1970 Chevy C10

This details my 1970 Chevy C10 pickup truck project. Some parts of this website have information on what I plan to do. But as I finish these I will update pictures and information on my vehicle.

Beginnings of the Project

I wanted a 1967-72 Chevy C10 pickup. The short bed is more popular, but they made about 5 times more in the long bed, and I sometimes haul items in the back. So a long bed was fine with me. I preferred a V8, auto transmission, power steering, power brakes and A/C. From 1967-70, these trucks had drum brakes all around, and the 1971-72 had front disc brakes. But I felt that I needed better brakes than any of these years had, so I was not concerned about what year I got. I planned to leave the suspension relatively stock, except to lower the truck about 2 inches and put anti-roll bars in the front & rear. I planned to put in a limited slip differential and update the automatic transmission to handle a little more power. I'm going to leave the interior relatively stock.

The Purchase

I ended up getting a 1970 Chevy C10 pickup truck locally on Craigslist in September 2013. It is a fleet-side long-bed pickup, and has a 350 V8, TH350 transmission, power steering, power brakes and air conditioning. It showed 60,210 miles on the odometer, but the odometer probably has rolled over. Although it had A/C from the factory, most of the A/C parts were missing. I picked it up and drove it home.

The C10 has "8 350" badges on both front fenders to indicate the engine size. It is the "Custom 10" trim level - this comes with "Custom/10" badges on both front fenders, "Chevrolet Custom" on the glove box door, chrome bumpers, chrome hub caps, chrome center inserts on the dash knobs, vinyl embossed scroll work on the seats with cloth inserts, cigar lighter, bright finish dome lamp, and bright trim around the windshield, vent windows and rear window.

The truck had issues, but being this old that was expected:

~~The radiator had a leak about 1" from the top of the core~~ - fixed with a new radiator.
~~The choke on the original Quadrajet carburetor was not connected. This was a thermal spring that went from the manifold to the carburetor, but some of the linkage was missing~~ - fixed with a new carburetor.
~~The horn did not work~~ - fixed when I replaced the steering wheel.
~~The starter had a dead area in the rotation~~ - fixed with a new starter.
~~The hood latch had a broken spring, so the latch did not line up after opening~~ - fixed with new hood latch.
~~The torque converter attachment to the flex plate had a stripped out bolt, and the others were all loose~~ - fixed by replacing a bolt and tightening up the other ones.
The brakes hardly worked at all. They needed new drums, shoes & wheel cylinders. And probably a new master cylinder. But since this truck came with 4 wheel drums, I planned to upgrade the brakes to something more modern - fixed with Kore3 & Wilwood parts.
The driver's side upper A arm mount had a locating rivet in the frame that had worn from a round shape to an oval - thus making the suspension geometry not stay stable. The rivets are not available anymore, so a bolt with a ground head replaced it - fixed.
The passenger's side upper A arm mount had problems with the 2 bolts that hold it in place. One bolt was stripped, and the other had been replaced with a generic bolt instead of the pressed in factory bolt - fixed.
~~The driveshaft was completely missing the center carrier bearing~~ - fixed when a carrier bearing was installed.
~~The transmission kick down was not connected to the throttle linkage~~ - fixed, but this is not a huge problem. With a TH350, the vacuum modulator *has* to be working to get the shift points correct, and then the kick down signals to downshift under full throttle.
~~The U joint yoke on the rear axle had a broken off locating tab~~ - replaced U joint yoke.
~~The gears in the rear differential made a grinding sound when they turned~~ - replaced ring & pinion.
~~The passenger side seat belt was missing the center part.~~ - put 3 point belts in.
~~The windshield washer did not work~~ - fixed by replacing with later Chevy truck model washer reservoir & pump.
~~The original AM radio did not work. But at least the dash and door panels had not been cut up for an aftermarket radio or speakers~~ - fixed with Retrosound radio and dual speaker in the middle of the dash.
The hose that normally runs from the engine to under the dash for heat just had a loop that ran from the water pump to the intake manifold fitting. I assumed the heater core leaked and this was a previous owner's fix - fixed with Vintage Air heater/AC.
~~The air conditioning compressor was missing, as were all the hoses. So it really does not have air conditioning~~ - fixed with Vintage Air AC.
~~The door channel gaskets for the roll down windows were mostly missing, and the widows rattled because of this~~ - fixed with new door felts.
~~Two of the side marker lights, the license plate light and the backup lights did not work.~~ - fixed with new bulbs, a new license plate light assembly and a new neutral safety switch that was carefully aligned to the steering column shifter position.
~~The gas gauge was off - when the tank was full, it read 3/4, and when half full it read 1/4.~~ I fixed this with a new dash gauge.
The seat adjustment mechanism to move the seat forward & backward was not connected.
The steering column shift lever had an issue. The detent for shifting that required the lever to be pulled back to shift was worn out, allowing the transmission to be shifted by accidentally hitting the shift lever.
The rings on the #3 cylinder leak oil, and a new spark plug will foul within about 10 minutes.
The windshield had a couple of cracks in it, and it was so old that the edges were de-laminating and getting cloudy.
Both doors had problems. Water had gotten into the doors, probably because of the missing door window gaskets, and the inside was pretty rusty. Rust had eaten small holes in both of the sill plates. At least the rust was not visible with the doors closed.