Episode 1 – Walk around our Chevy C10 with Rick Drewry as he shows you our plan for its restoration, a complete upgrade with bodywork, a new fuel system & engine work. We’re building a better driving, more reliable, cool looking restomod with improved gas mileage and no loss of horsepower.
Episode 1 – Video Transcript
Rick Drewry: Everybody, welcome back to American Modern. What we have going on now is actually a really cool project. We’re teaming up with our buddies and our partners at Classic Auto Insurance. They’re celebrating their 25th anniversary, so what I want to do is go through and show you the truck and maybe get a good idea of what we’re in for this time.
Let’s start off with the front, it’s got gray primer all the way around, so hot rod black. But it’s hiding a lot of stuff. So, we are going to come in, we’re going to do some dustless blasting, and blast every bit of the sheet metal off so we can see the old body work and know if it needs to be repaired, replaced, whatever.
The other thing that we’ve got, you can see that we have some body work that’s going to need to be done. The trim, the holes are still there, so we still want to keep the factory trim in place. Love the factory trim. But we’ve got some waves in the body, we’ve had some floor pans put in. There are little dents, waves, things like that throughout the whole thing.
So, we want this thing to be arrow straight and we’re doing to do our darnedest to make that happen. So, around the back, back here on the body, we’ve still got the stock tailgate. Which is a cool tailgate but what we want to do is, do a little more modernized, where we can have some hidden hinges in place and a hidden latch. Even though I like the look of these chains, they have a tendency to chip up the paint and everything like that, so I personally would like to remove them.
The other thing we’ve got as you can see in the bed floor, I’m thinking wood floor. Get a nice wood floor, update the fuel system, so that’s another plan.
The other thing that we’ve got, I’d say this right bed side panel is going to be the worst problem I’ve got. It waves to me all the way from the front to the rear. So, a whole lot of metal bumping, some hammer and dolly, to get this straight. It’s okay, there’s no rust or anything like that, it’s just a whole lot of dents on the side, so we’re going to actually spend a lot of time straightening this guy out.
Now let’s talk about the interior on this truck. It’s actually in good shape. We’ve got a bench seat, it’s in place, but it’s out of a Toyota Tacoma. I’m not saying we’ve got to get rid of the seat, we may be able to use this seat and just recover it with a more vintage style leather, whatever we decide to do, but we’ll make it custom, so it matches the truck.
The other thing I want to do is eliminate our floor shifter. While it’s good for the style of truck it is right now, a column shift would be much more convenient, because we’re thinking about having vintage air conditioning, you want to be able to put three people across on the bench seat. That is always a good thing to have for the truck. So, we’re going to do a lot of work there, but we’re going to do some paint work and everything on the inside to match the outside of the truck to really tie it in.
Okay, under the hood. It’s actually a pretty cool motor. It’s a 350, bore 30 over, so it’s a 355. It’s got a pretty good bump stick in it, so the cam shaft, it’s got a good lope to it. Probably will change the carburetor out, just because our main goal on this one is drivability and reliability. Keep the horsepower, improve the gas mileage, improve the reliability and drivability. The other thing we’re going to do is we’re going to clean up the engine bay. This is my favorite part of a car anyway. If you saw the engine bay on Amy G. you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
So, when we do the vintage air, we can lose some of this stuff, we can smooth the firewall, we can clean things up, hide the wiring, really upgrade under the hood. And when we do, it’s going to really tie in the outside of the car as well.
So, there you have it. That’s our ’65 Chevy C10 project. We’re teaming up with Classic Auto Insurance, so you need to stay tuned. Go along for the ride. You’ll see all the cool stuff we’re going to do and then we’re going to try to share it every step of the way. Stay tuned.
Legacy of Classic Auto Insurance
Classic Automobile Insurance Agency is a family business built on a love of classic cars. We take every opportunity to give back to fellow classic and collector car enthusiasts by sponsoring events such as Carmel Artomobilia and Fuelicious, attending classic car events throughout the Midwest to document owners’ stories of their dream cars, partnering with like-minded companies and organizations to better serve our customers and bringing you unique learning opportunities like Project C10, powered by American Modern. Having owned a variety of collectibles ourselves, we understand your unique needs as the owner of a prized vehicle. Its age, rarity, value, unique features, limited use, availability of parts and services and popularity across generations require special protection. Whether you bought it at auction, drove it off the lot or restored it to perfection in your garage, we will build you a personal auto insurance program designed specifically for owners of collectible cars, and provide support when claim time comes. Visit our website at www.classicins.com or call 888-901-1338 to learn more.
