New Chevy C-10 daily driver, need some help

I just picked up a '66 Chevy C10 to use as a daily driver and need a little info from other owners.

I've been looking for repro parts and there seems to be about a hundred dealers. Who are the most reputable? Any to absolutely stay away from?

Any thoughts or experience for/against lowering coils?

And since we all like pics, heres the truck .... my son is inspecting the bed floor.

 

www.67-72chevytrucks.com lots of info here . lots of places have parts for these trucks. year one and brothers comes to mind . www.earlycl***ics.com in my opinion have the best lowering kits. i used the 4/6 drop on my 69 and it was a very well engineered kit.

 

my old one had cut coils up front and monte carlo springs and 3" blocks in the back....i did remake the rear panhard bar ....rode and drove nice....it went up to your area ... a friend of tony allison bought it.... brandon

 

Tabco for replacement panels

 

I just bought some ball joints from LMC. They were made overseas. I'm not complaining, because I did not check first, but you might find some of their other parts are the same.

 

fullsizechevy.com

 

Thanks for the replies, I've been working on my '57 Chevy wagon for the last 8 years and know them inside-out, but this is the first C10 I've ever worked on and am totally lost. I need to order some ***embly & shop manuals so things are a little clearer.

My first project is to straighten out the wiring. I've never seen a dash harness cut and spliced so much. I also want to yank the hei distributor which is too tight against the firewall & get a normal distributor in there.

Another project is the brakes ... you about need both feet on the pedal to slow the thing down. I haven't popped the drums off yet so it might just need new shoes & drums turned. Someone has converted to a dual chamber master cylinder but the lines look like ****, I'll probably re-run them.

Back to the driveway ....

 

Sounds like the same guy that owned my 66 did the wiring on yers too. LOL Try GMC Paul for parts. Good guy to deal with and honest about his stuff.

Here's the link. http://www.gmcpauls.com/

 

good sites info. I've been thinking about looking for a 68 chevy stepside

 

You can bolt in a complete crossmember from a 71-87 Chevy halfton pickup truck and gain disk brakes and a 5 lug pattern in the process. There's literally 12 bolts to take out and put back in to install it. You can also get power steering that way too, depending on your donor truck. Then swap axles/brake hardware in the rear (or the whole rearend if your donor is a '71 or '72) to get the matching bolt pattern in the rear.

My '66 Suburban had this done to it and it was excellent. 5 lug wheels (5 on 5") gives a ton more wheel options and disk brakes are always a plus, but the power steering was the best, so much easier to steer.

 

I put an American Autowire kit in my '62 Suburban, and wouldn't even think of running anything else. EXCELLENT quality, great instructions, and a lot of options down the road if I want to add anything.
This was after fighting electrical gremlins for a year. I think the only reason my truck didn't burn to the ground is because there was no carpet or fabric anywhere in the interior...otherwise, I'm sure the wires would have caught them on fire, since several of them were burned through.

-Brad