What the heck?
Who's that guy?
Hey Tom!
Man you are just in time to help me work on this Chevell, how the heck did you get out
of the office today?
Well every once in a while Chuck they let me out.
I'm glad of it man, you know I haven't seen this thing before, what you got here?
Yah, this is our Holley shop truck, It's a 67' C10.
Nice, what you got under the hood?
Well let's check it out.
Alright.
Alright, looks like you stuck with the big block theme here.
Well look a little closer Chuck, there's a surprise in there.
Oh yeah, that's an LS motor.
It's actually a hot cam LS3 GM crate motor, we wanted modern performance but we also wanted
to maintain the vintage vibe of the truck.
I think you've done that very excellently, like the orange paint to start with.
The orange paint really makes it look, really as keeping with the vintage vibe, of course
those coil covers are a great product for us they have the massive vintage big block
look, we even put a sticker over here on the passenger side to complete the ruse.
I bet there are a lot of people that are stupid just like me going "yeah big block!", Yeah
but you know what, I think under that air cleaner there I think there is a throttle
body under there, so there's probably a whole lot more of it than meets the eye.
That's right there sure is, we used a Corvette air cleaner, underneath is aHolley fuel injection
system, it's the Holley self learning fuel injection system, runs great, this engine
makes about 500 horsepower, it is a blast to drive.
500 horsepower, on fuel injection with fuel economy to boot, you know what I was even
looking at the headers, you know we were talking about the big block, even the header tubes
are spaced out like a big block.
They do, are spaced evenly, they have that big block look to them.
That's cool.
The only thing that remains to be decided is, does it run like a big block?
It does, it runs like a scolded dog.
Cool, you know what?
I'm gonna get hungry after while here, maybe we can take this thing to lunch.
That sounds good, let's do it.
In the meantime though, I want to see the rest of this thing.
You know what, I really like what you've done with this thing, you've kept that vintage
theme through the whole deal.
Yeah we sure did, from the wheels to the old time truck lettering on the door, we even
kept things like the old style mirror, the fuel filler, which is blocked off at this
point, but all those features just give the truck it's vintage look.
Absolutely, I noticed you even kept the white grill, the head light bezel, the whole deal,
these wheels though, those are definitely vintage, they really help make this thing.
Yeah they do, there pretty neat, actually I had been collecting photographs off of eBay
of vintage halibrand wheels, and these are actually styled after the vintage Indy roadster
wheel, which is a 6 pin knock off, and we thought, hey wouldn't it be cool to put, to
keep the 6 lug feature, this was a 6 lug truck originally, so when we had these wheels made,
we had them made with the 6 lug pattern.
Are they actually halibrand wheels then?
No they're actually a set of custom made wheels that look like the halibrands.
Wow they knocked they knocked them off for sure, and speaking of knock offs, those things
work?
They do work.
Ah cool, so form and function there?
If you'll notice, peaking out through the windows there's a monster set of bear brakes,
so this truck stops as good as it goes.
You got them front and back then?
Yeas sure do.
Excellent, yeah, very cool, yeah, man the trim on this here is perfect.
It is this was actually a very nicely restored truck, we love the vintage color, this an
original Chevy color, the interior is the original color, and when we bought it was
sitting a mile high up in the air and we pulled the chassis out from under it and you know
did a full modern suspension under it or lowering job on the suspension with a Ford 9 inch in
the rear, kept the truck arms of course, and then put the body back on, we wanted something
we could drive quickly and buying a nicely restored truck allowed us to do that.
Nice shop truck, and I understand what you mean about starting with a nice piece to begin
with, you do that and your always going to end up with a nice piece.
That's right.
I love the bed back here, wow, now you don't haul anything back here do ya?
A little bit, you know a when we took it on power tour, some duffle bags and what not,
soft bag of tools, so you know it get used.
Nice wood.
The wood is from Bedwood, it's actually very nice, the companies name is Bedwood, it's
held up well and you know just has beautiful grain to it.
Beautiful grain, beautiful chrome strips, now this has got me curious.
That is the fuel filler, we actually, these trucks originally came with the gas tank in
the cab, which obviously these days as we understand, probably isn't the safest way
to do it, so we relocated it here to the rear and that is the fuel filler.
Yeah, so how's that thing work?
Well it's a little bit of s trick, just put your thumb on it and turn it, it pops off,
then just spin it off.
Check that out, that is too cool, how big of a tank you got underneath there?
It's about a 20 gallon tank, there was plenty of room underneath for it, plenty of room.
Excellent.
We raised the bed 2 and a half inches and what that did is give us a little more suspension
travel, we actually drove it a little bit with the bed in the original position, and
and we had the limit the suspension travel because of the pumpkin on the rear, but by
raising it, it makes all the difference in the world.
Did a really nice job of that, that's almost imperceptible, but now that you mention it,
I can see the sides are just a little bit shorter, absolutely, well that's cool, and
the suspension, you needed to do that to clear the pumpkin, so you raised the suspension
up in the truck, lowered the truck, cool.
Yeah the choice was to put a big box in the middle of this beautiful bed or to raise the
whole bed, so I think raising the bed was a good approach.
Yeah I think you guys made the right decision on that for sure, and you've had this on power
tour already?
We sure have.
Cool, how'd it do.
It did fantastic, we put 2600 trouble free miles, literally went from the shop to out
on the road, did great.
Broke it in on the road?
Broke it in on the road.
You're my kind of guy, that's terrific and what kind of milage did you get?
It get's around 20 miles to the gallon, that's not bad, and the fact that we've got a 6 speed
in it helps.
Yeah and I know that you've got a very active right foot, so that probably doesn't help
either.
Well that's the on the other side of it that probably takes a little bit away from the
gas milage.
Man what a cool truck, let's take a look at the inside, wow this looks pretty comfy inside.
Yeah it's pretty cool, we kept the, again kept the vintage vibe going with this interior,
you know you can see it's got the rubber floor mat, it's got the sheet metal door panels,
radio delete.
So this was probably the cheapest model truck that they had.
Yeah pretty much and it even only has 1 sun visor on the drivers side here and on the
passengers side you can see where the sheet metal is dimpled where they would have put
the brackets but I guess they didn't check that box when they ordered the truck.
This is a stripper truck for sure, the seat though doesn't look stock.
It actually is a stock frame, we had Gabe's do new padding for it, and then it's got a
mix of the metallic vinyl and then the original style cloth.
How's it sit?
It sits great.
Yeah you headed to power tour, you gave it the ole' butt test.
Sure did.
Good deal, I'm looking at the shifter, I see 6 speeds in there, what's with that.
It is a 6 speed, it's a tremic T56 magnum, I love to bang ears so prefer my hot rods
with 3 pedals.
I agree with you on that, even got the vintage tack there, that is really cool.
Ya you know we again wanted to keep that vintage feel to the truck so we put that old column
mounted sun tack, which really the only performance modification to the interior would be that
tack and then the shifter.
Sure, I see that the trans tunnel looks like it's maybe modified a little bit to fit that
transmission.
We did, it had to be made a little bit bigger to get the T56 in there.
That's cool, that's excellent, and you know as stock and cheap as this thing looks for
lack of a better thing, I see you put some air in there.
We did, I mean obviously when you're driving something across country, air makes it a lot
more pleasant, and it's a vintage air set up.
Yeah, small cab like this I imagine you'd probably get it chilled down pretty good.
It does.
And just like the outside, man you've kept that vintage theme through this whole deal,
man I like what you guys have done here.
It's been really fun.
Excellent.
You know Tom, while we were looking at the interior there, I got to thinking about that
rear suspension, how you raised things up and all, I want to take a look under there.
Grab a jack, let's take a look.
Alright.
You guys have done a lot of work under here Tom.
Yeah we have, got a stout hand hard bar, a beefy sway bar really helps with the handling.
Yeah and I see instead of a regular coil spring you've got a coil over set up on here.
We did use coil overs so we could adjust the suspension up and down as we needed to.
Yeah and that's I guess why you needed to raise that bed, you know that bed looks as
pretty underneath here as it does on top.
Yeah it actually does doesn't it?
That's great, 4 wheel disc brakes back here, big deal, the truck arms, man I can't believe
those things are still being used, I guess you got good ride out of them?
Yeah they use them in Nascar today and they work great on this old truck.
Unbelievable, and here's your custom tank, alright, well good deal, man I almost want
to crawl further up and take a look at all the other cool stuff you've got under here.
Yep you can see the T56 transmission right there.
I see that.
Headers all tucked up nicely.
Nice, and what kind of mufflers are those?
They are actually Aerochambers, Hooker Aerochambers.
Hooker Aerochambers yeah, they've got kind of a unique shape to them, I couldn't quite
make it out under here, cool deal, got the low car emergency brake set up.
Yeah raised the cross member to get a little more clearance, the cross member when these
hang down.
Oh yeah.
When you lower it this much you got to get them up.
So did you just use the cross stock cross member and just section it then or do you
just totally file up the whole end.
It's an after market cross member.
Ok good deal, cool, oh now I see, I want to go up front and look at the front suspension,
let's get out of here.
Wow you've done a lot of work underneath the front of here too, I see you've got the tubular
control arms, the big bear brakes that we talked about earlier, and even the reenforcing
sleeves here on your tie rods.
That's right.
Man I bet this thing handles like it's on rails.
Yeah it really does, we love taking it out and racing it, we actually had it at mountain
spring race way in Nevada for the Optima Ultimate Street Car Invitational.
Man that's a mouthful, say that 10 times real fast.
It really is a mouthful, we love beating on it, we've autocrossed it a lot, we've dragraced
it a lot, and I love driving it around town, even taking it home on the weekends, it's
just a lot of fun.
That's cool man, that's what it's all about, having fun with these things here you know.
This thing is really cool, I like everything you've done with it.
Thanks Chuck.
You know, I was just thinking though, well my stomach is doing the thinking for me and
I looked at my watch to validate this, it's time to get something to eat.
I agree.
I got a little joint just down the street here, just a short drive so we won't starve
on our way over there, but I'll tell you what, if you fly you can buy it.
Now wait a minute Chuck, I don't think that's the way it works, I think if I fly you buy.
Ok good enough.