HG's Bigass Farm Truck

[hgs_notes]

I have been using my C-10 for hauling everything and I'm not afraid to dirty it up a little, but it's limited on how much it can haul and I don't want to tow with it. A few months ago I bought a 79 C-30 crewcab to use as a regular old truck.




I really like it but would have preferred a 4x4.

Which I found available about 6 weeks later...








That's what it looked like when me and a friend of mine took a look at it. I knew about the truck before because it belongs to a friend of my sister. I just didn't know he was willing to sell it. This was originally an 82 C-30 dually truck. He converted it to 4wd using an 80 or 82 K-20. It has a 454, 4 spd, NP205, Dana 44 (8 lug) front axle and GM 14 bolt FF rear axle. Had a 6" suspension lift and 3" body lift. Swapped on a 78 front end. Custom rear bumper. Riding on 38" bias ply tires on 16.5" wheels.

I could barely get up in it for a test drive. Not quite the farm truck I envisioned. I didn't care for the tires, weather checked and waaaaay out of balance and 16.5". He really wanted to keep them for the wheels mainly so I worked out a deal. He had a pair of rust free doors, a pretty good bed (this one had rusted sills) and I didn't need the body lift for what I was planning. Since he was going to swap the bed anyway I had him remove the body lift.

The steering was scary bad, he replaced the warn part that was responsible for most of the slop.

Right now it's riding on some stock size pizza cutters but I have a set of 35x12.5x16 BFG's to put on it once I find wheels. I'll post more current pics later, I don't have them available for upload right now. It has a different bed with a pretty straight tailgate.

This past weekend a buddy and me got started on some of the maintenance items. The seller gave me a new hanger bearing and rear axle seals. We figured the rear wheel bearings were likely toast also (they were) so I bought those. We ran into problems right away though when the passenger side hub was froze on the spindle tube. It took a lot of heat, a gear puller and a really REALLY big hammer to knock it off. The bearing got hot and seized onto it. Managed to get it off without breaking the drum.

Then found that the brakes were toast also and the wheel cylinders were in need of replacement. But the biggest PITA was that the heated bearings also affected the snap rings that hold the outer bearings in place and they came out in pieces. None of the auto parts stores carry that ring, don't even have a part number for it. I found some online but that means we couldn't get it back together completely.

We got the brake job done, got the outer bearings installed and the race for the new inner bearings and that's how that sits until the new snap rings are delivered.

The hanger bearing was replaced but I found a bad U joint, so that is sitting and waiting for a new part.

Another problem I found was the rear leaf packs have some broken leafs. There are many little issues yet to take care of.

BTW, the 79 C-30 is for sale.