Labor of Love…

Being in junior high, I distinctly remember going with my parents out shopping and us dropping off my mom at the store. Me and my dad had drove over to a local dealership to “look” at trucks because he had been ready to get him something newer. Basically, he deserved it…he was a hard worker and it was time. We spotted this gold ’84 C10 sitting there, stock as could be. Pops told me that he always had an eye for those square body Chevy’s. At the time, I didn’t realize I was staring at the truck we were going to have for the next 30 years. After some wheeling and dealing, the truck came home with us.

The truck wasn’t very old. I know it didn’t have very many miles on the stock 305. Seeing that it was actually a Custom Deluxe… the A/C was pretty much the only “luxury” option.

That was 30 years ago…in 1989.

Fast forward to today… The truck had been parked for awhile since my dad had a commuter Honda. Not much longer, Pops retired and handed me the truck about 10 years ago. He had dropped a 350 in it…he said he lost track of how many times the odometer rolled over but the original 305 was tired for sure.

Since I’ve had it, I’ve painted it again…found some stock rallies from a local junk yard, some trim pieces from another yard, and other parts from LMC. I really like the way these square bodies look when they’re clean and stock. It does them justice in my opinion. Since it wasn’t a factory Silverado, it didn’t have all the trim pieces I liked. So, I sort of put it all together how I wanted it to be, actually going to a junk yard, finding a wrecked one, and measuring out the factory mounting tabs for the cab back trim, tailgate band, etc. I added a factory tilt column and had the factory A/C retrofitted with 134a.

I’m tackling the interior next. Matter of fact, I have fresh LMC door panels, and have the carpet and kick panel kits coming soon. The color is the factory color – “desert sand metallic” per the code on the build sheet sticker. I have to give props to Maaco on that, they did a great job matching.

I’ve really managed to bring Goldie back to her glory relatively cheap! The cool thing is my dad has been able to see it being restored every step of the way, helping me put it together. Now my kids are going to have something to enjoy and cruise.