Chevy/GMC Trucks 1973-1987: How to Build & Modify

Jim Pickering

may 2020 · CarTech Inc

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Build and modify your 1973-1987 GMC or Chevrolet truck in your garage with step-by-step processes to boost power, add curb appeal, and improve stopping ability, handling, safety, and more.

GM’s square-body trucks are a solid, simple, and easy-to-find rig--and that makes them perfect for modification. They’re American classics, and they’ve become the hot rods of a new generation.

Veteran magazine editor Jim Pickering brings these trucks into focus, taking you through the aspects that make them so popular and modifications you can perform to put a modern spin on their classic looks. He takes an in-depth look at all the major systems in your C10 and covers what can be done to them to turn your classic hauler into the modern hot rod that you want: a truck that’s fast, safe, full of curb appeal, and reliable enough to drive whenever and wherever you want.

Built in massive numbers during an 18-year production run, these trucks aren’t hard to source, but finding a good starting point and mapping out your plan are important. This book covers a lot of territory: how to find a good starter truck, LS power builds and installs, slammed air suspension and coilover systems, automatic and manual transmission choices (including a 6-speed manual conversion), cooling system upgrades, safely adding a modern alternator to factory GM wiring, modifying a mechanical clutch pedal to use a hydraulic master and slave cylinder, making new fuel lines and brake lines to support fuel injection and big brakes, installing a 4-link rear suspension system, fabricating an under-bed mount to hide air suspension components, building exhaust, adding LED lighting, interior restoration, and more.

If you're building a square-body truck that you’d actually like to drive regularly, you’ve come to the right place. There hasn’t ever been a more comprehensive, authoritative look at building a complete truck for street use that includes all the steps required to make it work.

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Author Jim Pickering has been the managing editor of Sports Car Market and editor of American Car Collector for more than a decade. He’s been a lifelong car and truck nut, all of which started with square-body GM trucks, specifically his father’s restoration of a 1975 C20 Scottsdale when he was a kid. He writes a popular Wrenching column of classic car how-to projects in each issue of American Car Collector.