My 72 SWB Progress

[beaterku]

Good evening. I have been quietly lurking the boards and gathering information for my truck over the last year. I have only posted a few times. I thought I would share my truck and the slow progress. My wife and I had been on the hunt for a 67-72 SWB for several years. she was a little more open to years as her grandpa had a 57 LWB on the farm. We looked at every truck that came across craigslist and never could find exactly what we were looking for. They were either more project that I wanted to take on or too much money. I found one in Fort Worth that was a really solid truck but after much thought, I decided it was a little more work than I wanted at that point. So we pressed on, looking on and off for another year. A buddy of mine from DFW called up and said a buddy of his is looking to sell his 72. He sent over the pictures and I made a call to see what the truck was all about. I decided to take a chance and hopped on a plane that weekend...

A few beers later at my first crawfish boil, I owned it.







About a month later, it finally made it home and I took it to it's first car show in my wife's home town. It got a lot of attention but no awards. A month after that I took it to the car show in my home town...

Won it


With my first win under my belt, I decided to start taking car of some of the things that had been bothering me.

First up was the steering wheel and dash pad. Both were no bueno.


Next was a retrosound Zuma. I am not a huge fan of this unit, but it does it job.


I also took out the janky ratchet shifter and converted it back to a column shift.

I then parked it for the winter and didn't get a chance to really touch it at all. This past weekend, after a ton of research and looking at pictures for weeks at a time, I finally decided on a set of wheels.

American Racing Torq Thurst II's in 18x9 5"BS all around. 265/50/18 Nitto tires.



I am in the process of procuring a trailing arm rear end and all of the bits to convert it to trailing arms. This is a factory leaf truck. My plan is to go air this winter. I am looking at a stage 1 porterbuilt kit. I don't want to slam it, I just want the adjustable and most of all, the ride. I have a shelf full of all Moog front end parts to rebuilt the entire front end. I am going to overhaul the front brakes and convert the rear to discs. Following that is a new engine and finally use the 700R4 I have sitting in the shop.

That's all for now. Thanks for looking!

[jmking9]

Beautiful truck! Nice choice on the wheels. TT II's are timeless in my opinion.

[sierragrande71]

Very nice truck

[beaterku]

Originally Posted by jmking9

Beautiful truck! Nice choice on the wheels. TT II's are timeless in my opinion.

Thanks. We went back and forth between salt flats and TT. I think TT's are timeless as well. I will hopefully have tires Friday to see what it looks like.

Originally Posted by sierragrande71

Very nice truck

Thank you!

[boraxman]

Lookin good, I liked the ratchet shifter/

[beaterku]

Originally Posted by boraxman

Lookin good, I liked the ratchet shifter/

Thanks! The shifter didn't work like it was designed. Someone along the line tinkered with it and it was a royal pain in the rump to get in and out of drive. My wife drives the truck and she wanted no part in it.

[WarMonger]

great looking truck

[beaterku]

Put the wheels on today. Drives so much better with a larger diameter tire.

[Dad's72]

Originally Posted by beaterku

Put the wheels on today. Drives so much better with a larger diameter tire.

I really like the stance on your truck. Did you lower it or did you buy it that way? If so how much did you drop it? 3/5 maybe?
Good looking truck.

[beaterku]

Originally Posted by Dad's72

I really like the stance on your truck. Did you lower it or did you buy it that way? If so how much did you drop it? 3/5 maybe?
Good looking truck.

I'm not sure what the front is. The rear has 2" drop shackles and 3 of 8 leafs removed.

I too like how it sits. I need to get some measurements and see if I can't figure out what the drop is.

[Hart_Rod]

Nice truck!

[engineer_gregh]

I really like the black lower trim. Its what the custom deluxe is supposed to have and I wish it were on mine rather than the woodgrain. You have a very nice truck!

[Toxic Orange]

Looking good... Love the 5-spokes!

[beaterku]

Thanks all!

I've been slowly working on it over the winter and the last few weeks. I am re-wiring it with an AAW kit. I stripped all of the wiring out of the truck. I am also putting a ACC carpet in, which led to fixing a trans hump that someone had butcherd, stripping the sound deadening that someone had installed at some point, installing dynamat and installing insulation on the firewall. It was a bit of a can of worms situation. All is good now and wiring starts tonight, finally!

Doesn't look too bad, but looks can be deceiving...


"Patches" removed. The PO had crudly attached a couple sheets of galvanized sheet metal to cover the holes.


All cleaned up


Bought a high hump from my local C10 parts guys Bob


Patched the hole


Coated in Chassis Saver


Dyamat down


Firewall insulation. Still need to tape a couple seams

[Sklptrljay]

Originally Posted by engineer_gregh

I really like the black lower trim. Its what the custom deluxe is supposed to have and I wish it were on mine rather than the woodgrain. You have a very nice truck!

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I always thought it looked better in black myself. I did my truck that way.

[beaterku]

Originally Posted by Sklptrljay

Sorry to hijack the thread, but I always thought it looked better in black myself. I did my truck that way.

No worries! I used to think I wanted wood, but the black grew on me.

[72 Super]

Nice looking truck and it is coming along nicely. The wheels look great!

Ray

[beaterku]

finished up the interior wiring today minus the gauges. I am going to try to finish up the gauges in the morning.

[nate68]

What brand and size tires?

[beaterku]

Originally Posted by nate68

What brand and size tires?

265/50/18 Nitto 555

[beaterku]

Spent the day yesterday working on the truck. Installed the steering linkage, wheel adapter and wheel and built a relay array for the electric fans that mounts to the radiator. Buttoned up the wiring in the engine bay and fired it up. Fired right up. Drove it over to the lift so I can run the rear light harness. Getting closer.

Had one mishap. Don't be a dummy and forget that you have a mechanical oil pressure gauge. Truck only ran for 15 seconds but that's enough time to pump a 1/2 quart into the cab on to brand new carpet. Opps. Most of it came out of the carpet. It was one of those deals that I knew it was mechanical but was more concerned about the electric temp guage being hooked up. Oh well, live and learn.

[Tomahawk30]

Originally Posted by beaterku

Had one mishap. Don't be a dummy and forget that you have a mechanical oil pressure gauge. Truck only ran for 15 seconds but that's enough time to pump a 1/2 quart into the cab on to brand new carpet. Opps. Most of it came out of the carpet. It was one of those deals that I knew it was mechanical but was more concerned about the electric temp guage being hooked up. Oh well, live and learn.

Don't feel bad. I've done it too. Not once, but twice. Did it a few years ago and was really ticked at myself. Then a few weeks ago I had my cluster off and even REMINDED myself not to do it again! And then did it again.

[Ekliptix]

Those wheels and tires look great. Nice choice with tall sidewall to help fill in the wheel wells.

Question: I'm thinking of getting a similar wheel tire combo, but I'd like to go with a 10.5" rear wheel and likely a 295 tire. There appears to be lots of room for you to go wider and get farther out towards the rear fender. Do you mind confirming this with your setup, even just eyeballing to confirm to have extra room from the edge of your tire to the fender for more width? Thanks.

[beaterku]

Originally Posted by Tomahawk30

Don't feel bad. I've done it too. Not once, but twice. Did it a few years ago and was really ticked at myself. Then a few weeks ago I had my cluster off and even REMINDED myself not to do it again! And then did it again.

I'm glad I'm not the only one. Was a really bummer on brand new carpet. Shampooed it again today it the oil is 99% gone. We shall see how it holds up.

Originally Posted by Ekliptix

Those wheels and tires look great. Nice choice with tall sidewall to help fill in the wheel wells.

Question: I'm thinking of getting a similar wheel tire combo, but I'd like to go with a 10.5" rear wheel and likely a 295 tire. There appears to be lots of room for you to go wider and get farther out towards the rear fender. Do you mind confirming this with your setup, even just eyeballing to confirm to have extra room from the edge of your tire to the fender for more width? Thanks.

I think a 10.5 would fit no problem. I am going to go with 18x10's in the rear when I swap the LS in. The 9's sit in a fair bit right now.

[mechanic350]

so im prepping to do an AAW install myself. how difficult was it to do. I have been making a custom dash cluster for mine though with some auto meter gages and a new instrument panel. seems to have been a pretty easy install. I am also converting my oil pressure gage over to an electric so no more oil squirting into the cab when i have to take it apart.