Tim Heermance from West Palm Beach, Florida, is a guy who knows what he wants-so much, in fact, that he is building the truck of his dreams by combining two of his favorite things, dualies and C10s. He didn't let a small thing like Chevrolet never having made it stop him. One Suburban, two C10 cabs, and a boatload of welding wire later, he has his truck.
Before we get into the buildup, let us give you a little backstory. Tim got his first C10 when he was 15 years old and body-dropped it over 22s. At that time, the C10s were very trendy and Tim didn't want to be a follower, so he sold it and didn't pick up another one for a while. Fast-forward a few years after a Cadillac and an S-10 passed through his garage, he couldn't fight the urge anymore and had to have another C10. He found a '71 that needed a bunch of rust repair, but it was still a solid truck. He pulled the driver's door off and started to re-skin it when an idea struck him: Build a crew cab. He stopped work on the standard cab and went looking for a three-door Suburban, which he found in no time flat. He brought the 'Burb home and got to cutting. He cut off the back of the Suburban then used pieces from two separate standard cabs to fabricate the back of the cab.
Once he had the cab roughed out, he moved on to building the frame to support the new sheetmetal. Using 3x5x0.25-inch boxed tubing, Tim fabricated new 'rails with a 3-inch Z that would not only hold the '74 C30 rearend and front suspension, but also produce a stock floor body drop. The front suspension needed some work to get laid out over the 24-inch wheels to come. Tim narrowed the crossmember 1-1/2 inches and mounted up a set of Chassis Tech lower control arms and a set of Slam Specialties HE-7 'bags to get the frame to kiss Mother Earth. Out back, the stock leaf springs went in the trash and some AVS link bars were fabricated into a four-link setup coupled with a triple-stacked set of Contitech 'bags.
The chassis and cab were coupled together so Tim could fabricate all of the mounts and such, as well as figure out how much he would need to modify the rear fenders. He needed to add almost 4 inches to the fenders so they would be tall enough to clear the 24s. Speaking of 24s, the wheels on the rig are a modified set of 24.5 Alcoas that Diesel Wheels cut down to a 24 and added a bunch of style. The ones on this truck are called The Rodder, and we think they look killer.
Once Tim had all the sheetmetal worked out, he shaved the markers and the gas door before having Tommy and the crew from Color Pro Collision in his hometown lay down the light-blue primer from PPG. They used 3 quarts of white mixed with 1 quart of blue to produce the hue you see here. That was as far as Tim came when we shot the truck, and considering he did all this under a tent in his driveway in two months, that's pretty impressive. Tim told us a funny story that happened during one of his late nights of wrenching. He was out under the tent at 2 a.m., compressor pumping away, when his neighbor came walking by. Like most of us, Tim thought, Oh great, he's gonna bitch about the noise.
Surprisingly, the neighbor, Dave, said, "I like what you are building here, so I want to sponsor you," and handed Tim some cash. Talk about neighborly. Tim would like to throw a big thanks out to Seth Greenberg, his neighbor, Dave "The Dawg," grandmother Marie, the crew at Color Pros and Diesel Wheels, and of course, his father, Tim Sr. He and his dad worked so tirelessly on this truck, Tim's respect for his father grew to a new level. Since the photo shoot, Tim Sr. and Tim Jr. have decided to open a shop called TNT Kustims-the TNT stands for Tim N Tim, duh-in West Palm Beach to make some money off of this type of custom work. If you are in the neighborhood, check them out.