Dejure
Junior Member
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2025
- Posts
- 3
- Reaction score
- 4
- Location
- Eastern Washington
- First Name
- Kelly
- Truck Year
- 1978
- Truck Model
- C15
- Engine Size
- 350
I love muscle cars, just like I love kids. That is, they are things to be cherished. Often, because they have to go back home, away from me [and my wallet (or pressed upon time).
My old 69 C10 step side always got attention, as it rolled down the highways and byways of The State of Washington. All the windows and right down to the mirrors were glass etched. The bed sported racks with the raised lettering (everything else was routered away) saying "Imagination Unincorporated," the name of my woodworking, glass etch business.
In truth, I could never compete with the art many produced by way of body work, paint and even mechanical repairs. So I went another way. I sought unique and mileage.
The interior of my old 69 sported a wood dash, Hurst T-Handle shifter cover (flared at the top for the rocker controller the overdrive), stereo frame, glove box (with 1969 cut-through lettering backed by stained-glass), ashtray cover, and lower door panels that housed speakers.
Many would think the drive system unimpressive. It was a 250 six popper. The extent of the mods were headers, capacitive discharge (to drop the point amps from 7 amps down to 200 milliamps) and single barrel carb mods. I managed to coax 25 MPG out of it, with effort, 40 years ago. With its 62 Chev overdrive (governor tossed), it made a good daily driver
It's been forty or so years since I, foolishly, sold my 69 step-side and kept the disposable Fairmont. Which I did dispose of.
The foregoing error aside, I'm here via the long way.
We were looking to upgrade our old Ford wannabe truck (a Ranger). We could have dumped 3k into it and had a fairly nice 3k truck. One not up to real tasks. We could have bought new, but that seemed a waste of resources, since our truck was a lightly worked workhorse used dump runs, material hauls and so forth. We used car for the weekly drives to civilization (an hour away). That left used. 100,000 mile trucks going for 14k did not enthuse me. THEN there was that my $500.00 code reader could play with have the crap dim witted engineers pumped out. A coupld months of searching in, it dawned on me I could avoid high tech and go the route of being able to troubleshoot ANY problem in a day or two, without much in the way of equipment (maybe a neon 120 volt tester, my Fluke, a vacuum gauge or one of several other relatively simple tools, AND I could solve the problem at a fraction of the price of repairing a twenty-year-old, or less, rig.
Here I am. I bought a nice looking 78 step side in need of someone who knows what an ohm meter and a bit of molybdenum grease is. Now to change the air filter, get the backup lights working, fix the dash lights, fix the gauge problem, do the woodwork and glass etch. . . .
My old 69 C10 step side always got attention, as it rolled down the highways and byways of The State of Washington. All the windows and right down to the mirrors were glass etched. The bed sported racks with the raised lettering (everything else was routered away) saying "Imagination Unincorporated," the name of my woodworking, glass etch business.
In truth, I could never compete with the art many produced by way of body work, paint and even mechanical repairs. So I went another way. I sought unique and mileage.
The interior of my old 69 sported a wood dash, Hurst T-Handle shifter cover (flared at the top for the rocker controller the overdrive), stereo frame, glove box (with 1969 cut-through lettering backed by stained-glass), ashtray cover, and lower door panels that housed speakers.
Many would think the drive system unimpressive. It was a 250 six popper. The extent of the mods were headers, capacitive discharge (to drop the point amps from 7 amps down to 200 milliamps) and single barrel carb mods. I managed to coax 25 MPG out of it, with effort, 40 years ago. With its 62 Chev overdrive (governor tossed), it made a good daily driver
It's been forty or so years since I, foolishly, sold my 69 step-side and kept the disposable Fairmont. Which I did dispose of.
The foregoing error aside, I'm here via the long way.
We were looking to upgrade our old Ford wannabe truck (a Ranger). We could have dumped 3k into it and had a fairly nice 3k truck. One not up to real tasks. We could have bought new, but that seemed a waste of resources, since our truck was a lightly worked workhorse used dump runs, material hauls and so forth. We used car for the weekly drives to civilization (an hour away). That left used. 100,000 mile trucks going for 14k did not enthuse me. THEN there was that my $500.00 code reader could play with have the crap dim witted engineers pumped out. A coupld months of searching in, it dawned on me I could avoid high tech and go the route of being able to troubleshoot ANY problem in a day or two, without much in the way of equipment (maybe a neon 120 volt tester, my Fluke, a vacuum gauge or one of several other relatively simple tools, AND I could solve the problem at a fraction of the price of repairing a twenty-year-old, or less, rig.
Here I am. I bought a nice looking 78 step side in need of someone who knows what an ohm meter and a bit of molybdenum grease is. Now to change the air filter, get the backup lights working, fix the dash lights, fix the gauge problem, do the woodwork and glass etch. . . .
