment September of 2002


Wrong parts during last year's 4 corner overhaul make's highlander very angry!


Dash extraction from old doner truck. This item will be going into the new cab.


This is the new rust free cab - not only free of rust, but free to me as well! I'll be converting this over to a big back window cab in the weeks to follow.

more pics? CM all here: Hilandr451's Online Photos

[chevy283]

cool truck.

[coilspring66]

Hi Greg..you helped me on the "other" site in your previous life & I thank you for that. I only have one question..is Vacaville the world capitol for our trucks? It seems to be the great hub of activity & I'm almost as envious of your location as I am of your rust free cab. As an easterner, I love Califonia & Oregon..how are the real estate prices for one bedroom, one bath, 10 car garage houses there? ...Greg

[Hilandr451]

Originally Posted by coilspring66

Hi Greg..you helped me on the "other" site in your previous life & I thank you for that. I only have one question..is Vacaville the world capitol for our trucks? It seems to be the great hub of activity & I'm almost as envious of your location as I am of your rust free cab. As an easterner, I love Califonia & Oregon..how are the real estate prices for one bedroom, one bath, 10 car garage houses there? ...Greg

Hey Grego! nice to see you over here! I was wondering where all my buddies went!

The average price of a 1600sqft single family home in Vacaville is about $350K. at least the last time I looked it up. It was less than half that 6 years ago when we moved here. I paid $205K for our house in 2000 and it's worth $500K today.

I don't know why there seems to be a lot of '60-'66 Chevy trucks in this area, maybe because there is a lot of agriculture here. Vacaville is kind of isolated between 2 state designated "green belts" to the east & the west of us. Even though Vacaville has more than it's share of upper middle class to high-end neighborhoods, it's still a rather quiet country town hense the affinity and abundance of trucks. At least that's my personal take on it.

I tell you what though, any time you want to come out & visit, you just let me know, I'd be more than happy to give you the 10 cent tour and you'd be welcome at my house any time!

[Chevyboy1962]

Hey Greg,
Glad to see you here.
David

[Hilandr451]

Moe parts, moe work
got the brake booster, master cylander & proportioning valve from Chevy Duty along with a rag joint adapter from Brothers, I found a rebuilt power steering box from Napa Auto parts for $200.00, a rebuilt power steering pump for $67.00. I ordered 4 KYB shocks, all new coil springs, and bumpers & bushings for the rear suspension. heater motor & fan from LMC, and a whole mess of misc other stuff that I can't think of right now.




I got the cab stripped down, scrubbed & washed. We sanded the whole thing down and stripped all of the spreckle paint from the fire wall.


this little tool made this job a whole lot easier.

I started the big back window conversion by removing the original small inner window panel from the cab.

I'm prepping the new panel for installation by sanding down the surface rust from the back side and coating it with POR 15 before I weld it in place. What I'd give for a soda blaster right now!

[SIR]

HOWDY...BRUCE HERE, yup you helped me too with some "stuff" thanks again. there are alot of 60-66 trucks in our part of the world OREGON/CALIFORNIA..there's one for sale down on the corner as we speak ,price unknown.and houseing around here...GRANTS PASS OREGON just this summer we moved into a 2 acre ranch 2100 sqft, 3bd, 2ba,shop, barn! $300.000.coulden't beat it! anyway...welcome from a "newbe" here too..great truck!

BRUCE...

[Joe67]

Nice project with some great project pics and commentary

Good Luck

[zenish]

sell the old ps on ebay.id like a gear venders unit,but 2000 dollars will buy a lot of gas.i put a 2.50 rear gear in my truck.[25.5" tires]

[Hilandr451]

Yep! I plan on selling as much original equipment as I can.

In the swap meet pile so far: the OEM power assisted unit, The OEM power brake booster, mounting plate, a bolt on tach, 2 or 3 instrumentation clusters, doors, core support, inner fenders, 2 painted grills, 1 alluminum grill, 2 grill back planes, complete set ss w/s trim, w/s wiper motor, sway bar, complete 8-lug front end, seat, deluxe heater control assembly, heater core/fan enclosure and much more. Hopefully, I can recover some of the money I spent on the build.

[Woogeroo]

cool shots hilander and of course the ever present commentary makes it that much more entertaining.

-W

[Hilandr451]

Originally Posted by Woogeroo

cool shots hilander and of course the ever present commentary makes it that much more entertaining.

-W

Why thanks Woog!

--gotta go - I've got some sanding to do..... lots of sanding. "...wax on - wax off..."

[roj2323]

any reason your swaping dashboards? i ask because i'm looking for one

[Hilandr451]

Originally Posted by roj2323

any reason your swaping dashboards? i ask because i'm looking for one

I'm swapping dash panels because the P.O. hacked out the dash to install a stereo and drilled various holes willy-nilly to suit his fancy. I want it to look stock. I have a fully functional stock am radio to go back in. I'm installing a "secret" stereo and a 5 CD changer under the seat with an RF remote to control the whole thing. I'll have another dash in the cab currently on my truck if you still need one.

The window portion of the project is complete LOOK!!!







Look Ma, new wheels!!!!

Out the door $534.00 with 16LT 8 ply truck tires! Thank you American Tire!!!

[Frizzle Fry]

Holy Shnickeys you are moving along fast! The rear window upgrade is awesome! You've got to do up a FAQ on that. I'm planning on doing that to my brother's '64 one day.

[Hilandr451]

Originally Posted by Frizzle Fry

You've got to do up a FAQ on that. I'm planning on doing that to my brother's '64 one day.

Yeah, I plan on doing a blow-by-blow on this procedure - I took about a billion pictures. I'll do a "how to" write up, lessons learned, complete cost breakdown, tool list, labor take-off and post it on my picturetrail album page.

I did this in defiance of the so-called "old school" article running in Classic Trucks Magazine. I wanted to show that with just a few hand tools & an inexpensive MIG welder, any weekend wrench could do this in their garage shop.
I'm thinking of calling it: "1960-1966 Big Back Window conversion: the RIGHT way" (as opposed to the jerry-rigged way they did it in the magazine). Hell, you'ld have to have a whole sheet metal fabrication shop to do what those guys did - and it still came out hoakie. You try & find pictures of the interior back panel of that truck - they ain't gonna show it 'cause it looks like spilled &@#%!

Oh well, they couldn't even get the year right on the project truck - they kept calling it a '64 and it was clearly a '66 - from the factory back-up light cut-outs in the bed (that they shaved) to the fuel guage (that Chevy only made like that one year) she's a '66!!!

[Woogeroo]

Very nice.

-W

[Frizzle Fry]

Ya, I read that article and I was wondering why they didn't do it the way you did myself. Just weld in the inner and outer skins, and there you go. No slicing and dicing. Nice work.

[Hilandr451]

Originally Posted by Frizzle Fry

Ya, I read that article and I was wondering why they didn't do it the way you did myself. Just weld in the inner and outer skins, and there you go. No slicing and dicing. Nice work.

Actually it's easier than that - all you need to change is the inner panel - the back panels are all the same 60-66 big back window or no so it doesn't matter what year of truck you harvest the inner panel from. All I did was remove the small back window inner panel then install the big back window inside panel, then cut out the back skin to fit the new inner panel. There's a bit more to it than that, but that's pretty much the idea.

I "harvested" the big back window from a cab that was wasted with rust. I mainly used a Makita cordless sawzall ($80.00 at just about any hardware store) They let you bring these into Pick-n-Pull and you can remove a panel from one of these trucks in about 30 minutes with a couple of spare metal blades and batteries.

I didn't get mine from a bone yard. I had the doner cab on the side of my house for 2 years, so I don't know how much they would charge for an inner panel. I cut the back panel out of a trunk lid to an '84 Crown Vic to repair a punched out lock in my son's car and they charged me $15.00 for what they called a "sheetmetal scrap".

[Frizzle Fry]

That makes good sense. I wasn't sure if the flange would work out that way, but apparently so! That's almost too easy Thanks for the info.

[Hilandr451]

Instrument Cluster time.

My ears needed a brake from all the grinding and sanding so I thought I'd get the instrument cluster out of the way.


Before and After shots No that's not chrome - that's Krylon "Original Chrome" spray paint.



The Highlander's Instrument shop: a sturdy work bench and a home made polishing wheel!



Posing in the cab for the camera - just before I wrapped 'er up and stuck her in storage until the cab is ready for re-assembly.

[Frizzle Fry]

Looks like new. Nice tach. Just needs and air gauge now

[Hilandr451]

Originally Posted by Frizzle Fry

Looks like new. Nice tach. Just needs and air gauge now

Naw - I was thinking about one of those rare-as-hen's-teeth factory clocks! (if they even exist)