1973 Chevrolet C-20
Here are some pictures of my 1973 Chevy 3/4 ton pickup, during and after rebuild. Basically, it is a 2 wheel drive base model pickup with the heavy duty suspension option, and it has served my family very well since my dad purchased it new all those years ago. Unfortunately, the original cab was rusted to the point where crucial parts were falling off of it. The chassis, and much of the rest of the body was in pretty good condition, so I decided to transplant the cab from my late '78 C-10, which required much less repair than the '73. Between what I've done and what has been done in the past, the only original piece of '73 chevy sheetmetal left is the hood.
| Front view. Note the herculiner along the front of the hood and fenders, which will protect against rock chips and serve to conceal any greasy fingerprints from opening and closing the hood. | |
| Side view. Here you can see my towing setup. FEY step bumper ($99 JC Whitney) supposedly rated at 8000 lbs. tow weight (which I don't buy for a second), with a 2" hitch receiver bolted beneath the step. I'll probably install a frame mounted receiver eventually. Also visible is the Herculiner bedrail protection along the top of the bed and tailgate. More than one smartass has asked why I didn't just paint the entire truck with the stuff... | |
| Left front view. Virtually all of the trim has been powder coated or painted semi-gloss black, which I think looks much better than the original chrome. It was also a fairly cheap way to utilize original pieces which would otherwise have needed to be replated or replaced. | |
| Interior view. Every inch of the interior and dash which isn't covered by the padded dash panel or instrument cluster has been herculinered. Spill your drink? No problem, just hose it out. 8^) You can see the slack in the set of crappy seat belts I bought. I'm going to have to rework the way these mount in the near future since they are really pissing me off. I wanted to install a nice set of aftermarket sliding bucket seats, with the center seat which folds down into a console, but I couldn't justify dumping nearly a grand worth of seats into something which won't be my daily driver. luckily my bench seat didn't have any problems a good cover couldn't fix. | |
| Here are both of the trucks, already partially dismantled, the '73 is the 2 tone orange/white one. Note the little trailer I built almost entirely from scrap channel steel. | |
| This is the only serious rust through in the '78 donor cab. Replacement rocker panels made in the USA are readily available for this section. | |
| Here is the old rusted metal removed, and the new inner rocker fitted temporarily with cleco fasteners. | |
| Both rockers fitted and ready for welding. I think the panels were designed to weld right over the rusted originals, but I couldn't see leaving any cancer in the patient if going to this kind of trouble anyway. | |
| Both rocker panels TIG welded in place. The bottom edge is yet to be welded but I'll wait until I can tilt the cab into a more favorable position. | |
| The donor cab separated from the frame. To accomplish this I raised the entire assembly, blocked up the cab, then lowered the chassis from under it with a jack. | |
| The bare frame of the '78 C-10, which is probably destined to become a light duty flatbed trailer. | |
| I primed these parts while waiting for the rocker panels to arrive. Stripped both to bare metal, followed by one coat each of TRIO triple etching primer and gray epoxy primer. | |
| Here is the cab tilted onto its back thanks to the cradle I made for it. I've sandblasted the entire bottom, and painted it with silver POR-15 anti rust paint. | |
| I liberally applied 3M Body Schutz over the POR-15 to protect from rock chips and to hopefully dampen the noise somewhat. If I had it to do over again, I'd have just used Herculiner. | |
| This is how I put the cab back in the upright position using the Hi-Lift jack. I raised the back to the full extension of the jack, then lowered the front with the forklift. It's always nice to have the right tools for the job. | |
| The cab back in the upright position, ready to tackle the rest of the cleaning, priming, and painting. | |
| It's been a long time since the last update, but here is the new cab mounted and the rear fenders (1 new) back on. There is a lot left to do but the project is now in the home stretch and looking for completion sometime in the summer of '01. | |
By now you have probably reached the conclusion that I am totally nuts for putting this much effort into a rusted out old pickup that is not quite old enough to be considered a "classic." That is not unreasonable, since when I am done I will probably have nearly as much invested in it as it is worth [p.s. -I quit counting]. But, I know every inch of it, I know exactly what has been done to it through the years and unlike any newer vehicle I might buy instead, the mechanical systems are drop-dead-simple so I can expect to maintain it myself for at least another 10-15 years. It would have been far less effort to repair the '78 1/2 ton, but it wouldn't serve as well for towing and hauling.
One of my main goals was to make the truck as low maintenance as possible and in keeping with that, the entire interior of the cab (as well as the bed) has been coated in herculiner. As much of the trim was eliminated as possible, since it provides a likely place for more rust to start. All existing rust has been removed, or treated with POR-15 where removal would be impractical. The entire truck was rewired with a kit from Painless Wiring, which should simplify troubleshooting electrical problems in the future (as opposed to having spliced together fragments of the original harnesses, which was my other alternative).
Mechanically speaking, the truck was in pretty good shape but I did have to replace a few items, including the steering box, steering pump, and automatic transmission. Basically everything that could possibly leak ATF was making a mess of the floor and even though they were all working okay I opted to install rebuilt units. The engine was rebuilt less than 15,000 miles ago, but the intake manifold gaskets were leaking; I took the opportunity to install an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold, and replaced the points distributor with an HEI ignition. The old valve covers were in pretty rough shape from having been on and off countless times, so they were replaced with a set of cast aluminum covers. Between the upgrades, and a few judicious tweaks to the automatic choke linkage it now runs better than it has in years.
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