Del Uschenko has been building custom cars and trucks for a long time now, and most of them were built in Canada, where the rides come rusty from the factory. A while back, Del moved down to Southern California, where he and a few buddies started a business named Old Crow Speedshop, where they turn wrenches on a variety of different projects. Although he had some killer customs under his belt, Del wanted to build something different this time. Back in high school he owned an older C10 truck, and those fond memories prompted him to go after something with an original patina that didn’t require hours of paint and bodywork to make it cool. That’s when he found a dinged and faded ’65 C10 on Craigslist, and after some cash was exchanged, he took it home and blew it all apart.
The plan was pretty simple, keep the truck looking exactly the way it was. Just bolt on some big wheels and dump it to the ground. This truck was going to be a full restoration for the chassis and engine, but everything else was status quo, dents and all. Even the giant mirror would stay bolted to the door, just to keep things as original as possible.
The truck was stripped down to the bare frame, and everything was prepared for a short build. The front crossmember was removed and replaced with a Porterbuilt Dropmember, which also brought a Unisteer rack-and-pinion to the table. Tubular Porterbuilt upper and lower control arms mated up to Slam Specialties airbags to drop the frame on the ground. Out back, Del decided to run a Porterbuilt Stage II rear drop kit, which incorporates a large C-notch and adjustable trailing arms with KYB shocks and Slam Specialties bags, bringing the rear down to match the front.
With the suspension worked out, now he needed to get the bags moving up and down. For that, he went with an Accuair kit with a touchpad interface. These kits are relatively new to the market, and they are designed so the user can push one of three buttons to lift or lower the vehicle to a preset height. The kit also comes with a valve manifold that makes installation easier as well. A pair of tanks were mounted to the rear of the bed, and then hidden underneath the raised bed floor made up of the original, partially rotted wood.
For wheels, Del wanted to have something old-school, but dug the big wheel look. To make that happen, he took a set of 22-inch Centerline Smoothies and masked off the polished lip to keep it shiny. Then he had the centers powdercoated charcoal gray by Pacific Coast Powder Coating. To make them look just right, he drilled and tapped holes in the wheel centers, then bolted on some GM hubcap clips so he could put on a set of 1956 Chevrolet hubbies.
Once the chassis was done, he ordered a crate motor from GM and dressed it up with a few goodies here and there to get it looking just right. After fabbing up a bracket for an engine driven compressor to fill the tanks, he bolted up a 700-R4 for cruising comfort. Del really wanted to do something different with the tranny shifter linkage because he’s not a fan of column shifters, and he hates floor shifters even more. To remedy that, he ran the shift cable to a hole in the factory parking brake crank mounted to the steering column. Not only is it super stealthy, it’s also pretty original.
From there, the truck was blown apart, everything was powdercoated or painted, and then reassembled so it was ready to cruise. It took just under three months to complete, and on its first adventure out into the world, it ended up at a pre-show party for the fall edition of the Goodguys show in Scottsdale, AZ. Del met a guy who dug the truck, and long story short, Del drove home with an empty trailer. Don’t think that’s going to slow him down though, because when he got home he started looking for another project to wrench on.