Looking for information - Buying a truck

[Prowbar]

Congratulations with your new (old) purchase. It being a dump truck, is able to tilt hydraulically and comes with the PTO etc. all hooked up?
You mentioned a 1970 C3500? What engine and trans does it have? How is the condition of the bodywork?

These auto stores guys not knowing about points... Read about the lack of knowledge at auto parts stores in the US all over the internet, unfortunately. In the Netherlands it is about the same, but folks usual don't go into the full denial (idi0t) mode.

[vwgreg]

Sorry another long reply.

Originally Posted by Jim A

Whew! You got it to the OR. Hopefully the oil pressure prevented any damage.
It is a scary story about points.
Keep us informed.

It has great oil pressure, I threw one of my good pressure gauges on it and it idles at 30 psi and goes up from there.

Right now it has a miss, not going to mess with the engine for a couple of weeks, the goal is to get it "road ready" in the sense of yard moves, then I can focus on the engine and trans.

Originally Posted by Prowbar

Congratulations with your new (old) purchase. It being a dump truck, is able to tilt hydraulically and comes with the PTO etc. all hooked up?

Thanks. The dump hydraulics needs to be gone though, it has a cylinder leak and doesn't make any pressure at the pump but that could be several things. The PTO does need work, it is noisy. I've rebuilt a few of them at one of my jobs so that's not going to be an issue. The one thing that it does do is if I increase the speed to 1000 rpm, the pto shaft starts to whip. My biggest issue is to figure out who made the dump lift system, I think it may be a Garwood system but I have found very little on these small dump bodies.

Originally Posted by Prowbar

You mentioned a 1970 C3500? What engine and trans does it have? How is the condition of the bodywork?

The body is in good shape, but it does need doors, I didn't notice but someone welded (badly) the door part of the hinge to the door, so because there are a couple of people in the area (Detroit/Ann Arbor) who have a lot of parts for this series of truck, and one has doors for about $100 each, I am just going to buy two of them and put them on. The floor is surprisingly in good shape, there is rust on the corner where the pan meets the bulkhead and rocker, and the rockers look like they have been replaced or fixed. The fenders are typical for Michigan, rusted but nothing impossible to fix. The biggest issue on the entire truck is the roof interior header where the sun visors are mounted, this has factory clearance lights that leaked and rusted out the header.

Whoever did the paint job painted the entire truck, including the interior, it is Green. The truck was Blue and I like Blue much more than Green.

The engine is an LS9, 350 4bbl. It is a typical grease-caked chevy engine (like the ones I had when I was a kid), and it looks like it is original to the truck, with a date code of October 27, 1969. It has a SM465 trans, which I am very happy to have, and a GM 7200 GVW rear axle.

The really bad thing about the truck is the electrical system, I did not think it was as bad as it turned out but it is a nightmare. Nothing I can't handle. I had no fuel or amp gauge but the temp gauge was working. the lights were all messed up and so on. someone also put in a "signal stat" turn signal that I am going to remove when it stops raining. So I found a lot of missing connections, the amp gauge was completely cut out, there wasn't a ground to the instrument cluster plus no voltage going to it. I have to still clean up the fuse block, it has a lot of rusted fuse contacts, so I cleaned it up as best as I could, got voltage where it is supposed to be, and then created a few grounds. One thing I was getting while the engine was running was 17 to 18 volts at the battery. I knew what this was, there was no ground from the battery to the sheet metal, but only to the engine. I created a ground to the radiator support, made sure the regulator and the alternator had a proper ground and tested it, 14.2v at the battery!!

When I finished up last night, I had lights, instruments, and even a dome light, oh and the heater fan was working. Still on the list is to get the two important things fixed, the turn signals which I will have to take the switch out and replace it and "rewire" the switch into the system, but the more important thing is to get the radio working.

Originally Posted by Prowbar

These auto stores guys not knowing about points... Read about the lack of knowledge at auto parts stores in the US all over the internet, unfortunately. In the Netherlands it is about the same, but folks usual don't go into the full denial (idi0t) mode.

I told the story on another forum and Oh crap, it opened the floodgates about what others go through at parts stores. My case isn't as bad as others. I am going to try Rock Auto, Amazon doesn't have a selection that I thought they would. The really bad thing for me is I used to have tons (literally) of parts for Chevy/GMC vehicles of this era and I sold them all off thinking that I would never need them. I have a few things left over like plugs, caps and rotors. I was thinking that I would stick to my Dodge products ... well I have another GMC.

[Prowbar]

I like the long replies

Seems all these dump truck systems are made by someone in their backyard shed, but that's my very limited take on it.

Nice that you can get replacement parts for cheap over there, I suppose you could use them in the rust belt.

I suspect the 7200 GVW axle is a 14 bolt rear end?

If that truck were mine I'd redo the wiring all over if its all spliced and hacked up like so many of them are. Interesting how such a simple truck can have so many wiring faults
I envy your electrical problem solving skills, though!

For standard small parts, Rockauto is a great website. I use them to get parts over here. What you see on the picture is what you get. If you can find a part in your year/model look in another model of year, most of the times they are there.

Always had a good experience with RockAuto. Using FedEx shipping, I can forward the customs duties, avoiding any unnecessary waiting times. My last few packages arrived blazingly fast, like 2-3 workdays. In my opinion I don't mind waiting a little longer but oh well.

If you every get tired of the (tired) 350, swap in the 351 V6 you were able to purchase! You need a manual bellhousing though. If its for an earlier SM420 the retainer ring needs to be bored out to 5.125" (off the top of my head)
Need a different engine crossmember as well, I suspect your truck has 1 tranny mount at the rear of the trans?

Just a random idea