1972 C10

sprint_9

Rookie
I wanted to start a little post for my C10 here since Im using mainly SPI for it, I think it will be a good place to ask questions as well.

The truck started life as my wife's grandpa's work truck, it was drove off and on until the 90's when he passed away and then it sat for quite some time. I got it in late 2012 and drove it around a 1000 miles in its original configuration for a couple years. It took sometime to get a place to restore it but in 2015 my parents got a new house with a shop, and in early 16 I started on it, so most of this has happened and Im going to do some catching up.

Here is the truck in original form, pretty straight old pickup for Iowa.
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A few pictures of tear down

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The truck was originally a long box, great for a work truck, I actually used it as a work truck the couple years I had it in stock form. The long box did come in handy, but it was so long I could barely get it into my garage. I like the look of a short box more as well, so it was an easy decision to cut it down. 12 inches taken out of the frame under where the cab would be, and 8 inches cut off the back end of the frame.

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After the shortening was completed I mocked up my engine, Im swapping to a 08 5.3 LS. It was kind of a hard decision to swap at first, having a 350 with a carburetor appealed to me believe it or not, Im younger and have never had anything like that, but in the end I decided to swap

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The frame was stripped down and then sent off to powder coat. I also went through my 5.3, changed the cam, deleted the displacement on demand, and painted it.

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Engine set and front suspension reinstalled. The rear end was also rebuilt, changed from a 3.08 to a 3.73 posi.

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At this point I did some more mock up of the seats Im going to run, master cylinder/brake system, and measured for wheels.

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Man its alot easier posting about this than actually doing the work, lol.

Next on the list was trying to figure out what to do and how to do it for rust repair and body work. This was a big hurdle for me, Id only welded a very small amount in high school, so basically no experience. And in general didnt have a good game plan to do paint and body work, my only previous full size spray gun experience was on some s10 bumpers. Not alot to build on, but it was something I had always wanted to do and something I wanted to learn. I did alot of youtube watching on how to weld, and alot of reading on here on how to do bodywork and paint.

I started off on my core support, smoothing out a couple factory creases.

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Once that turned out ok, I dove into the cab. These cabs were kind of notorious for the rockers rusting and mine was no different. It was far from a rust bucket but now was the time to do them.

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Nice work! It's obviously been well kept all those years inside and out. Sweet old truck!
 
Nice work! It's obviously been well kept all those years inside and out. Sweet old truck!

Thanks, I feel very fortunate to have gotten it.

Off and on in between working on my rockers I decided to smooth my firewall some. Im going to run a Vintage Air system so most of the old holes for the heater box could be filled, the wire gutter along the top of the firewall wasn't really needed with the engine swap so it was filled too. This was a fun little project, and the results were well worth it.

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After all that the front clip was mocked up to check things over before blasting. Then it was off to blasting for the core support, inner fenders and cab. I was really happy with how my repairs turned out.

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My thoughts were I could practice on the bottom of the cab and core support, I think I ended up with like 4 coats of epoxy on the core support because I kept screwing up. Eventually I got it without any mistakes and it came out great. Bottom of the cab was coated with SPI epoxy, then raptor liner over that.

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Good areas to practice on. I've had quite a few of those screw ups myself and always seems to happen on that "one last coat" before I move onto the next panel! You got it looking good!
 
Good areas to practice on. I've had quite a few of those screw ups myself and always seems to happen on that "one last coat" before I move onto the next panel! You got it looking good!

Thanks. It happened usually on the last pass, once I got the cup caught up in the wires that the core support was hanging from. Stopped me long enough for a massive run, lol.

After the bottom had a chance to cure out I started with epoxy and then filler work.

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After that I had a seam sealer learning experience, I posted about this on here and received some great help and guidance. The results speak for themselves, a moment of extreme frustration (surprised my cartridge gun still works) to one of joy.

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I then sprayed some featherfill on the firewall, followed by a couple rounds of 2k regular build on the entire cab. Im not running a headliner so I wanted to do some of the inner roof, which was a major pain.

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Nice looking truck! I am in the same process you are right now, you are ahead of me though. I just got my stuff back from the blaster.
 
Nice looking truck! I am in the same process you are right now, you are ahead of me though. I just got my stuff back from the blaster.

Very nice work, on a nice truck. Thanks for sharing

Thank you.

Once all the blocking was done I spayed gray epoxy reduced down 25% and sprayed my base a couple hours later. I remember this being a long day, something around 14 hours scuffing, cleaning and spraying. I then let it sit overnight and the next day fixed some weird marks in the base, spotted those in and cleared a few hours later.

Base, odd spots before fixed.

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First coats of clear, I really got excited / nervous and put it on kind of dry in spots, for an initial go at clear I was moderately satisfied. I ended up also finding a light spot of base on the bottom of my rockers. I crawled around with a flash light before clear and still missed it.

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After a post on here and alot of thinking on my part taking in the advice I was given, I decided to flow coat the cab. In the process fixing my light spot and hoping for a little better finish, more clear on the cab. I was much happier how this turned out, a big improvement.

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Love that color.
Me too, 10-17 Ford Mustang Grabber Blue.

That looks slick !!
Thanks

Once the cab settled out for a bit and I got through the holidays, Im posting from around Christmas this past year. I started buffing, which was quite a job, but makes a heck of a difference in the overall finished product.

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Inner roof buffed, what a workout.

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First time outside after most of it was buffed.

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I had a small error when trying to get a run out, luckily I had a seam in the roof to tape to, so not too big of an issue.

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Between buffing sessions I epoxied a bunch of brackets, brake booster, and a bunch more random things. I really like SPI's epoxy, its the only one Ive ever used, but I like it.

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Now that the cab was getting close to being done I wanted to finish up anything I could before I set it on the frame. One of the main things I had to figure out was exhaust. I kind of wanted to do my own made out of individual bends, and then weld them together. My original thought was to have it tig welded but I ended up just mig welding it myself. Im happy with how it turned out so far. Im waiting on a box to figure out where my side exit will be.

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Radiator, auxiliary transmission cooler, ac condenser installed. Fuel lines finished.

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Im getting close to being caught up with my updates.

By this point Spring had finally arrived and nicer weather with it. I got back to body work after a few months break. I originally wanted to do my doors first, but I am adding power windows and locks. Both of those items took a few weeks longer to get sorted out so I did my fenders first.

First round of epoxy. Feather Fill and blocked.

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Never got any pictures but more epoxy and regular build 2k followed the feather fill, as well as epoxy sealer. Next picture I had in line was of the first round of clear, 3 coats. A little time in the sun the next day, I really like this color in the sun.

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Hanging on the truck for the first time.

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After all that I sanded them down with 800, and put down 3 more coats. I wet sanded from 1200 on up to 3000 and started to buff, when doing so I noticed some wave, I think it was urethane wave. I didnt want to go back through the sanding grits again in fear of sanding through the last round of clear, so I just blocked the entire thing down with 320 and re-cleared to start over. So 2 flow coats on the fenders.

The lines in the garage door kind of show the waves.

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These pictures are after the last flow coat, they seem to have come out better. Hopefully they buff good.

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This update should pretty much catch me up body work wise, this is a little out of order but it should be ok.

In between my fender clearing sessions I started on and finished my doors, I actually finished the doors first but started them after the fenders. Chalk that up to rookie mistakes.

I didnt get as many pictures of the doors, one picture of some blocking, and then some of clear.

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After sanding, I went a more aggressive on sanding. 800 through 3/4 of the orange peel, then 1000 with a wood block, on up with just a soft block. It looked pretty good pre-buffing.

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Im currently about half way through buffing, but Im absolutely stunned with the results.

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I took a short video of the doors, I cant express how happy I am with them so far.

 
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