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Words: Tommy Parry
Owen felt he needed a way to stay warm in the Manitoba winter, and rather than cozy up by the fire with a glass of whiskey, he picked up a ‘52 S-10. A donor car, a ‘91 S-10, provided most of the needed running gear, but Owen was still uncertain about a motor and transmission package. He set off proudly, only to have his enthusiasm dimmed by three cities of mice and a few pounds of mouse excrement.
After taking the doors and the fuel tank off the ‘ol clunker, Owen started pulling the front suspension apart, since the ball joints, tie rod inner/outers, sway bar end links and upper and lower a-arm bushings needed replacement. So, he ordered all new parts, and also picked up a pair of rebuilt front calipers. After a sandblasting and a coat of black, Owen tacked on the front suspension, a set of Belltech Nitro Drop-2 shocks, steering and brakes, using the 2" drop spindles.
After dropping the cab and bed onto his rolling frame, Owen grabbed a rag off the shelf, wiped the sweat from his forehead and began hammering at the doors. Too stubborn to fit into their frames, he had to force them into compliance. Once it was all done, the bludgeoning had clearly been worthwhile.
Having an engine builder in the family helps. His father-in-law was able to offer Owen a tasty small block with aluminum heads at a very reasonable price. Without too much bread lost, Owen now had 425 ponies to play with, but he would have to work the steering shaft out of a dirt track car and around the small block’s headers before he could enjoy that grunt. He then opted for a T5 transmission, ordered a clutch, topped it with a shifter, picked a Lakeside housing out of the corner of his garage and mated the two together. With that powertrain, Owen would have no problem spinning the 15” Corvette wheels wrapped in 255-section tires.
Owen picked up a fancy fuel tank the following weekend. Considering he had invested somewhere north of 250 hours by this point, a dependable fuel tank would serve as a cheapish insurance plan. Once that had been tucked away neatly, Owen laid down a tasty collection of pine planks and sealed off his bed.
After coating much of the cabin in primer, he laid down some sheetmetal and cleared some of the cancer from the corroded floor. Relieved at having done all the rust work on this car, Owen laid down a couple coats of paint and plugged in some era-correct gauges. Topping it all off: A set of reupholsted Acura RSX seats.
Once he'd popped on a set of bumpers and license plate frames, he had a road-ready roller with pizazz to spare.
After fitting a custom exhaust with some relatively mild Flowmaster 50s, Owen brought in his engine builder and broke in the motor. He had a few minor glitches still to contend with before he could get her truly roadworthy. Among the issues was some irritating driveline vibration at higher speeds. After troubleshooting a few things, Owen ended up cleaning the mating surface on the differential yoke, as there was a bit of corrosion building, which must have been putting pressure on the u-joint. Also contending with some annoying wheel hop, he picked out a couple of traction bars and mounted them at three degrees - a near-ideal angle for a lead-sprung vehicle. Now, he had a functional beauty.
Being a perfectionist, Owen kept tweaking the exterior to his liking. There weren’t many aspects which needed improvement, but the bumper filler panels - admittedly in a stain he wasn’t exactly fond of - helped bring everything together.
The finishing touch might pull at the heartstrings of hot rodders the most. Since Owen couldn’t locate an original speaker cover, he devised one himself from a thick cut of cherry. It completed the interior and did justice to the rest of the build, which was simply immaculate.
