FULL BUILD: 1966 C-10 Long Bed Barn Find to Short Bed Beauty

today it's a brand new project and we're gonna cut a truck in half we're taking a vintage chevy c10 that's been hidden in a barn for more than 10 years and first getting it to run and then we're gonna hack 20 inches out of the frame and the same amount out back to make it the more popular short bed that's all today here on trucks hey guys welcome to trucks well the last vintage pickup we had on the show was our 53 f-100 project old school now we had a ton of email about that old fort as a matter of fact old school was one of the most popular projects ever to be done on trucks so we thought it was about time to dig into a vintage chevy now if you're talking about classic lines and styling these mid 60s c10 trucks they're some of the nicest looking trucks out there and as a matter of fact i'm very happy to say that this particular truck well it's mine it's been in our family since it was new i got it from my father-in-law howard l copeland who got it from his dad charlie copeland who got it from the blount county commissioner in the fall of 1966 with less than 200 miles on it now the original 283 v8 and the three on the tree standard shift have been replaced with a later model 350 and a 700 r4 automatic my brother-in-law randy and i threw a paint job on it about 15 years ago as a father's day present and someday all this stuff it's going to get freshened up but one thing's for sure this truck is going to stay in the family and it's going to stay looking like it is clean and classic and this old tag this has been riding on the truck since 1967 and one thing's for sure hard l and charlie they're bama fans but check this out we've got our hands on another 66 chevy and this one's a long bed too now the long wheelbase trucks aren't as popular as the short beds and for that reason they're less expensive and a lot easier to find even as clean and original as these two trucks are but if you're like a lot of folks we know and your dream truck is a short bed c10 well you don't have to find one you don't even have to inherit one you can make one today we're going to show you how but before we do that we want to take a closer look at our new project vehicle this thing is so clean and straight look at that grill this truck is living proof that the barn finds still exist so we want to see if it'll fire up but don't be tempted to throw a battery in it and see if it'll start there's definitely a few things you want to check first okay now here's a red flag that's breathing through a straw right there right here is the jewel there's some custom body work for you ouch that was modified for the new carburetor and the new fuel inlet well now that we can see more of our 283 if you look at the carb it was remanded in december of 99 so we're probably alright there but we're not going to trust the fuel in the tank it's probably turned to sludge or varnish by now so we'll run a new fuel line into the pump from a fresh fuel source just to be safe now the alternator spins and the water pump it's good and tight i think we're in good shape before we pull the distributor the position of the vacuum advance and the rotor are marked for reinstallation now when you're pulling the vehicle out of storage like we are with this truck spark plugs are an easy thing to check and these look carboned up and they smell like old gas so we're just going to start with a clean slate throw a new set of plugs in now points are basically nothing more than an old school method of mechanically controlling the coil and the contact points well they wear out over time and they pit they require filing and periodic adjustment so we want to replace that with something that won't wear out so we're going to use a protronix igniter 2 electronic conversion kit comes with a magnet ring and a pickup module the old points are sent to file 13 and the protronix system falls right into place on the stock distributor the new module hides under a stock cap for an original appearance all right with everything installed and snug down you need to measure for clearance in between the pickup module and your magnet ring you can't have any contact here so with your distributor shaft bottomed out you need to have at least 10 thousands clearance in between here and with your distributor shaft pushed up you need to have no more than 60 thousands that'll give you a good accurate signal if need be your shims provided all right with the rotor lined up with our original reference mark you can rotate the distributor body to line up with the other mark we made that'll keep us in the ballpark when we're setting the timing now it's not a real good idea to trust the gap on your new plugs they can shift around to the box and squeeze the gap together and our old plugs are gapped at 35 thousandths but since we're upgrading to a new electronic ignition and a higher voltage coil the new gap is going to be set at 40 thousands the new higher voltage coil socket replacement cap and wires get dropped on and connected to the new plugs let's drive and see if anything comes out at the bottom our c10 canister style oil filter is effective but messy especially if you're changing your oil on your back in the driveway you'll end up wearing the oil so we're gonna add this mr gasket adapter so we can use a modern spin on style filter old oil can actually acidify in the pan as well as wick moisture in over time so an oil change should be pretty high up on your list when you're reviving a stored engine give it a shot man sounds good man sounds good we got oil pressure about 40 pounds sweet no fuel leaks now that we know she runs after the break we'll saw this beauty in half no turning back now it's no magic trick stick around hey welcome back we've started a whole new project with a 66 chevy half ton one owner barn find truck that we were lucky enough to get our hands on it's still sporting its original paint and the drive train is bone stock right down to the brakes the wood bed well it's mostly termite food but all the hardware is good and solid so now that we know that it runs good too now it's time to start hacking it up making a long wheelbase into a short wheelbase is not without a set of challenges you have to section the frame the right place the right way and shrinking that body well nobody makes a new short wheelbase bedside for this 66 chevy truck so shortening the body presents its own unique set of challenges and we'll talk more about that later but for now it is tear down time okay so we're tearing another truck down to the frame this is for a couple of reasons so we can get to the right place to section our frame and to be able to give you guys a very clear look at what we're doing in case you ever want to do the same thing the 12 inch section gets removed in between the front and rear cab mounts so the rear mounts get hacked off and relocated later here's a cheap and easy way to mark your cut lines a quick coat of black paint and a silver sharpie give you a nice contrast and a clear map of where you'll be cutting we've measured to cut a 12 inch section out of this frame one thing you don't want to do whether you're lengthening or shortening a frame is just to do a straight cut it's not as strong you want to do what's called a z cut now it's pretty obvious what we're doing here this piece goes away and that piece goes away and the two pieces join together it does two things it locates your frame rail to help you do a parallel joint and it triples the weld strength so it triples the strength of your frame now before you break out the saws and the cutters you're gonna want to brace the frame we're using tubing that'll stabilize the frame once it's cut into and make it easier for the frame to slide back together now getting a straight cut with a plasma cutter can be next to impossible using simple guides like these will give you almost complete control if you don't have a plasma cutter don't worry an inexpensive cutoff wheel works great too but it'll tax your air compressor pretty hard can't give it a shot no turning back now we're going to clean these edges up and then bevel the edges inside and out for better weld penetration [Music] you good yep that's good right there okay we look good it looks nice and square but before you weld you want to make sure that it is square you want to measure front to rear find a common point of reference on each rail and then more importantly you want to exit out measure like this and like this in an x pattern that will tell you if your frame's square don't commit to weld until you've measured at least twice okay we've got 47 and three-eighths to the center of the front bed mount all right there's center of the hole yep 47 to 3 8 are we on we're right on sweet right there center of the hole okay 59 and an eighth to the front which is the middle of the rivet all right there's center of the hole okay we've got 59 and 3 16. so the 16th let's burn this thing in before it moves and better do it that's well within the one quarter inch factory tolerances so this thing is going to track great over the break we'll tack the frame back together and when we come back we'll show you how to weld it together the right way then we'll cut more than a foot and a half out of the bed hey welcome back to trucks if you're just joining us while we've started a brand new project today the 66 c10 long wheelbase pickup and believe it or not we cut it in half but just to make the more popular short wheelbase version out of it and today we've made a lot of progress and we've already got one frame rail completely welded up and the driver side well we got it partially welded and before we go any further we want to show you a few important things to keep in mind you need good solid weld penetration and that's seen by the bluing or the heat affected zone now on the back side of our z cut i went ahead and filled in the weld at a lower voltage setting to lower the risk of burning through and now that i've got good base metal we can turn up the voltage a little bit and make sure we have good solid weld penetration now i know it's easy on a project like this to get anxious and want to hurry up and finish this weld but you definitely want to let this cool naturally resist the temptation to cool it off with compressed air or spraying it down with water you're not going to do the metal any favors and you're probably going to end up warping it now it's pretty obvious that we need to do bed floor so we got one from lmc truck a brand new stock replacement short wheelbase oak kit that they've got in their catalogs but it also drives home the point that we've got 12 inches too much room on the front and eight inches too much room on the back just like our frame so now you got to make some decisions and you're not without options if you're doing a short wheelbase conversion like we are you can go with a step side bed there's bed sides and fenders available aftermarket that are pretty reasonably priced or you could get a used short bed but you know as well as i do that a 40 year old bed well it's probably going to have some rust so you can spend your time fixing rust on a short bed or you can spend your time sectioning a virtually rust free long bed like we've got here either way it's a wash for time but it's going to be a lot more fun but keep in mind when you're sectioning sheet metal no matter how straight or how flat that panel looks there's a crown or a contour engineered into it for strength and what happens if you end up lobbing a big chunk out of the middle well you disturb that crown and create a situation that you're going to have to repair either with filler or metal finishing techniques either way you cause a lot more work for yourself so what we've decided to do is take our 12 inch section out of the front of the bed and our 8 inch section out of the rear of the bed right here next to the end this does two things for us number one it creates a factory looking bedside number two we get to retain the original contour of this panel now to finish this thing off we're gonna reinforce the welded joint with what's referred to as a fish plate we're gonna mount ours to the inside of the frame rail so from the outside gives a nice factory appearance [Music] now to do the 12 inch section at the front of the bed on the top of the rail i'm going to do an offset cut that's going to allow me to keep the stake pocket for a more original look [Music] our damaged front bed panel gets removed to give us better access for cutting and welding and will be replaced with a new panel from lmc the 12-inch front section is trimmed using masking tape as a guide you don't want to force the blade this can cause too much heat excessive blade wear and metal warping with a final test fit the front cap is ready to tack into place the surrounding metal is ground back about half an inch for welding for sheet metal we're using a smaller .024 welding wire along with a lower voltage setting of about 14 volts and a slow wire speed we created this overlap on the front inner panel for added strength outback the same techniques are used with an offset cut to retain the stake pocket location the cut on the back edge is made roughly a quarter inch from the factory rolled seam this is so the appearance of the factory seam is not distorted and the end result will be an invisible section with both rear sections cut out we've left small strips of metal to hold the rear panels in place since the rear tie bar is attached to both end panels tom boschers was nice enough to lend us an extra set of hands to help us finish and locate our rear sections there it is after the break we'll show you how to keep all these fresh cuts from rusting until you're ready to finish the job stay tuned hey welcome back to trucks we're taking care of a few last minute details on our long to short bed conversion such as cutting eight inches out of the back of these frame rails to match the eight inches we took out of the back side of the bed [Music] we've also relocated our rear cab mounts 12 inches back from their original position to compensate for the 12 inch section we took out of this part of the frame and we've mounted it back to the frame rail using grade 8 hardware we got from industrial depot now this is just a mock-up since we're gonna have to blow this truck apart to refinish the frame anyway there you go well it took us about 30 hours to get to this point so if you got a couple good buddies and a couple of weekends to spare you can turn your long wheelbase truck into a short one no problem here's a tip for you guys that might be short on time i'm finished with my metal work but unfortunately i can't do the bodywork right now we got to push this truck out and get another one in here so i'm using a conversion coating called picklix 20. you spray it on wipe off the excess and you're done the manufacturer claims that it stops flash rusting indefinitely and it's safe to paint weld and powder coat on top of so now your metal work is going to wait for you until you're ready to finish it thanks for watching trucks we'll see you guys next week today we're transforming the frame of our shortened 1966 chevy c10 by first having it media blasted and then powder coated after that we're back in the shop to put on an airbag suspension so we can get it rolling in the weeds that's all today here on trucks hey welcome to trucks well today we're going to take you guys to two really cool places while we have the frame of our 66 chevy c10 prepped and coated and i'm here at strip masters in nashville while i'm here at powder x and we're going to give you guys an inside look at both of these shops and as soon as kevin is done having the frame media blasted he's going to send it right here for us to have it powder coated for a great looking and durable finish well here's our c10 frame and it's obvious that we've done a prior surgery right here and if you remember there's been a total of 20 inches of length removed from it our c10 project daily driver truck started out life as a long bed version which was easier to find in better condition for less money but we still wanted the short wheelbase for its sportier looks so we blew the truck apart section 12 inches under the cab using a staggered z cut for better weld strength and a fish plate for added rigidity after lobbing off another eight inches off the back we focused on the body but instead of sectioning from the center like the frame we took 12 inches at the leading edge and eight inches at the end of the outer panel and mig welded everything back up to make a factory-looking short wheelbase bed there you go so with the help of ed gale president of strip masters we got the frame unloaded and into the media booth we had the chance to catch up with ed and talk to him a little bit about the different approach that strip masters has for taking parts down to the bare steel we use three different methods we use dry ice we use soda into regular baking soda both of which are you can eat the soda and we also use plastic media which is recyclable and in very environmentally friendly edson matt first grounds the frame and then starts blasting the surface with urea formaldehyde or plastic media which strips off the paint but doesn't disturb the base metal the surface does not get roughened up or i guess they call it the industry profiled we don't profile the surface we leave it pretty much as it was originally and whatever you see there is what happened before us lasting like this makes for a lot less work after you get your parts back since strip masters carefully chooses which media works best each of them has has a unique requirement and so unlike the the carpenter that's got just a hammer in his toolbox we have several different tools and we can select the one we think is best for the application ed also showed us their soda blasting capabilities on this soda can it's abrasive enough to remove the anodized label without getting into the soft aluminum base metal now they blasted their way literally through this frame in about an hour and their average turnaround time is surprisingly short well generally within a day or two well there it is this frame is perfectly clean and now it's ready for powder so let's get this thing over to ryan now obviously they did a great job media blasting this frame after we get it unloaded a quick steam cleaning and final inspection this thing ought to be ready for powder what the steam does is remove any grease or oily contamination from the surface but it's not just hot water powder x uses an iron phosphate solution that acts as a conversion coating transforming any surface rust into something that can be powder coated we talked with joey goliver the operations manager here who gave us a little history on powder x joey also shared with us the importance of proper surface prep prep work with powder coating is 10 fold more important than it is with liquid the heat does not forgive for any contaminants that are on it after the frame was blown dry we moved it into the application booth for powder the first step in powder coat application is always proper grounding of the part since an electrostatic connection is what makes powder transfer possible the coating will be a total of about three mils thick and will take on a velvety appearance now we've got powder x equipment at our shop but this frame is just too large for our oven but that's not an issue at powder x's facility the biggest object we can handle here is up to about eight foot wide eight foot tall and 25 foot long and we have systems throughout the united states that we put in that can do parts up to maybe 80 foot powder technology is growing about as fast as the rest of the coatings industry and today almost anything can be coated the weirdest thing we actually powder coated was a steer skull that one of our students brought from arkansas we actually coated horns and all after powder is applied our frame gets rolled into the heated oven and brought up to 400 degrees over about 10 to 15 minutes cure it for probably about 20 minutes metal temperature which is very important most people forget that it's metal tint you actually have to get the metal to temperature so this will probably take about 40 45 minutes cure time in order to get it up because we do not want to undercure the powders after heating and curing the frame is carefully rolled out of the booth and allowed to cool well there you go this thing's just about ready to load onto the trailer once it's cool enough to touch that is and that's the neat thing about powder coating you don't have to wait for days for everything to cure once it's cool enough to handle you're ready to go nothing else to wait for i'll get this thing loaded up see you guys back at the shop when we come back we'll start our install by bagging the front half of our newly prepped chassis stay tuned hey welcome back to the shop if you're just joining us we had the frame of our 66 chevy c10 media blasted and then powder coated in this great looking semi-gloss finish that'll be chip resistant and it'll stay looking this good for years and years now if you're wondering what it's going to take to get your frame done like this well between the media blaster and the powder coater you're going to have about five to 600 bucks wrapped up in it now powder is not the only way to go you can have your frame media blasted and then come back with a paint system but even the most expensive urethane paint system is still not going to match the durability of powder obviously this is the old suspension we ripped off the frame before we had it blasted and now it's time to start putting the chassis back together to create a foundation for the rest of the truck we're sticking with the retro style theme throughout this entire project with some modern technology thrown in the mix something you car guys know is resto mud so we're going with a suspension system that'll give us the ride height we want will handle well and won't beat us up as we cruise down the road so we looked around to see what would work for us with the goals we set and we found this strong arm system from air ride technologies that completely replaces the oe setup comes with new upper and lower control arms airbags two and a half inch drop spindles a front sway bar with solid end links that replaces the less than ideal factory setup and front shocks that are adjustable for both rebound and compression so you can dial in the ride you're after now for you guys that don't want to go with air you can still upgrade to a little bit more modern setup and we picked up this front clip out of a 72 c10 from a junkyard along with our 12 bolt rear end and most of this is a direct swap with very little modification it'll give you a disc brake setup complete with power steering but one of the best upgrades is going from the old six lug to the much more common five lug pattern it'll give us an almost unlimited choice when it comes to picking out a set of custom wheels the back half of this system features these beefy two inch dom trailing arms with an adjusted rear axle pinion angle to allow for a lowered ride height the system comes with air springs adjustable shocks front and rear cross members and panhard bar and this billet aluminum pattern bar bracket that bolts to the axle housing we also have c notches that are going to allow us another couple inches of drop from stock this system is well engineered bolts right in so right now we're going to focus on building up that front end now since our frame is pretty much stripped down this install will be easy but we still need to remove the stock shock tabs using the new shock mounts that air ride provides as a template mark and drill the four holes into the frame rails then bolt them in the upper bag mount gets bolted into the existing cross member again using it as its own template for bolt locations now you'll need to drill a hole here with a 932nd bit to route your airline later next you'll mount the air spring to the mounting plate before bolting the plate in [Music] the lower arms get mounted using the factory u-bolts that we cleaned up and painted black now you're going to want to install the shocks before the upper arms and spindles and then connect them to the lower arms this will make it easier to put the knuckle assemblies where they belong now's the time to bolt the lower a-arm to the air spring using the provided hardware the upper arms bolt into place right where the factory arms used to sit now if your truck had a decent alignment before you tore it down you can reinstall the factory alignment shims to get you in the ballpark but we're starting completely fresh so we'll align everything later on the drop spindles get set onto the ball joints and the castle nuts are loosely installed get used to grinding factory rivets with this system and here's a good way to remove them cut grooves into the round head then hit it with an air hammer and chisel bit they come out like butter the strap for the sway bar uses the hole for the factory rivet we just removed as a locator and the other hole gets drilled out just like the rest with a 1 8 inch pilot hole followed by a 3 8 inch drill bit and then the new sway bar gets mounted using new urethane bushings finally the solid end links connect the lower arms to the sway bar and that just about wraps up the front part of this strong arm system [Music] up next we'll finish the back half of our chassis and then later it's a wheel and tire upgrade but with a classic look hey welcome back to trucks well sometimes you got to take a step back in order to make some progress so we're cleaning up the frame of our 66 chevy c10 pickup getting rid of some cross members and mounts in order to make room for a new suspension system out back we're using air ride technology strong arm system front and rear up front we've got everything but the brakes installed what's the good news here is that these two and a half inch drop spindles accept all the stock hardware so we can roll with the brakes tie rods and power steering box off our junkyard 72 front frame clip now we've had to drill out about 30 of the factory rivets and we've also drilled out the corners of our c notch relief once we've got this cut out the c notch just saddles the rail and it'll bolt right in using a four inch cutoff wheel makes easy work of notching the frame and the pilot holes in the corners not only look better but make the frame a tad stronger since there's no sharp corner that could potentially crack under chassis flex with the frame notched the strong arm c-notches get nudged into place with a soft face hammer all the new mounting bolts are provided in the kit and get finger tightened before anything is tightened up for good you're not done drilling yet the airline relief is cut using a half inch hole saw drilled into the bottom plate of the c-notch which also serves as the lower bag mount before we had our frame blasted we went ahead and removed the factory center crossmember since we knew this one came with the kit the upper shock mount tube gets placed between the sea notches and the new round tube trailing arms gets bolted into the cross member now we can set our 12 volt 5 lug rear axle onto the trailing arm mounts and bolt it in using new grade 8u bolts now we're using our crane since it's here but a floor jack will lift the rear axle up into the c notch so the bags can be bolted in first you can mount your shocks in place followed by the panhard bar mount on the back of the axle housing and the panhard bar and finally the rear air springs get mounted between the lower arms and the sea notches that looks great after the break we'll let the air out of the bag or bags stick around hey welcome back to trucks well the chassis of our 66 c10 is looking great with fresh powder coat and this strong arm suspension system we picked up from air ride technologies and know your eyes are not deceiving you the last time you saw this rear axle it was still in bare steel fresh from the media blasters and the reason we didn't powder coat it at the same time as the frame is the 400 degrees that it takes to flow out the powder would have melted the seals and heated up the oil and caused contamination that would fall back into the powder ruining the powder job so we just brushed on a coat of por-15 that we also picked up at strip masters now we told you before that the drop spindles from air ride will accept all the stock brake hardware so we picked up a new set of five on five lug rotors that our local o'reilly's had in stock along with a fresh set of bearings and some new seals and that gets us ready for new wheels and tires now we talked about the direction we want to take this truck classic styling with a modern twist and after looking around for the right set of wheels we decided on these made by wheel of antiques that we picked up through summit racing there's 17 by eight inch painted steel rallies with a four and a half inch backspacing the tires are from tyre rack and they're 265 55 17s they've got a great looking tread pattern black wall styling and a tall enough sidewall that'll give us a great balance in between ride and handling this is one good looking rolling chassis but we can't show you the complete system because the compressor tanks valves and controller will all come later on in this project but what we can show you is this 72 c10 that has the exact same strong arm setup the controller is easy to read and easier to use they've got those mounted right here on a bracket below the heater controls it gives you independent control over all four corners several different presets if you want a cruising height or a laid out height for shows but the best thing about this system is how much drop it gives you for a bolt-in system with a mild c-notch those tires and wheels tuck right up in there i can't wait to see our truck like this this thing looks sweet today we're fighting the good fight against rust first we're blasting the old skin off our c10 daily driver project with just baking soda then we're fixing the leftover tin worm scars and even showing you how to make your own patch panels and finally it's how to block primer the right way it's all today here on trucks [Music] hey welcome to trucks well today we do battle with one of the age-old enemies of every gear head and restoration freak that's ever lived rust now you've heard the saying rust never sleeps well it happens to be true because unless you do something to stop the rusting process it's going to keep going until it destroys your vehicle from the inside out now the rust repair techniques we're going to show you can be used on any vehicle but what we're going to focus on is our 1966 chevy c10 here now if you remember this thing started out as a mostly original v8 3 on the tree two wheel drive long bed truck and now well it's obviously the short bed version so let's take a look back and get you caught up on what it took to get to this point we went to work with one main goal in mind to convert our long bed truck into the more popular short bed version so we sectioned the frame under the cab and the bedsides at both ends and ended up 20 inches shorter with a factory correct short wheelbase pickup then it was off to have our frame media blasted and powder coated followed by a trick air suspension system from air ride technologies and since there's nothing wrong with the 283 we pulled out of here that's exactly what's going back in because the 283 is actually a pretty respectable engine plus it'll just help retain the character of this truck now thanks to mike cranford we ended up getting our hands on a truck with almost no rust through but like most mid-60s tin there's specific zones that have typical rust and almost every truck that i've seen with this body style has got the typical rust right here at the back of the hood and right down here the bottom of both fenders we're lucky enough to have lmc's pre-made patch panels for most of the rusty spots on the c-10 but in case you guys are working on a vehicle you can't get pre-made patches for well don't worry because later on in the show we're going to give you some metal forming tips so you can make your own now before we start cutting out a bunch of rust we're going to strip these panels down because this might look like the original paint job but you never know for sure until you get it stripped down to bare steel and one of our favorite media blasting facilities is strip masters partly because these guys get creative and they use types of media that don't damage the substrate that you're blasting they're also socially aware and they use things like recyclable plastic dry ice and baking soda media that doesn't hurt your lungs and it won't leave a footprint in the environment so when we saw this soda blasting kit from the eastwood company well it got us asking some questions and what this system uses as a media is really pretty interesting it's just baking soda now the last time i saw somebody eat sand was way back in the second grade and it didn't go so good for that guy as a matter of fact i think he wrote a different bust to school after that but baking soda doesn't settle in your lungs like sand it won't warp sheet metal like sand it won't destroy chrome plastic or glass like sand but unlike sand it'll just wash right back into the soil and won't leave an environmental footprint and tastes pretty good too save some for the truck will you crap can't taste that good media blasting has been used to remove coatings from vehicles for over 100 years so it's no surprise that there have been improvements and advancements with this type of equipment soda blasting using bicarbonate of soda i.e baking soda was developed in the mid-1980s mainly for the purpose of cleaning the statue of liberty without damaging the valuable copper coating we're using a small water feed directed at the blast nozzle to help keep the dust down we've also got a honking big compressor that'll give us clean dry air all day long so this system is rocking just remember that the performance of your soda blaster is going to be tied to the performance of your air delivery and your compressor [Music] the biggest problem with sand other than health risks is that it profiles the metal leaving pitch in the outside and digging down into the base metal which can allow moisture to attack the surface faster than normal now even though it just started to rain we're still okay because the baking soda leaves the residue on the metal that takes a lot more than rainfall to wash it off so we can continue blasting without the danger of flash rusting try that with sand another huge benefit is that the soda itself is water soluble totally disappearing into the environment without introducing sand coal or glass into the topsoil of course proper steps need to be taken to clean up any paint particles left over so be aware that you should sweep up and dispose of any leftover residue responsibly the original paint that we're blasting is flying off the panel leaving an incredibly smooth surface to the metal but on the top of the hood where there's surface rust it slows down a little the eastwood kit can be modified to accept a more aggressive media in a couple of minutes and using something like silicone carbide or aluminum oxide will cut that surface rust in a hurry but be aware that these medias can warp sheet metal pretty fast now the soda did a great job and right here where the paint was still intact well the surface of the metal is perfectly smooth but it didn't do too much with this pitted surface thrust so you got a couple of choices you can come back and blast with something a little bit more aggressive or you can remove the rust with something mechanical and then treat it now i like to use these bristle discs better than sandpaper because they won't dull out like sandpaper and the space between the spines keeps the surface of the metal cool now check this out we blasted right over top of this chrome emblem and it didn't even phase it and the baking soda residue left behind will keep the sheet metal from resting pretty much indefinitely but it's got to be cleaned before any coatings go on over top of it and that's no big deal just wash it with some hot soapy water then use some of this eastwood fast edge to prep the metal then you can safely repair and prime anything that needs to be done we've got a work cut out for us here up next we're fixing what the baking soda couldn't get and what it couldn't get to do that and later there's only one way to get a smooth foundation for paint a little sandpaper and a lot of elbow grease stick around hey welcome back to trucks today we're fighting the good fight against rust that is now before we started cutting out the obvious rust spots we wanted to see what was under the old paint so we fired up our eastwood soda blaster and stripped the doghouse down to bare steel and let me tell you there's no tv magic going on here that baking soda stripped all of the paint off but it left the base metal intact and very very smooth and as a bonus it didn't damage any of the moldings or the lenses that we left in place and it told us what we suspected right from the start that this is the original paint job on this truck and that we've got rust in the typical zones we've got lmc trucks patch panels for our lower fenders here and the stamping is actually pretty accurate but just because they give you a panel this big doesn't mean you have to use it all one of my favorite sayings is that rust is like an iceberg you only see a third of it from the top so make sure you're cutting all the rust out and exposing good metal to patch too brian's also prepping the inner brace with a fiber wheel to help stop further resting all right with our template cut out we can use it to trace a pattern onto our replacement panel now you can see we got good solid sheet metal here to weld to get rid of all this rust and that way we can keep as much of the original fender as possible using your rusty metal as a template doesn't just work as a cutting guide it also allows you to see how the original metal was stamped and shaped around the braces and using pretty basic tools you can recreate the original contours of the sheet metal before it's welded in place while ryan's taking care of the fender check out the hood obviously the metal's rusted through we know what to do with that patch it just like the fender but look at the other side now over here on the driver's side in the same spot the metal looks really solid but we know why this hood rusts right here it's because gravity carries all the moisture and junk down in here and packs it in behind the support brace rusting it from the inside out so now you have to make a decision do you trust what looks like solid metal or do you cut a big giant hole in it just to check well i'm gonna make a couple of you guys mad by cutting a hole in what looks like perfectly good sheet metal remember the iceberg analogy well get ready to see some hidden rot you see that that's why i don't gamble this rust was going to eventually come through and it's a heck of a lot easier to fix now than with an expensive paint job on it all right i got my patch panel trimmed using the old sheet metal i cut out as a template and it's ready to be welded in now there was no way we were going to cover up this rusty nasty fender brace because that's what caused our rust through in the first place so after we knocked off the loose rust we hit it with some of this fast etch which converts the iron oxide rust into zinc phosphate stopping the corrosion now this black primer is e-coat that stands for electro deposition primer which is bonded to the pores in the middle not just sprayed on so while i've stripped the paint where i'm going to weld i'm leaving most of this e-coat on to protect it from rusting again on the exposed metal that we won't be able to get to once our patch is welded in this zinc weld through primer helps as a moisture barrier for a long lasting repair [Music] the template from the old metal leaves us with an almost perfect fit the new metal gets packed into place and then more tacks are spaced apart to keep the metal cool and straight the bottom gets plug welded to the inner brace [Music] and the rest of the seam is filled and then ground flush [Music] we're using the metal edge to stop the resting process on this brace just like we did on the fender brace so now the next step is to patch the hole now we're not going to use this metal that we cut out because it's just too rusty we need fresh metal the problem starts because we don't have a pre-stamped patch panel for this because nobody makes one yet so what do you do well the solution is you make one and if you stick around you'll find out that making your own patch panels is not as hard as you think after the break we'll show you how to make your own patch panels from simple bends to compound curves stay tuned hey welcome back to trucks thanks for sticking with us today we've made some pretty good headway on the doghouse of our 66 chevy c10 pickup we soda blasted the paint down to bare steel and replaced some metal in some common rust zones for these trucks but we ran into a situation that i'm sure a lot of you guys have run into what happens if nobody makes patch panels for the rusty places in your truck well the simple answer is obvious you just make your own so we're going to give you some pointers on how to do some basic metal forming now one of the most common shapes you're going to need to make is a 90 degree bend which is easily done on an expensive break like this one here but you can keep that money in your pocket by making your own metal break just use a piece of angle iron and two c clamps to hold your metal to the table now in this case we're using 20 gauge sheet metal just like we did on our high quality break then just bend against the edge of the table to get your 90. turned out pretty good didn't it but you can also use the same setup to make a contour or a curve using the clamped metal as leverage you can either hand form your work piece like this or use any number of items like a piece of pvc pipe or even steel tubing to guide your metal into the shape you need now something a little more complicated to make is a panel like this that's because it curves in two different directions but with a little bit of practice and some simple hand tools you can make those compound curves out of just a plain piece of sheet metal the bag can be filled with lead shot like ours or sometimes just plain sand and shaping metal like this can be downright therapeutic if you're po to somebody the rounded face of the hammer and the way that the shot gives under pressure allow the metal to be stretched in a controlled manner now this is just a test piece but you can see that the compound curve is not that hard to create now i know not everybody's got a metal break an english wheel or even a plasma cutter in their own shop but i'm pretty sure every one of you guys has a hammer and a concrete floor now this is something i learned from one of ron covell's workshops i'm using a low crown hammer so i can move the metal slowly and my grid just gives me something to aim for ideally you want to aim for the space between the lines of your grid at first which is not as easy as ron made it look but i'm mostly focusing on the center you can see what's starting to happen it's starting to dome up a little bit right here things may not happen that fast at first but that's okay you want to shape the metal slowly politely asking it to move instead of yelling at it and telling it where you want it to go try to keep your hammer blows as flat to the surface as possible you don't want to have the edge of the hammer digging into the dome you're creating slow steady progress will create a smoother shape and you can see that we started with a flat piece of steel a flat floor and an almost flat hammer and we ended up with a rounded domed panel the reason is that with every hammer blow it stretched the metal and since it can't force the metal outward it forced it up creating our dome so that just demonstrates that with the most basic hand tools and a little bit of technique and time you can form metal any way you want today we're going green in more ways than one first it's an environmentally friendly paint that's got 80 percent less harmful chemicals than conventional then we're spraying that very same paint on our project c10 daily driver and the green this time is the original factory color it's all today here on trucks hey welcome to trucks well you guys have seen us use paint primer all kinds of body shop supplies on all of our shows on the power block and today we're right here where most of that stuff comes from auto body color and supply because as you know part of the secret to a successful paint project is having the right equipment and materials in the first place and having a place like this that knows how to recommend them we're also going to be paying close attention to a new paint technology that's getting ready to revolutionize the paint industry in this country and the rest of the world and for those of you who have ever had trouble color matching old paint well we're going to pass on a few tips on how to get the correct paint code for your classic ride let's take a look around auto body color and supply is a full-service jobber store for automotive refinished shops and technicians they've got a total of five locations across tennessee and have been around for the better part of a decade providing almost any kind of auto body paint materials tools and equipment you need they also give expert customer support with their trained staff but one of the most interesting things about auto body color is their focus on education and training in fact with their in-house classrooms they're one of the only refinished certification and training facilities in this area hosting up to 30 classes per year well we feel that the training is the biggest part of what we do the best service we can provide the more we educate our customers the better they are better it works for us it's not just professional painters that benefit from auto body colors class schedule and training facility anybody that's got a passion for learning or wants to better their skills is welcome now you've seen these conventional toner mixing systems before we even have one at the shop and it's basically stirring the individual toners to keep everything from separating but with this new technology well equipment like this is out of date and not even necessary we'll show you more about that in a minute waterborne automotive paint started showing up in the 1990s due to demands for lower vocs the pollutants that paint creates and in the past few years waterborne has seen a larger and larger market share in response to increasingly strict epa rules it's really a it's a combination of things it is the speed that they that they are lacking with solvent born and most of all it's probably in the environmental friendliness of the waterborne paints you're really taking a huge chunk of the solvent out of it and the solvent's what's being released in the air in the in the form of vocs which everybody's harping on and with waterborne you don't have that now a common misconception is that this is what we used to use in grade school water-based paint but water borne paint still has a bit of solvent in it but the fact is that waterborne technology uses 80 percent less of the harmful solvent-based vocs than regular automotive paint does that's pretty greek waterborne has benefits other than being earth-friendly coverage is much better than solvent-based and it takes less time to spray and in the shop time means money and while it's better in some ways there is a learning curve involved in switching over the more airflow you have the better it's going to dry the flatter it's going to dry the one thing about it is when you spray it you can't look at it the color in the can because it's a it's a little different it's a little trickier so you have to trust your judgment and that's where utilizing your color tools come in color tools like this profit color camera that takes a digital sample or picture from five different areas of the surface processes it and spits out a very accurate mixing formula now with old weathered paint like our sample it's best to polish it first to bring back the original luster and remove any oxidation another option is a variant deck or fan deck that shows paint samples in dozens of shades or if you actually have a paint code to go by you can access ppg's color database which goes all the way back to the 1930s you can have the java type in the code check the information and see what your options are our turquoise poly color came right up and showed us several variations giving us the choice of how we wanted to proceed and what type of paint we wanted to use we wanted to show you literally what goes into waterborne so brian mixes up some base coat for our truck and one of the differences with waterborne it requires no mixing system to stir the toners in fact waterborne will foam if agitated and the bubbles are almost impossible to get rid of a gentle shake is all that's needed it's always cool to see what goes into a mix and how many toners are mixed up to create certain colors brian is mixing by weight not by volume and each toner has a precise amount accuracy is critical for color match but if you make a mistake this computer will actually compensate for an overpour adjusting all the other toners to match brian's been at this a while and is dead on with every color with all the toners poured they get blended together to make sure everything creates our turquoise base coat that in the can looks way too dark but brian assured us that once it's sprayed the color will be exactly what we wanted and we've learned from experience that auto body color is a company that we can count on helping create colors like copperhead pearl harry hall or red trucks yellow and tons of other custom colors so if brian says it's going to match well it's going to match up next ryan's installing the powertrain in the chassis and later kevin's using waterborne paint to lay down the original factory color stay tuned [Applause] hey thanks for sticking around well now comes the fun part we actually get to spray some of this new waterborne technology and we're going to spray it on the bed of our 66 c10 pickup and while ryan's got the rest of the truck over in the shop i'm going to give this thing to once over and make sure it's prepped so while kevin's in the paint booth finishing up some last minute details well i'm going to stay busy here in the shop and get our 66 c10 chassis one step closer to moving under its own power and by the end of the day we'll have our engine bolted to our new transmission and drop down in between the frame rails now if you remember we gave our 283 to the guys in the horsepower shop see if they can work some magic on it mike and buddy tore down the tired block and figured out pretty quick that it was worth saving so they did a basic rebuild with a few upgrades such as world products stock replacement heads with stainless steel valves that'll stand up to today's unleaded fuel with a fresh paint job they ran it in and pulled a pretty impressive 270 horsepower out of a basically stock rebuild yeah and we were pretty happy with those dyno numbers now if you guys remember rc 10 was a three on the tree manual transmission truck in its days of being used as a work truck well they're long gone this thing's going to be a cruiser so the first thing we wanted to do is convert it to an automatic transmission it starts putting on a flex plate our flex plate is from o'reilly it gets bolted in with the help of loctite so bolts stay put after their torque now when choosing the transmission we had plenty of options but we knew we wanted to go with an overdrive unit now we thought for a little while just to get a parts store reman but since we're swapping this in place of a manual transmission well we would have had to source a dipstick a throttle valve cable vacuum switch oil cooler transmission mount and a dust shield plus the gear star transmission well it's custom built to our rear axle ratio tire size and our horsepower level now depending on your horsepower numbers gearstar can build you a transmission because they offer multiple performance levels industrial depot provides us with most of the new hardware we use and grade 5 is plenty strong enough for this bell housing gear star provides a transmission mount made from polyurethane and it should last the life of this truck no problem now i'm sure a lot of you guys noticed that this is not a factory cross member this is bowler's new replacement tubular cross member designed to bolt a modern 700 r4 overdrive transmission into a vintage 63 to 72 c10 chassis and in most cases it's designed to utilize existing bolt holes in the frame for an easy installation [Music] one of the upgrades we wanted to do was use five bolt axles instead of the six bolt axles that came stock this gave us tons more options with wheels and tires and gets us away from the farm truck look as well now the only problem with our new five lug axle is the brake shoes take a look at them the friction material well it's almost completely gone so rather than just throw on new brake shoes we're gonna follow the theme we've established with this truck of classic styling with some modern touches so we're gonna throw in this master power rear disc brake conversion kit comes with e-brake cables caliper brackets new rotors calipers already loaded with pads a master cylinder set up for discs all the way around as well as a new proportionate valve and some flex lines with the c-clips removed the axles come out followed by the drum backing plates which needed a little coaxing [Music] the new caliper mounts go into the stock bolt locations and the rotors and the rest of the system is built off of them now make sure your bleeder valve is pointing up otherwise you're going to have a whole lot of trouble getting the air out of the brake lines after the break we're firing up the paint booth stick around hey welcome back to trucks today we are boldly going where the automotive refinish industry is getting dragged kicking and screaming into the world of waterborne technology but don't worry this stuff is actually easier to shoot than most solvent-borne paints but there's a few changes you need to keep up with for instance there's waterborne reducers there's special waterborne cleaners and everything's packed in plastic quite obviously so it won't rust we were also able to cross over our vintage colors into the new waterborne base coat so we're keeping the classic two-tone on our 66 chevy pickup first color we're going to spray today is white but follow me because today we are quite literally going green unlike double 07's martini the colors are stirred not shaken and then poured into a mixing cup with ratios on the side we're only adding 20 thinner unlike solvent base coat which usually gets equal parts then they're blended together and strained into a cup this base coat must be strained to skim the bubbles off the top so stick to the fundamentals coverage is excellent using an lph80 mini gun from iwata but one of the things with water is that it must dry properly so we put the dryers on between coats these dryers are specifically for waterborne base and like a carburetor use a venturi to amplify the air volume and dry the base coat using medium wet coats just like solvent base the off-white color took three coats for a full coverage dry time was only about five minutes between coats okay the first color is painted and obviously i didn't mask it the reason i didn't mask it is because i don't want a huge buildup on my color division so i painted past my color break i'm gonna mask it cover it all up and then pull it off to clear coat remember to gently blend the base coat we're using a lot of mixing cups that have ratios on the side and are disposable which cuts down on cleanup time and supply costs when you're finished mixing into the cup turn the lever to the spray mode you're ready to spray don't ever expect full coverage out of your first coat of base whether it's water or solvent all you're after is an even medium wet coat my gun speed is pretty fast and the distance is three to four inches from the panel this is so i don't get the color too wet by the way i've sanded with 600 grit which is finer than usual since waterborne baits will show sanding scratches easier the lph-400 i'm using is a waterborne compatible spray gun make sure yours is too waterborne corrodes some metals and can ruin a non-compatible gun after three coats of the green which lay down smooth and even the tape comes off the first color revealing our classic two-tone color scheme i'm using a different lph-400 lv gun for the solvent-born clear coat since you can't intermix the two types of paint the clear requires two wet coats and if you think it looks good now wait do you see it out of the paint dude when we come back we'll finish dressing the bed don't go away hey welcome back what do you think personally i give waterborne base coat a big two thumbs up light metallic colors like this they're hard to spray without getting splotchy and the distribution here is perfect and it was easy to do so i'm pretty darn impressed there's still a couple things we're going to do to this bed to make it look even better we ordered a new set of moldings from lmc truck since our long bed ones after the surgery were well too long new moldings just really complement the new paint now check out these original taillight lenses they're in perfect condition and they've got the bow tie stamped in them down here these are collectors items but visibility was an issue back then especially since we don't have a third brake light we want another option so we're going to use these led lights that plug into your original socket come with their own bezel and they're going to give us a lot more visibility and look great and we'll just reuse the original backup lights [Music] there it is thanks guys got it that's good well there you go classic vintage colors mixed in state-of-the-art paint technology and like the color it's a beautiful shade of green yeah this environmentally friendly paint turned out really good and we got our rear disc brake conversion done engine and overdrive transmission dropped in so we can measure for a drive shaft that's a good thing because i'm getting anxious to finish this thing up so we can take it for a little test drive i guess i better paint the cab well now that our 66 chevy has its classic look back but with a modern paint system now we can give it a modern sound system still keep the classic look and not hack the dash up this is custom auto sounds usa 630 and not only does it have the look of a classic radio it's also packed with all the modern features of contemporary radios like a usb port for flash drives and mp3 playback it's got a large display for mp3 and wma files with id3 tags and you can even plug your ipod into it listen to your stored files it can also control an optional 10-disc cd changer and it pumps everything out to your speakers at a pretty impressive 240 watts the custom autosound usa 630 is about a buck a watt starting right at about 240 today it's the final assembly of our project daily driver c10 our shortened 1966 chevy c10 is all painted but in a million pieces so we'll show you how to completely reassemble an entire truck without a single scratch it's all today here on trucks hey welcome to trucks well today's the day we finally get to start the reassembly of our 66 chevy driver project we've been working hard behind the scenes getting everything assembled and tweaked in the paint done front and back sides and let me tell you we're both stoked because seeing the single back together for the last time it's been a long time coming and it seems like everybody that lays their eyes on the waterborne two-tone paint job just really digs it i guess it fits the character of the truck we've gotten some good feedback on the chassis as well and we made some progress there i want to show you guys the details but before we do that let's get you up to speed on this project we went to work with one main goal in mind to convert our long bed truck into the more popular short bed version so we sectioned the frame under the cab and the bedsides at both ends and ended up 20 inches shorter with a factory correct short wheelbase pickup then it was off to have our frame media blasted and powder coated followed by a trick air suspension system from air ride technologies and we used eastwood's soda blasting kit to strip off the original paint and lmc patch panels took care of any body rust our friends over at horsepower took the original 283 with some upgrades and made almost 300 horsepower we threw a gearstar 700r4 behind it and dropped it right back down in the chassis now in the interest of safety and efficiency our rear drum brakes were converted with a master power rear disc brake conversion kit then we started spraying the body with an environmentally friendly waterborne paint and we just had to keep the classic two-tone green and white paint scheme and even with just the bed done well we couldn't resist setting it down on the frame to get an idea of what it's going to look like now obviously we weren't going to put the fuel tank back in the cab where it was originally and well we just didn't have it in the budget to have a custom stainless steel tank built so what we did do is go to summit racing and pick up one of their universal and affordable 16 gallon fuel cells it fits right in the space we had available and it comes with a 0-90 ohm gm sending unit already installed since we're just running a mechanical fuel pump with a 3 8 line ought to be plenty now our four wheel disc brake system is just about finished up we got our hard lines bent and installed the flex line's mocked up everything's in place just waiting on the finishing details now last year you saw us put on most of our air ride suspension system but since then we've also installed the included ride height sensors at all four corners plumb the airbags using the supplied hard line and attach the ride height sensors to the wiring harness then we installed our twin compressors here on the frame now since we went with the longer gear star 700 r4 overdrive transmission well we need a shorter drive shaft so we picked up the phone gave denny a call and using the measurements we provided he sent us one of their steel high speed balanced street rod shafts it's a little bit more moderately priced than his higher horsepower or nitrous ready shafts since we've got a mild 283 in front of ours well it should handle anything we throw at it and save us a few bucks too now we also wanted to upgrade to power steering if you guys remember we robbed some parts off a 72 c10 like the drag link or center link and the power steering box the problem is the power steering box didn't bolt up to our 66 frame so we called the originators of the power steering conversion swap kit res engineering their kit sandwiches the frame it's easy to install and it maintains factory steering geometry so we won't run into issues like bump steer or stress cracks at the mounting point now to finish things up up front we installed new outer tie rod ends that match the taper of our air ride supplied knuckles now you saw us paint the bed the cab and the rest of the sheet metal we followed exactly the same recipe the same amount of coats the same paint gun the same pressure that way we know our color is going to match the only deviation from stock with this cab is we shave the fuel filler because we've relocated the fuel tank we've been calling this a two-tone but the fact is and you chevy guys know this that there's more than two colors on this truck for instance this pewter color on the inside of the cabin inside of the doors well believe it or not this is leftover base coat from our second chance silverado so again we're recycling and it looks really stock covered by the ppg flat clear now you're going to find an interesting phenomenon when you do a restoration like this trim pieces like this cab panel well when we took them off the truck they were in great shape but once you put them up against that shiny new paint job well they just don't cut it especially when compared to a new piece that's where a company like lmc truck comes into play they've got beautiful reproductions of all these trim pieces and they make your paint pop more importantly they fit now lmc has a catalog full of parts for our truck as well as just about every other truck out there this is just a small sample of some of the pieces that we're going to put on our 66 starting with these skid plates they're reproductions but they're beautiful of course our cab panel that we showed you and take a look at this this is the original tailgate chain it's kind of beat up but it could be restored this one is a replacement and it's chrome now chrome won't get you home but it will make our tailgate look better and he won't beat the heck out of the paint with this protective cover now see these pits in here you're never going to polish those out a replacement handle like this well it just gets the job done this is what we pulled off of the truck and it's in perfect condition except for the fact that the anodized coating is faded this will get you up and running in seconds and look original now this mirror we've got pitted chrome again and it just looks kind of beat up it's worn out this one isn't exactly the same but it's going to look beautiful in the truck and do the job it needs to do here again outside door handles they're in nice shape but they've got pitted chrome here's a replacement that looks fantastic including all the screws and hardware for mounting and the gaskets in the kit check these mirrors out this is the west coast style mirror that we pulled off of this truck this is not going back on rather we're going to put this guy on there that's going to look original and again fit the function that we need my point is this whether you're going mild custom like we are or a full on original restoration lmc truck has got some great options for you and if you decide to get all new pieces we can take some of these nice factory original pieces swap me to get some of your money back but before we start installing all these detail parts we got to get the body back on the frame and we'll show you how to do that without damaging it and that starts getting this cab back on that chassis up next it's the easy way to remount your doors and get perfect panel gaps and later we'll finish off our truck with all new molding stick around all right let's not go too far you want to hit the all right little torch drop there all right that's it cool awesome thanks fellas yeah hey welcome back to trucks and thanks for sticking with us well the first step in reassembling a truck body and frame together is putting the cab on new isolators really the only place that you can mess up here is the front of your firewall yeah we thought we were gonna have a clearance issue with our excel large cap hei distributor but it looks like we've got just enough room now i'm sure when the guys over at horsepower picked out that excel distributor they were more concerned about getting a healthy spark than they were about firewall clearance so i guess we lucked out now not having to mount a coil externally is a great way to clean up your intake manifold and engine bay now here's where a little bit of prevention goes a long way any possible area that one body panel could come into contact with another well you need to protect both sides a second set of hands and a second set of eyes come into play here as well now what we're doing here is hanging the door by the latch on the back first this takes the pressure off the door and allows you to align your hinges [Music] now this hole right here is not original this was a pilot hole that we drilled with an eighth inch drill bit before disassembly using your drill bit again to line everything up well that'll get you in the ballpark so your adjustment is a lot easier there we go [Music] when we painted the cab we left the hinge bolts in the cab pillar itself this is to keep up with the bolts as well as to protect the fine threads you might as well get used to the fact that you're going to skin the paint off the bolts when you tighten it down when you take your protective tape off your door edges you can get a better idea of what your panel gap looks like and it ain't pretty it's wide enough to throw an angry cat through so some adjustment is in order [Music] really yup yup looking good now there's a universal rule for adjusting sheet metal on every vehicle including trucks and that is start with a panel that cannot be adjusted in our case it's this cab corner it's fixed so we start with our door gap here and work our way forward this applies to every single vehicle we're looking pretty good here [Music] which way can you lift up lane all right there it is now some of the bolts on our old c10 were just a little too rusted and pitted it would just take too much time to make them look new again so it's a good thing our friends at industrial depot keep us well stocked with all kinds of hardware now all these bolts are coated so we don't have to worry about any corrosion issues now these right here are going to be covered up and hidden but we are going to have some exposed hardware that doesn't match luckily we've got some leftover green paint we can hand brush the bolt heads for a nice detailed look [Music] we painted the entire doghouse as one unit it was never disassembled because it had never been wrecked and the factory fit was okay however don't lock anything down just yet you may have to shim for your final fit this thing started looking really good [Music] [Applause] [Music] you good yep hey welcome back to the shop well our 66 c10 is coming together nicely and starting to look like a truck again and so far the reassembly has gone really really smoothly we've managed not to damage any of the paint during the reassembly process now take a look at this bed kit we got from lmc these are oak slats with a white oak stain and a satin polyurethane finish the lighter color wood looks great against the cream color on the cab these metal strips are stainless steel with stainless steel hardware that we just scuffed with a scotch brite pad to give it that finished look yeah like ryan said everything's gone very smoothly up until this point and that's because of the tips and tricks that we showed you and the help of some friends kicking in but hey this is hot rotting and there's always going to be something that you got to drop back and improvise and change your plan a little bit for us well take a look at our fuel delivery system the inlet is right here and obviously this cross brace can't go away that's what holds the bed to the frame good thing is this is a polyethylene tank so all we have to do is make a filler plate with our torch mate glue it in here and change the whole location to the fuel inlet to here or maybe even here where it's centered in a board and it's going to be a very easy conversion thanks to the summit racing tank hey guys welcome back to trucks well most of the heavy lifting has been done with our 66 long to short wheelbase converted c10 two-wheel drive pickup and that's a mouthful now we can slow down long enough to throw on some of the eye candy which includes this grill now the original grill we told you from day one is in almost perfect shape but the anodized coating is faded like a lot of the pieces off this truck so we dug into the lmc catalog to get this chrome grille that shaved of the chevrolet script features chrome headlight doors and these cool halogen headlights that are going to give us a lot better visibility we replace the turn signal bezels with brand new ones and also replaced these worn out amber lenses with clear ones but we're using an amber ball behind so we're dot legal so take a look at the progress we've made on our truck today the body is almost completely assembled and i got to say i love the way this classic is turning out it didn't require any special tools just a little bit of care and some help from a few friends now we've left out some details like the windshield and we've got a replacement glass on hand just in case but later on we're going to show you guys projects like polishing wiper scrubs and fixing rock chips and show you that you can actually repair glass very effectively if it's not in your budget to replace it hey welcome to trucks today we're back on our 66 chevy c10 and now that we've got the body completely assembled we can focus our attention on the interior and one of the most important aspects of any interior are the driver controls for instance this is the original steering column and steering wheel from our 66 chevy and just like our 49 chevy this truck came from the factory with a three speed on the column the problem is now our truck has a 700 r4 and this does us no good plus this has got cracks in the steering wheel this is going to take a restoration and some handy work with a hacksaw here and it's still not going to look great but there's other options now this column here is an upgrade and an inexpensive one at that it's a mid 70s chevy truck column this tilt and automatic but the problem is that the ignition is on the column itself the ignition on our 66 is on the dash so this is not necessarily the best fit so what we decided to do was go with this chrome tilt steering column from i did it this is a drop in replacement for 67 through 72 trucks but it's going to work great in our 66. now this is a column kit and comes with everything that you see here including wiring connectors and mounting hardware it's got cool chrome billet knobs for your tilt and turn signal controls but here's the coolest thing i did it gives you a choice when it comes to the automatic transmission that you want this indicator works perfectly with our 700 r4 but the reason this column is going to work in our 66 is that the column tube diameter is the same as the original that way we can use our same mounting hardware the same mounting bracket and keep our cool e-brake pull handle but before we throw the column in there's still a little bit of work to do on the inside of that cab all right now before we throw that steering column in here well we want to address a couple of issues we have with the pedals well first of all we've converted to an automatic transmission so this factory clutch pedal is rather useless and it's going to get removed but another issue we have is the factory brake pedal it's going to be a little bit too close to the gas pedal assembly once it's installed so what we're going to do to remedy that problem is use the bottom half of this brake pedal assembly we robbed out of an early 80s chevy we'll cut it off right here and weld it to the top half of the factory brake pedal assembly that way we don't have to alter the geometry relocate the master cylinder [Music] now we're using an abrasive cutoff wheel to eat through the hardened steel of the factory brake pedal using a bandsaw or a hacksaw will not only keep you there for a while it'll ruin your blade [Music] now since the brakes are the last thing we want to fail on this truck we're hitting both the edges of the arm and the brake pedal side with a good bevel and the v-groove that creates gives us plenty of surface area to weld to giving us a nice strong weld but it also allows us to grind down the top of the weld giving us a nice clean appearance once it's sanded down and painted over now here's a perspective you don't often get to see not only can you see the bead flowing into the notch we created well you can see all the spatter flying through the air so it might answer the question where did all those holes come from in my shirt now like a lot of vehicles from the 60s this truck needless to say it's just not insulated very well and unless we do something about that well we're going to have annoying road noise and a lot of drumming in the cab and it's not going to be as comfortable as it could be so we're going to use dei thermal insulation products to take care of the problem now they make a really good starter shield excellent header wraps even these protective boots for your spark plugs and wires so you don't suffer any thermal damage under the hood what we're going to be using under the cab is a combination of their boom mat spray and these boom mat sheets i have an insulating cover on the top and it's a sticky back tile that's incredibly easy to put on and will take care of all of that drumming [Music] now you guys know you can't expect anything to stick to a dirty greasy rusty surface so make sure that your interior is clean the fresh paint on the back of the cap will serve perfectly for a solid foundation this stuff is never going to let go now there's no real strategy for laying in the tiles other than full coverage i'm using about a quarter inch overlap for a nice uniform appearance now the only real tool you're going to need for this installation is some form of a box cutter or a utility knife for trimming another added benefit is that this insulation will enhance the sound of any audio system and believe me we're going to have tunes cool the firewall installation will take over from there now even though there are plenty of aftermarket hanger and pedal assemblies available but we thought this was one of the cheapest and easiest solutions and it only took about half hour out of our day we think it looks pretty good now like the brake pedal there are options for aftermarket e-brake assemblies but anytime you can reuse the original equipment you not only keep the character of the truck but you also save money [Music] little set screw on each side that'll hold it in place sweet okay our great looking chrome tilt idit column is in place and our factory e-brake is right where it needs to be with our brake pedal modification our gas pedal and brake pedal are the right distance apart we're not going to get our feet tangled up listen to this that's dead so i'm going to take the spray on boom mat just do the rest of the cab corners and touch it up hey guys welcome to trucks well today's show is all about cool chevy trucks and we finally got our 66 here up on air we're pretty darn proud of this thing and we've done a lot of the smaller projects but we saved some to show you guys today and we've obviously got our air ride strong arm suspension just about buttoned up we're finally able to take the soul truck off of the roller skates it's been cruising around on for the last year or so but there's some other areas we need to address as well like getting some glass in this thing so we're going to show you a budget-minded way of trying to salvage your old windshield now this is the original windshield glass from our 66 and the gasket's obviously shot it's going to get replaced anyways the glass is not broken there's a little chip but it's got a few other problems now this glass is more than 40 years old and it has the typical age-related wear but that doesn't mean that it's unsavable it's also filthy so before we get down to business we got to see where we're at so this thing needs to be cleaned now whether you're replacing your glass or saving it now is the time to replace the windshield seal over time they shrink crack and deteriorate and replacing it now could avoid a possible leak into your new interior later on a thorough cleaning with a good glass cleaner is first if you've got old weather beaten stickers on the inside of your glass like we do no matter how stubborn they are a single edge razor blade will take care of them right away [Music] now this looks a lot better now that it's clean but check out these stains this brown discoloration right here is the plastic laminate that's discolored in between the upper and lower pane of glass this just sort of happens with antique glass but our reveal molding is going to cover that up so we're okay but over here now this right here this is your typical wiper scrub and this is caused by either dirt under the wiper blade itself or the corner being peeled off the blade and the arm just dragging a groove into the windshield over time but this can be fixed and we'll show you how but look at this see these letters right here this is the original safety stamp or the bug on the original glass now if you don't have these letters on an original restoration you could lose points on the show field so even if you don't have a perfect result in polishing the original glass it still is good to have these letters here so salvage a glass if you can now what we'll be using is a glass repair kit we got from the eastwood company its main ingredient is this rhodite which is comprised of rhodium and gold ore in a powdered form we'll be using a felt buff to polish the rhodite and take the scratches out but you've got to pre-soak your felt buff like this one in water that way it keeps down distortion and heat buildup what you're going to do is take a small amount of water and pour the rhodium powder into it until it reaches the consistency of peanut butter [Music] start with a small amount of water and add the rhodite powder until your mixture looks right and if you've ever made biscuits well you know what to do there we go that's it peanut butter you want to start off with a small amount of compound about a half an ounce or so what we're using to polish with is a rotary buffer with the speed control it's very important to have a speed control because you want low rpm in this case we're using 800 to 1000 rpm now you're going to see me moving around a lot because heat and friction are not necessarily your friend even though that's what's polishing the glass the moisture from the felt pad will help to reactivate compound but be aware and don't dry buff this can create distortion and smudging and just give you something else to repair using stoner's aerosol glass cleaner will clean the surface and check our progress [Music] [Applause] now this is a multi-step process don't expect miracles the very first time it's going to take several steps now this feels a lot better but i can still see some imperfections so more peanut butter all right so while kevin's finishing polishing up that windshield i'm gonna take a few minutes and try to get our truck's original instrument cluster to look a little bit better now during the disassembly process you need to keep in mind that these parts are almost half a century old and become brittle rather fragile over time and once we have the cluster separated you can see we've got a mixture of blast media and 40 plus years of dust and dirt that came out of the bottom once we've got all that crud removed we can move on to the gauge faces the first thing we do is blow it off with light air pressure follow that with a rag dampened with glass cleaner to wipe off the surface follow that with a microfiber cloth now these gauge needles are not available individually so use care when handling them a little bit of fluorescent orange model paint from a hobby store we'll get you fixed right up you can clearly see the sun faded portion of the needle that's exposed now the color we picked out is almost a perfect match to the oe orange i don't think you'd ever be able to tell that that's not a stock needle color and we also noticed that the hot indicator on our temp gauge was faded from the sun pretty badly as well so with some fine line tape a screwdriver and a steady hand we got that fixed up too now don't worry if you have a little bit of paint bleed under the tape there's a fix for that too it comes in the form of a sharpie to touch up any small imperfections just don't drink a bucket full of coffee before you attempt to do it that's looking pretty good [Music] all right with our gauge faces taken care of now we can move on to the gauge bezel it looks like it'll clean up with a little bit of polish and a wipe down with a microfiber cloth in case it doesn't just hit it with some semi-gloss black paint the mother's polish will clean without scratching and it puts a protective sheen on the bezel to make it look near new most aerosol glass cleaners contain alcohol which help it become a more aggressive cleaner which comes in real handy when trying to remove those more stubborn stains just make sure you remove the big dirt first so you don't scratch up the lens you're trying to clean an automotive rubbing compound will remove any fine scratches and help you regain a little bit of clarity from the lens [Music] all right what do you think about that now the easiest part was this bezel here or the trim piece we just scuffed it down hit it with some gray spray paint now our gauge lens was already in decent shape and it made it easy for us to get great results like this but in case yours is damaged beyond repair we can pick one up pretty cheap through lmc man that turned out good now what i did was end up focusing right here on our wiper scrub now check it out take a closer look now i can barely see the wiper scrub all the discoloration is completely gone as well as the pitting around the scrub there's a little bit of optical distortion but we're going to be able to see through that even at night with headlights interface now to get the rest of the windshield as clear and as clean as this section what it's going to take about another seven applications of rhodite polish and buffing but it's nice to know that if you're strapped for cash or if you're trying to salvage a valuable piece of auto glass well thanks to the eastwood company you can do it hey welcome back well we've had a chance to install our refurbished instrument cluster it really came out nice and looks right at home another thing that looks right at home is our custom auto sound head unit it's a modern cd player and radio receiver but it's got a cool old school look to it the best part about it well it fits right in the stock location you don't have to go hacking up your nice factory metal dash now over top of the sound insulation we put down we threw down a molded carpet kit we got from lmc once we get this air ride system finalized all the hoses and wiring tucked away we can do what we can to get it covered up with the carpet the rest of it what's going to be hidden by the factory bench seat anyway and we've been getting a lot of feedback from you guys bugging us want us to hurry up and get this truck finished and driven well we're anxious to have this thing done we're going to do our best to get it finished and out on the road hey guys we wanted to show you a quick way to knock a layer of dust off your truck without hurting its paint say you just pulled up to car show and you want a nice clean looking truck but you don't have access to a hose well all you need is some mother's instant detailer and a few microfiber cloths the theory is that mother's showtime detailer will lift the contaminants off the paint and suspend it so you can roll it off with a microfiber cloth without damaging the paint round two is a different microfiber cloth used to hand buff the haze out of any leftover residue this way you can take care of your entire car or truck in mere minutes well there you go we've got a show quality finish on half of our hood it didn't leave any swirl marks or scratches and you can get a nice clean looking truck without using a single drop of water if you have any questions about any trucks projects or anything else you've seen on the power block go to powerblocktv.com and to all the men and women in uniform out there thank you for your service and thanks for watching trucks today we're finishing up our 66 c10 short bed conversion by adding a customized exhaust system and showing you how to make it shine then recovering your upholstery is actually easier than you think it is it's all today here on trucks it's gonna look pretty good hey welcome to trucks well we're finally coming down the home stretch on our 66 c10 project now we've been working on this thing for quite a while and i think both kevin and i are equally anxious to get this thing finished up get it out on the street and get some drive time so today we're going to throw an exhaust system on it we're going to recover our factory bench seat to match our now two-tone interior and we'll deal with a couple of other issues as well now here in the truck shop as a matter of fact all of us here at the power block well we use every waking moment to tie up loose ends and take care of some of the stuff that we just don't have time to show you on tv the c10 here well it's no different so we wanted to give you a little tour of some of the stuff that you haven't seen yet now we've been taking care of things like the heater hoses held down with the made-for-you clamps the accessory drive system is all in place with some pretty good-looking chrome stuff from spectre now over here the master cylinder is in place but obviously the brake lines aren't completely plumbed now we're using borgeson universal joints to connect her i did it steering column to the 1972 chevy steering box and along with a wiring harness lmc truck hooked us up with the underhood plastic stuff that usually deteriorates over time now this is not a lawnmower battery as a matter of fact this is something brand new from excess power this is their compact sealed agm battery it can be mounted any orientation and with 900 cranking amps it's all the power we need for this truck now we think the crown jewel of this whole truck is the vintage 283 that's still in there dressed up with the edelbrock components like the endurashine carburetor intake manifold and especially the vintage breatherless valve covers as a matter of fact when vic edelbrock himself was in here he said those valve covers are the ones his dad designed in the 60s so we think it's pretty darn cool to have some automotive history right here on our truck now the exhaust system we're using behind our little 283 is a magnaflow system we're pretty psyched that somebody even made a kit designed for our old 1966 chevy now this system's got an x-pipe in it it's 100 stainless steel mandrel-bent throughout and has a pair of magnaflow mufflers to give us that deep mellow sound and it's got all the brackets hangers and clamps we need to install this thing now our truck's pretty heavily modified as far as suspension goes so we may have to make a few adjustments to get this system to work but it's a great place to start now when doing a typical exhaust system install well we usually start at the rear of the catalytic converter flange or at the header collector and work our way backward this time we're starting with the tailpipes working our way forward and with our fully polished mufflers hanging where we want them well we can work on connecting them to the headers using the supplied x-pipe all right now before you snug your collectors down you want to clock them so that the flat spot is facing the ground especially with the lower truck now because our c10 suspension is pretty heavily modified and not so typical we're having to do quite a bit of marking cutting and fitting to get the system to look like we want it to but it's definitely worth it because the x-pipe is going to help us with both exhaust flow and sound cool still got clearance get the pan off we might have a header leak right here now so far the installation has gone pretty smoothly but just like we anticipated we've run into a few fitment issues because we don't exactly have a stock suspension system so we went ahead and ordered up some two and a half inch stainless steel straight tubing from magnaflow to help finish the job we'll just use the straight sections install into the muffler and connect it straight to the x-pipe now to make it look good and flow just as well we're going to use some unused bends that we've got kicking around we'll pie cut the middle of the bend and insert it make a nice smooth now this technique works perfectly here and it'll give the exhaust gasses a nice smooth transition or pathway even if you don't have access to a mandrel tubing bender now stainless steel exhaust systems are definitely going to cost you a little bit more up front but there are advantages as well one of them being the ability to ditch a standard type exhaust clamp in favor of just welding two pieces together grinding it down and polishing it making two pieces of tubing look like one and it'll give it that high-end custom look too [Music] now when you're welding stainless steel it's ultra important that you have a perfect gap especially when your fusion welding like ryan is here it's also mandatory that you clean and prep the substrate before welding here's a tip get a dedicated brush and keep it specifically for your stainless that way you won't contaminate it now fusion weld is just the process of melting the two pieces together and with stainless it's very forgiving and very easy ryan's now adding filler rod to give us a little bit more of a filling property very much the same as body filler on a sheet metal panel and we're going to dress this down and finish it out in a minute now the scuffing pad creates a really nice brushed look but you can still see the welding joint so we're going to show you how to take it up a notch polish it to a mirror gloss here's how we're starting out with 40 grit on a rotary grinder now this is just to establish our basic shape just like bodywork you start with the coarse grits first we'll follow that with 80 grit on a hand sanding board this is to eliminate the scratches of the 40 grit as well as to put a linear scratch pattern into the substrate next we'll step up to 180 grit but we're not using the pad this time we're allowing the sandpaper to contour around the tubing to work our shape on the red scuffing pad is pushed in the same direction and puts an even finer scratch into the stainless steel now this is a process of working your way up through finer grits to eventually create something that can be polished now we're going to polish our sanded areas with the same two-stage method we've showed you in the past coarse and fine starting with priming the coarse compound onto the coarse wheel [Music] for the first stage we're using a compound that's specifically formulated for polishing stainless steel now this is important the orientation of your work piece needs to be about the four o'clock mark with the wheel rotating towards you and if you've ever seen the movie tommy boy you know that a work piece can get launched across the room maybe even taking a finger with it so be careful a stage two is done with a white rouge compound on a softer wheel but you can see how this works it takes what scratches are left and levels and polishes them to a beautiful mirror gloss stainless being the soft substrate that it is is one of the easiest metals besides aluminum to polish into gloss [Music] all right let's take a look at what we got right here is our unpolished fusion weld as we rock it around a little bit you can see where the fusion weld's been polished and unsanded rotate a little more it's been sanded polished and buffed it looks really good however take a look at this look where the fill rod has leveled out the surface it looks outstanding now a small section like our test piece is easy to move around the buffing wheel but if you've got your whole system welded together you can throw it on a bench top and get to it with hand tools either way you're going to have a substantial time investment but i'm sure you'll agree the end justifies the means up next you finally get to use hog ring pliers yeah that's really what they're called hey welcome back to trucks well out of all of the things that we have worked on on the interior of our 66 c10 the seat is not one of them and although from a distance it might look like it's in pretty good shape but if you look a little closer it is filthy and the dirt is embedded into the grains of the vinyl to the point to where it can't be cleaned so we're going to do one of the easiest interior upgrade projects that you can possibly do on a budget we're going to just give it a facelift change the seat cover [Music] that's nice and clean [Music] oh nasty at all the pieces oh my goodness let's grab the hazmat suit this actually looks to be in pretty good shape actually this is in really good shape the jute covering is still in nice condition and the seat foam still retains its shape so all this thing really needs is a cover now after eliminating all the signs that our little friends were ever here we can start working on the exposed seat frame which starts with sanding it down and then prepping it with a dupli-color prep spray once you wipe it down make sure it's dry we're going to apply a dupli-color semi-gloss black to closely resemble the factory finish [Music] now this is the cover we're going to be using to cover up and freshen up our factory bench seat now typically we'd reach for the solid gray cover but we noticed in the lmc catalog they had this two-tone gray and white cover we thought it might look pretty good so we'll check it out and see how it looks now we've had this thing sitting out in the sun a little while to make it a little bit easier to work with but you can get the same effects by using a hair dryer or a heat gun just don't get carried away [Music] now just like the factory did we're gonna hold our seat back cover in place using hog rings and hog ring pliers which have a groove cut into them so it'll hold on to the hog ring and won't let it slip out of place while you're crimping into the seat frame [Music] once you have one done you get to repeat the process about 17 billion times [Music] shoot that laid out pretty good that's it that's gonna look good in there yep now the seat bottom is gonna be a little bit different than the seat back we're gonna ditch the hog rings and the hog ring pliers because the original seat cover and the replacement seat cover both get held on by clips just get pushed on by a screwdriver it's gonna make the job a little bit easier [Music] in pretty good shape [Music] start by attaching the seat bottom cover in just a few spots but don't finish the job just yet all right cool now before you get carried away and put all your clips on the seat bottom and lock it into place make sure the stitching lines up that way end up with a nice professional look [Music] okay hey guys welcome back to the shop now one of the last big pieces we've got to install on our 66 here is a radiator now even with today's modern efficient engines about one third of the energy produced is wasted heat energy heat your radiators got to get rid of the more fuel you burn the more horsepower you make the more heat the engine produces and the bigger the radiator you're going to need to keep it running cool and even though we made a pretty good improvement over the stock engine's horsepower rating with a 280 plus horse dyno pull but we're still within a safe range to go with a stock type radiator plus we're going to save a few bucks over the more costly aluminum version now when filling your cooling system keep in mind that where you live or more importantly the climate you live in is going to dictate the percentage of antifreeze in water and actually 100 percent water is the most efficient way to enable heat transfer but adding the antifreeze does a couple of things first it'll prevent any corrosion from occurring on all the metal surfaces and it'll keep your block from splitting in half on extremely cold nights now as far as fans go well we had thoughts about keeping the stock mechanical fan but it doesn't have a clutch on it which means it's going to be spinning as fast as the engine spins no matter what even in 20 degree weather which would definitely keep the engine cool but it would also put off that annoying whirring sound cruising down the road not to mention the fact it's going to cost us 10 to 15 horsepower to spin the fan now i don't know about you but i'm not trading horsepower in favor of some irritating noise so we're going to be going with an electric fan something we can control in the cab or with a temperature switch installed in the cylinder head that'll activate the electric fan at a predetermined engine temperature all right where our two-tone interior has really come together especially with our painted door panels our freshly covered bench seat and our ultra snazzy white rim steering wheel now if you've got any questions about anything we used on today's show go to powerblocktv.com thanks for watching trucks see you next week it's pretty cool today the time has finally come for us to hit the road with our daily driver 66 c10 we'll see just how much better this nearly 45 year old truck rides and handles the classic look remains but now it's on air and has a more powerful drivetrain it's all today here on trucks hey welcome to trucks well the day is finally here where we get to take our 1966 chevy c10 out on its maiden voyage now we know it's been a long time coming and you guys been anxious to see this thing completed and out on the road well we've been just as anxious to get some seat time behind the wheel so needless to say we're both pretty pumped and as good as it feels to finally have this truck finished it's going to be a little sad to see it go it's kind of become a member of the family here and although it looks outwardly like the same 66 chevy we started with the truth is this truck has gone through a complete transformation our truck was used as a truck its whole life but remained pretty much stock other than a few repairs along the way but it was still a long wheelbase truck so what do we do we cut it in half getting 20 inches out of the frame and sectioning 20 inches also from the bed size front and rear that way we get to keep the crown of the panel and have a factory appearance [Music] so now that we had the short bed we wanted it was time to do something about the frame so we took it to strip masters to have it media blasted now i say media blasted and not sandblasted because strip masters uses the appropriate media for the job at hand in this case it was glass beads where it doesn't destroy or profile the metal and set it up perfectly for powder coat our friends at powder x coated the frame in a factory appearing semi-gloss black and had a booth big enough for a train car so in less than an afternoon our frame went from bare steel to a coating that's going to last a lifetime [Music] and now that we had the frame and the sheet metal reduced to the more popular short bed size well we knew we had a solid foundation to work off of so we wanted to pick out a nice suspension system and upgrade the drivetrain what we ended up going with was a strong arm system from ridetech and it replaced every single component in our suspension system now the air is not only going to give us a good ride and good handling but it's going to let us pick out the ride height we want and it was largely a bolt on short of the c notch to the rear frame then we wanted to pay some attention to the braking department so we ditched the factory drum brakes and upgraded to discs now the guys at horsepower did a mild rebuild to our original 283 and they added some higher flowing cylinder heads that could handle unleaded fuel after that we bolted it up to our 700r4 overdrive transmission dropped it in the frame rails and our new drive shaft will get that 280 plus horsepower to the ground and the new fuel tank located between the frame rails will keep the fumes out of the cab now to get the fumes out of the engine we went with a two and a half inch stainless steel exhaust system that was designed for this truck but that we had to modify since our truck's been customized a little bit that's cool well once we were satisfied with the new dimensions and the new stance of the truck well it was time to pay attention to the sheet metal now we got pretty lucky starting with a project vehicle with solid panels and original paint but we still wanted to start from the bare metal up to really see what was there and build a solid foundation for the new paint job but what we did not want to do was profile the metal with a bunch of heavy grit sanders or warped the panels with sand so we did a bunch of research what we came up with was an interesting do-it-yourself user-friendly inexpensive method of completely removing the paint without damaging the sheet metal in any way and on top of that the bonus was that we got an environmentally friendly method as well the green method we found for removing the green paint was by using a pressurized blaster using bicarbonate of soda not too far from tabletop baking soda but it doesn't profile the metal and you can blast right over plastic and chrome with no damage and with the metal stripped we could see the rust that needed to be repaired typical for these trucks we put lower fenders on both sides and some other patch panels here and there and after 100 odd hours of priming and blocking the body it was ready for paint and we wanted to keep our environmental theme so we used the environmentally friendly waterborne paint with 80 percent less vocs which is the pollution and pain that goes up into the atmosphere our new modern two-stage paint system was a near-perfect match for the original colors but with the added benefit of a clear coat to give the color more depth and had a lot more gloss and we complemented the new paint with all new bright work and trim pieces and with the rest of the exterior looking so good we finished it off with the installation of a bed wood kit now we just had to do something with the interior to match the quality we have already established with this thing now the interior that we started with wasn't in terrible shape but it wasn't new either so we decided to freshen up while maintaining the classic look [Music] and that started with refurbishing our original windshield which had been subjected to over 50 years of road debris and wiper scrub so we polished it back to a nearly new condition [Music] we also wanted to breathe some life into our original instrument cluster so we painted up the needles cleaned everything up and reassembled it it turned out looking nearly new now we didn't want the inside of the cab to have any road noise or drone or sound like an empty 50 gallon barrel so we threw down some extra sound deadener we also adapted our parking brake lever to our new chrome tilt column and got rid of the clutch pedal since this thing is now an automatic now we put our air tank and control solenoids in the spot vacated by the factory fuel tank and the bench seat that's going to sit in front of it got recovered to match our painted two-tone interior it's pretty cool now this truck was a lot of work and a lot of fun to build and we learned a lot during the process but let me tell you just like we saw on the very first show when we introduced this project i've got a bone stock 66 chevy truck sitting at home in the garage and i know how it drives believe me it ain't so pretty so now is the time do we get to test our upgrades and throw some miles on this thing and see if what we did counts up next we're out on the open road and later it's do-it-yourself weather pack connectors stay tuned [Music] hey welcome back to trucks well we're finally on the road with our 66 c10 project and it's been so long since this thing has been driving under its own power what it feels like a brand new truck and that's kind of a wordplay because for all intents and purposes it is a brand new truck every component has been replaced or refurbished and man it feels like it and we weren't the only ones to notice the new power under the hood look at they're jealous we have more horsepower oh that was really bad now since this is the truck's first time out we wanted to take it easy and skip the interstate so we stuck to back roads keeping the speeds low enjoying the scenery and feeling the truck out [Music] and as we felt more and more comfortable with the truck we picked the pace up a little bit paying attention to any noises or vibrations once we felt things were good to go we hit the highway and opened her up [Music] now all the sound deadening and weather seals that we installed in this truck really paid off with a much more solid feel but there's no getting around the classic styling and the aerodynamics and wind noise that go along with that but a little bit of wind noise well it's a trade-off because the classic design and styling of these vehicles is instantly recognizable and arguably beautiful and something you just don't find in modern vehicles [Music] and this truck looks good from every angle with the classic green and white two-tone looking good to everybody that laid eyes on it and the oak wood floor with the blonde stain and stainless steel slats just finished things off [Music] now out on the back roads and on the highway the air ride suspension felt good and solid with it handling well and soaking up the bumps another benefit of an air suspension is that not only can you dial in your ride height for different aesthetics but you can also dial in a little bit of firmness if you're towing and that can all be accomplished from the comfort of the cab while you're driving down the road now our nice new radial tires sure give a smoother ride than the old bias ply tires they ran back in the day and our 17 inch steel wheels with our chrome trim rings give a great mix of classic and modern styling without being too big [Music] but as well as our shakedown runs went there's always something and for us well we didn't notice it till after we saw the footage and it's the backup light coming on in drive and that's just hot rodding we'll fix that later all right when we go around this corner yeah don't go too fast because this is the bench seat and i don't want you sitting next to me okay so slow it down despite the air ride being able to take it you know let's not get too comfortable here now some of the nicest compliments we've had on this project are regarding the paint job and the color scheme and as we know the best way to look at a paint job on a vehicle is outside in natural light it's also good to see that all the panels match each other and like we showed you if you follow the same recipe no matter when or where the panels were painted it's all going to match when you put it back together now all in all we were really happy with the way this old truck turned out the engine performed great the automatic overdrive transmission handled the highway no problem and the tires wheels brakes and suspension did their job and we turned heads everywhere we went so i guess it's safe to say our months and months of hard work paid off big time there you go hey welcome back to trucks well i got to tell you we're really proud of this truck because every goal we set we accomplished it looks great it drives great it runs great and hopefully it's reinforced to some of you guys that you can build the truck of your dreams and as sad as we are to see this thing go the good thing about it is that it clears some more space for some new better projects so i think we can officially stick the fork in this truck because it buddy is done now if you got any questions about the products we use on the show go to powerblocktv.com thanks for watching trucks see you guys next time

Channel: Gunpowder & Gasoline

Views: 492,538

Keywords: chevy c10, c10, full build, chevy, short bed, long bed, truck, trucks, rebuild, daily driver, 1966 chevy c10, restoration, c10 build, chevy c10 build, restoration videos, rusty restoration, chevrolet, long bed to short bed

Id: 85-o8Ak8AjY

Length: 120min 19sec (7219 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 21 2021