Walosi

[KurseD]

Walosi is Cherokee word for Frog.

She's a little rough, but we'll straighten her out with time and love. It will get passed to my youngest daughter who is 10 now when she gets ready for it.

1968 K10 lwb.
283 small block and 4 speed
33x12.50-15 BFG All Terrains on front, will get some for rear this week.

Plan is to paint her dark green and find a lwb fleetside bed for her soon.

[KurseD]

Just traded two long wheelbase stepside bedside that came with my 68 to another guy with a 68 parts truck. He gave me the long fleetside bed, cab, and interior parts. What a score!

[KurseD]

Picked up the bed today and with the help of two good friends, got it unloaded this evening.



This is what the truck looked like when the previous owner bought it in the early 90s.



And after he removed the bed and painted the front half Hugger Orange. Not sure why he would have ever sprayed over the nice orange with silver spray bomb, but he said he regretted doing so immediately. I've got a spare uncut fender that he had painted orange and it still looks excellent. Oh well, what's done is done.

[KurseD]

Junkyard score today! Picked up a grille with chrome trim and chrome headlight bezels, a bench seat, paintable front bumper, and a sort of rare step rear bumper with the chevy dealer stamp in it from Port Lavaca TX.

[KurseD]

Had to special order 2 of the Gen1 BFG All Terrain tires to match the 2 new tired already on the front. Took the truck to get the new tires mounted today and one of the old tires ate shit about 2 miles from the tire shop.


Then the spare tire ate shit right in front of the tire shop.


Finally got the new tires mounted.


Apparently my 4 year old Joe (aka: Goose) thinks the seat is the most comfortable place in the world to sleep.

[KurseD]

With the help of my gorgeous wife and three close friends and fellow members of my hot rod club "the Frankensteins," we got the utility bed off tonight and sat the long fleet bed in place. She needs some one inch body lift pucks and bolts now, then we'll be hauling again.

[KurseD]

Got a little work done today, no pics though. Got the Holley 600 installed, running WAY too rich. I adjusted the floats, air screws are almost all the way in, checked timing, got frustrated and called it a day.

I would have never thought a 600 cfm would be too much for a 283, but I'm starting to wonder now. I called Holley and they confirmed it should be fine on a 283. It comes stock with #65 jets, so I ordered some #62s today, we'll see how they do.

I'd like to check the cap, rotor, and plugs tomorrow. They look fairly new, but if somethings a little off causing it to not burn right, I suppose that could cause a rich condition.

I had to order my 7/16x4 carriage bolts from Fastenal for the bed mounting bolts. Couldn't find anyone local that stocked anything close. Everyone skipped from 3/8 to 1/2 inch. Picked up some rubber washers from Tractor supply. All my nuts, washers, bolts and everything to mount the bed came to about $15, so I'd say that's quite a bit better than the $50 catalog bed mounting kit... if it works hahaha.

I decided against adding 1" body lift pucks to the bed and will instead remove all the 1" pucks from the cab and front clip. Lower C.O.G. and not really needed when running 33" tires.

[W1ck3d0n3]

Beautiful Chevy my friend. Killer score on the rear bumper.

[KurseD]

Originally Posted by W1ck3d0n3

Beautiful Chevy my friend. Killer score on the rear bumper.

Thanks man. She's a work in progress, but having fun with it.

[KurseD]

Got a little more work done yesterday. Swapped the plugs, that helped a lot with the running rich issue, but it's still running a bit rich. Waiting on my MSD cap and rotor to arrive and some smaller jets I ordered. If that doesn't solve things, I guess we'll try running a 500 cfm carb. Was hoping to get the bed mounted and body lift removed from the cab and front clip, but I ran out of time.

[Solid94]

Absolutely love it! Big fan of old Chevy iron here and can't wait to see it complete

[87Matchief]

yeah this build is gunna be sweet, I love the front end on the older chevys

[KurseD]

Tank and seat have been pulled out. Bed mounted and body lift pucks removed from cab and front clip. Lots of rut in the tank so I'll swap it for a clean spare I have. Hopefully get to tinker with the carb some tomorrow.

[KurseD]

Both daughters and my son have all been helping quite a bit over the past few days. They've helped with getting tools, mounting the bed, and removing the body lift. They had to go back to school today, so only my son there to run tools for me.

Got the new tank in today, seat back in, shortened the clutch rod that goes through the firewall. Also shifted the steering column a little toward the driver. It's going to need some bearings and stuff for sure. The bottom shafts that rides in the bottom bearing moves all over. Called around a few junkyards and couldn't find a donor colum, so I guess we'll rebuild the original eventually.

Also thinking I have a vacuum leak on the intake gasket which may be causing the issue with running too rich. Going to try swapping the intake gaskets tomorrow. Oh yeah, and I installed the gun rack slash fishing pole rack. Lol.

[KurseD]

No leaks at the intake gasket or anywhere else.

Carb started acting ridiculous yesterday. Idle air screws would make no difference and wouldn't even stall it out when I tried them all the way in. Then it started spewing fuel from the front vent tube. I thought maybe the float was set too high, took the bowl off and it was set correctly, so I returned it to the parts store and swapped for another.

Didn't have time to swap jets. So I'll do that the next time I go down to work on it. Might try a hotter plug also.

[KurseD]

Haven't had much time to work on the old gal this week. Got all the rear lights routed, soldered, shrink tubed. Just need to do a little more tucking and get some more conduit.

Took it to the tire shop and had the bent rim exhanged for the new rim. A lot less vibration now, the rest is in the driveline age.

Also swapped over the old side markers for Chevy van style smooth markers.

[KurseD]

Went hunting this week with my father-in-law and a friend. Our hunting camp is about 30 miles from where I live and mostly long twisty country roads with an average speed of 55. Once you get to the area, the camp is a couple miles up rough road into the Allegheny mountains. As I turned into the camp site and straightened my steering wheel out, POP! The steering shaft snapped in half inside the steering column.

I knew the bottom bearing was getting bad so I had already picked up new bearings in hopes of rebuilding the column soon, I just didn't have any idea it would be this soon. Apparently the bottom column bearing was not only bad, but it had been long gone and only the outer bearing race was left long before I even got the truck. So long that the shaft had worn down to a taper and finally snapped. Thank God it snapped as I was pulling into the campsite and not on the main hardball at 55 mph. I would have ended up in the river upside down for sure. I pulled the column Tuesday evening at camp.



So we hunted Wednesday morning and headed back into town on Wednesday afternoon. I ran to my favorite scrap yard and pulled a column from a donor truck there. I snagged everything from the rag joint to the steering wheel just in case I ran into trouble. Showered and threw on a clean pair of work clothes and headed back to camp. Hunted Thursday morning and headed back to campsite that afternoon to get to work. I performed emergency surgery on the two columns in the bed of the truck. I just pulled the shaft from the donor column and put it in the old column. The donor was from a 3 on the tree truck, my old column was 4 speed floor shift.

I used the new top bearing, but the old 3 speed bottom bearing was actually in good shape so I left it for now. Plan was to get home safely, then pull the column one more time for a thorough rebuild in the very near future.



My old non-existent bottom bearing on bottom, new donor bearing at top.



Not sure if the donor truck was a 67 or 68, but it had a big back glass and side markers on the front fenders so I assumed 68. Hoever, I'm not familiar with this style of column plug. The only ones I've ever seen were the rounded style like the one on my 68.

Donor column flat plug


My 68 column rounded plug

[KurseD]

Had some unusually warm weather lately, so we got the rear bumper painted and put it on today. Also got her inspected so we're all legal now. Been working on the gauge panel too, should be done with those soon. Painted the bumper with some flat black rust blocker spray bomb on the inside and some Massey Ferguson grey tractor paint for the outside. Oh yeah, we got a beat up old tailgate on too.



Haven't done much else lately, we've been cleaning out my grandma's garage and making a usable work shop out of it.

[WICKEDWOLFRC]

Love it! I've yet to build this era of GM truck but its on my list! Keep the pics coming!

[KurseD]

Haven't been on in a long time, but I'm back now, so I figured I would update on this one.

Truck will be gone soon. We had fun with it, but decided to let the truck go. We are in the middle of a HUGE house renovation on a house we inherited that is terrible condition. So that's been taking a ton of our time and money right now. Mia (daughter the truck was for) decided she would rather go with something like a Toyota Camry for a commuter vehicle and get another classic later down the road. So we traded the 68 to a good friend in exchange for $5,500 worth of roofing labor on the new house.

Updates that have happened since the last post here are we spray bombed the truck so it would at least all be one solid color, put a vintage camper shell on it that we found locally for $25, and a new intake gasket. I just put a remanufactured Edelbrock 500 cfm carb on it last weekend. My friend should be picking it up soon.

I did get an 82 Chevy van that I'm building into a 70's/80's style Boogie Van, so that's been a fun project.