1979 K-10 Stepside Shortbox - Beagle's Build -

[6872xtc]

Cool back story! I am smiling at all of it!

But I can't picture Martin with that hair! But at my age, I don't probably wouldn't recognize him from the one time we met.

Anyway, keep up the work!

 

[beags86]

Cool back story! I am smiling at all of it!

But I can't picture Martin with that hair! But at my age, I don't probably wouldn't recognize him from the one time we met.

Anyway, keep up the work!

Thanks.

So hear I am driving around my truck, doing truck like things, in the Midwest.
Coon hunting. Deer hunting. Cruise night. Mudding. Taking my girlfriend on dates to the movies. Swap meets. County fairs. Pulling Fords out of the mud. Tractors pulls. 4 of July fireworks. Field bashin' All the good stuff.

So when I painted the old girl the box was only meant to be temporary. It had some rust where the fenders bolt on the inner panels. On the fenders and the inner panel was rusted though. It also had a retrofitted metal floor in the box.
I also was running a jaz 20 gallon fuel cell bolted in the back. My saddle tank ended up being no good after I blasted the rust away. Stupid pinhole.

This really drove me nuts because it was the low point of the truck. Everyone would say "WOW! nice truck man!". They would then proceed to walk around and look and then they would look over the tailgate and peer in the box.

I dreaded this part of their inspection.

Every time the same thing came. "Why didn't you fix this?" Or "What's going on here?" Or if a ford fellow was looking at it; "f*ckin' Chevys, can't keep a gas tank in them."

And I would then plead my case... It's only temporary- I couldn't find a decent step side box without selling the farm. Or, yeah I bet your ford from '79 has a rusty tank too. This is the rust belt man.

Anyway two years of this crap and I was over it. Time to fix this crap.
The hunt for a bed was on. And it had to be a wood bed. It was time to make the bed a hi-light of this ol' girl not a low-light.

And fix the gas tank situation.

 

[beags86]

So I was able to find a bed from a guy I met while donor truck hunting/part hunting. Squarebody guys all seem to know each other.
He's one of those "Southern Runs" guys. So I picked up the bed and made a few phone orders and ended up with this.

 

[beags86]

So a few things happened to make stepside version 2.
First was the bed
And the correct fuel tank to match the driver side fuel door.

Ok checkmark on those.

1. So one night I am sleeping away in bed, and I get a call from my buddy telling me I need to fire up "big red" and come pull him out. (my buddies call it that which I always hated)

So it's about 12:30 at night and he's stuck. Has a ford on 35's. Drunk. On a public road.

(yes- some public roads are very muddy and not maintained.)

So I get there and I can't even make it down to him because I just can't make way through his tracks. I ended up burying my truck. 33's just didn't cut it. Long story short is a tractor to the rescue.

Moving on- I just can't have that happen again. Nor would my buddies let me live it down. So I set out looking for some 35's and I found some 38.5 ground hawgs. Knew they were to big. But they were cheap. Plus I just knew I was going to stumble on someone with a 1 ton truck for sale for 200$. Right!? Then I would get new rims and the what not.

2. When I was going to paint the bed the paint store had a hard time matching my single stage paint. They told me it would be 600$ to match it right, said it was too faded.
Whatever. I wanted base/clear anyway. Chose a paint a little darker this time. Has a metallic instead of a pearl like the first paint job.

3. My buddy had a good 6-71 blown 350 sitting around not getting used. He told me I could use it but I needed to buy everything to put it in my truck.

Great! and freshly painted truck sitting on 38's with a supercharger! DEAL!

So that gets us here...

 

[beags86]

BUT WAIT!

When a deal is too good to be true it usually is.

Supercharged 350 free to use with no rent?

Yep. Buddy backed out of deal. But I already bought a bug catcher and opened a hole in my hood.

Crap. What's a boy to do? Say screw it and run the scoop anyway.

I mean this is the over-the-top lifted shortbox of the 80's I am building right? overed tired, under axled, over lighted, flashy date night truck. Right? That's what I wanted when I was 16 and 15 and 14 and 13....ah screw it I am just a big kid.

RIGHT!

so here we go....

 

[max 02]

I like it!

 

[beags86]

So this catches me up to where I need to get some more photos in line and roughly puts me where I had some life changes.

But a few notes from that time frame.

I was still constantly looking for a dana 60 front and 14 bolt rear. Which I had been looking for since I got the truck.
Found a 3/4 ton truck and picked that and those axles did eventually find their way under.(more on that later)

Blew up 1 trans. T-350.

With the 38's I broke 3 12 bolt rear ends.

I ate front driveshafts for lunches. Never broke the front 10 bolt, I do believe it was my front drive shaft was the weak point here.
(One front shaft ate it so hard, I was replacing my headers, oil pan, and trans pan.)

Ground Hawgs suck in every way possible. To the ride and Drive to my girlfriend's dad knowing everytime I was over because no one has a tread like that.

Gas is expensive.

Little boys ranging from about 6 yrs old to 57 yrs old want to talk to you at the gas station.

Most women think your overcompensating for something.

Cops didn't seem to like those 5 forward KC's and especially the two rear facing ones.

FUN in every other way!

 

[beags86]

So, after a few years of this, I decided I need to go back to school in order to learn something to make some better money and to do something I loved. I had started to save a bit for when the kill shot was made.
I blew up the rear end again. While trying to limp the truck home with the front axle I ate the trans.

I was trying to save money and I was already losing interest in her. I simply didn't want to fix it her.

You know how they say things happen in threes. Well it did for me at stage in my life for sure.

Right before this happened to the truck I was running a sbc 400 in the Monte Carlo SS and it let a cylinder go.

So there I am getting ready to head across the country with car that doesn't run right and truck that won't move.

What's a boy to do? Well pull the good running engine in the monte and be done with it. I had pretty much lost interest in it all together after that.

 

[Deuling]

 

[beags86]

Well a year went by and I finished school and I got into some other things. A olds cutlass w/ a real olds rocket 350 w/125 hp shot of spray. that's fun stuff there. A 400ex to ride followed by a 250r. then a complete 250r rebuild. If anyone cares to see the few pics I have of the cutty I can scan them in later. Here a quick few shots of the quads killing my time and money. These were right after the 250r build.
Built a 310r. FAST.

 

[beags86]

One more one other side.

 

[beags86]

Wait. Just found this one. The mighty 1486 in the background. Quads up front.

 

[max 02]

Yup! Show us the Olds!

 

[82355]

I like this thread.

Martin

 

[beags86]

Ok that will be Monday. I need to have a separate thread for my olds adventures. Have had four of them. Anyway. We are up to 2009.

One word. Economy. Yep I was laid off. Sucks major d*ck.

So I was on fun-employment. I moved to Colorado. Where I live today.

Started riding and playing in the mts. A lot. My standard weekend was busy. My truck looked like this. Mainly on Fridays.

 

[beags86]

Notice the lack of a 250r. Too fast for mt riding. For me at least. So I sold it off and picked up another 400ex. Got a newer one for the ol' lady. With reverse.

 

[beags86]

Never fear if there are any 250r guys out there. I did fix my problem. With this.

 

[beags86]

Nice clean original 250r. Shipped out from IL. When was the last time anyone has seen one that damn clean from the Midwest?! I never had! So with all this quad riding I needed this. Jumping Jack Trailer. Perfect for my style of camping and riding. If you don't know what one is- google it. Their cool.

 

[beags86]

Sorry for the quad sidetrack.... I was chasing that stuff pretty hard there. Me and the lady do it together and she likes that. Anyway I had one more sidetrack before we get back to stepper. In 2012 my girlfriend(now my wife) bought this. With some influence from me. (Notice the GMC trend here.)

Notice this is back at the farm.
I seem to have a hard time finding things I want in colorado. Flew home and drove it out to colorado.

 

[beags86]

That turned into this.