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Looks and Sounds Great! Well done Sir.

RonR

^ Thanks

Did a little arts and crafts labeling for the exhaust cut out switches, wiper, horn and fan.

I’ve registered the truck for a 5 day 2000km drag and drive event in June. Figured upgrading the lap belts to 3inch sfi rated units couldn’t hurt.

Started work on a new box for the bed.. going to need more storage than the old tool box would hold.

Love the repurposed bed frames! I use them all the time and pick them up for free! Nice work!

Thanks phak… keeping true to the low buck build plan.

Weighed the truck today and it came in at 3260 with nearly a full tank of gas. Sort of calculated the mileage today… she’s a little on the thirsty side at 8.9 mpg of mostly highway driving at 60-65mph

Good news is the redesigned tarp holds at highway speeds.

I have an issue with the speedo… in that it doesn’t work. Put the trans end of the cable in a drill and it spun the speedometer. So it would appear the issue is the plastic gears in the transmission.
Pretty sure it’s the large gear that’s the problem and that requires removing the tail shaft.

Instead of dealing with that… I’m going to try the Jegs Mechanical Speedometer Converter with Built-in GPS. It’s supposed to arrive on Monday.
https://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/41800/10002/-1

Curious to see how it works

Just a question, but doesn't the cable drive gear and cable still need to function to drive that device too??? If your tail shaft speedo drive gear isn't secured to the shaft and turning the cable drive gear, your signal box isn't going to provide any output to use.

Have you pulled the cable drive gear and looked at both gears to determine whats broke? Could be the driven gear that connects to the cable may have the teeth stripped and the main drive gear may be still intact.

Hey Gdad,

The mechanical speedo cable connects between the original speedometer and the speed box. Then the “magic” speed box gets a gps speed signal from the antenna and drives the speedometer.

It completely bypasses the transmission.

It will be interesting to see what it does in areas of poor satellite reception, such as Goldstream Park.

32snake - Thanks for setting me straight - hahaha! My brain was telling me you were using the mechanical output from the transmission to drive an electronic speedo - back you know what-wards. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

All good… no confusion. Just a moment or two of self doubt

Budget box update… nearly completed.

Drag tires and wheels mounted and ready to run.

It’s roughly a 26” tall tire so it should put the truck around 4700 rpm at the end of the 1/8 mile.

Are planning on Bracket Racing or do you have an actual class you want to compete in?

60 foot times and track times and mph would be interesting.

Hey Tuts,

Running in the truck class, which is open to any power adder, 4x4, diesel, etc. Not expecting to be anywhere near competitive... just looking to have some fun with like minded folk. Will be interesting to see what the truck runs but real success will be making it there and back without major breakage

This is the event that I'm attending https://bcdragit.ca/

Well I do plan to document the experience, so hopefully I'll be able to come back with some numbers. Good, bad or otherwise.
Be really happy if the truck could run in the 7.5-8.0 range in the 1/8th

Box is finished and mounted. It looks to be a perfect size for what I want to stuff it with.

Wired up the gps speedo box and it’s functioning. I do appear to have a slight compatibility issue though.
The truck speedo registers when I connect a drill to it and spin it counter clockwise.
The box looks to be turning the cable in a clockwise fashion.

Very nice. I need to figure out something like that for my C 10. We're planning a 2000 +/- mi trip end of May /early June. Need room for Mom's luggage plus a few tools & whatever.

That's a good looking box, the modified cover looks great too.

Going through my binder of bills/instructions and came across this disk brake info. Might be useful for anyone looking to convert to front disks.

And the current state of my speedometer.. it was too stiff for the cable to spin. Disassembled it and ran some brake clean through the cable adapter. Then went a step to far and released the tension on the spring. Sort of turned into a disaster.

There is an article in the tech section that warns against messing with the spring. Really wish I would have read that beforehand

That disc brake conversion parts break down with general application info and part numbers should be a big help if anyone else wants to try and build their own.

Got the final touch done on the bed box.. used some aircraft style cabling to create a stop. Appears to have worked out pretty well.

Loaded some more “essentials” not including jack stands. Which leaves me wondering where my helmet and all the other stuff is getting put

Added a steering column floor mount to finish of the lower part of the column. Did have to widen (cut) the inner collar split to get it around the column and still need to fully screw it down.

Happy with how it looks so far.

Will be adding a leather type wrap around the column from the floor to roughly 6-8 inches up the column.

Column wrap is finished.. turned out ok and gives the column a more finished look

Noticed some odd tire wear the other day. Trucks toe was out of whack… Dad made a ghetto alignment tool of sorts..Hopefully the adjustment will help.

Went from 68.5 front 67.75 rear to a more reasonable 68 front 68.25 on the rear

It ain't Crazy if it works... I did spy a Gold Vett and a SBC in another of your pics.

The verdict is in after a 3hr drive and it’s positive. Truck is far less squirrelly than it was before the adjustment.

Amazing what a change 2 pieces of bed rail, couple of straps, a tape measure and some adjustments can make.

The gold one is the current project.. it’s a sweetheart

I used two pieces of 1" square tubing, some painter tape, a tape measure and a piece of soap stone. It took a little bit but I got it within 1/8 of an inch.

Getting the truck ready for a 1600km trip down to Sandpoint Idaho and back through the south of BC. While swapping the street wheels over, I decided to test fit the drag wheels to see how they fit.

The drag radials look so tiny it's almost comical... they are 235/60R15 vs the normal 255/70R15 that I run on the street. I went short and narrow for a couple of reasons: hoping the narrow tire won't hook to hard and the shorter height puts the rpm where it needs to be at the end of the 1/8mile... but man do they look small on the truck

Have you played around with your launch yet? How well do the traction bars work, are they snubbed up close?

I've played with loading up the convertor between 1- 2k rpm on street tires and the truck hooks up a little. No experience with the drag radials on the truck.
I'm ok with spinning and losing if it keeps me from breaking parts.

Had to go out and measure the snubber distance, couldn't remember what they were set at (1 inch between snubber and spring eye)

1 inch should work, it will give you room to preload the springs.

Heading out for another 1600km BC hot rod tour in a couple of days. Will be in sandpoint Idaho for the lost in the 50’s show and on the lookout for other bolters.

Anyway went through all the “stuff” that I’m taking for roadside repairs… it appears rather expansive when you spread it out onto the floor.

Decided to give the truck a cleaning and it may be an underpowered old farm truck… but at least it’s shiny. 😀

Under powered my .... Be safe and take plenty of pictures.

Wow! I was planning my first road trip once the truck was road worthy and I was just thinking about bringing an extra set of points. Maybe I need to re-think this. 😁 I do like the storage box though.

That's funny.

I used to pack spare fuel pump, water pump, ignition parts, belts, hoses, and every tool under the sun when I drove my Cadillac to Florida on vacation. I never needed any of it so I paired it down to a basic tool kit and points. I still never need anything.

Got back from the 2000km trip and the truck mostly survived.

Hit heavy rain and some snow in the mountain passes. Truck still leaks like there’s barely a roof in sight and lets say… I never want to experience driving it in snow again.

Had a minor oil issue that turned slightly ugly. Couldn’t find it and it mostly happens under load, 3k rpm and going uphill.

Got home and redid the fuel pump gasket, torqued the bolts to 30 ft lbs with thread sealant.

Also took the dipstick apart, retightened the fittings and added permatex aviation gasket to the npt threads/collar

Was a great experience with some great people. Highly recommend getting out and travelling with the old trucks.

Once again deconstructing the truck. All the oil was going down the passenger side but upon further inspection…looks like the driver side might have been the culprit. Replacing another timing cover/crank seal.
Ordered a pcv valve to attempt a reduction in crankcase pressure.

Replaced the timing cover with an OEM cover, did the seal, front oil pan gasket… buttoned it all up and added a pcv valve listed for a 69 Camaro with a 427 and still have the same mystery leak.

Also replaced the valve cover gaskets while I was there… passenger side could have been an issue as the gasket didn’t appear to be well sealed.

My drag and drive is in 3 weeks so time’s running out on the truck.

Next steps… drain the oil and replace the oil pan gasket

Might be time to attempt a 4th fix and sell or LS the stupid thing.
Frustrating since it starts easy, idles great, makes plenty of power and does everything well.. outside of the oil leak.

Any chance the oil is coming out of one of the holes in the end of the heads? In the pictures the passenger side lower hole looks black whereas the rest appear to show some brightness. Doesn't seem like it would have anything to do with higher rpm, going up hill but a small leak in that area will have oil all over the place given the amount of air movement in the area.