few questions from a newby

[willisch]

Couple months ago I purchased a 65 chevy fleetside lwb for my son and me to work on. He is ten now and I figure I've got 6-7 yrs to before he can drive so we are going to take our time and hopefullly he can learn a thing or two about these old trucks.

Well I got my truck home and started doing a little digging into what I had. Turns out that it is a 65 chevy c20 custom camper with factory in dash a/c, automatic, originally had a 327, bbw, custom comfort package. I believe it has all the trim that could of been added. It is still the original marroon color. It has the foot step in the side of the bed, it still has the camper tie down hooks on the side of the bed, and it also had two lights on top of the cab.

Is there alot of these around? When doing a search very few 65 custom campers come up and the ones that do don't have factory automatic,in dash air, etc. I would hate to modify to much if it is something they did not make many of.

I have taken it completely down to the frame. The body is waiting for sandblasting. I am working on the suspension and frame now tearing it down and rebuilding. Here is where I am a little confused and maybe someone can help. The PO had changed the truck over to 5 lug with disc brakes up front. He has also lowered it. It looks as if he cut the springs up front and maybe heated the rear and put lowering blocks on it. The front upper a arms are pointing up in the air and I would like to fix this while I am rebuilding the suspension.

My question is how far did the PO modify the front. I would like to get suspension parts but I don't know what to order year to order them for. I know a 73-87 parts will bolt up but will 1/2 ton 73-87 parts bolt up to the 65 3/4 ton stuff. I can assume that since it is 5 lug disc and the front bearing is a timken m12649 that the spindle was changed out. How do I know if thats as far as he went. Would he had to of changed the a arms to because of the different ball joints between 1/2 and 3/4 ton? I am trying to figure out do I order springs for 65 3/4 ton or later model suspension and does it matter. Also as for dropped spindles I assume I just order 73-87 ones. And what ball joints do I need? The crossmember is bolted on to the frame. Are they originally riveted to the frame and this maybe a clue that he did a whole crossmember swap?

Here some numbers I found on the various parts
Brakes fdp03fe
front outer bearing timken m12649
Rotors 210404 c thk 965
spindle 75589402 rh cfd 2 72 gm and 15589401 lh cfd 1 93 gm
upper a arm 3786
lower ball joint 6m1 9740977

Dont know if they help but maybe someone will have a clue.