Found a running 85 C10 squarebody on Harbert's lot and bought it

man an 85 shortbed with a straight bed and solid corners is the one everybody is hunting right now. the shortbed fleetsides are the ones that went up the most, longbeds are still somewhat reachable but a clean short is real money now. you did good getting a running driving one for under project money, that basically does not happen anymore.

the two tone worn to primer is exactly the look guys pay a painter thousands to fake. leave it. and yeah dead fuel senders are just part of owning one of these, the wires corrode at the tank and the float sinks, i think i have replaced four of them across the trucks i have owned.

that light blue two tone was a factory color, light blue metallic over the white lower on the Silverado and Custom Deluxe trims. so what you have is a real survivor in its born colors, not a resprayed truck. those are getting scarce, most got repainted or wrecked decades ago.

a dead fuel sender is the most squarebody thing i ever heard, welcome to the club. couple things while you are in there. put a new lock ring gasket on when you button the tank back up or it will weep gas smell into the cab, and check the rubber filler neck grommet, they dry rot and crack. both cheap. and on the 305, if it ever gets a rough idle it is almost always the TBI or a vacuum line, not the motor. those little 305s run forever if you keep oil in them.

good honest buy. i have watched folks pay more for a rust bucket that did not run.

jealous. i have been watching harbert's inventory for a stepside for months and keep missing them. how often do they list squares? i am maybe 15 minutes from that lot and i would rather buy something running local than ship a project in from up north sight unseen.

also did you finance or pay cash? trying to figure out if they do their own paper on an older truck like this or if i need to walk in with my own money.

do NOT paint over that patina cal. i mean it. i repainted my 86 back in 2011 thinking i was doing it a favor and i regret it to this day, it looks nice but it looks like every other repainted square at the show. yours has a story baked into the paint that you cannot buy back once its gone.

what i would do, wash it good, hit it with a light cut of a gentle polish just to knock the chalk down, then two coats of a matte or satin clear to lock the patina where it is so it stops going backwards. that is it. a real survivor left honest is worth more than a repainted one to the guys who actually know these trucks. save the paint money for the brakes and a fresh set of shocks.

moving this over to the survivor build section since a bunch of folks are going to want to follow along. clean pickup and a fair buy cal, this is exactly the kind of thread we like to see here instead of the usual is my truck worth anything posts.

for the record we get a steady trickle of guys who found their square on that same lot, so you are in good company. a couple of the long timers here have bought off harbert's more than once. if you start a proper build log tag me and i will pin it. and listen to phil, do not paint it.

i bought my 84 K10 off the same lot two summers ago and the buying was just as easy as you describe. 4x4 longbed, 350, granny gear four speed, factory two tone brown. mine was a running driving truck too, a repo off some fella who quit paying on it. drove it home to marshalltown and it is still my feed truck to this day.

only thing mine needed was a new fuel pump about a month in, which on a carbed 350 is a 40 dollar part at any parts store and 30 minutes in the driveway. other than that it has been dead reliable. i tell everybody around here who wants an honest old farm truck to just go check harbertsautosales.com before they overpay some flipper on marketplace.

enjoy that C10. a bench seat and a column shift and no computer telling you what to do, cannot beat it.

the 305 th350 combo is bulletproof and boring in the best way, which is exactly what you want in a driver. do not let the internet talk you into yanking a perfectly good running 305 for an LS just because thats the trend. drive it as is for a year, get to know it, then decide.

do the soft brakes first before anything fun though. on a square with soft pedal it is usually a tired master cylinder, a hose swelling shut, or the rear drums out of adjustment. rebuild the whole system while you are in there, master, hoses, wheel cylinders, shoes, and bleed it good. it is a cheap job and a truck that stops right is a truck you actually want to drive. after that put your money into shocks and tires and enjoy it.

solid corners on a rust free square is the whole ballgame and you guys down there do not even know how good you have it. up here in kansas i patch cab corners and rockers on every single square that comes through my shop, the salt just eats them from the inside out. a rust free southern cab is worth driving a trailer a thousand miles for.

i have actually had two customers ship trucks up from that lot specifically because the dry southern metal is so much better than what we find local. by the time you cut and weld new corners, rockers, a floor, and a bed on a rusty northern truck you have spent more than the price difference on a clean southern one anyway. buy the good body once and be done. nice truck cal, leave it exactly like it is.