95 Farm Truck Build

[mwojoaa96]

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Mod please move if I have posted I’m the wrong section.



Hey guys I’m Mitch. this is my build thread for my truck I named after a popular drinking spot down on the river. An ultimate hillbilly machine. It’s mostly done but I wanted to share the story. It looks ridiculous we’ll that’s the point.

Some background. I live in a very backwater community of drunks and hillbilly’s. The whole point of this truck is for hauling decoys, feed, and going to the bar. I bought this truck years ago as a 1995 stock shortbed 4.3 with 220k miles and a crate motor. Rusted to all hell and bent in half.

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It was rusty, the trans was ready to quit, I blew the rear end out of it but the motor well she was damn loyal and was fun to do burnouts in. Later in I sold it to my buddy after fixing the read end, wonder why that broke..?

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Turns out my buddy was even harder on it than I was, doing twice the burnouts, twice the flooded hard starts, twice the neutral drops. Either way he blew the brake lines off it and reverse gear out of the ol 4l60e was done. And he said he was gonna scrap it so I bought it back from him and it sat in my yard for a year.

Finally I wanted to fix the rear brake lines and address a fuel line leak so I dragged it into the garage with the side by side with the intent to remove the bed to make it easier and unbolted some bed bolts, got stung in the eye by a wasp living under it, did lots of drinking and this was my result.

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Now right away it looks way worse than it is but it was pretty scaled but otherwise no holes to worry about.

This is where things went wrong, and I blame the alcohol and using my wife’s wallet but the next picture I have after this one is where a change occurred.

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[mwojoaa96]

that was all achieved with:
POR15 Rust Prevenative
A Dewalt angle grinder with braided wire wherl
Eastwood SCT
Air hammer
Needle descaler.

Also wear ppe cause this hillbilly had that stuff on my hands for 2 weeks.

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Anyhoo this is where the dream was kinda born and all sorts of parts started showing up at my door.

I got a wild hair to remove my cab and continue the por15 all the way to the front, and use a portapower to fix the frame next, which surprisingly there isn’t a lot of info out there in removing cabs. Just gotta start unattaching everything you see from the cab as possible and start jacking it up lol.. but we got it off. And with the help for 5 grown men and a boy we muscled it off.

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I don’t have many pictures of what went on in between this and the next but basically I por15’d everything, installed new copper brake lines, nylon fuel lines, new fuel pump tank and filter, painted my rear end and driveshaft horsepower orange, new shocks and hardware hoses ect.

Also I managed to find a 1995 4l60e with 44k miles on it out of a fbody. Sooo that was a huge win. Lastly my body mount brackets were rotted beyond all repair. For some reason there is no information at all on replacing these with the cab off couldn’t find any true oem replacements that weren’t $400 a piece and there were no guides on where to measure the holes. But with a lot of eyeballing and my buddys help who has a crane and the forum I managed to get the job done.

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I know my welds suck but I just added as much metal as possible. It’s a bar truck and grocery getter remember lol.

 

[mwojoaa96]

Then I called back the crane and threw the cab back on and somehow some way everything fit on aligned and bolted up perfect. Not bad for a drinkin man.

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Next up I decided to tear into the front end and replace literally every part I could get my hands on to brand new and finished the por15 work. Then welded up the core support bushing brackets.
Finally it’s starting to look like a truck again.

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Sooo at some point I sold the old shortbed for beer money. It had a very large hole in the dance floor and I was over it. At that point I did some measuring around and went to the hardware store and bought a ton of wood and some angle iron and large carriage bolts and all sorts of lad bolts and other stuff.. and decided I’m gonna build a wood bed.

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A guide on YouTube showed me to mix diesel, old motor oil, and dark walnut varnish in a bucket. And burn it and then stain it with that and it came out with this epic finish. I then herculined the underside and used treated 4x4s for the crossmembers.

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Sidenote: I did find a guy parting out another green Chevy with great fenders and also needed a hood since my hood latch erm failed while I was drinking one day and one thing led to another. So a lot of that stuff was replaced

 

[mwojoaa96]

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I finished the metal work and put some sideboards on it. I bought some knockoff KCs and a bunch of gas pipe and put together a very cheap light rack to go in the bed. Which turned out pretty good. The dog liked it at least

I then saw a truck with a wood bed in this style with stake sides and had to do some on my own and it really came out nice.

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Then came to wiring in all my accessories. Soo I made sure to use some trailer lighting and completely make a new harness and since I guess it’s technically overwidth i put in side markers. But here’s a shot of the back, added the old emblems with some epoxy.

Threw a gangbox in back to hold my wiring junction box and compressor for my air horns, which have a system to piss air out the ground and empty the tank when I shut the truck off to make a big cloud of dust like the semi trucks do LMAO.

Also found a big vintage rotator light and threw that up top. It’s so nice and it’s slow as hell. Perfect fit for this truck.

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Also bought a moon visor. And wired that up. Which will go on later after I replace the windshield…..

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[mwojoaa96]

one of my last mods were these big old school tow mirrors they really made the build pop. Used some abs plastic as block offs and sealed everything up with silicone.

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That’s pretty much the entire build so far.
It took me about a year total, and I’m no mechanic, I’m just a hack that likes to waste money on rusty trucks.

Did it all with a breaker bar and socket set, 2ton harbor freight jack and 2 ton jack stands and a LOT of cribbing, a little cart with a bunch of cribbing as a makeshift trans jack, angle grinder air hammer and other basic tools. No impacts or pry bars or really any proper tooling or proper automotive education or manuals. Just goes to show what you can achieve when you start unbolting things and have a vision. Obviously this forum was a huge help in the multiple binds I got in.


Oh yeah one last thing…. I BLEW THE 4.3 up, cylinder 4 went into orbit. Sooo I secured a 350 out of a g30 with forged factory internals, with 58k original miles on it. That’ll be going in along with long tube headers, a mild cam, hard parts for the trans and an auburn posi but I haven’t got to that yet. Thanks for reading I’ll post motor work when I start on it

Also open to doing tube doors and an interior swap. Would be a fun addition.
And some minor body work

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[mwojoaa96]

Reserved

 

[mwojoaa96]

Reserved

 

[mwojoaa96]

Reserved

 

[GrimsterGMC]

one of my last mods were these big old school tow mirrors they really made the build pop. Used some abs plastic as block offs and sealed everything up with silicone.

You must be registered for see images attach

That’s pretty much the entire build so far.
It took me about a year total, and I’m no mechanic, I’m just a hack that likes to waste money on rusty trucks.

Did it all with a breaker bar and socket set, 2ton harbor freight jack and 2 ton jack stands and a LOT of cribbing, a little cart with a bunch of cribbing as a makeshift trans jack, angle grinder air hammer and other basic tools. No impacts or pry bars or really any proper tooling or proper automotive education or manuals. Just goes to show what you can achieve when you start unbolting things and have a vision. Obviously this forum was a huge help in the multiple binds I got in.


Oh yeah one last thing…. I BLEW THE 4.3 up, cylinder 4 went into orbit. Sooo I secured a 350 out of a g30 with forged factory internals, with 58k original miles on it. That’ll be going in along with long tube headers, a mild cam, hard parts for the trans and an auburn posi but I haven’t got to that yet. Thanks for reading I’ll post motor work when I start on it

Also open to doing tube doors and an interior swap. Would be a fun addition.
And some minor body work

You must be registered for see images attach

I love it, it's all yours and you are doing what you like and that's what it's all about. Have lots of fun with it and keep us updated. Also, I like your dog.