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Just went thru your thread, great project. Getting me all fired up to get started on my 72, just need to finish the 54 first.
Good to see the way your maintaining much of the original equipment and look! Hope you had fun in Texas at the GG event. My buddy and I are going on the Hall of Fame Tour in September and ending there...
I see that you made your own AC lines, but I never saw a picture of the fitting(s) you used on the compressor. Can you share how you did that end of the lines and how it looks down my the frame rail?
Yeah, I took some pics, but didn't post all of them. Anyway, the compressor fittings are made from factory lines with barbed fittings TIG'd on the ends. The low side is the original compressor fitting with maybe an inch of the original line left on it and a 45* fitting welded to it. It clears the frame with very little trimming required, but the down side is in order to keep the #12 hose straight, the fitting curves over the top of the bolt hole. The bolt goes in with no problem, but you can't get a socket on it to tighten it, you have to use a wrench, but that's not a big deal to me since it isn't something that gets taken off a lot. The other side of that hose is a factory low side line that comes out of the accumulator which has a straight barbed fitting welded to it. You can see them in this pic if you really look.
The high side line is something I have been doing for years, and works super slick! It is a line off of the condenser of a 99-07ish Tahoe, Suburban, or any other of those kind of SUVs. Trucks don't use the same lines for some reason, so it has to be from an SUV. I then had a barbed fitting welded to the end and bent the line to clear the frame. Again, you have to tighten it with a wrench because its under the frame rail, but it clears perfectly. The modified line is on top, with an unmodified, straight from the junk yard one on bottom in this pic.
It's hard to get a decent pic of them installed in the truck, but this is what they look like when all is said and done.
You can see where I slightly trimmed the frame for the low side line clearance in the last pic, and it looks like it is hitting it from that angle, but its got plenty of clearance, its just hard to get a pic of it.
Just went thru your thread, great project. Getting me all fired up to get started on my 72, just need to finish the 54 first.
Good to see the way your maintaining much of the original equipment and look! Hope you had fun in Texas at the GG event. My buddy and I are going on the Hall of Fame Tour in September and ending there...
Got a little paint on the seatbelt brackets, then put the carpet in and bolted the seatbelts in for good.
I know there are several ways to cut holes in the new carpet for seat holes and such, but my preferred technique is to do it the way that stinks up the garage the most! It actually works the best in my opinion, leaves nothing to get caught in the bolts while tightening. You just have to clean your soldering iron really well when you're done.
With the carpet in, I decided to put the cardboard glovebox liner in. These things are a pain in the *** to install, so might as well make it worse by adding a USB port for the radio and a cigarette lighter for the XM radio to plug into! It looks like they're just mounted in the cardboard, but I made a bracket for them to mount in so they're super solid, you can see the two extra screws I added that holds the bracket below the original screw that holds the liner in place, but I forgot to take any pics of it.
Then got the tires and wheels all mounted up! cant wait to put them on so I don't have to look at those crappy rollers any more!!!
They are US Mags Ramblers, 20x8 in the front and 20x9.5 in the rear. Couldn't wait to see what they looked like so threw one on the front real quick for a sneak peek. I like them!
So much win in your build threads. It shows that you're no stranger to the GM LS swaps. I'm not kidding when I say that you should write a swap manual for the 67-72 C10 trucks or possibly write a book on your mods and swaps. I bet you could make a small retirement fund selling them through Amazon. You wouldn't be the first person I've known to make a little extra bread from Amazon books.
Well, I wanted to get the bed put on today, but the weather didn't cooperate, it was actually snowing this morning. But I did finish up some small things, but nothing picture worthy. I did however decide to put all the wheels on. This started my **** for luck day..... So I go to put one of the front wheels on, and the stick on weights just fall off,,,,,,I'm like, really? So I load it up and go back to Discount Tire. Now I've had some bad luck there before, but that's another story. I get there and wait in line, then tell the guy what happened and he says he will just go ahead and rebalance it right away rather than having me wait, well, right away was like 15 minutes later. Anyway, I watch as the kid puts it on the balancer, spins it, then takes it off and rolls it over and says it didn't call for any weights. Once again I'm like really? I tell him it had 1 3/4oz of weights before, so he puts it back on and spins it again, still calls for nothing. Another guy there calls me in to show me what the machine says, and I look at it and tell him what I told the other guy. He then puts it on the RoadForce machine and it calls for 1/4oz, he puts the weight on and it tests good. So I go back in the lobby and tell the guy behind the counter what's going on and he says, and I quote "we hardly ever have anyone come back with balancing problems" To which I replied one of them has to be wrong, so he says the last time it must have not been right.......Well that sounds encouraging! WTF?? I hope the other three are good, but I'm not getting my hope up!
But, I did finally get the wheels on, and got the cardboard taken up off the garage floor, which is a relief because I was tired of looking at it!
Nice work on the USB port, consider that idea stolen.
I'll let you have it so you wont be considered a thief! LOL Its really just an extension for the port coming out of the back of the radio, I use it to play music I put on a flashdrive. Kind of like the modern day burned CD.
Originally Posted by BlueMaxCougar
So much win in your build threads. It shows that you're no stranger to the GM LS swaps. I'm not kidding when I say that you should write a swap manual for the 67-72 C10 trucks or possibly write a book on your mods and swaps. I bet you could make a small retirement fund selling them through Amazon. You wouldn't be the first person I've known to make a little extra bread from Amazon books.
Thanks for the compliments, but I don't think I'm really the author type. Just making these threads uses up all the typing I can handle in a day. I took typing in HS, but it was 6th hour, of the second semester of my senior year, and I didn't think I would ever need to know how to type, so I didn't take it too seriously!
Originally Posted by 4EyedTurd1
I like the usb and charger idea, did you rob those from something at the junkyard?
The cigarette lighter came from the junkyard, but the USB port I got on Amazon.
Looks nice. I see in your sig you're putting a Camaro V6 in it?
Thanks, truck is solid but paint is a 20 footer, I bought it this way.
Engine is a 250-6 and a granny 4spd. Lowering was done with the heat wrench, before I bought it...!
Plan on many of the steps you did on the chassis, but may try to save the paint.
Anyway, the engine only has 2800 miles on it out of a wrecked Colorado, with 6spd auto. Gonna have some challenges, due to the need to include BCM in the harness. Guess I enjoy making things interesting. Just couldn't resist the engine features, maybe I won't have to change the 4.1 rear-end with the six spd auto.
Yesterday it finally stopped raining so I was able to go get the bed out of storage where it had been since May 19th of last year, doesn't seem like it had been that long! but, its out and installed on the truck so now it's really starting to look like something. I'm real close to being finished, although I don't think I'll have it done by April 19th which will be the one year mark, just for the fact that I don't want to hit it that hard and the car shows are starting back up, so will be going to some of those.
It either sits a little too low in the front, or way too high in the rear, or more likely, combination of both, so that will have to be addressed.
All I all though, I think it looks pretty sharp. I love the color even though it may not be everyone's cup of tea, it really stands out with it all put together.
You know, when you originally brought up that color, I just shook my head, thinking that that nice truck deserved a better color than that. (OK, actually, I thought that the crack pipe had claimed another victim...)
And then, when I first saw those wheels... Well, I had my doubts.
But I'll be a son of a gun if that isn't an absolutely sweet-looking truck. I will happily admit that I didn't have the same "vision" that you did, but man, that's really nice. Well done.
03-30-2019, 09:40 AM
It actually works the best in my opinion, leaves nothing to get caught in the bolts while tightening. You just have to clean your soldering iron really well when you're done.
Picture... 
But I did finish up some small things, but nothing picture worthy. I did however decide to put all the wheels on. This started my **** for luck day..... So I go to put one of the front wheels on, and the stick on weights just fall off,,,,,,I'm like, really? So I load it up and go back to Discount Tire. Now I've had some bad luck there before, but that's another story. I get there and wait in line, then tell the guy what happened and he says he will just go ahead and rebalance it right away rather than having me wait, well, right away was like 15 minutes later. Anyway, I watch as the kid puts it on the balancer, spins it, then takes it off and rolls it over and says it didn't call for any weights. Once again I'm like really? I tell him it had 1 3/4oz of weights before, so he puts it back on and spins it again, still calls for nothing. Another guy there calls me in to show me what the machine says, and I look at it and tell him what I told the other guy. He then puts it on the RoadForce machine and it calls for 1/4oz, he puts the weight on and it tests good. So I go back in the lobby and tell the guy behind the counter what's going on and he says, and I quote "we hardly ever have anyone come back with balancing problems" To which I replied one of them has to be wrong, so he says the last time it must have not been right.......Well that sounds encouraging! WTF?? I hope the other three are good, but I'm not getting my hope up!
