Huck’s 1985 C10

[Huck]

Then I moved on to pulling out the rear axle to be built. I almost rounded off the flare nut for the rear line, so I just cut the soft line. I’ve got new hardline and a soft line coming from LMC. I’ll just pinch off the rubber line for getting it in and out of the trailer for the show next weekend.

Pooles Mill Rods is local to me, he’s one of our customers and is a super nice guy. So I dropped that off on Monday and he had it done on Tuesday

He found that someone had been in it before. “Someone had been into it before and didn’t have enough carrier shims in causing the cones to be loose and the side spacers had spun creating a lot of burrs. “

I got all the stuff from Quick Performance. They’re hands down the best deal out there. Like $500 and change for a 28 or 30 spline Yukon Dura-Grip clutch type posi unit, all the bearings/races/seals and your choice of Richmond gears. I went with 3.90s. I went with 30 spline so I had to get new axles too and they came with wheel studs and also got a T/A girdle and a 1350 yolk for piece of mind.

And I got a set of these

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[Tylers88]

Making quick work out of this swap

 

[Ginger]

i was gonna ask if you have driven it yet, but since you just got the rear done, it was easy to assume.

i dont be down in the ATL this winter. They cancelled my trade show. #thankscovid

 

[Huck]

i was gonna ask if you have driven it yet, but since you just got the rear done, it was easy to assume.

i dont be down in the ATL this winter. They cancelled my trade show. #thankscovid

Well damn. Yeah, I haven’t driven it yet. I’ve had it running 3 times but it’s hit or miss, the tune still needs a lot of work. Took it to the C10 Fall Revival this weekend though, got a lot of good response to it. Just need to go through the brakes, put all my clamps on the fuel and trans lines, tidy up the wiring, get the pedal and computers mounted and build the exhaust. Then she’ll be ready to drive and finalize the tune.


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[Huck]

So obviously, this project slowed wayyyy down after October lol. I burned myself out pretty good and everything else had been real tedious work, so it’s been slow going. Even more so now that it’s cold

Got the wiring done in the bay, just need to zip tie and loom it. I do plan to grab a truck power wire and little box that hangs off the alternator to clean the drivers side up a little. And that CAI sucks so I’m gonna pick up one of Airiad’s builders kits to make something better.

The guy that built my rearend made me a good deal on these Wilwood D52s he had laying around. Test fit them but they rubbed on the hoop of the rallies. I plan to go back to 20s so I didn’t want to grind them down to fit. So back to stock calipers for now.

New driveshaft, exhaust extensions just to make the o2s happy until I can get the full exhaust done

All new brake lines to the rear. Every nut rounded off when I tried taking the stock stuff apart, it’s cheap so I just replaced it all.

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[Huck]

And now been working on mounting up the computers under the dash. There’s not enough room in these damn things! Used a combination of Velcro and zip ties to get the ECM and TCM mounted on the cowl above the AC box

And working on getting the gauges hooked up. Got all the wires figured out, not gotta get it all mounted and cleaned up. Then have to figure out why my gas pedal still isn’t working after swapping wires in the connector

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[Huck]

And wa la

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[Huck]

I’m standing in the doorway of the shop. That’s how far it made it before it died on Sunday

What we started with

Mid process

All done

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[hardluck13]

Any updates?

 

[Huck]

Any updates?

Dang, I completely dropped the ball on keeping this thread updated! Lol. Truck's been done and has 16k miles on it now. I'll update the thread with more details sometime this weekend

 

[Huck]

Ok, so I completely forgot I had a thread on here for this truck apparently so I guess I'll continue on from where we left off :rofl:

So we figured out the reason it died in my buddy's driveway is the fuel pump died. That was already fuel pump #2 cuz the first one I bought died after only maybe an hour of run/idle time while we were getting the startup tune in it. So after I got the exhaust put on, I trailered it to my buddy/tuner's shop and it would start every once in a while, stumble and die. But usually wouldn't start. So I plugged in a new fuel pump (#3) while it was in his lot and it still was acting weird. So I trailered it back to work (more room to work and out of his way). Got a 4th pump (keep in mind, these are all either AC Delco or Delphi, which are supposed to be good pumps and my tuner swears by them and puts them in every swap he does), wired in a better relay right by the tank under the truck and started putting it back together.

I still don't know what made me do it but I tapped the sock on the tailgate and little pieces came out. The sock on this Spectre sending unit is the style with the little plastic thing to keep it from sucking in on itself. Apparently that plastic piece had started coming apart and that's what kept killing my pumps. So I grabbed one of our AMD senders an robbed the sock from it. No more problems after that.


So I got my tuner to come up to work to try tuning it again. It would fire up and run consistently now. So he came up and did his thing but he swore it had a miss on #1. His first thought was injector so we popped one in, no change. Checked the spark plug, it looked fine, just not getting any combustion. Pop the VC off and wouldn't ya know, the intake rocker arm was flopped off to one side and loose. I'd missed that one when I tightened them all down :ffuuu:

Tightened that up, checked the rest and called him back the next day. He put the Party Pack in it and she's pretty spicy, running good. So I start dailying it back and forth to work (29mi one way) to shake it down. About 2.5 weeks later is Battle in Bama and one of our guys at work is harassing me to take the truck. I was super nervous and didn't want to cuz I only had 600mi on it at this point but I finally caved. I loaded up almost every tool and spare part/electrical stuff I had and we hit the road. 600mi later and we made it with not a single hiccup and I pulled down 22mpg! Also had to put her to work dragging our display around in the soft ground lol

 

[Huck]

Drove it around town all that weekend, to and from the show and then back home with no hiccups at all! 22mpg down and 18 back (traffic). I was amazed considering the cam/stall/gear combo. So next thing on the list was to get the stance down a little better, so I swapped the big block springs back for the original trimmed half tons and kept trimming till I was happy. Since the truck was dropped when I bought it, I don't have any measurements but comparing to friends of mine, I figure I'm roughly 5-5.5" up front with 2.5" spindles and cut half ton springs.


I'd been eying some US Mags for it and when we were at BIB, the wheel I was looking at was EVERYWHERE. On EVERYTHING. Trucks, cars, mini trucks, everything. So when we got back home, I ended up ordering a different one, which I liked a little better anyway since the rears are an inch wider than the other ones. So these are US Mag Roadsters, 20x8 and 20x10.5. Did a test fit to see how close I was gonna be in the rear. It's close, but ended up working fine.

 

[Tylers88]

Truck looks great, also is it in AMD ads? Swear to god it was on one the other night

 

[Huck]

Truck looks great, also is it in AMD ads? Swear to god it was on one the other night

Lol yeah, it's in a couple of our print ads and it's in our YouTube ad about the square body grilles/parts

 

[Huck]

So after the test fit was done, I ordered up some tires from Tony. Ended up going with some Toyo Proxes tires in a 255/40 and a 315/35. They didn't have matching ones in stock so the fronts are Proxes Sports and the rears are Proxes 4S. Close enough to not bother me.

 

[Huck]

Next, I swapped the nasty ole step bumper for a sport bumper. We were developing the brackets and needed to test fit them anyway. Can't remember why I had the 20s back off at this point





Checking fitment and trying to decide if I was gonna tuck it or not


Decided to not tuck it. I hate how they look tucked without the front tucked, just doesn't jive. I've got some factory gravel pans for now, eventually I'll pick up the Brother's Trucks filler piece that covers the whole gap

 

[Huck]

R
Right around this same time, I ordered some of the United Pacific LED tail lights. My originals were faded BAD and turns out, the truck was repainted at some point and they painted dark blue right over the reflectors :julian: I'd only had them on for a couple weeks and noticed moisture inside one.




Then, not 2 weeks later, they were all completely spider webbed. Found it while at SETN in Nashville. So I taped them up so they wouldn't fall apart. That was last July and they're still that way

 

[Huck]

So I drove it around like that for a good while and started collecting stuff to do sound deadener/heat shield in the truck. Ended up doing a double layer of 50mil Kilmat and then 150mil Noice closed cell foam. That with some new door seals made such a difference that I want louder mufflers now lol. Also power washed the carpet and replaced the lower door carpets.

How it started


New vs Old lower door panels


LOOK AT THE FLOOR PANS! :somuchwin: I have literally never seen a cleaner floor in a classic vehicle, they all at least have a little corrosion where the heater core had leaked.

 

[Huck]

Not even any corrosion in the drain channels, just crud. I was amazed.


Forgot to take a picture of just the Kilmat, but this is everything down. I went up as far as I could up the firewall with everything and up the back cab panels, on the B-pillars, everywhere I could stick some. Put several pieces in each door too, this thing is like a vault compared to a stock one.


Seat was cleaned with glass cleaner and a soft brush while it was out. And a coworker of mine bought a car that had some of these universal floor mats from the '80s still in the wrapper in the back, so he gave me the blue one. I'm real happy with how it turned out.

 

[Huck]

I rode around just like that for a good while. Then the next thing was swapping in our prototype bed floor that's already made for our 4" wider tubs that we've been selling for a couple years now. It's so nice having access to all sorts of equipment lol



Getting one of these apart is no big deal if you have some equipment or helpers and a stand. The whole bed literally bolts together except for 2 little spot welds on each side at the rear where the rear post meets the floor, that's it. All bolts otherwise. So it was blown apart in an afternoon by myself.



You can kinda see the round spot near the middle of the bed, that's where the 5th wheel ball was when the truck was new. Also the hole in the driver's side tub was for the trailer wiring.