1969 K10 CST Full Restoration

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

I'm late to the party! I just noticed you're doing another build from your signature in one of your post the other day. I can't wait to see what color you go with..

I see you're going with the original AC setup. Since I swapped out my original A6 I have my original hose that connects to the back of the A6. It was refurbished by Classic Auto Air. If you don't already have this part covered let me know. This ones yours.

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

It's looking really good.

Thanks Dale.

Originally Posted by 72K5CSTDarkOlive

I'm late to the party! I just noticed you're doing another build from your signature in one of your post the other day. I can't wait to see what color you go with..

I see you're going with the original AC setup. Since I swapped out my original A6 I have my original hose that connects to the back of the A6. It was refurbished by Classic Auto Air. If you don't already have this part covered let me know. This ones yours.

Thanks for jumping on Mike and thanks for the offer-that's very generous. I'll let you know. I avoided the factory A/C with the Blazer...it was an easy choice because it was a non air Blazer and I didn't have the extra energy needed to pull an entire factory set up together on top of everything else. But I kind of regretted it because I love looking at those factory engine bays. I've got a bit more of an appetite for it this time and am excited to tackle it. I think it's fair to say Eric is not nearly as excited about the factory A/C as I am.

[lks dcvn]

I didn't know about powersteering.com until this - will have to look into this for my 70 2wd Jimmy. Awesome work so far!

[davischevy]

I have been using powersteering.com for years on my restorations and they do great work.

[68Gold/white]

Very nice!!!
I am glad you went with disc brakes
Stock rebuild on engine?
Did you do your own carb work???

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by 68Gold/white

Very nice!!!
I am glad you went with disc brakes
Stock rebuild on engine?
Did you do your own carb work???

Thanks...A disc brake axle is something we would have sought out if one hadn't been under our donor truck already. It was just a bonus. Disc brakes seem like the only way to go and a more than acceptable modification.

I looked and looked for a date code correct 350 and could not find one. The engine in our donor was a replacement and not correct. We elected to buy a GM crate 350 long block and just fit all the correct stuff to it. The PS pump, compressor, intake, carb, etc....are all date code correct.

The carb was rebuilt/restored by Sean Murphy (SMI). He not only rebuilds it, but re-plates and refinishes everything to original condition.

[IronCanine]

Eric continues to work the cab. Interior body work and hole cut for cargo light switch. Epoxy sealer followed by inner roof and exterior primer and then first exterior guide coat

[IronCanine]

Eric wanted to get the holes drilled for the headliner while it was in primer and not after color. It also is way easier to deal with while it's still on the rotisserie. So I came by after work today and interrupted the body work to help get the headliner pre fit.

[IronCanine]

I have read the threads and reviewed Brothers' how to guide for installation of the headliner:

http://blog.brotherstrucks.com/headliner-installation/

We spent more than a little bit of time discussing different ways to do it. Here's how we elected to handle it. (We are very lucky to be able to invert the cab). The decision was made not to try and cut square holes in the cab roof for the plastic tabs. The tabs were cut off the trim. We centered the headliner and fixed it with a couple of pieces of tape. Next we identified our center line and idealized the position of the trim strips and marked/drilled the front middle screw hole (1). Shaped the front trim toward the corners and marked/drilled the front corners (2). Then we moved to the back middle and marked/drilled(3) and worked those pieces forward (4) mirroring our steps on the front. We were left to work out the slack in the middle. You don't want to be left short and in fact in our case we had to remove a bit of the bottom trim on both sides to accommodate the final screws (5). Because it is flexible trim we screwed it down as we went and pulled our lines straight. All will be removed to continue paint work. The plan is to use trim or heavy duty construction style adhesive in dots at the clip locations (yellow arrows). With the rotisserie we can place adhesive and sandbag it over night to hopefully get a solid result.

[4x41971SWB]

That is a good idea I never thought of, do do it upside down while still on the rotisserie. I have done a few and it sure is hard on the neck looking up doing all of the holes.

[Chulisohombre]

Subd

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by 4x41971SWB

That is a good idea I never thought of, do do it upside down while still on the rotisserie. I have done a few and it sure is hard on the neck looking up doing all of the holes.

The rotisserie makes almost everything except painting the jams easier.

Originally Posted by Chulisohombre

Subd

Thanks for jumping on!

[IronCanine]

Big thanks as always to Jeff (chip flyer) for our SPID. He's always great with insight as well as providing a top notch service. Also picked up a bag for the jack tools from Kevin (AASmedic)-another great board member produced product.

[IronCanine]

Eric has spent the last couple of weeks getting everything super smooth. Turns out we needed the time to sort out the paint color. We always were going to do a dark blue truck. I also felt like we would tweak the factory color a little bit to sweeten it up a little and make it deeper and less Crayola. It took 12 spray outs to get there. Eric thought the growing pyramid of disappointment was funnier than I did.

[IronCanine]

We went through the original 69 dark blue (which sprayed out more of a Hawaiian blue than what I see when I see original paint blue 69s). We also sprayed out blues from Porsche, Mercedes, Volvo and two other GM colors, some of which were close enough to modify and respray. In the end it was 1963 Daytona Blue with a little extra black. I could write a small book on this color process, but I'll spare you. Just know that in the end, I'm super tickled with it. Eric finished prep, sprayed sealer and painted the firewall. I cannot wait to write on it.

[Ol Blue K20]

It looks great! Almost black in the pics....

[Chulisohombre]

Looks like black in the pics. Must be like midnight blue. I was going to paint my Chevelle that color.

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

It looks great! Almost black in the pics....

Originally Posted by Chulisohombre

Looks like black in the pics. Must be like midnight blue. I was going to paint my Chevelle that color.

80's Midnight Blue was one of our GM spray outs. It pitches black on the vertical panels for sure, especially in low light. The challenge was dialing in the face on horizontal panels. Some of the testers had pearls and other modifiers that made the flop hard to manage. Our spray outs appeared only marginally different on vertical panels, but varied a lot in the sun on the horizontal or corners. I wanted to avoid green, turquoise or purple highlights. This color had the advantage of only having three elements: blue, black and aluminum flake...less variables to deal with.

[Chulisohombre]

It looks good either way.

[rustytruck50]

Great progress!!

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by Chulisohombre

It looks good either way.

Originally Posted by rustytruck50

Great progress!!

Thanks.

[IronCanine]

One of the side projects for this build has been replicating the compressor decal. Got the finished product today. All of the reproduction pieces available are different degrees of wrong. Either wrong color or font or part number and none of them have a unit code of course. Our original decal was so nice, we just went about copying it.

[IronCanine]

Another thing we did...just for fun...was to reproduce invoice/shipping docs and a window sticker with Jared at VintageCorrect.com. Not as a means to show false provenance...because I've well chronicled this truck's story. But more for something fun to have at a show. Also since we know that this truck is a November truck-but we have no way to know the exact build date-it's fun to make this truck's ship date our Dad's birthday. 11/11.

Plus I think it's a ton of fun to think about/figure out how these trucks came to be from the assembly line to the dealer's lot. Bickerstaff Chevrolet was a small dealership in our very small (one red light) hometown of Buena Vista, GA. Hard to believe that Buena Vista had a Ford or Chevrolet dealership ever...but it had both throughout a good portion of the last century through the 1970's. Both were pretty much done by the time the 80s rolled around, but Bickerstaff could have definitely handled this truck in late 1968. (Though I'm not sure who in Buena Vista would have ordered this particular jewel--too many bells and whistles)...but like our SPID, it at least exists in the realm of possibility.

[smbrouss70]

That's pretty damn cool! Good work.

[72K5CSTDarkOlive]

Awesome work guys! Cant wait to see that dark blue in the sunlight