The Toy
My wife Sheryl and I bought our S10 back in February of 2010 in Clinton, Missouri, and hauled it back to our home in Osawatomie, Kansas. When we bought it, the truck was red with white scallops. That did not look very appealing. The first thing to go was the engine. I have a machinist friend who built me a 383 Stroker. After installing the engine, the oil filter collapsed in on itself and starved the engine for oil, so we pulled the engine out and started on the body work while the engine was getting reworked. After a few trips to LMC for rockers, cab corners and several other small items that you remember after you have driven home, we got all the body work done. I painted the truck in my neighbor’s garage in a makeshift paint booth and put the engine back in.
After driving the truck for about 5 years, the paint job that I did was not looking too great. So, another friend who owns a body shop cut me a great deal on painting the truck if I came up and did the sanding and prep. He did not know the colors that we were going to paint the truck, and when he got done with the green he called me and asked if I was sure that the gray that I had was right. I told him that they don’t look good apart but when you put them next to each other they look good. So he painted the truck and the next day called and said that I was right, they did look good next to each other. After we got the truck out of the body shop, we took it to several shows and cruise nights.
One morning, we were getting ready to go to a show when the engine would not start due to the ignition box failing. After I got a new ignition box put in, the next week we went to a cruise night in Pleasanton, Kansas. On the way back home, I decided to have some fun but I forgot I never set the rev limiter on the new box, and a small block does not like 8,000 rpm very much. Needless to say, the engine had to come out again. This time we dropped down to a 350 .040 over but switched over to aluminum heads and pumped up the compression. Now we are at 410 horse at the crank.
Another good friend of mine has a powered coating business on the side and coated the intake, valve covers, pulleys and brackets. I made the dash insert and installed Intellitronix LED gauges in a green to match the truck.
We built this to drive, and we have taken it to several shows and cruises from Kansas City, Kansas to Appleton City, Missouri. The best thing I like about the truck is the wheels. I love the old school rallies. In the 8 years that we have owned the truck, we have put around 15,000 miles on it.
