The Stovebolt Site Forums The Parking Lot '60-'66 Trucks Our New '65 Chevrolet C20

We picked up this 1965 Chevrolet C20 the other day, got it from the second owner, really nice condition. 292 4 speed, 3/4 ton with factory spare tire carrier and optional helper leaf spring overloads, original flatbed with original owner installed Haul-Mor wood sides with grain gate. The truck has always been barn kept. It has a few places of rust to fix but its a really good solid old truck, We're pretty darn happy with it. Photos here.
'65 Chevy photos

That is a very nice truck! I'd like to have a closer look at that hood ornament please. Looks like you collect other cool stuff too. I showed my wife the pictures. It takes some of the pressure off of me when I bring something home and she says "What's that for?" haha!

Very nice truck! I also spent quite a bit of time poring over all the other pictures of cool stuff..... very cool stuff!!

Thanks. I posted a photo of the hood ornament, 1952 Nash, lets just say it was quite the nice bonus to purchasing the truck, its already been removed and sold. Theres close to 3 years of small engines and other cool things missing from my photo page, Ive collected quite a bit more, and have sold some of the things still pictured since.

Im looking at changing the factory 15" split rims and bias plys out for some newer style steel 16" rims, to retain the hubcaps, but to also gain some height for the rear-end for better highway gearing, and radials for a nicer ride. Does anyone have any experience with clearance and steering problems with putting 235/85/R16's on the front? They are 31.7" tall, 9.4" wide, they will be mounted on 7" wide rims.

I had 235/85R16's on the front of my C-30, mounted up on later 16"x6.5" GM steel wheels. They worked fine, although the left front rubbed the sidewall on the steering box a little at max cut, IIRC.

Those tires later came apart (they were real old; I shouldn't have messed with them to begin with), so I went with some 245/75R16's on the front, keeping the taller 235/85R16 MT tires on the rears.

Hope this helps!

Do you recall what the mph gain was by going to the taller tire? So the came apart because of the age of the tire not from rubbing on a hard turn?.

Thanks, any info on this subject does help.

It actually had taller tires (7.50-17 tube type) to begin with, so I effectively increased the gearing in my case. And yes, they were just really poor tires; bald, about a decade old, and had sat in the sun. They didn't really seem to rub that hard, IIRC. You could also just use shorter tires in the front like I do; the 245/75r16's don't show any signs of rubbing.

If you know you current tire size I could tell you what the gain in speed would be; I'm not sure what the diameter/revs per mile for the 15" tires would be. What rear gearing do you have? Both my trucks have 4.10's someone put in them; yours might also have them, considering someone added the big 292 at some point.

Really nice truck, by the way!

Thanks. I just figured the diff. ratio on the truck, it has the 4.57 gear. The 7.00-15 that are on it now are a good 29" tall. The rear is the original.

What would be a maximum "safe" comfortable cruising rpm for the 292?

Really nice truck. I have a '65 C20 with three speed on the column and 292 engine. My wife and I have alot of fun with it. I replaced the Dodge rims which came on my truck (those replaced original split rims) with 16.5" Kelsey Hayes rims so that I could install original hub caps. The things we do for our old trucks!

Really nice truck yourself. I acquired a set of 16" rims today, they take the larger dog dish caps than my truck has but I was able to get a set of correct Chevy caps for them to.

Congratulations on the wheels and hub caps. Your 16" wheels will be alot easier to get tires for than my 16.5". It's hard to get original parts here in New England because most of the trucks of this vintage are long ago devoured by rust. I need to update my photobucket since these photos are not recent and don't show my truck with the correct wheels or caps.

I asked the same thing about the 292 a while back. Some hot-rod guys seemed afraid of running them "hard", but I couldn't find anyone that really said they'd blown one up from running it too hard/fast t back up that fear. Here's a quote from our own Crenwelge;

"I never owned a 292, but there were a bunch of them around here hauling rock with end dumps when they built IH10 around here in the 60's. They ran them wide open all day long and claimed they were the best engines they had ever run. I was hauling grain and feed ingredients during this time with a 550 GMC with a 370 cu. in. engine that was actually an Olds 371 block. I stuck a set of rings and bearings in it about every 100k miles. My shift points were 3800 and 4200. I sometimes over ran the 4200 down hill but I never let it get below 3600. It was still a strong running engine when I wrecked the truck in 1968."

I haven't seen any real reports of anyone not running 55MPH in a 2-ton truck, and that's already about 3,100RPM. Running something harder/faster will shorten it's life, sure, but the 292 built it's reputation in big trucks running wide open, so I don't think you need to worry too much about a healthy one.

Going from 29" to 32" will be roughly 10%, and 4.57 to 4.10 will be another 10% on that, which is my setup. I can run 70MPH @ 3,100RPM, and my normal 55-60MPH is a relatively sedate 2,400-2,700RPM or so range; works fine for me.

Thanks for the quote and info. According to an online rpm calculator my current set up of 4.57 gear and 29" tall tires is giving me 2912 rpm @ 55 mph. Switching to 16" rims and running 235/85/16's will reduce that to 2664 rpm. 60 mph would be 2906 rpm. My 4.57 gear and the taller tires at 70 mph would net me 3391 rpm which would definitely be more at ease than 3706 rpm with the 29" tires! I dont have any plans, for now, to change out the diff for a 4.10, I think just switching wheel/tire sizes will be just fine for the time being. I may go ahead and pick one up though just to have around.

Went diff. hunting today, all I could find is another 4.57 and a 5.14.

Thank you very much for the info.

Also, FWIW I just referred another guy to the pirate4x4.com website, and he had a guy offer to trade him 4.10's for his deeper gears almost immediately. I would probably try there first; those guys actually want the deeper gears, where the truck guys pay/charge a premium for the taller ones.

Nice truck! Thought the pics were cool as well. I also have a 1965 C-20 I removed the helper leafs to soften the ride. I switched out the 4.56 rear and granny tranny for a 3.73 and a 4 speed Saginaw. For me it made it much more enjoyable to drive, and was much better on gas! Good luck with your "new" ride.

Neat hood ornament, not right but pretty all the same. The Art Deco period gave us some of the worlds BEST designs as far as styling goes.

Nice truck! I see you "collect" other neat old stuff. Old iron gets into the blood, LOL......

I finally got around to getting some new tires on the truck, 245/75R16's on the front and 235/85R16's on the rear mounted on my not so new 1975 16" rims, with hub caps. Not sure of the year of the caps but I couldnt use the originals (clip mounts) so these were a good substitute. Boy does it ride and handle like a Cadillac now. I took the original grain sides off the truck to keep them out of the weather and preserve them, and just homemade some to keep things in the bed. New Tires