84 c10 stepside

[jpnh]

When I started this is what the truck looked like. i drove it around for the summer like it was. just had to do some small stuff to make it pass for a sticker. fun truck. people love it. the tunes are loud enough. covered in rain in those pics it dont look bad. but the closer you looked at it every panel needed attention. like they painted it over bad prep work, and the suspension was hacked. rearend was starting to go. looked up the vin its a 1984 originally red 6 cyl from canada it had the 350/350trans set up in it already. runs/shifts good b&m floor shifter nothing on the tree. i liked that about it. reminded me of my camaro in highschool. the tailgate was welded shut {didnt like that} and there was a steel tailpan frenched in smoothed cutout for the exhaust the springs were heated and bent to lower the truck a definant no no. unacceptable. had to make it my own. i worked on a few squares back in the early 80s with my brother but they were all stock work trucks 4wd mudders tow trucks flat beds n such nothing ever lowered i always liked the look of a stepside wood bed. never did one of those. my brother had a mid sixtys c10 shortbed stepside smallblock 4 spd when i was young im talkin when i was 6. my brother was a nut back then. i remember to this day he picked me up from school a few times in it. that thing would fry the tires. needless to say it certainly left an impression on my soul.ill post more when i have time to convert the pix-jeff

[77ChevySharkBite]

Congrats on your truck!!

Looks like it's solid overall minus some of the details you mentioned. Definitely sucks someone would take short cuts and do certain things to it that shouldn't but what is good, it's in good hands now and it can be changed and made right with some money, time, and effort!

I wish you the best of luck and I'll be staying tuned to watch what you do!

[jpnh]

Thank you sir for your vote of confidence-jeff

[77ChevySharkBite]

Of course we all need it.

So it might be a little early to ask, but what is the plan for your truck at this point?
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[jpnh]

I decided instead of takin it off the road {had to drive it for a while} the first thing i did was i found an 84 stepside bed for $300 on Craigslist figured id work on that untill the weather got bad enough to put the truck up for the season it was crusty bad fenders/bad wood but the base of it was in good shape the sides tailgate front panel cross braces were all in good shape spent the summer takin it down to metal had to sawzall/grind/drill/break/every bolt to get it apart i pounded all the dents i could out i flipped it over made sure the bottom was stripped down real good then coated the bottom/all the braces with 3m paintable undercoating then i sprayed epoxy primer on it flipped back over did the body work wet sanded it and sprayed it with epoxy primer again

[jpnh]

bed pix,

[jpnh]

My goal is to get a drivable /respectable/lowered/stepside hot rod truck out there without breakin the bank wish i had found this forum before i started but you know how hind sight is-jeff

[walkerb]

Nice soon to be stepside! Nice truck

[jpnh]

Thanx, {Mr. walkerb.} i can say its a stepside now. my build has been goin since the end of the summer last year 2012. plugged away all winter thru till now. finally got it back on the road now still gotta come back apart for paint this winter. recently found this forum, so i figured i would share pix of the things i did/planning to do/comiserate. soon the thread will catch up to the point i am at now. got a ton of pix just gotta pick the good ones/edit out the nonsense. -Jeff

[jpnh]

Mo bed pix,

[jpnh]

do you dress like this when you sand?

[jpnh]

Ended up going wit a fabricated tailpan from airbagit.com fit really good used a couple vise grip clamps to hold it up so i could drill the holes

[jpnh]

once it was cold enough out i took the bed off the truck. bed bolts were way rusted on. so they were just spinning. was gonna do the old weld the carriage bolt head to the bed trick and decided they were too frozen ended up grinding the heads off em all but 1. at this point its when your past the point of no return as far as drivin it on the road. ended up selling the fleetside for quick cash so i didnt have to store it /move it around. the bed was in pretty good shape well oiled underneath from the seal leaking on the rearend.

[walkerb]

The roll pan you got,does it have a hole for the license plate light? My 74 bed is in the same condition as your in the pic. Ready for paint. You'll probably beat me!

[jpnh]

yes,it does come with the plate light hole thats one thing i forgot so i had to get the plate light after, then when i installed the pan i held it up and the light itself hit a little bit i had to do some grindin for clearence, also its much easier to slide the bed back to put the bolts in the pan i bolted the bed down tight and then put the pan on and there is not much room to get in there because the nuts n washers need to go inside the cross brace on the rear of the bed. i was able to do it but it was a pain ended up takin the light back out and getting the center bolts through the plate light hole pretty tight once you nail the bed down needed to drill the liscense plate holes too they werent right mounting the plate would have also been easier off the truck not much room to get in there once the pans installed i had put the pan on and taken it off 10x easily but to do it after the bed was nailed was a different story-jeff

[jpnh]

The next thing i did is the cab corners both were bad when i first cut into them i noticed "ah ha!" there was an inner cab corner and an outer cab corner would have been real easy to cut right thru both with the sawzall. they were spot welded an held on by a couple rivits at the bottom on the side i was able to save the inners when i cut the drivers side cab corner off a bag of stainless bolts fell out on the floor "{Score!} perfect for my tail pan/more than enough. it was the first time the cab corners on the truck were replaced. when they painted it last they just filled the holes with bondo/fiberglass had to go-jeff

[jpnh]

oh ya, while the cab corner was off i decided to undercoat the inside of things i could see when the cab corner was off so the inside had some rust protection. needless to say with some quick thinkin i was able to put the fire inside out with the air hose when i welded the the corner on scared the s*** outa me started cookin coulda been bad.

[jpnh]

Next,i found a deal on craigslist 84 c10 parts $150 bucks. went n checked them out didnt even argue on the price. the guy was so cool gave me a good stock hood, good passenger side door. complete-glass inside door panel w all pieces/ mirror. a good passenger side fender w/o the antenna hole. and a brand new passenger side inner fender well. had thoughts of shaving the antenna. i usually do on my projects makes it so i dont have too, but thats not gonna hold me back from anything. future project to swap m out all i was lookin for was the hood to make a cowl hood out of it, but for $150 ill take it. i noticed he had the cab n chassis still. he had parted out a truck where the frame was bad cab was real rusty too. someone already bought the drivers side stuff.he was lookin to move it before the snow. gave me the rest of the truck for another $100, that was awesome because i was able to replace the hacked suspension on my truck plus i used the rearend. gotta thank Paul Kimball out of Deerfield NH for hooking me up for sure.was gonna use a newer z71 rear with disc brakes 373 gears but it turned out to be 6 lugs on the wheel so i used the money from selln the bed/junkin the rest of the parts truck to set up the 84 rearend with new everything seals brakes ect. worked out good.so while the rearend was being re built and set up for the spring under the axle conversion i started on the hood. took the paint off the sides to past where the scoop sits/ground the e.d.p. off the metal hood scoop on the edges so i had clean metal 2 metal for proper penetration. bought the scoop from airbagit.com they said to weld it every inch to make sure it werent goin anywhere before skimmin it in. after i measured 2x/squared it up i welded it every inch skippn around as to not warp anything decided to weld it every 1/2 inch then ended up goin about every 1/4 inch its on there.after i cleaned it up {ground down the obvious high spots and then used a wire brush wheel to clean it up real good.} i skimmed it with 3 coats of evercoat rage body filler, getting sucessively wider with each coat. sanding with 80 grit in between coats then i coated it with 3 coats of ever coat polyester glazing compound the same way before it filled in enough so it didnt show thru the epoxy primer.

[jpnh]

Had to put the hood back on for fitment. i found that you gotta make sure the gap at the back of the hood remains consistent, even the overlap of the scoop on the back towards the windshield can make it rub on the wiper panel if your not careful. i was able to keep the hood up and sand down the filler on the back of the hood till it didnt hit the panel when you open/close the hood. then i started masking and sanding the cab with 180 grit then with 320 grit paper. had to skim a couple places but nothing major for body work on the cab mostly the cab corners and rockers had to be skimmed/leveled out. lots of sanding i had to sand off mostly all the most recent paint to get to the original finish and blend the places that the last guy just sprayed over checked every panel with the light {crucial}. hit a few dings here and there.

[jpnh]

Then i blew the place out with the air, i ended up wet sanding using a spray bottle and a sanding block/320 grit. gotta try n use a sanding block on the bigger areas but some things you have to sand with just the paper then i cleaned the cab real good with clean rags/glass cleaner a few times changing the rags to new ones every time.then i sprayed the cab with epoxy primer.it took skimmn it again with the polyester glazing compound sanding it with 180grit and successive coats of primer with wet sanding 320 grit in between to make the coats from the scoop finally dissapear gotta feather the edges and keep m thin.-jeff

[walkerb]

Looks good.

[jpnh]

Thank ya-jeff

[ironroad9c1]

ditch those wheels man, they are hard on brake rotors due to the lack of airflow through the wheel.

[jpnh]

After i got everything primed sufficiently. i wet sanded the cab and all the parts to the bed with 320 grit again. then i cleaned everything with glass cleaner. i like to use a spray bottle w/warm water/a lil dish soap. keeps the paper from clogging up. at this point i was still looking for the LH rear fender w/o the fuel door.I was going thru LMC. i ended up getting my RH fender there with some other bits and pieces, but i guess they were having a hard time getting more LH ones, and didnt know when they would have any more. so i ended up lookin everywhere. there were guys on craigslist tryn to get over $500 for one. i could see maybe for a new stock gm one but a foriegn one {come on}. Then i found classicparts.com. they got me one for 200 bucks. they have a nice catalog. {check m out.} my original fenders were way too far gone.{sorta like i feel sometimes} good for a mud truck, or a beater, or someone to put a 100 hrs into. i ended up getting one RH fender that someone said "only needed paint"{ya right} in a deal i had, but when i got it, it needed more time than just getting a new foreign one. maybe someday ill find that mint pair of nos/gm ones. i ended up takin the loss/gettin a new one. i got 3 used stepside fenders 2 passenger 1 drivers one with the fuel door {any one need them?} finally got that in, and caught up i ended up sanding the E.D.P. lightly with 320 grit cleaning them real good with glass cleaner and spraying them with epoxy primer.then wet sanding them again.-jeff

[jpnh]

Ya , a friend of mine said the same thing about the american racing outlaws that were on there "no flow" i ended up changing m out. they were beat looked like one of the fronts had clear or somethin spilled on it by the p.o. the other looked like it dragged the curb at some point. the rears were in pretty good shape i wanted to reuse m but i didnt like the back spacing with the stepside fenders so i sold m to a friend with a Mid 70s camaro for a couple hundred bucks they fit right on.