Hawkeye Community

Teaching Truck – Hawkeye Community College Uses the Rebuild of a ’72 C10 as a Learning Opportunity for Collision Technology Students

There’s been a long-running conversation in the hot rodding community in recent years about attracting, engaging, and inspiring the next generation of vintage car and truck enthusiasts. It’s a multi-faceted dialogue, as the hobby could certainly benefit from a fresh, new crop of participants, but there’s also a need for skilled labor. Virtually every hot rod, restoration, and specialty shop we speak to talks about the need to hire more craftsmen to keep up with the volume of work. This is where our story begins with one instructor at Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa.

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As an instructor in the Auto Collision Technologies program at Hawkeye Community College in Waterloo, Iowa, Terry Van Dyke knows firsthand about the demand for good labor in the collision repair field. And as a hot rodder, he’s also well aware of the struggle hot rod shops have in finding and retaining good talent. The two disciplines are not identical, though there is considerable overlap in the required training and skills. Van Dyke thought there might be an opportunity to introduce his students to the world of vintage vehicle restoration, repair, and modification, giving them another career avenue to consider when they graduate.

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Van Dyke put his thoughts into action a few years ago when he found a ’72 Chevy C10 pickup for sale. “It was kind of a heap,” he says of the weathered long-bed truck he arranged for Hawkeye Community College to buy. But he knew it was exactly the sort of rough blank canvas that could be an excellent teaching tool for his students, one that might help them consider the restoration or hot rod field.

Start by Taking Apart

Work began in earnest on the pickup in 2022. It was not a part of the standard collision repair curriculum, but an elective project students could participate on if they chose. “If they wanted to work on it, they could,” Van Dyke says. Some students were initially skeptical of spending extra time on a beat-up old truck, but Van Dyke says attitudes changed once the project was underway. “Once they got going, they really took to it,” he says. “I couldn’t keep them off the truck.”

Like any good project, this one began with a teardown. “Taking something this complex apart is an excellent teaching tool,” Van Dyke says. “Many students never get the chance to completely disassemble a vehicle. Fighting through corroded components and stubborn fasteners while maintaining the parts needed to get the truck back together takes good organization and problem solving.”

Frame Up

Once disassembled, Van Dyke used a kit from Brothers to shorten the frame and facilitate the short bed conversion. The frame was also C-notched in the rear before the students began installing new parts, many of them contributed by aftermarket companies or sold to the school at a discount. The chassis upgrades included a QA1 rear suspension with coil-over shocks and a 9-inch rearend from Quick Performance. A QA1 coil-over front suspension was also installed, along with Wilwood disc brakes. Rolling stock consisted of 20×8- and 20×11.5-inch polished American Racing Torq Thrust wheels wrapped in Goodyear 275/35 and 315/35 tires.

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An LS1 was chosen for power and built by the students using a host of first-rate components like a BTR camshaft, FiTech intake and fuel injection system, and a Concept One accessory drive system. Doug Thorley headers were used to direct spent fumes to a custom exhaust system with Flowmaster mufflers. Finish Line Transmissions supplied the 4L60E overdrive transmission.Hawkeye Community

Body Basics

As collision technologies students at Hawkeye Community College, there was plenty of time and focus concentrated on the Chevy’s body. Working on the truck required a different approach than the common remove-and-replace collision repair techniques used on modern vehicles.

“It was a good training tool,” Van Dyke says. “To actually be able to use a torch to shrink metal, to hammer and dolly, to manipulate the metal. They took right to it. I told them if they can do bodywork on these new cars, which are 22-gauge sheet metal, these older vehicles have a lot thicker metal that you can hammer and dolly on and straighten out easier.”

Beyond the metal straightening, there was also some necessary rust repair, the assembly of new short bed panels from AMD, plus some custom work. The modifications included a smoothed firewall, along with custom engine compartment panels from VanNatta Fabrication. The front bumper was narrowed, smoothed, and tucked tight to the body, while a rolled pan was installed in the rear. A Tanks, Inc. fuel tank was mounted at the rear of the frame, with a bed-mounted fuel filler. The taillight openings were modified to accept custom Chad Criss Designs LED taillights. Flush-mounted front and rear glass from Fesler USA was also installed, along with one-piece door glass from Brothers Truck.

Once the metal work was complete, there were still hundreds of hours of bodywork to complete. Sanding blocks from Linear Blocks were used to block sand the body exceptionally flat, including from panel to panel. When they were deemed ready, the panels were painted in pieces using Akzo-Nobel Sikkens Hyper Silver basecoat with five coats of clear that was blocked with 1000-, 1500-, 2000-, and 3000-grit sandpaper. The panels were buffed in pieces and then assembled. Finishing exterior details included a custom grille from Hot Rod Innovations, United Pacific LED headlights, Chad Criss Designs side markers, Ringbrothers door handles, and a new wood bed floor from Mar-K.

Cool Cab

To give students the complete custom build experience, the truck’s interior was also completely redone. “They didn’t like laying on the floor to get up underneath the dash to get things in,” Van Dyke says with a chuckle, but they persevered and got things done.

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The dashboard was painted satin red and fitted with a Ringbrothers instrument bezel and Dakota Digital RTX gauges, along with a Vintage Air system and a Custom Autosound stereo. A Painless Wiring harness was used to connect all the electrical elements, and an Ididit tilt column was topped with a Billet Specialties steering wheel. The red vinyl seats, console, door panels, and more came from TMI Products, and Lokar pedals provided a perfect finishing touch.

Heartland Unveiling

Like any good hot rod or custom project, students worked right up to the wire to get the C10, which was christened “In10se,” finished in time for its unveiling, which was scheduled for the Speedway Motors Heartland Nationals last summer in Des Moines, Iowa. “It was a lot of long hours here at the school by the students,” Van Dyke says, but they persevered and had the truck ready for when the cover came off at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The truck drew an admiring crowd, and you could see the gratification in the faces of the students who were present at the reveal.

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“In the end, they’re proud of what they did,” Van Dyke says. “It built their confidence. For some of them, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime shot at doing something like this, and to be able to tell people, ‘Hey, I worked on that truck!’ The students of Hawkeye Community College learned a lot that they will take with them and remember forever on their path.”

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So, what happens now? The “In10se” Chevy is slated to be sold via online auction, with the proceeds going toward scholarships for the Auto Collision Technologies program at Hawkeye Community College. The story doesn’t end there, though, as Van Dyke has already secured a new project truck, an ’86 Chevy, that will serve as a training tool for future students, ensuring that restoration and hot rod building techniques are passed along to yet another new generation.

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Photos: David Heller, Center Scene Photography

Editor, Goodguys Gazette

Damon Lee began snapping photos at car shows when he was 10, tagging along with his father to events throughout the Midwest. He has combined his passion for cars and knack for writing and imagery into a 20-year career in the automotive aftermarket, writing for titles like Super Chevy and Rod & Custom and, more recently, working for respected industry leaders Speedway Motors and Goodguys Rod & Custom Association.