1970 K20 Z62 Full Restoration

[IronCanine]

OK...so I think the grille situation is sorted. I ordered a polishing kit from Renegade. Polish and paint and this feels right...or as close as we could get it. I am ok with the fact that this grille will require extra attention and maintenance.

The center support is NOS and it is another surprising place that you can find a date code.

I also got our under hood black phosphate pieces back and they are great. I can whole heartedly recommend DIFCO (Durable Industrial Finishing Company) in Tucker, GA. I don't know how I missed them...they're in my back yard. They are a production facility and anything that you send in for zinc plating will be vatted (basically run through large containers as a gross) and has the potential for loss on small pieces. However, for manganese phosphate, they do it by hand. There is a $200 minimum which is what I paid to have my latch, striker plate and pin, and hood hinges and springs done. I don't know how much more I would have had to send to surpass that. But I shipped them out and had them back in under two weeks. And they look great. Now they were sent squeaky clean...which I think is the key if you want to have a solid result.

I got the NOS hood latch from Mel (one of many pieces he's helped me with). The return spring didn't survive the multiple swings at re-finishing. Luckily eBay had a couple of NOS springs for sale this weekend that I have coming.

[IronCanine]

And this is the whole point...besides being wrong, the grille in its previous finish would have fallen so flat against the chrome front bumper. Now it's got a fighting shot of holding its own. This looks factory to me.

[chewychevy67]

Looks sharp

[IronCanine]

A couple of quick notes before we move on to inner fenders. First, I got the reproduction T3 headlights from Lectric Limited. T3s are correct for 70 I believe...and probably made it on some 71s. Definitely by the end of 71, Power Guides were the factory headlight bulb.

Second...Just like the points ignition and the drum brakes, we're doing a factory style external regulator. No NOS here...this is a reproduction piece.

And that last pic is just cool to me. I love everything about it. And the inner fenders are about to cover it up.

[IronCanine]

Planning, prepping, reading, learning...doesn't matter. Each day brings a new problem. I picked up two NOS inner fenders from Joe. They were legit with factory stickers...the whole nine. But the driver's side was missing a hole and a capture nut for the fender brace. Candidly I did not do a lot of internet digging on this...and there may be a thread on here that explains this phenomenon. But I didn't see one that popped up quickly. Instead I consulted pics of original trucks and we checked the pitiful inner fender that came off the truck that was luckily still on the scrap pile. So it means a drilled hole and square nut.

Also..something else I missed. The body bolts that retain that brace have extra large washers. I did not have them re-finished because...well you can see why. So I'm going to have to come up with those four bolts.

[IronCanine]

Feels like we're really getting close now. Looks like some nice weather in the week ahead so maybe the mat gets painted....who knows, maybe we'll crank it. Fun times.

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by chewychevy67

Looks sharp

Thanks Rod.

[Ol Blue K20]

It's looking phenomenal!

[1970cstblazer]

That grille is now legit. Hopefully Key will fix it in further production.

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

It's looking phenomenal!

Thanks Dale.

Originally Posted by 1970cstblazer

That grille is now legit. Hopefully Key will fix it in further production.

Thanks Rick. I hope they will. All they gotta do is look at period pics. That's what I did to make sure I wasn't crazy. I've got a copy of virtually all the print media that Chevrolet (trucks) produced at the time...besides what's available on here. All the bright work, the stainless, the chrome, the trim..had a bright reflective finish.

[72 tigger]

Grill looks great! Crank that sucker!

[69cam]

looking great! How bad was it to mask and paint the grill?

[rodstored-72]

Iron, I noticed the inner fender brace situation. I know that when I was building my '72 that it was the same way.... I knew it was the OG fender and such so I was like... WTH. I was not by any means trying to do a factory rebuild or anything important so I ended up just doing 1 bolt and let ride.... but it is a weird deal?? we need a "keith seymore" of the 67-72 models to do some 'splainin'... (ricky recardo voice) ... LOL!!

OOhh... the truck is looking FANTASTIC!!! GREAT JOB!!!

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by 72 tigger

Grill looks great! Crank that sucker!

Thanks Kirk!

Originally Posted by 69cam

looking great! How bad was it to mask and paint the grill?

It was all bad until it wasn't. Eric made it happen.

Originally Posted by rodstored-72

Iron, I noticed the inner fender brace situation. I know that when I was building my '72 that it was the same way.... I knew it was the OG fender and such so I was like... WTH. I was not by any means trying to do a factory rebuild or anything important so I ended up just doing 1 bolt and let ride.... but it is a weird deal?? we need a "keith seymore" of the 67-72 models to do some 'splainin'... (ricky recardo voice) ... LOL!!

OOhh... the truck is looking FANTASTIC!!! GREAT JOB!!!

Thanks. It is weird. You got five holes, would one more kill you.

[tim71]

Originally Posted by IronCanine

Feels like we're really getting close now. Looks like some nice weather in the week ahead so maybe the mat gets painted....who knows, maybe we'll crank it. Fun times.

I think your comment "fun times" hits the nail square on the head. In retrospect, I'm sure the entire build will be remembered as fun, but these late stages really are fun times. Everything looks awesome, fantastic....but I can't get past just how great that paint color and paint work looks. Stunning!

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by tim71

I think your comment "fun times" hits the nail square on the head. In retrospect, I'm sure the entire build will be remembered as fun, but these late stages really are fun times. Everything looks awesome, fantastic....but I can't get past just how great that paint color and paint work looks. Stunning!

Thanks for the kind words. I think the paint is the best part of this truck too.

[IronCanine]

I got a factory style underlayment from Pete a couple of years ago. It had been rolled up in a box for a while and a couple of the layers hadn't aged great. But the thin foam bit was good. So we separated it from the sandwich and used it as a pattern for some generic sound deadener. Then we put the white foam layer on top of that...so it would appear factory-ish if you pulled the mat back. It is only under the mat as it would have been from the factory.

[IronCanine]

Thankfully Joe had done the work of color matching a factory blue mat some time ago and very generously shared the recipe and even procured the paint for us. The weather was agreeable this week, so Eric got the mat prepped and painted. I think it is a very good factory match. I think we have had pretty good adhesion too. There is one spot on the driver's side that will need a spot of touch up. Hard not to fold and bend it when your wrestling it and the seat in.

[IronCanine]

Eric also got the seat frame and foam prepped to cover. I ordered the correct Z62 Custom Cloth seat cover from Carsinc.com. They use the factory SMS fabric to make these covers. They are build to order and mine took about 6wks. The quality is very good and I can highly recommend them. Of course it's always a bit of a struggle with the new foam to get the cover on there and achieve a factory appearing fit.

I should note that I had always intended on having this seat with the truck as a show piece, but put buckets in the truck. We set up the floor of the truck with bracketry and fasteners for both the bench and buckets (as they sometimes came from the factory). The bench seat holes were blocked out before paint with Phillips head (pan head) bolts...again per factory. But as we got closer to being done and recognizing the amount of effort put in to making this factory correct...I felt like it needed to start off with the bench. Maybe next year we'll swap the seats. But for the first round of shows, she's a bench truck. So that meant we had to move the pan heads to the bucket seat mounting points.

[IronCanine]

That big couch is heavy and fun to wrangle around paint. Got the horn button and wheel final installed. Seat belts were restored by Ssnake-Oyl.

[IronCanine]

This truck came with DG4 mirrors which are generally the same from 69-71. There are some particulars to know about these mirrors and their hardware and that's pretty well fleshed out in this thread:

https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/....php?p=8672240

One of the low points of the build was realizing we'd misplaced our six "P" head bolts that mount the mirror brackets to the door. These are chromed large sheet metal screws and one of the few things we recovered from the original truck in good condition. I was able to source more, luckily...and get them refinished. I got the nylon washers from the board and the acorn nuts from an online hardware supplier. I do not think the acorn nuts or metal washers had a special bright finish from the factory. But I do think they were brighter than these dull zinc covered examples I procured. Eric did a light polish on them and they stood right up. See the comparison in pic 2 below.

I ran a die on the mirror elbow (which is an OE rechromed example) to clean up the threads. And boy the light chrome on the threads ate it! I guess that's why they put it on hydraulic cylinders.

I should also note that I do have an NOS mirror head (what's pictured is the TruckLite reproduction). But the glass/mirror in the NOS example lets it down. I may take on restoring that in the future, but I don't have much of an appetite for it now.

[IronCanine]

And finally tonight. Got my hood latch spring in and on. And the front bumper is on. It is a rechromed original that I got from Tim (uncle). Looks great. And you can see again why we had to get the finish right on the grille.

I think I've shouted them out before, but all of my chrome and polishing was done by Electroplating of El Paso. Very happy with their work. And when I had to send that second set of "P" bolts in, they bumped em up to the front of the line. I got them back in a matter of a few weeks and they charged me all of $25, shipping included. Pretty awesome.

[68bowtie]

The upholstery looks fantastic. Really a fine job.

[1970cstblazer]

Yes, that seat is the tops.

Do you know if they produce the base 1970 vinyl bench cover? If not, I will definitely use that Custom trim level cover.

[IronCanine]

Originally Posted by 68bowtie

The upholstery looks fantastic. Really a fine job.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by 1970cstblazer

Yes, that seat is the tops.

Do you know if they produce the base 1970 vinyl bench cover? If not, I will definitely use that Custom trim level cover.

I would call them. It looks like they do list "stand(ard) pick up" covers, but I don't see blue as a selectable option for 1970. https://carsinc.com/1955-1994-truck-suv.html

Also, here's the link for SMS in case you have to go that route:

https://smsautofabrics.com/collectio...14471143850047