1969 GMC/Chevrolet C-10 short bed fleetside

First, all the main components of the body are original: Cab, doors, hood, fenders, bed. No reproduction on the above parts, "real" 1968 steel.

Next the truck was disassembled, taking the front end completely apart, Cab & bed jacked up off the frame, doors were taken apart, with all the glass in the truck removed. Next the truck was assembled and body parts fitted to perfection to get all the lines & gaps just right. Factory fitting could not compare to this truck.

Next was paint. The original color from the factory was Victory Red body & Ivory White top & grille. The red on the truck was the right color but the paint job was not the best, it however had a lot of red paint on the truck so after hours of wet sanding & polishing we were able to actually create the beautiful red paint job on the truck today.

The Ivory White cab & grille had not been repainted so it was decided to repaint both so that they equalled the excellent paint on the body. The Ivory White turned out perfectly giving the overall truck the "Wow" factor... you be the judge.

Note: paint was not just done on the parts that show, many parts of the truck were painted on both sides which takes considerably more work but makes the job a real restoration. Examples: front inner fender wells were powder coated black on both sides, rear fender wells were painted red in the bed and black powder coated in the rear wheel wells, inside the bed was Line-X on the side panels and then painted red along with the tailgate. Brand new complete wood kit was stained and installed along with polished bed stripes, new radiator core support was added and powder coated black along with several other items powder coated black: battery tray, fan shroud, hood hinges, splash pans under front & rear bumpers, all bumper brackets, gas tank mounting brackets, head light buckets. Gas tank was powder coated gray to break up the all black under the truck.

All the stainless on the sides, around the windows, the grille frame, headlight & taillight rings, side mirrors, Door wind wings brackets, door handles & internal hardware to operate both the windows & doors are all brand new, the wiper motor & arms/blades are brand new, & all tailgate stainless to include the handle are all brand new.

All the window glass & rubber around windows & doors are all new.

Chrome bumpers, front & back plus brackets are all new.

Brand new cargo light was installed, plus a control switch inside the Cab next to the interior light so you can operate when needed. (Super Cheyenne feature.)

Suspension & body mounts:

Every part of the frame was taken apart, cleaned, and painted.New bushings were installed in the front core support, new Cab mounts, and bed mounts were installed. (All these mounts are made from today's available materials versus the old 1968 materials which will give the truck a more solid feel going down the road.)

Rear suspension: the old stock trailing arms/springs & shocks were all removed and replaced with CPP tubular trailing arms, CPP 5" drop coil springs, dual adjustment track bar, shock relocation kit, set of new CPP rear shocks, & a new CPP rear sway bar kit.Making all these changes to the rear suspension takes this truck from old 1968 technologyto new 2018 rear suspension plus it lowers the truck 5" for better tracking control.

A quick ratio 12-1 power steering box replaced the original manual steering box that was 18-1 ratio. Along with new lines, power steering pump at the engine & a remote power steering reservoir mounted on the left side of the core support.

Front suspension: the old upper & lower A-arms were removed along with the old coil springs, & front shocks. Next a set of CPP upper & lower tubular control arms were installed along with the following: New CPP 2.5" dropped spindles, set of CPP 2" lowering coil springs, set new CPP front shocks, &new CPP front sway bar. All the front suspension changes lowered the front of the truck 4.5" overall greatly improving the handling/tracking performance on the road. This also gave the truck the stance you see when you stand back and look at the truck.

To complete the suspension on this truck a new chrome 32" tilt steering column was installed along with new rag joint, universal joint, & steering shaft to the steering box.

All of the above suspension changes have taken this truck from an old outdated farm truck that no one should ever drive more than 45 mph to a truck that will drive straight, corner perfectly, ride smooth at all speeds, steer like a new truck with positive steering and best of all fly down the freeway at today's speeds should that be the need.

Drivetrain:

Front brakes are all new drilled disc rotors & new bearings with Wilwood calipers for excellent stopping power.

Rear brakes are all new drilled rotors & new bearings with new CPP calipers for balanced stopping with the front.

In support of the brake system there is a new CPP power booster & dual master cylinder along with an adjustable portioning valve and new brake lines replaced everywhere at the front of the truck.

Finally the E-brake system has been replaced from the petal system in the cab to the cables clear back to the rear brake calipers.

All the old 1968 axles, bearings, seals, & gears have been removed and brand new axles, seals, bearings, and 307 gears have been installed. What was missing from this old truck was posi-traction in the rear-end leaving this truck with only the right rear wheel driving the truck. However, posi-traction was installed in the rebuilt rear-end so now the truck will have two rear wheels to the ground for better traction & control.

Next was choosing a transmission that would handle the new engine and at the same time have driving options for both just cruising around town and also for flying down the freeway if needed at left lane speeds. In the 1980's Chevrolet introduced several transmission with overdrive: The 700r for heavy cars like Chevelles and a 200r for lighter vehicles that wanted overdrive. This 200r is the perfect transmission to put in this truck as it allows you the option to cruise or freeway drive. It moves this truck from a 55mph truck to a 75mph truck if needed. And along with all the new up- dated suspension to support the higher speeds this truck can be enjoyed way beyond all those older Chevrolet trucks running around out there with old transmissions and stock suspension.

There is another important piece of any drivetrain and that is the driveshaft, so with that in mind a brand new balanced driveshaft with joints & bearing was special built and connected from the transmission to the rear-end. This is important to how smooth a truck drives down the road, if unbalanced a truck would vibrate under power.

The final piece to any drivetrain will be the rims and tires.The truck originally came with 15”x 7" rims and very skinny tires. The change made here is major... a set offour 17”x 8" US Mags U111 Rambler style wheels were chosen along with a set of Nitto 555 Extreme ZR tires, 255/45/17 up front & 255/50/17 on the back. With the new suspension and drivetrain these are just the right tires for traction and performance.

Just to recap what has taken place with the suspension & driveline in this truck is an example of what you need to do when taking a 50 year old truck and bringing it to the driving standards of today's vehicles. Anything less is just new paint on a very old truck.

Engine Compartment:

Engine is a brand new Chevrolet Goodwrench 5.7 (350cid) engine with approximately 100 test miles. After you reach 500 miles it will be time to change the engine oil. Here is the oil you should use in this engine going forward: Lucas hot rod and classic car motor oil with zinc, you can buy it from Summit racing on line. Engine takes 5 quarts.

Engine performance in mind, the stock cam was pulled and a Howard retro-fit SBC roller 110 degree roller cam was installed. This cam will outperform the stock cam in these areas: smooth idle, stronger lower end, stronger mid-range, works well with 2000 transmission converter. Just better overall engine performance than a stock 350 engine.

The stock engine came with adjustable tappet rocker arms, this setup takes maintenance as you would need to keep the tappets adjusted. We replaced this set up with a full set of 1.5 ratios - 3/8 stud full aluminum roller rocker arms. This setup needs no adjustment once they are installed and adjustment set. (roller rocker vs. stock tappet is trading out old technology for new performance technology.)

While we had the timing gear & chain off the front of the engine to install the Howard cam, we installed a new dual chain timing gear and chain. This change will likely ensure the timing gear chain may never need to be replaced during the life of the engine.

There were several performance parts that were added to give the engine a little more performance:

Edelbrock performer powder-coated silver intake manifold, set of shorty powder-coated silver headers, Edelbrock 600 4 barrel carburetor with electric choke, Summit "Ready to Run" Distributor, New black plug wires, polished plug wire holders, & new spark plugs, & new MSD blaster coil.

Connecting to the set of headers is a complete new exhaust system with chrome tips & dual Magna-flow mufflers so you can experience that mellow tone of a small block Chevrolet engine.

To dress up the engine several things were added, new Chevrolet polished aluminum valve covers, Spectre black air cleaner, polished aluminum water neck, new radiator hoses, polished aluminum breather & polished radiator cap,

This 350 engine normally would have the old V-belt drive with a manual fan on the front of the water pump on this type of the engine in 1968. It was deleted and a new serpentine belt drive unit was installed, this unit is polished and has a polished a/c compressor on the right side, polished 140 amp alternator on left side, polished power steering pump on lower left side, a reverse high flow "Tuff Stuff" water pump in the center. All of this is an option to increase overall engine performance, appearance and bring the truck drive system in the modern age.

To keep the engine running cool under any conditions we added an aluminum radiator specifically built for this truck with two 14" fans that are controlled by relay & senders to come on & off when engine reaches specific temperatures. Also installed was black radiator top cover placed across the top along with black show panels in front of the radiator around the hood latch to give that clean/detailed appearance.

There was a new fuel pump installed along with new fuel lines to carburetor and all the way back to the newly mounted under the bed gas tank. (Gas tank was original behind the seat in the cab, very dangerous.)

All the hood latches are new and button head bolts hold down everything on the front & back of the truck. This will prevent bolts from turning into rusty bolts on the road.

Because there are many electrical things that have been added to this truck versus what the old truck was wired to operate and the old wiring was 50yrs old, the old wiring harness was pulled from the truck and a complete Auto-wire new age wiring harness was installed. This new harness is equipped to operate modern equipment like A/C, electric fans, high voltage alternators, & sound systems. To complete this electrical system it requires the best battery you can buy and that is an Optima battery and that is what sets in the battery tray.

This new Auto-wire harness not only supplies power to all the things mentioned above it also replaces all the wiring to the exterior lights like headlights, taillights, turn signals, flashers, and all of the interior Cabneeds. In summary this was a total replacement of the old harness and the install of a modern age harness that ensures safety of the truck.

Cab Interior:

The truck originally was not a factory a/c truck so a Vintage-Air a/c unit special built for this specific truck was installed in the cab using the original in dash control unit to operate both air & heat. This new more efficient Vintage-Air a/c unit along with the new a/c compressor in the engine compartment offer great cooling & heat. And it all works through the stock a/c vents that were added in the dash to preserve that classic look in the cab.

The goal was to insulate the entire cab so the it minimized outside noise as you drove the truck on the road. The entire cab was totally gutted so there was nothing but bare interior metal, next we installed "Boom Mat" sound deadening material on the floor, firewall, back of cab wall & inside the doors. Next we installed a deluxe black head liner, new door panels, new black arm rests, single layer heat batting with two layers of black carpet, set of new black sun visors, & last but not least a complete new bench seat with black and white hounds tooth upholstery. The bench seat hounds tooth was chosen because it stays with the 1968 period when hounds tooth was only offered in Super Cheyenne deluxe trucks.

The appearance of the dash in these trucks either makes or breaks the looks of the interior of these trucks so a great deal of planning took place with the install of a complete digital dash that displays everything in red when ignition is on. A new stock dash bezel was placed over the digital instruments to keep that classic bezel appearance. The dash pad was replaced with a new black dash pad across the top of the dash.

Additional improvements to the dash included: new chrome ash tray, new cigarette lighter, new headlight switch, new wiper switch, new ignition switch, new emblem on the glove box door, new lock on the glove box & a new light in the glove box.

There is always a center piece to any dash and this time it is the RetroSound Hermosa radio with chrome face plate. This unit brings many modern things to the interior of the truck, example: Built-in Bluetooth with speaker for hands free phoning, USB port for MP3, Dual color illumination, AM/FM tuner with 30 presets. For music speakers there are speakers mounted in each of the kick panels by the doors.The sound is very good.

Another center piece to any interior is what you see first when looking in the driver's window—the Steering wheel. I think you will agree that this polished 14" aluminum steering wheel with a black half wrap for comforted gets the job done. Just for that added touch the horn button has a nice red bowtie in the center of it.

This truck did not come with a head liner, only Super Cheyenne trucks had this option however, I added a black headliner trimmed in stainless to give the truck that finish look.

Some final adds to the interior are the new door & window cranks, & the set of chrome door sills that you see holding down the carpet when you open the doors.

Summary:

There is a great deal of detail in this description because if you are interested in owning this truck you will need to compare every little detail in this description to other trucks you might consider owning,

This 1968 Chevrolet two-tone truck is not only a stunning beauty, it has been restored the right way in every detail to bring it to this final stage.

Based on the labor & parts that it took to complete this wonderful example of a 1968 classic truck, you have the opportunity to own it for half of the cost for you to build it.

This is not the first truck I have restored and likely will not be my last. I complete every truck as if I plan to keep it as my personal truck.

I have tested everything on this truck several times since completion and have found things that needed fixing; I have made those fixes as I found them. I continued to test & drive this truck and for some time it has performed without any problems. Contact me for further questions, Glen