Project Copperhead: 1967 Chevy C10 Details Part 8

Hey, welcome to trucks. Got a question for you.

What do you think is the most tedious and time consuming part to a full on project like Copperhead here putting in the engine and tranny

laying out the suspension doing the interior. Uh These are all good guesses but the truth is

it's in the final assembly. That's when you need to make all this aftermarket stuff work together.

Trust me, sometimes they don't wanna work together.

But if you take your time, take each step as it comes before you know it, you'll be done. Now, obviously, I am down to those final steps on Copperhead here but remember almost nothing on this truck is original, which brings up some interesting questions. What am I gonna do about the radiator and the fans? And how about the leakage and the wiring?

And how am I gonna get gas in the tank? That is what I'm gonna show you today how to solve some of these problems.

The first thing we're gonna deal with is the radiator. Now, what we're using is this big aluminum radiator that we got from B cool. Now, this not only has the capacity to cool an air conditioned big block, which obviously we have,

but it also has all the fittings for the heater and the transmission

and the housing is completely polished. So this thing is gonna look awesome in that engine bay.

The radiator just slides into place and sits right on the factory rubber mounts on the bottom.

Now, this is where you can run into a little bit of a problem because notice that the stock rubber mount for the top is nowhere near fitting. This radiator is a lot taller.

But if you pick up one of these universal pieces from trans

dap,

that can be made to fit real easily with just a little bit of tweaking,

first set it in place and Mark and dr your hold

then modify the factory rubber mounts

finally bolted in.

Ok. For fans, I've got something that you're really gonna like.

This is a dual electric fan system from old air products made specifically for the 67 through 72 GM trucks.

Now, obviously, it's got dual electric fans. Main fan runs all the time. Auxiliary fan comes on only when you need it

and everything is all wired up. You got your thermostat and your wiring, your relays. Basically, all you do is plug in a couple of wires.

Now, the best part is this whole assembly slides right in place of your ugly stock fans route. Now, that's really cool down here on the bottom.

But since this radiator made us change these upper mounts.

We're gonna have to make this work.

Ok. Here's what I did. I fabricated a bracket that bolts to the top of the fans here runs over and utilizes two existing holes here in this upper bracket.

Simple, clean and very strong. As you can see. It is not hard to fabricate pieces and make things work.

It just takes a little time to decide where you wanna go with it.

All right. Now,

radiator hoses.

Now, obviously, we are not gonna use stock rubber hoses on an engine like this. First of all, we'd never find anything that would fit properly.

Second of all, it would look really bad on an engine. That's nice. Now,

this is more what we're looking for. Yeah.

Unfortunately, you are not gonna find something like this in a box and then just bolt it on. Now,

you need to make this, here's how to do it.

This is flexible stainless steel tubing that we got from Earl's performance plumbing

and it is specifically designed for custom making radiator hoses and all you do is cut it to the length that you need

and then just bend it into whatever shape that you want. Then once that's done,

all you do is put on the hose in the best fits your application.

Once you're done, just polish it

and clamp it in place,

then we are ready to move on to the interior.

Now, obviously, this interior is almost finished by now is a good time to talk about door handles. This is what I'm gonna be using. I got these from billet specialties

and they'll slide right on to the factory stub,

then we'll just cover it with the arm rest. Now, that is a nice look, looks really good with the door panel and those window switches. Now, how about the gas pedal

made it called? A little car. Got this big chrome one

that's for those of us with a really heavy foot and then to go with that

also got one of their braided stainless steel throttle cables. Now, these will not only look a lot better than what was in here originally,

but it'll make it a lot easier to hook it up to that new engine.

Now, what about this Nitrous bottle? We're not just gonna leave it out there in the open for everybody to see. Are we,

ah, I saved the best for last?

Yeah,

this is a custom console built to my special specifications by Kevin Lindamood at he's customs and as you can see, he did an awesome job.

You've got matching leather and matching design and matching upholstery, even a functional arm rest, but it gets really fun underneath that arm rest.

Yeah, there's my nitrous bottle

and you only think that this is an ashtray.

That's actually

my weapon system.

Yeah, just like James Bond,

got the nitrous purge and the Nitrous arming system and switches to open up my dual exhaust cutouts, all kinds of cool stuff. Take a look at this

that holds my gauges for my nitrous system and my auxiliary fuel system. Of course, up here on the shifter,

there's the controller for the gear vendors overdrive. Everything's all hidden up here. Nice. Making this the ultimate sleeper. Is this cool or what? Now I'm gonna take a break, hook up the nitrous. We'll see you when I get back.

Hey, welcome back to trucks. We are in the middle of one of the final shows of the build up of project Copperhead,

a 67 Chevy truck that started out as a frame and a cab here in the shop. Now, I'm dealing with a lot of the questions that you guys have asked about the final details on this project. How am I gonna hook it all up and make it work?

Right?

And one of the biggest things that people ask about is the fuel tank. Of course, that's because one of the first modifications that people wanna do to an old truck is get that gas tank out of the cab

and relocate it under the bed of the truck. Now finding a gas tank to go under the bed. Well, that's the easy part

getting gas down to it.

That doesn't come with any kit you are on your own for that,

but this is a slick way to do it.

Now, this polished stainless steel tank that we got from early classic enterprises fits up nicely between the frame rails and the cross members in the rear.

The filler neck is centered right beneath one of the bed planks.

So first we'll just mark the location of the filler neck on the bottom of the plank,

then remove the plank.

Next drill a small hole in the center of your mark. This is for the center of the filler neck.

Now to get to that filler neck down on the tank,

we're gonna go through this polished aluminum cap that we got from styling concepts.

Now, this is actually made for a PT cruiser

because it's the only one that's small enough to fit into the wooden plank between the metal strips.

Now, the trick here is to recess this down into the wood. So it's all flush for a nice, smooth clean look. So don't even expect to be able to use this factory mounting hardware. No,

you're gonna need to make this fit yourself. So first thing we're gonna do, center it over the hole we drilled and then make a mark here for the big cut,

then cut out the center hole.

Next, using a router,

cut the groove for the outer ring.

Now, what you want is for the cap to fit flush with the wood. So be careful that you don't go too deep.

Once you're happy with the fit,

treat the wood with a sealer where you made your cuts,

then mount the cap

and replace the plank

and there you have it

a slick little fuel door mounted down into the bed and the polished aluminum matches the polished aluminum strips and the bed wood and the stainless hardware. Now, the best part is because this is flush mounted.

Well, you can still use this bed to carry stuff if you want to.

Yeah, right

now that takes care of the bed of Copperhead. Let's take one last look inside this interior.

Now you can see how well this all came together. We started with a two tone look in the door panels, carried it through into the seats and into the center console. Of course, all that sneaky performance stuff is well hidden in the console waiting its turn.

Of course, in the dash, we got performance gauges.

Everything is accented with polished aluminum,

definitely a nice place to spend some seat time. Now, I got one more thing to show you out front.

You know, there comes a time in every project when that last piece has been put on and you can finally step back and take a look at what you've created. And for Copperhead

that time is now this c

induction hood was the last piece to put on to finish off the look of this truck.

And man, what a truck, remember though, this thing started out as just a frame, a cab and a title.

And the whole idea here was to show you what is involved in this kind of build up. And if you take your time and don't get discouraged,

well, even the roughest project will eventually turn into something that you can be proud of.

Now, the big question,

how does it run?

Well, I'm not gonna tell you, I'm gonna show you, but not today,

we're out of time. You have to wait just a little bit longer. But me,

I don't have to,

you know, when it comes to big rigs, everybody knows that, that big diesel engine,

that's the heart of the vehicle. But that box right there.

That is what controls all that power and sends it back to those rear tires.

But what's so special about it? And there's been songs written about jamming the gears and these things. So how does it do it? How does it work?

That's what we're gonna show you

how it works is brought to you by Wyotech.

All right, Danny, we've all driven down the road and heard a trucker catch gear after gear after gear.

Everybody wants to know what's going on. It's our job to tell him. So, what do we have here? This is a 15 speed transmission.

Um This is what you're gonna find in, in most of the regular trucks out there.

First question people have is why so many gears.

The reason is because we have such a short, at least in the old days. Such a short, uh, torque span in there, uh, maybe 300 RPM. So we needed a lot of gears to keep it in that power range. Ok. That just keeps the truck moving. It sure does. All right. Now, this box obviously is a lot different than people used to seeing

you have your main shaft coming in,

then you have dual shafts running down each side. What is going on? What happens is again, the main shaft where we're gonna grab all of those gears, what we do split it off into the two counter shafts. And the reason for that is because we have so much torque in these engines that we have to split it if we just went to one counter shaft where we might have some major,

our tranny. Now, I noticed the case is extremely thick. This is a heavy, heavy case

once again strength. It sure is. And you know, when we talk about that really is what's holding all of this together

trying to force it out.

Ok. One thing that's really interesting, there is no sync rows in one of these sort of transmissions.

Why is that? The reason is one of the main reasons is because

um, it's just one more thing to fail. We put synchronizer in here. So what we're asking the guys is to figure out how to shift these things, matching the engine speed with what's happening on those drivers back there. I bet you could tear up a sync real quick. You

can.

Ok. This area right here,

that's your main gears. It

is. How many gears

speeds in

speeds in here? It's all shifted with the stick.

It

is all right. Now, this area back here. What's that? This is what we call our auxiliary section

and it is shifted by air.

So we can either go into the low side and go through the five and we've gone through there and we pull this thing up into the high side, come right back in the

first gear in the first gear and you got your next,

the next five there

right

there. That's it.

Now, big question, why don't you see automatics

in, in big rigs? You know, I think the,

the biggest thing is, is not that we don't want them in there, but I think it takes power away from the engine and with the, with the manual transmissions. But when we shove that thing in gear, we've got that power going directly back to those drivers. Of course, another big issue is that people want to shift gear,

a

big truck and not shift gear.

Ok.

Now, electronically shifted transmissions, we've heard about those coming out.

What's the deal with those? I think they're gonna start doing that.

A lot of it is really gonna help as far as grabbing the gears and having

less wear in the transmission,

we can't miss it. It knows exactly what the road speed is with the engine speed and man, it can match it up just right evenly. So it's an

electronically shifted

standard manual transmission.

Now, the next time you run down the road and you hear a big old truck catching those gears. Now, you know how it works. I will always want to shift gears with a steel that stick

or

electric

that

you gotta have that

stick

with the big bins in it coming

up

there.

You know, just about everybody would like to get more power out of their engine,

getting more power and not spending a fortune. That's the trick. Well, this can help you out.

This is from crane cams and it's called the Quick Flow Power Spacer. It's available for carbureted and fuel injected engines.

Now, basically, it is an aluminum spacer.

It's got a special throat design in here

that gives you better air efficiency and better overall air flow. Oh, that's great. What does that mean? Well, according to crane, it means you're gonna get more power when you stomp on the gas, better fuel economy. When you're just cruising,

the power spacer is easy to put in. It's affordable and it gives you results.

What more do you want?

Well, how about a set of headers? Why?

Because that is another way to pick up some nice affordable horsepower out of your engine.

And these super competition shorties from Hooker

is gonna make a lot of you late model GM. Truck owners smile because they not only fit your truck,

but they also feature all the things that have made hooker headers famous for years. Thick

fangs,

nice free flowing bands, high temperature coding.

These will also work on two and four wheel drive trucks. Now, on top of all that,

they are emissions legal in all 50 states, which means

you can put these on and actually still drive the truck. Finally, you have got an opportunity

to get rid of those old restrictive nasty exhaust manifolds and get that engine breathing the way it should.

If you're gonna drive your truck a lot, it would be kind of cool to have a nice set of gauges to look at all the time. Right.

Right.

Well, Stewart Warner has something that you need to take a look at.

These are called the power series gauges and they're designed to look very similar to what you would have seen in an old muscle car back in the sixties.

You got the thin chrome bezel and flat glass, thin needle pointer and of course, cool looking numbers.

You can also get a different color accent to match your interior or your paint job,

but these don't just look good. No, they perform too.

The guts are all state of the art Stewart Warner technology, which means they are very

accurate, which of course is what you want in a custom set of gauges. Now, to go with this, you also get all the sending units and hardware to put these in and make them work. So if you got some serious power rumbling under your hood,

power series gauges can help you keep an eye on it.