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'69 C10, Bagged on Radials with a Turbo LS- Pic Heavy
So I bought this truck coming up on a year ago, in March of 2017. When I bought it, it was a ’69 long bed big window truck. Typical old truck rust, cab corners full of rust and bondo and rockers were replaced once or twice with the lay-over kind so there was plenty of rust in there as well. Had a 307 with a Turbo 350 trans behind it.
This is the day I bought it:
First thing I did was take off the front clip and yanked the old seized 307/350 out, and sold it.
Next thing was to tear all the crossmembers, suspension, and basically everything except the rear axle out of the truck.
Ordered a 12” step notch from Thor Bros, and welded that in, and boxed the frame from the cab, all the way to the end of the frame. Also installed rear brake setup off of a 96 impala (all new), along with a set of Moser conversion axles to convert the truck to 5x5.
Little out of order, but right before I boxed the frame, I shortbed converted the frame. I cut 12” out behind the cab, and chopped 8” off the back end of the frame. All fishplated with 3/16” plate, and fishplated on the outside with 1/4 after this picture was taken. Also boxed the frame over where the fishplate is.
Started working on the front end while I was waiting on some parts for the rear to come in. Cupped the control arms 2 inches, so the bags can sit down a little further to give me some more drop.
Cut the bedsides down in the meantime as well, and welded those back together to the same sizes as the frame. Also got my wheels in to test fit. 15x10, ended up throwing a 295/55 drag radial on the back. Also chopped 1.5” out of the engine crossmember as well, which made it mount higher in the frame to give me some more drop as well. Must have forgot to take a picture of that one.
Got a ton of parts in at this point, 4 link from Jason over at Thor Bros, and the dudes at Switch Suspension got me hooked up with a full air setup. Made all the bagplates myself, bag on bar triangulated 4 link setup, also ended up cutting the crossmember a little and moving the link bars up, and making a driveshaft tunnel, to make room for the driveshaft to tuck in at full drop. At this point got all the bags installed, air lines, compressor, and switches. Also threw the shocks on at the same time.
Got my rack and pinion conversion done in the meantime, 98 Ford Ranger rack, got some adapters machined to convert metric to American thread, and have a 3/4 heim on each end as a rod end.
Chopped xmember
Welded the firewall holes shut, covered up the holes where the heater was, and ran some brake line. Also got my drop spindles installed, and got the front brakes on.
Day I got the motor, 2002 Gen3 5.3, somewhere around 100k miles on it.
After the motor was done, went sloppy mechanics style on the motor stuff, Elgin 1839p 228/230 cam (sloppy stage 2 cam), and PAC 1218 valvesprings. Flipped the truck manifolds and welded some 2.5” vbands on. Deleted all the AC and emissions stuff. Trans is still at the shop getting rebuilt, but is a 2002 4l80e, with a stock rebuild and a shift kit.
Got the raised bedfloor framing in, all 1x1 0.65 square tube, bolted to the frame. Temporary fuel tank in. Eventually will get a fuel cell, so I can tuck it down inside the frame, but using this stock blazer tank for now to save some money. Walbro 450 stuffed in the tank, with all parker line and AN fittings.
Motor is in at this point, and fuel is working, no leaks, and seems like good pressure at the rails. Waiting on the mailman to show up with my starter bolts for the first fire up, so I can check for leaks, before I put the trans, and all the turbo stuff on. After this first startup, I’ll swap out the injectors for 80 pounders, and put the turbo, radiator, intercooler, etc on.
Turbo stuff came in. VSRacing 78mm, with their wastegate, bov, and oil feed/drain kit. Just waiting on these damn starter bolts to come in so I can start fabbing turbo piping. Any day now...
Cool project. Looks like you're making good progress.
Before installing that freshly rebuilt 4L60e, I would consider selling it and finding a 4L80e. Do it right the first time, and it probably won't cost you any more than you already have in it.
Cool project. Looks like you're making good progress.
Before installing that freshly rebuilt 4L60e, I would consider selling it and finding a 4L80e. Do it right the first time, and it probably won't cost you any more than you already have in it.
It is an 80e, I even re-read it to make sure I typed it right haha I got screwed on the trans though. Was told it was a low mile 80e that worked great, so I payed OK money for it, and in reality it was a high mile 80e with a burnt 2nd gear clutch and 3rd gear was almost gone, so i'm ending up having my guy rebuild it in the end.
Awesome build man, I wish I new how to do that stuff, good job!!
Thanks man! Honestly I never did any of this til I started. I didn't even own a mig welder before I started. I just knew I wanted to do it so I leaned haha pretty much everything I did here I learned in some capacity online/on forums. Some ideas I came up with but I learned the basics just from reading stuff online and googling.
Fired it up NA for the first time yesterday, just tuned out the VATS real quick and let 'er rip. Ran for a couple minutes then died, but i'm assuming that's because the o2's and MAF were both unplugged, and I actually swapped the MAF out for an older IAT sensor, but the PCM isn't tuned for it at all, so i'm assuming that's a big factor in why it killed itself after a few minutes.
Now that I know it runs and isn't leaking anywhere, i'll start fabbing up turbo kit parts.
01-15-2018, 02:52 PM
'69 C10, Bagged on Radials with a Turbo LS- Pic Heavy
