GMC-IH

Did a body swap ..

Had a 75 GMC K15 that the body was pretty rusty, running gear was in great shape .. (Kentucky Truck)
Also sitting in the backyard for a few years was a 54 International Harvester R-100 .. It wasn't ate up with rust, but the 220 ci Silver Diamond motor froze up and had a six inch long crack in the block.

Came up with the idea to sit the IH body down on the Jimmy's frame ..
Had to shorten the frame to fit the wheelbase, the swap went well and been driving it for a number of years ..

Recently I decided to do a makeover due to it was starting to look rundown ..
Wanted to bring it into today's world with adding some upgrades .

Those consisted of ...
1) A/C ... That's a must have living here in Florida .

2) Electric windows and keyless power door locks, creature comforts ..

3) Bucket seats .. The og bench seat is in great condition but was killing my back. Since I was into replacing the seat with comfy buckets from a 95 full size Chevy pickup. hunted down the 4-way power bases for both seats ... They have adjustable lumbar support built in ..

4) Radio was in need of upgrading too .. Went with a single din Dual that has a 7" pop out touch screen and built a ported sound box with a 12" Kicker subwoofer powered by 1000 watt amp .. Dang thing even has a backup camera with grid lines ..

5) Was needing better gas mileage .. Not very long ago I swap out the rear end, got rid of the Oem GM 12 bolt and installed a 14 bolt 3/4 ton Cooperation (Did install a Detroit Locker) that came with a 3:73 .. The GM had a 3:50 gear ... Soooooo time to say Bye-Bye to the built THM 400 and install a built 4L85E ...

6) Rewiring the truck .. Back when the body swap was done I used the harness from the donor GMC .. It used glass fuses, gone are they, bought a aftermarket harness that is up to today's standards ...

Here's a few photos of where I'm at with the makeover ...



After I did the body swap the truck had the skateboard look with big time tire sickout ..
Wasn't a fan of that look .. Did a wide-body front and rear ..

At the moment where I'm at with the rebuild is the dash and steering column ..

Used a dashboard from a R-190 over the road truck cause it didn't have a cutout for the three on the tree Oem column ..
Took a 75 Cadillac column and cut it down to fit the needs, in doing so the dash cutout was no longer needed ..

Wanting to be able to shift to all the gears on the overdrive trans from the Caddy's column .. Can't shift to low cause of the built in stops .. Worked find with the three speed TH 400, but there's a new ballgame in town now ...



Modifying the stop at the trans column lever was a fairly easy job to do, the other internal stop wasn't so easy ...



Had to gut the column down to skin & bone to modify the stop ..



Think it'll work alright when done ... What won't be no longer working is the GM Oem column switches ... Now that the column has more throw the switch will be acting as a stop ..
No biggie, here's the cure for that new problem ..



Working the dash in order to woodgrain it is going well ..
Had a world of holes to weld up plus the cracks around the A/C vents and radio to contend with ..

As soon as I get the Pod mounted to the dash ..



Final prep work and ready for printing the woodgrain on will take place ..



Here's how it's going to look when done ..



But sporting a woodgrain finish ..

Wow. Really cool.

Nice job!

Man, this is awesome! Can't wait to see more progress

I'm a little slow with this project due to parts that I need to save up for to buy ...
Got the steering column on hold because I need to run some wires down though it ..

Installing cruise control ...
Had a need for this item, will help me from getting speeding tickets .. !



Dakota Digital CRS-2000-1 is a nice unit ..



Since the dash/column has some shinny stuff, going to pop for a little more ..
(Eye candy, might be saying)

Very cool rig!

Thanks Guys ..

Chipping away at it, got the steering box super reinforced ..
That was somewhat of a job to get done ...
Added the weld in plates and the bolt in brace ..
This work might have been overkill cause the frame didn't show any signs of cracks ..

Some of my ideas for upgrading snowballs ..

Had West Coast mirrors on it for the longest time ..
Decided to do the tiny Peek mirrors that had the hidden turn signals built in ..



Loved the new to me look ...



But, can't see sh*t out of them .. Eek !

That's when I bought a smart rearview mirror ...



This puppy has front and rear cameras, plus GPS ...
Problem solved ..

Another area that seen more wiring to go down was to install courtesy lights under the dash ..





What's a few more wires when there's so many already .. Right ?

What condition are the west coast mirrors in? And would you be willing to sell them? I need a set for Crusty Biscuit. One side got munched when a-hole-e-o pulled out in of us leaving no choice but to hit the back of his truck and side of the trailer.

DoubleDingo said:

What condition are the west coast mirrors in? And would you be willing to sell them?

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Been months ago since I took them off ..
Not sure if I tossed em or not ??
Will keep an eye open, might run up on them ??

Super cool build

This just may turn out looking good .. ??

Wanted to net a factory installed look, that is "IF" the factory did A/C back in 1954 .. !!

In order to make the Pod, I used another dash from the R Series trucks ..



Cut out the piece I wanted and welded it back together ..



Think I got close to factory installed Air ...
Got a lot of time in it so however it turns out looking, I'm going to run it ..

Using "Old Air" parts that are hand picked by me to get air on this old relic of a truck ..



Worked the firewall to net a clean look ..



To keep a clean look the mounting bolts was welded on the inside of the firewall ..
No holes was drilled ..

dragstews said:

Been months ago since I took them off ..
Not sure if I tossed em or not ??
Will keep an eye open, might run up on them ??

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Cool deal, thank you. No rush at all, not ready for mirrors yet on that truck.