1972 C10

It looks like another 4L60? Is there any difference between the two other than the TC? What stall speed on the TC?
 
Thanks guys.

Transmission is more or less the same. I think technically the first one was a 4L60/4L65 and this is a 4L70, both were rebuilt with upgrades. Cosmetically they are identical, the main difference is the addition of an input speed sensor and all the associated parts to add it. Torque Converter is an aftermarket 11 inch, stock is 12. I think stall was advertised 2400-2600. Im not sure where it actually ended up but its a noticeable difference without being overly aggressive or annoying on a light cruise.
 
Was out for a cruise a few weeks ago and took a few glamour shots. I didnt have many pictures with the tailgate on so I had to get a few on a real nice evening. I cant thank you guys enough for all the help along the way.

20200617_202605.jpg

c.jpg

20200617_202521 copy.jpg

20200617_202507.jpg
20200617_202502.jpg

20200617_202540.jpg
20200617_202424 copy.jpg

20200617_202404.jpg
 
I know I'm late commenting on your truck build, but I hope that doesn't diminish my compliment. If I had a blue ribbon, I'd give it you. What an awesome job, not just paint and body mods, but everything. I bet it's a dream to drive.
 
Thanks, I appreciate all the compliments and feedback, no matter when I get them.

I have fun rodding on it every now and then, usually it brings a smile to my face. I had it out on a Friday night a week or two ago. We have a pretty popular restaurant on the main drag and as I was driving by I was watching a table of 4 people whose interest I had, the one guy started slapping his wife in the arm and she hurried to get her phone out to take a picture. I had a pretty good laugh about that.

I am lately just working on trying to get some of the bugs and small things worked out. I went through 3 different sets of brake pads before I found something I liked. Low dusting, good bite, and quiet with no chattering. I ended up with Bosch ceramics and Ive been really happy with them so far, my brakes with the pad change and the dual 9 inch diaphragm booster are night and day different from last fall.

Ive been trying to align the steering/suspension myself and it has been time consuming, learning tricks on which adjustments to make and how much of it to adjust. Im getting it real close on having it set up pretty good, just a little more fine tuning before its done. Im almost to the point I want to take it somewhere but am too paranoid, only about one place I trust around here and the guy I trust is not doing it full time anymore.

When I had my transmission out I tried to seal a small oil pan leak externally, everything was good for about a month and then I had a fairly good leak, worse than before. I found the oil cooler block off plate leaking on the pan, I put a new gasket in that tonight. It looks like the pan gasket was dry so Im hopeful that everything stays dry now.

I modded my power door locks and got them to work really good, almost like a modern car now. I felt confident enough on everything inside the door so I finally put my door panels on. In order to get my power window switches to look factory with factory door panels I modified a pair of Cheyenne door panels with stainless trim and a wood grain insert. It was kind of a tight fit getting the stainless trim to fit right as I had my upholstery guy wrap the aluminum wood grain insert. The added bulk of the upholstery was more than I anticipated, but they ended up looking alright. I had thought about painting them but like having them match the seats. I have a lot of time in trying to figure all that out, Im glad it worked out.

20200809_135518.jpg 20200809_135528.jpg 20200809_141321.jpg 20200809_141304.jpg 20200809_132036.jpg 20200809_145258.jpg

Last little thing is a nearly finished picture of my tailgate, it was the last piece I had to cut and buff. Still some polishing to do on the entire truck, but the hard part is done. I have some urethane wave here and there throughout the truck, but I cant complain too much. Most of it I trace back to being gun shy on my cutting.

20200730_200913.jpg
 
Wanted to bring this up to speed as its been awhile, Ive made a small amount of progress over the last few months.

I snapped a couple pictures of the interior for the most part complete, at least cosmetically. Ive got some work to do behind the dash and behind the glove box, but it at least looks the part now, its nice driving it and not looking at a hole in the dash where the glove box is.

20200815_163834.jpg

20200815_163857.jpg


Took a nice sun shot towards the end of October, I assumed it would be my last drive of the year.

20201011_1550232.jpg


The weather turned back around and we actually got some rain to clean the roads up, it happened to make it into the 40's today. I never thought Id have my truck out this late in the year, but I couldn't not take it out once more. I ended up by the beach from this last summer and got one last picture for the year, quite a bit colder now.

Hope everyone enjoys the holidays, I know I'm looking forward to it.

IMG_20201222_163735796.jpg
 
Still a beautiful truck! I almost took mine to work yesterday but I'm glad I didn't since a surprise rain/snow shower came through.

Did you get your transmission all sorted out?
 
Thanks. The weather from yesterday to today is night and day different, it appears winter is arriving in a hurry.

Transmission has been ran in and it operates really good. I've still got a decent list of odds and ends to keep me busy for a while, but nothing too pressing.
 
I took a pretty cool picture today and wanted to share, not much going on with my truck lately.

I was able to final polish and detail the entire truck earlier this summer, it did liven things up quite a bit. I spent a decent amount of time this summer trying to get my cruise control to work, I ended up with multiple issues to work through. The main problem ended up being a grounding issue between the Dakota Digital cruise control box and the ECM. I had the dash tore out for the better part of a couple weeks. I ended up grounding the box through the engine harness directly and that solved my issues. I can say having cruise control is absolutely fantastic, an ankle saver.

I still have some nagging little things to take care of, but for the most part I've been just enjoying a pretty complete truck.

IMG_20211128_151447884 copyLP.jpg
 
Thanks.

I enjoyed following your progress on that truck, it was quite a transformation. You will have to post up some pics when he gets it lowered.
 
Thought I would stop in for a yearly update. I really don't have many positives to share with regards to my truck, life itself has been pretty good and I'm thankful for that.

As far as the truck I started running into trouble with it about a year ago, well it started right when I finished it, but at the time I didn't know the problems were related. I noticed antifreeze under it during storage, traced it down to a loose hose clamp, no big deal I thought as I checked and tightened all of them. A couple months later same thing, small puddle of antifreeze on the floor. I ended up finding some suspect areas on the radiator so I decided to swap it. I thought it was just a cheap one and had gone bad. In the process of changing the radiator I discovered my cooling system was in worse shape than any Ive ever seen. I was never really happy with how the coolant looked even after it was new. I really couldn't make sense of it, but it was full of scale and rust. So I decided while I had everything apart and had a mess I should flush the cooling system.

PXL_20220701_004612248.jpg

This is where stuff started to snow ball, no matter how much I flushed and what I used I would end up with a bunch of debris exiting the flush. I used 2 different kinds of flush, I also used evaporust in the block for a week, they seemed to help, but when I would flush with clean water I would end up with debris still. I lost count of how many times I tried flushing it, I took the block plugs out, I would leave the hose on it and just have it cycle through the block and rev it up and the debris would just poor out. Eventually I got tired of flushing it, my neighbors were probably sick of it too, my truck isn't exactly quiet at 3000 rpm in the garage, :D.

PXL_20220703_172500897.jpg PXL_20220703_181624835.jpg

So by this point I was getting fed up, it was becoming apparent, even though I didn't want to admit it, that something was wrong with my engine block. I started to try and figure out what the hell was going on with it. It was new, and I believe that it was, however the catch is that it was a new surplus. My conclusion was that during it's surplus life the water jackets either rusted or were full of casting sand still, and that this is the cause of my problem. I thought maybe since Ive flushed it a bunch, I might have it good enough to drive and try and filter any more debris as I drive. This would potentially save an engine block change. So I did a little research on that and settled on a little canister made for screening antifreeze, I even found a cool billet one. I thought I had it whipped when I put everything back together and went for a spin. My drive quickly ended in disappointment as the temp gauge just keep creeping up. I ran back home and drained some coolant to inspect my screen to find it completely plugged. I had gone maybe a couple miles and completely plugged it. It was at this point I totally gave up and really lost all motivation for anything related to my truck.

PXL_20220722_203517791.jpg PXL_20220724_194335026.jpg

I started to consider selling it, I really did think hard about getting rid of it. Selling it would have caused an absolute rift on both sides of my family, and with a junk engine it wasn't worth much, so I steered away from that. I thought maybe I should just buy a new short block, maybe tear mine apart and have it cleaned, tear it apart and swap the block with a new one. I ran over quite a few scenarios. I ended up finding what appears to be a nice used aluminum block for a pretty good price, which I bought I got kind of excited about that. I thought I could have an aluminum block, maybe buy a nice set of pistons and have the heads worked over. My excitement was short lived. I started adding up the cost of this project, in addition to amount of work it was going to be to pull the engine with out destroying something in the process, and I quickly lost what little interest I still had with my truck.

That was about 6 months ago now, I think about trying to tackle it every now and then but quickly run out of motivation. It sucks because I have had a good time with my truck, but it has really been an absolute joke. Maybe I should take up one of those spam callers on their extended warranties.
 
Back
Top