I'm a notorious square body guy. Having grown up with them on the farms, and driving them when I was a kid, I've managed to collect about 13 of them. The one I always wanted was a '76-80 1 ton 4x4. About a year ago one of the guys at work hollared at me to come take a look at a local auction website. They had a 1980 K30 waaaaaaay out West in the middle of nowhere at an estate auction. I bid on the sucker, and managed to win it. So I rounded up a 5/4 ton and a trailer and headed 6 hours West to go get it. Unfortunately it didn't run (or have any brakes) when we got there, but the previous owner had a giant wheel loader, so getting it on the trailer wasn't too bad. It was a bit of a weird truck, having been a service truck in Oklahoma most of it's life, and having been in Western KS for at least 13 years, without ever having been titled or registered. It was fit with some monster of a PTO driven hydralic pump, and had a hydraulic motor driven air compressor on the bed, as well as 3 spare outlets. I think maybe it ran grain augers or something. The clock says 18,000ish miles, and I'm pretty sure that's accurate, I don't think it actually drove a whole lot, but it probably has a ton of hours on it. Those miles must have all been offroad, and pretty rough, because every single piece of the steering was completely shot too.
On the trailer at the first stop sign on the way back.
here it is shoved into the shop
The first thing I did was go round up some general maintenance items for it, and proceed to working on getting it running.
I think it took me a grand total of about 30 minutes to get it to run. Basically it needed belts, plugs and wires, and the old style solenoid fuel tank valve was toast. I just bypassed it for now until I can fit the new style motor driven one to it. Like every farm truck since the dawn of time, someone had ripped all the AC system off. Yay for old farmers.
After that I proceeded to strip the cage and the compressor off, so I could work on removing the bed. The compressor did work by the way. I'll probably go through it and put an electric motor back on at some point. I did leave the vernier throttle on it, just because. Never know when that might come in handy.
The bed had to come off so all the hydraulic junk could be removed. There wasn't a whole lot of room under there with all that in place. Thank god the local tractor repair place had a pump we could suction the tank out with, instead of my original plan of drilling a hole in it since there wasn't a drain plug. I think we pulled something like 40 gallons out of there. It still made a mess when I dropped the tank off it. I also cleaned at minimum 150# of red Oklahoma dirt out from underneath. There's still plenty caked on, but it kind of protected everything. The frame really isn't even rusty, most of the black is still on it, it just has a uniform coating of dirt.
I don't think this thing ever had any maintenance. Like I said, the steering was junk. At least that was easy. Though parts aren't cheap, everything is double the size and price on a 1 ton. Sharp eyed GM guys will recognize that these shocks are factory original
This truck with fit with 16.5" wheels. I am pretty sure 1980 was the last year for that. The tires were pretty dry rotted, so I looked for new ones. They're basically extinct. You can get all the trailer tires you want, but not truck tires. So, I had to order it up some new shoes in 16". They sent me the wrong wheels... But they sent 5 of them, so bonus!
I have a mint chrome bumper and a factory GM grill guard on a truck out back, so I'll get around to fitting those, but the ones had to come off here first. I don't know what brand this grill guard is, but it wasn't a factory one. Certainly stout though!
I had a spare set of new fenders for this truck, so I fit one just to see how it looked. You can also see how big the brakes are on this thing. I think the rotors are 1 1/4" thick.
A buddy offered me a bed in decent shape for helping him with some barn work, so I took him up on that. I unloaded this by myself...by hand. Do not reccomend, 0 out of 5 stars.
After 6 months of digging, I managed to track down all the bracketry needed to re-install the AC, so I got to work trying to figure out how all that originally went together. I finally think I have it on there right, so I can refit the rest of the parts.
I don't have a good way to attach video, but it runs like an absolute top. The front main seal might as well not even be there though. I'll get that whipped out one of these days. I also need to patch up the fuel sending unit wiring, it's been burned through on the exhaust. But it drives and runs ok. Definitely not a speed demon, with the old SM465 granny 4 speed and 4.56 axle gears. It'd probably pull your house if you asked it to though.
On the trailer at the first stop sign on the way back.
here it is shoved into the shop
The first thing I did was go round up some general maintenance items for it, and proceed to working on getting it running.
I think it took me a grand total of about 30 minutes to get it to run. Basically it needed belts, plugs and wires, and the old style solenoid fuel tank valve was toast. I just bypassed it for now until I can fit the new style motor driven one to it. Like every farm truck since the dawn of time, someone had ripped all the AC system off. Yay for old farmers.
After that I proceeded to strip the cage and the compressor off, so I could work on removing the bed. The compressor did work by the way. I'll probably go through it and put an electric motor back on at some point. I did leave the vernier throttle on it, just because. Never know when that might come in handy.
The bed had to come off so all the hydraulic junk could be removed. There wasn't a whole lot of room under there with all that in place. Thank god the local tractor repair place had a pump we could suction the tank out with, instead of my original plan of drilling a hole in it since there wasn't a drain plug. I think we pulled something like 40 gallons out of there. It still made a mess when I dropped the tank off it. I also cleaned at minimum 150# of red Oklahoma dirt out from underneath. There's still plenty caked on, but it kind of protected everything. The frame really isn't even rusty, most of the black is still on it, it just has a uniform coating of dirt.
I don't think this thing ever had any maintenance. Like I said, the steering was junk. At least that was easy. Though parts aren't cheap, everything is double the size and price on a 1 ton. Sharp eyed GM guys will recognize that these shocks are factory original
This truck with fit with 16.5" wheels. I am pretty sure 1980 was the last year for that. The tires were pretty dry rotted, so I looked for new ones. They're basically extinct. You can get all the trailer tires you want, but not truck tires. So, I had to order it up some new shoes in 16". They sent me the wrong wheels... But they sent 5 of them, so bonus!
I have a mint chrome bumper and a factory GM grill guard on a truck out back, so I'll get around to fitting those, but the ones had to come off here first. I don't know what brand this grill guard is, but it wasn't a factory one. Certainly stout though!
I had a spare set of new fenders for this truck, so I fit one just to see how it looked. You can also see how big the brakes are on this thing. I think the rotors are 1 1/4" thick.
A buddy offered me a bed in decent shape for helping him with some barn work, so I took him up on that. I unloaded this by myself...by hand. Do not reccomend, 0 out of 5 stars.
After 6 months of digging, I managed to track down all the bracketry needed to re-install the AC, so I got to work trying to figure out how all that originally went together. I finally think I have it on there right, so I can refit the rest of the parts.
I don't have a good way to attach video, but it runs like an absolute top. The front main seal might as well not even be there though. I'll get that whipped out one of these days. I also need to patch up the fuel sending unit wiring, it's been burned through on the exhaust. But it drives and runs ok. Definitely not a speed demon, with the old SM465 granny 4 speed and 4.56 axle gears. It'd probably pull your house if you asked it to though.
