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Old 12-29-2016, 10:16 AM   #51
CSHADES
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

After getting the front fenders painted, I decided I had better get the inner fenders and the radiator support taken care of. The ones that were on the truck were original and very crusty. By crusty I mean I don't know how they were staying on the truck themselves, I really didn't have much to un bolt. I was trying to figure out what to do for inner fenders, I said something to my brother about how much I hated Taiwan parts and he just laughed and said that he had found a set of used GM ones for me at a swap meet and bought them. So I as I read on this forum I looked at the reinforcements on the mounting holes for the inner fenders and decided to remove them to stop any rust under them. They did have some rust started. I also had to repair the bottom of the radiator support. I used all stainless bolts and fender washers to install the support and inner fenders.
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Old 12-30-2016, 10:48 AM   #52
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

I decided one Saturday morning that I needed to get the yard cleaned up before it started to get really cold out. The truck wasn't finished but I figured there wasn't a reason to keep the old cab around any more. I really hated to cut up my old friend but thought it was the best way. I decided to keep the cowl section in case me or someone else needed to do this change over on a newer to older cab. I also figured out that the rear of the cab with the indents was usable. The indents are just enough bigger than a license plate, so I can use them for recessing a plate on a hot rod. Recycling at its finest. As you can see the floors were in really poor shape. I didn't have to cut the floor pan in half it actually feel apart with the vibration of the sawzall. So next week we will install the font fenders and show you another pitfall I ran into with them.
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Old 12-31-2016, 01:26 AM   #53
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Nice work. I like the 2 tone color.
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Old 01-06-2017, 10:35 AM   #54
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

I hope everyone here had a good holiday. After getting the radiator support and front inner fenders mounted, I went to install the new front fenders. But I had forgotten you cant put the inner fenders on before the outer fenders. So I took the inners back off and went to put the new fenders on, no matter what I did the new fenders would not line up with the mount holes on the top of the cowl. I still had the old cowl sitting there so I measured the mount holes across the old cowl and compared the measurements to the new cowl. Guess what? the old cowl mount holes were an inch farther apart than the new cowl. So did something move when I was welding in the patch pieces or are the fender mounting holes different from 73-80 to 80-87? all of the rest of the fender mount holes on the cab are correct. So now I have to figure out what to do. I came up with a solution that I wasn't completely happy with but it works and most people will never be able to tell the difference. Any body want to guess?
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Old 01-07-2017, 05:11 PM   #55
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

The holes are different on the 81 up.
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Old 01-10-2017, 07:00 PM   #56
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

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The holes are different on the 81 up.
thanks. I guess I should have taken the advise I always give everyone else that's building something. Put the car completely together before painting. Of course the truck was still on the road when I was doing the cowl repair. I haven't loaded the other pics from my camera yet to show how I repaired the bolt hole problem so I will post the hood pics instead. The hood and radiator support are about the only sheetmetal parts I reused. I had looked for a perfect hood but could not find one around here. The junker guys across the street told me they had a spotless hood they would sell but their idea of spotless and mine must be a bit different. So I ended up repairing my original hood. It had a few rusty spots in the front vertical edge but was easy enough to fix. The only disappointing part was the fact that some how the dust decided to kick up a bit when I sprayed the clear. I ended up wet sanding and buffing the hood out which I swore I was not going to do on any part of a plow truck. I have done my fair share of sanding and buffing on the hot rod stuff. The purple truck behind the hood is the first one i did with base/clear and it has held up for 18 years now. I am getting to old and my arms get sore much faster.
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Old 01-10-2017, 07:03 PM   #57
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

I also painted the bottom side of the hood in the same green. It isn't any more work to make it green than to paint it black. I am not running any insulation under the hood, it seems to catch oil and moisture if you do.
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Old 01-11-2017, 08:01 PM   #58
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

As I was redoing the body on this truck I had to make a decision on what to do with the inside of the box. When I redid the truck the last time we just left the inside of the box as is. It held up fairly well over the years that way but was really rusty, beat up and just generally junk when I pulled it off the truck. I bought a new truck in 1997 and put a plastic bedliner in it. It was ok but I don't think it was very good on the paint under the liner. I bought a new truck in 2007 and had a line x bed liner sprayed in it. I will have to say the spray in bed liner still looks good after 10years, not that I have abused it the way I have this truck. So I decided to call line x that did my other truck and see if they would be interested in doing this truck. The first guy that I talked to said no problem just call when you are ready. The guy I talked to when I was ready 6 months later was not real enthused to say the least. I think he was expecting some old rusted out square body like the body I took off. So I got an appointment for the wensday before thanksgiving 2016 to take it down there. The place is about 40 miles away, so you can imagine my thoughts about driving this old vibrating 3/4 ton 4x4 down the interstate. I made it about halfway there and it started making a BAD noise in the engine. I am like great now what? So I ended up leaving at a park and ride lot just off the interstate and called the guy we use that could flat bed it back for me. Well for some reason the lock nut on the exhaust rocker arm on cylinder #2 decided it was done doing its job. The nut backed off, rocker arm came off the push rod and it was banging back through the carb. We had it fixed the same day in the shop but I couldn't get the truck back in to the liner place for 2 weeks. Needless to say the second trip down the interstate I was praying for no more issues at least for the trip there and back. I did get there but I had to fight the darn thing because it decided it was going to start stalling at every stop light. We ended up pulling the top off the carb and cleaning some crap out of it. The guy at the Line X place was a lot more agreeable after he saw the truck. The liner has a lifetime warranty and so while I was there I showed him the chips that my 2007 had in the tail gate. He said no problem and we popped the tail gate off and they fixed that at the same time they were doing the 77. I think the spray in liner was really worth doing and I hope it keeps the box decent for a long time.
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Old 01-11-2017, 09:35 PM   #59
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

That looks amazing. Nothing against the DIY jobs, but the pros are usually on a different level.
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Old 01-11-2017, 10:19 PM   #60
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Truck looks great! What kind of paint did you use?
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Old 01-12-2017, 10:27 AM   #61
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

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That looks amazing. Nothing against the DIY jobs, but the pros are usually on a different level.
I looked at different ways of doing the bed liner. From DYI and other professional liners and what I liked most about the Line X liner was the fact that when they spray the material it is heated which makes it flow and stick better from what I can see. I dropped it off on a wensday morning and picked it up the next morning. I thought for $500 with tax it was worth it.
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Old 01-12-2017, 10:29 AM   #62
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

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Truck looks great! What kind of paint did you use?
I purchased the paint from the local NAPA store. It is their Crossfire brand. It is a base/clear coat system. Everything has an epoxy primer on the bare metal before anything else was done.
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Old 01-12-2017, 10:37 AM   #63
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Mtck you asked me what I was going to do with the wiring. I had decided that after all the years of the factory wiring in the factory location did not work I was going to reroute it like you mentioned. I decided to run it along the passenger side of the trans tunnel so my big feet in boots was not going to catch it. So I ran the dome light, speaker and power wires for the roof mounted light mounted with clamps to the tunnel bolts. I was lucky for the dome light wiring I had 2 sets of harnesses to make a longer harness with factory connectors. It is up and off the floor, out of the way and easy to access if I need repair or add anything.
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Old 01-16-2017, 07:58 PM   #64
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

I talked earlier about the issue I had with the early fenders not lining up with the mounting holes on the 82 cab. So what I ended up doing was to cut a slot in the mounting tab and weld a half of a washer on the end to make it solid again. That looked good after I did it and brushed some green paint on it. The problem then was the bolt head hit on the hood hinge when it went to the closed position. I used a stainless button head bolt in place of the regular bolt and then ground just a bit off the hood hinge as you can see in the picture. It is not a perfect solution but most people wont know the difference.
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Old 01-17-2017, 04:18 PM   #65
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

At this point I was working on the details to finish the truck and get ready for plowing season. The one thing I had left to do was paint the air cleaner assembly. So I had it in the blast cabinet cleaning it up and when I took it out of there I noticed the nipple for the vacuum hose was missing off the air door motor. I thought great now what am I going to do? Even if there was a motor available I had already welded pieces on to this one a while back to make it function again. These trucks with a carb do not like it when it is really cold out and the hot air parts do not work. So I went over to my storage building with the intensions of finding a replacement air cleaner. I looked through all of what I have collected over the years(glad I kept some things). I did not have another q-jet air cleaner in the pile. So I called my brother that keeps even more stuff than I do, he didn't have one either. I looked at a perfect 2 barrel air housing I had in the pile and realized the snorkel was the same. So I drilled the 4 spot welds out and removed the snorkel. It fit perfect in place of the original one. I didn't get to carried away restoring the air cleaner, it was very crusty and unfortunately the original build date sticker on it wasn't savable. The sticker for the emissions I did save, that's the white sticker on the top. I painted around it and then cleared over it.
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Old 01-25-2017, 12:48 PM   #66
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

thought I would update. MTCK wanted to know at the beginning of the thread if I got the truck finished before it was time to plow snow. The answer is yes and no. I did get it done enough to use it for plowing but it is not finished yet. I still have the headliner and map pockets to install in the inside, they came back from the upholstery guy a few weeks ago just haven't had time yet. Will take a few pics of them before and after installation. I also have the trim to polish and install on the outside. The first pic is the truck on Sunday after thanksgiving, our first real snow of the season. The second pic is the second or third snow after plowing. It has had a few small bugs to work out. The worst being the fuel tank on the drivers side was the one from the donor truck and it must have some dirt or something in it that has plugged the fuel filter and idle ports in the carb a few times. We have pulled the carb off and cleaned some garbage out of it. I am on about the third tank of fuel on that side and it hasn't gave me any more problems so far.
The pic of the salter also shows the rear bumper that I rebuilt and painted. I think it came out pretty good. Yes I know it still shows Chevrolet on the back. I can not find the small piece of trim for around the tailgate handle that gos in the trim band for the tail gate. It is in the shop some where but I think it is hiding along with the rechromed vent window handles for my '63 Nova that I haven't been able to find for 6 years.
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Old 01-25-2017, 12:52 PM   #67
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

IT LOOKS FANTASTIC!!!
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Old 01-25-2017, 02:16 PM   #68
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Agree that turned out great.
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Old 01-25-2017, 04:38 PM   #69
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Awesome truck and story!
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Old 01-25-2017, 06:35 PM   #70
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Nice truck and build. Its cool to see these old workhorses in use doing what they were built for!
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Old 01-26-2017, 10:44 AM   #71
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Thanks for the complements. It was a long year to get it ready before 2016-17 plowing season. As you can see I did put some of the outside trim on the box and the short pieces on the cab. It ran very well last night and this morning plowing so hopefully that is the end of the carb/fuel tank issues. I am surprised no one asked about the trim install around the bottom of the rear window. I had to grind off the original chevy trim mount studs and weld on the studs in the correct positions for the GMC trim. It was interesting to get all those studs welded in so that they lined up for the trim to slide through.
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Old 01-30-2017, 02:22 PM   #72
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Very nice! I don't live in a plowed-often area, so we don't have to set our trucks up for that level of adversity -- just a lotta rain. But if there was a plow truck show, I would say that you would be on your way to a trophy.
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Old 01-30-2017, 03:03 PM   #73
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Nice job! I love the colours.

What did you use for the two sided tape on the chrome trim?

I used 3m but it is not sticking well.
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Old 01-30-2017, 03:33 PM   #74
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

Thanks for the compliments guys. I used the expensive thin 3M tape. It seems to hold well if everything is clean. I think there is a couple of different ones I will look at the part# when I get home tonight. The truck has been working well so far, but not the plow blade. I used it Thursday late afternoon to clean up the neighbors driveway. My brother was moving stuff around in the downtown storage building so I left the truck out for him to put in when he was done. He came up to the office when he was finished and told me the blade was ready to break off the subframe. So he spend a good part of the next day welding and reinforcing the blade and mount.
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Old 01-31-2017, 10:48 AM   #75
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Re: Rebuilding my 1977 plow truck

The part # for the tape I used is 06384 it is a 1/2 inch wide and seems to hold very well if everything is clean when you assemble it.
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