with Mason Duffey
Sometimes a bad situation can turn into quite the happy accident, as is the case in the story of student Dakota Logan and his 1984 Chevrolet K10 truck. While driving to work one day last semester, Logan’s 2005 Silverado broke down on the road. Not taking long to diagnose, he realized the rear differential had blown up, also causing the transmission to break. Most people would have cut their losses, sold the truck, and looked for a new ride. He had a different idea in mind.
After towing the Silverado back to his home in Ohio, Logan decided to pull the heart out of the truck and give new life to his 1984 K10. He bought the ’84 his senior year of high school and drove it throughout the remaining time before his freshman year of college. While the ’84 was a fun truck it wasn’t the most reliable, so it proved itself to be the perfect candidate for a new engine. He completely disassembled the front end of the ’84, removing the hood, grill, bumper, fenders and the old 396 big block engine. During this time, he also pulled the running 5.3 LS engine out of the ‘05 Silverado and began prepping the motor and the ’84 for its new heart. After a couple months’ worth of spending late nights wrenching, he had the new motor in and running like a top. With some time left over before the school year started, he was able to tackle another project with the truck. The original bed was rusted out and in need of some love. Instead of fixing the current bed, he decided to break out his welder and fabrication skills to make a new custom flat bed for the truck.
With the help of some friends, Logan was able to save what he could from his broken daily driver and use them to fix up his old K10. It gave the truck the reliability of an ’05 while retaining the vintage boxy look of the ‘80s. At the end of the summer, he was able to prove the reliability and enjoy the reward of all his hard work by driving it 900 miles from Ohio to McPherson, Kan.
