1974 Chevrolet C10 Cheyenne Special

This 1974 Chevrolet C10 pickup was owned by my brother-in-law and sister. It had been in the family many years and my brother-in-law Jason inherited it from his father Marlin who was an aerospace worker at Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth and drove it back and forth from Benbrook to work for many years. When I received the truck, it was in fairly good shape but had a lot of rough spots.

Sitting down with Jason, we decided to do a medium restoration on the pickup in order to bring it up to safety standards as well as make it much more marketable in the classic truck market. The restoration centered on completely replacing the interior including carpet, seat covers, window seals, headliner and thoroughly cleaning the dash and door panels. I also had to repair several gauges and dials within the dash and replace the dash cover so that the overall interior looked fresh and clean. 

On the exterior the paint was in fairly good shape, and it required several hours of clay bar, compounding, polishing, and waxing to bring the shine back. I also had to fix several rust holes in the rockers and do new paint and clear coat to address these problem areas.  And replace the chipped and scratched windshield.

Mechanically I had to repair the air conditioning system, totally detail and clean the engine, and replace the valve covers with period correct GM orange covers. I also replaced the air cleaner, spark plugs, and performed a complete oil change on the vehicle. I also had to replace the carrier bearing on the drive shaft which took several hours of work to complete. And a new set of chrome trim around the wheel wells made the truck really shine.

Overall, the project was a labor of love as I wanted to help my family take a family heirloom and bring it back to life. It took approximately nine months to fully restore, with a few breaks in the timeline for holidays, etc.  The main challenge was sourcing the correct parts and getting the paint color for the rockers to match the existing paint color and keep the cost to repair on budget.  The value of the truck was initially about $3500 but after restoration we were able to market and sell the truck to a very nice lady in Sulphur Springs TX for an agreed price of $18,000.