The Stovebolt Site Forums Welcome! Welcome Centre Do It Yourself (DITY) Gallery 1964 Chevrolet K10 Fleetside - "A Kid's First Truck"

So a month ago my son and I dragged home this 1964 Chevrolet K10 Fleetside. It was offered up by a fellow Bolter, at an exceptionally reasonable price, here on Stovebolt Swap Meet. I watched it for a few days and couldn't believe that no one had jumped on it. The seller just did not want it to go to scrape. That was his reasoning for sell it cheap.

One evening while I was checking out Stovebolt and, of course, looking at the Swap Meet, my son Jameson (who is 12) sat down with me and saw the 1964 K10 and had to have it. He asked me how hard it would be for us to go get it. I told him it was about 250 miles -- about 4 to 5 hrs, one way. He also needed to ask him Mom, who gave the .

So my son bought the truck with his own money that he earns from mowing a ton of lawns during the summer -- between baseball practice and tournaments and basketball summer league.

Road trip to Connecticut.
We left at 3:30 am and arrived by 9. We had the deal done and loaded and back on the road by 10. We rolled back into our driveway at 4 pm that day after stopping for lunch.

The seller exaggerated a bit about its current running status. When we picked it up, we had to winch it up onto the trailer. The frame was solid and the truck was mostly complete. However, the body was pretty much whipped -- no battery, loaded with mice, and obviously hadn't ran in a few years at least. Nonetheless, we had come this far so we dragged it home.

He was super excited about getting it home.

Home and getting right to it!

Always liking a bit of a challenge, we commenced to getting it running.

We started with draining the fuel tank. Rebuild the carb. Purchased a battery and a fuel pump, points and condenser. Low and behold, it fired right up. The plugs, wires cap and rotor appear to be fairly new so we went with them. Also had to square away the cobble job they had done to the throttle linkage.

Next we gave it a good Hotties pressure wash. Blew up the tires. Cleaned out the inside the best we could. And took it for a ride in back 40. Runs, drives, shifts and the four wheel works as it should. We tested it out!

No smoking, no leaks. Jameson has been having a good time learning new things. I let him do most of the work with a little guidance from yours truly. He also learned how to drive a manual transmission in a short amount of time.

Enjoy the picks I will get into the history of the truck and post it shortly. I know those of you who were involved in this venture here on the Stovebolt were probably chopping at the bit for information on our progress. And, when I find out how to add videos, I will post one of how good it runs.

Absolutely awesome. Love the story and the pics.👍 Looking forward to following the progress.

John

Awesome story. Love to see a young Stovebolter in the house!

Thanks for getting round-to-it - LOL! Looking forward to seeing and hearing about your son's new truck!

Nice project being 4wd, Lucky young man, great move by mom n dad.
Looks to be shortbed? Love the flip down foot step on the front…

I remember my first drive in my first truck. What a great experience for that young man. Like many more, I wondered where that truck ended up. Good luck to you Jameson.

Great father & son project. You guys should get a lot of great father/son time together. Thanks for posting.

Finally got back after my son's 64 k10 again. In just a few hours yesterday was able to get the box stripped off and took the gas wrench to the rear plate steel bumper. Did find a few areas in the frame that are going to need attention.

Finally found a cab worth fixing for the 64. Drove to Carlisle and bought it from Ryan. Import from Arizona. Has good bones and roof drip molding is perfect

Jeff - Glad to see you found a cab! Looking forward to further updates on the project.

It's even a high hump. Vin tag comes back to a c30.
Thanks Dan

Forgot to mention located a rust free hood and grill as well.

Hy Crummy and Jameson, thank you very much for posting your story and pictures, I hope you continue to keep us in the loop and that you train your apprentice well and have lots of fun while doing it!

We will give it our best shot! Thanks for checking us out!

Jeff, what a great story! (Who was the Bolter who sold the '64? Just curious.) Also, "And, when I find out how to add videos, I will post one of how good it runs." -- if you've got a platform to put them, it's easy to make a link to it/them. That'd be great so see some of this!

Peggy his Stovebolt name is Jonnywaz I believe. Will have to look at the paperwork for his real name.

Did a little exploratory surgery the last few days. All in all in pretty good shape for a 60 yr old cab. Nice to be able to roll it outside on the cart. Plasma cutter makes short work of it.
Debating on which panels to get. Or to just get a metal break and and make my own patch panels. Inner and outer rockers very good shape.

Nice, way better than what I started with. Lol

Was able to salvage the transmission cover and the cowling and seat frame today. You you can see in pictures why I searched for a new cab. Also was able to save the visors and rear view mirror and bracket. Looking up under the dash the wiring is mostly entacked and may be usable. Has anyone ever seen a vin tag attached like this one.
This truck was built in Tarrytown,NY and went to a dealer just into Staten Island, NY. The original owner had a service station also in that general area. I will dive into those details at another time.

All of the remaining sheet metal including the hood is pretty much junk. I think i may be able to salvage the doors though.
The plan is to get it stripped so I can pull the cab and get the chassis in shop for the winter.

This trim tag with GVW is also still present on the driver side kick panel.

Here is a little better picture of the tag i scraped some of the black paint off to better read it.

Jeff - That method (spot welding) of affixing the VIN plate is accurate for the '64 truck you have as well as several other years in the 1960-66 period. I searched through Stovebolt but couldn't find a good thread with 1960-66 Chevy/GMC Truck VIN details or pictures, but did find this reply post by "Woogeroo" from way back in 2012 that leads to this very informative thread on the subject. Lots of supporting pictures and useful info in the 67-72chevytrucks.com forum on this topic.

If your read through those posts you'll see there should be a corresponding "partial VIN" stamped into the drivers side frame rail that should match with the cab VIN plate.

Your trim tag is just that basically. Shows the GVW and the when it was built trim and paint codes, along with the trucks basic wheelbase. Not suitable for registering.

Dan,
Thanks for that thread. That was very interesting. I will certainly check ours out at first chance.

Good morning,
The suspense kept me up last night!
So I went down this morning and located the partial VIN. Right where Dan said it would be. The T for Tarrytown plant and the production number was visible. And it matches the VIN tag on the door post! When I pull the cab I will check for the second one.
Thanks Dan!

Now Im curious about the engine stamp. I couldn't locate any information on it.

Jeff - From the GM Heritage Center Info Kits for 1964 Trucks, the engine stamping decodes as:

F = Flint assembly plant

01 = January (month of production)

08 = 8th Day of January

M = 283 V-8 in CK10-30 w/RPO L32

(RPO L32 = 283 Cu. In. V-8 Engine)

So does that mean that it's not the original engine being that the truck was built in Tarrytown,NY? Or is there a ViN # stamped somewhere on the engine also?

Here is a few of the original documents that Johnnywaz gave me with the truck when I purchased. The warranty book list as totally different engine number. WE-1-9676. Any ideas of where I may want to look for it? I believe the man in the photograph is Frank Scorzelli.

Jeff - I've done a little diving on the "ENG. NO. WE-1-9676" and can't find anything related to that designation in any of my regular resource documents. Considering that the truck was built in Tarrytown (confirmed by the "T" in the VIN), it would be most likely that the original 283 engine would have been built in the "Tonawanda" assembly plant as it's the closest proximity to the final Tarrytown assembly plant. A Tonawanda built engine would have a "T" as the first character in the stamped engine serial number, where the existing engine has an "F" indicating it was built at the Flint plant.

It could be (maybe) a slim possibility that the "F" engine is original to the truck when sold by the dealer, but at this point there's no real way to know for sure.

The only other resource I can think of that might shed a little more light on the listed "WE-1-9676" engine number might be a 1964 Chevrolet Truck Sales Data Book. Something I don't have the full book on, only access to the 2 change documents in the link I posted above. Those change documents don't address engine serial number codes.

On another thought, just a SWAG here, but I wonder about the engine ID listed in the "warranty book", if the "WE" stands for "Warranty Engine"??? In my thinking a warranty engine would have been restamped with that "WE-1-9676" on the engine serial number pad. That would make sense, but we have no way of knowing if that was the established procedure back then or not.

Sorry if this is too much rambling.

Good morning Dan,

Im also thinking that somewhere along this trucks history that the engine was probably replaced. I feel that the current engine may have been warranted or was just a direct replacement crate engine from GM . In my search ( which i now can't locate again) the WE number translated to a 283 in a 64 truck. I will see if I can locate it again and screen shot it. That response did indicate that the 1 in that number was an anomaly leaving just WE-9676. THE "1" on the warranty card could have been a typo and they just left it.
Thanks again for your relentless pursuits!

Got to spend a little time on the replacement cab for 64 tonight. JT spent some time scraping off weather striping and sealer around the windshield and door opening. Windshield channel is in excellent condition as is the roof edges and lip.
An old bumper sticker from AM 1450 KQDI which transmits from Great Falls, Montana was affixed to the drivers side door frame gives a little history of where this cab hails from. Thank Google AI search. The station is still in operation.

The Coke logo on the radio station sticker was introduced in 1985 for New Coke.

Thanks Otto, wish I could leave the sticker but my OCD wouldn't allow it. I visited the Coke Bottling company in the late 1990s and toured the plant and history center. Really interesting.

Does my heart good to see a young man getting involved.

Wish he had more time. Kids are so busy these days with sports and school and of course hunting and fishing in JTs case. He is starting to show more interest. Especially welding and metal work. Also doing industrial arts in school.
It's also hard for old Bolters like us to be patient and let them do things. JT always jokes and inmates me saying "Back in my day"!. Some really have no idea how fortunate they are. 1. Having someone to show them how to do things and ,2. The tools and a warm/dry place to do them in. I always had to do things out in the driveway or in the cold and rain. Im rambling. But thanks Utah, he a pretty versatile boy. Always wants to be doing something.

Got some work done today. Just in the early stages of cutting and fitting and trimming and doing it again. Had about 4 hrs on it today.

You're a braver man than I, Crummy.

Looks like you've got it well in hand.

Good Job.

I think when I get things tacked I will have JT try his hand and welding it up.

I wish welding was a thing I had learned when I was younger. Great idea.