Robert, or Bob as he’s been known for most of his time in my care, has been kicking around with me for just over 15 years after he was bought to replace my first Camaro. I’ve been asked many times why my buddy Bob doesn’t have a more feminine name. Well, naming vehicles at all is silly–why try to apply reason to it? Once you give a thing a name it begins to take on a personality. Bob has one and it fits to a T. Bob comes from Bucket-o-bolts and barely won out over Arty, the phonetic pronunciation of the initialization of Rattle Trap. So Bob it is. As with most family members when they’re being extra obnoxious, the full name comes out. Thus, Bob is often Robert (or Roberta if you’re still hung up on the masculine name thing).

  Bob as first brought home, circa 2005  

Bob is a 1970 C10 (two-wheel drive half-ton) step-side short bed with a three-on-the-tree. Perfect, except for the two-wheel drive. I don’t know a whole lot about the truck’s history other than it was built in Baltimore based on the serial number, and stayed local for many years until I drug him across the country (I know, I keep switching between he/him and it. You get used to it eventually). Also according to the serial number, the original engine was a V8 of unspecified displacement, but that was long gone by the time I came around. Some previous owner had swapped in a small block 305 that was barely adequate in the power department and got terrible fuel economy to boot because I always had my foot to the floor in an attempt to keep up with traffic. The 3.73 gears in the rear end didn’t help any in the fuel economy department, but anything more fuel friendly would have been a real dog off the line.

I didn’t change much with Bob for the first couple years except for installing a new wiring harness (patched together with lamp cord when I got it), and installing a floor shifter after I got tired of crawling under the truck to pop the linkage loose on the side of the highway on my way home from work. It would get bound up between second and third gears thanks to worn bushings in the column shifter. I fixed some other little things like door latches and window regulators, but nothing major. Then I totaled by brand new (to me) second Camaro a whopping two weeks after getting it registered and found myself with some parts-money to burn. I should have bought the Camaro back from the insurance company and dropped the LS1 and automagic transmission into Bob, but I thought it would be a better idea to swap to front disc brakes and lower the truck while I was at it. Granted, the LS1 with the original drum brakes all round would have been a recipe for disaster, but I could have afforded the discs and the LS1 if I hadn’t lowered the dang thing. Live and learn.

What was supposed to be an approximately 3” drop up front and 4” in the rear ended up more like 6” in the front and maybe 3” in the rear. The rear didn’t come down as much as expected because the original springs were already saggy and I never did figure out what happened with the front. The company I got the drop springs from swore they were only a 1” drop spring, but combined with the 2” drop spindles…Bob definitely has some serious Cali rake. Not what I was looking for, but I love the look. While doing the drop/brake conversion, I also swapped in the rear end off of my parts truck to have 3.08 (maybe 3.07?) gears for better fuel economy. Here’s Bob 12 years ago, right after the swap and before baking in the sun.

  Bob dropped  

The only other major project that Bob’s benefited from was an engine swap a few years ago. I tossed the underwhelming 305 in favor of a small block 400–the biggest first-gen GM made. The exact vintage is not certain, but I know it came out of an early to mid-80s square body K20. Internals are also unknown, but I can tell it’s at least had the intake off at some point. A couple years ago I pulled the Quadrajet off in favor of an Edelbrock 1406. It has run fine since the carb swap (ran fine before too), but I miss the feeling of being pushed back into the seat and the sound of the engine gulping in air when the massive secondaries on the Q-jet open at wide-open throttle. I’ll swap it back on eventually. The 400 had a cheap set of full-length headers on it when I picked it up, and I ended up using them just to get Bob back on the road. I backed them up with a nice set of glass packs mounted directly to the collectors for the sake of getting back to driving as soon as possible with the intention of doing a more permanent install when time allowed. Guess I like the window-rattling, ear-numbing, headache-inducing growl too much–still using the same setup more than five years later. With the low end grunt of the 400, and the more highway friendly gearing from the previously installed gears, Bob gets an outstanding 9 mpg. Belive it or not, that’s better than the 305 ever did. Bob’s not quite so shiny anymore, but I’m liking the moss that’s growing on the sides of the hood and doors. Definitely in bad need of a wash.

  Bob currently  

Up until the last couple months Bob was back on daily driver duty while I performed some much needed and overdue maintenance on Bonnie. I finally got around to replacing the heater core that was broken during the 400 swap, and I bought a new set of stock height front springs to try to keep the tires from slamming into the fender wells every time I hit a bump. Bob’s been due for a new steering pump, rear truck-arm bushings, and some much needed hole patching. I’m also planning on sticking the 3.73s back in because it won’t be that much worse than it is right now, and more scoot is always a good thing. I don’t spend much time on the highway anyway. All that’s on the back burner though while the jHeap is hogging the garage. Over the years, I’ve intended to put Bob up for sale on numerous occasions, but never actually managed to pull the trigger. He’s part of the family.