Re: Restoring Rusty - New (used) Front Fender
 

The Greg was pretty busy

So I went back to the junkyard and pulled an inner fender - $15 bucks I think, now watch I'll probably spend twice that on materials to strip it, clean it, prime it, and paint it, LOL

Question for you all: Did GM undercoat these inner fenders at the factory, or is that just 40 years of dirt and grime stuck to their bellies?

Re: Restoring Rusty - Prepping the Inner Front Fender
 

so I used the Aircraft paint stripper on the top side and it didn't do much, so then I went to the Muriatic acid and it showed better results, but when it came down to it, I still had to use a wire wheel on my small grinder to get all the rust off

man this thing flush rusts super quick, so its hose it off, then dry if off, then Acetone it and shoot it with that clear Rust Fix rust converter thing, that brand sucks when it comes out, it shoots a small narrow strip and does not cover well at all, see how it turned out like a zebra or a tiger, yet it all looked nice and wet when I sprayed it, but it comes out clear so its difficult to see what you sprayed

Re: Restoring Rusty - Jack Usage
 

in case you all were wonderin' how to use that bottle jack ~ here you go

Re: Restoring Rusty - Inner Fender
 

man lots of work, this is

cleaned the belly of that inner fender and tried a different rust converter primer this time, cheaper too, this one is by RUST-OLEUM, love the way it covers and sprays, really good coverage, also since it's not clear you actually know what you sprayed

I am gonna use RUST-OLEUM undercoating for the belly, which says you may or may not use a primer first, but I decided to use one anyway

Re: Restoring Rusty - Holley Carburetor
 

just scored this 600 CFM Holley 4160 four barrel electric choke refurbished aluminum Carburetor with vacuum secondaries on eBay for $190 shipped, should go nicely with that Weiand intake

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Cool work. Glad to see you keeping at it.!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Truck is looking good

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

thank you

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

the rain let up so I decided to go back at it, I resprayed that "tiger stripe" inner fender with the Rust-Oleum primer which is meant to shoot over rust, it has better coverage than that Kryolan clear stuff I was using

if all goes well tomorrow I will shoot the undercoating

Re: Restoring Rusty - A.I.R. Delete
 

been planning on removing the Air Injection Reactor System and finally got around to it

the first pipe plug broke off - go figure, then a second one, although I did soak em in BP Blaster

one as always needed a bit of gentle persuasion - vice grips style

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I used to use the rutoleum but another member mentioned this..... And like the fact of no primer needed..

VHT EPOXY


Found some at advance

By the way AWESOME progress

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

thanks I will have to check it out, sounds like POR15 in aerosol

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

then it was off to Home Depot (well two of em since the first only had 5 of the fittings)

thanks to the good folks on this forum sharing their know how I was able to determine I needed the Brass Pipe LFA-737 plugs

can you see my plug in the red 1/4 inch (8mm) slot I screwed in to the store to show you guys what we need

Re: Restoring Rusty - Poor Front Fender
 

yup ours do that up here,fall leaves/debris and then it holds the winter salt....
I opened up the drain holes in the 4X4s fender bottom,stuff flushes out easier.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

nice progress .... keep up the good work =0)

Re: Restoring Rusty - Plugs Are In
 

it was too dark last night to get more than one plug in so I came home from work today and got the other seven screwed in, note the aligned bolt heads, Concourse Ready! JK

$20 bucks I paid for these and now my car looks like it has 8 gold teeth, not a big fan, if I was to stick with manifolds I would pick up some without em holes at a swap meet, but I'm getting headers come March

Re: Restoring Rusty - Painting the Inner Fender
 

finally got the fender in the paint booth today ~ LOL, bet you didn't know I was gonna color match that baby, I know it was black from the factory, but I like more contrast in the engine bay, the engine don't stand out if everything around it is also black, just my preference that's all

got some single stage color match paint, (OMNI brand I think it's PPGs cheaper cousin) will most likely need a second spray can too get the color to brighten up cause of the deep brownish red primer under it, note the lame color comparison of the wet fender to the dry glove box on the ground (and in different light) but hey I was impatient to see the results

Re: Restoring Rusty - Blower Unit
 

figured if I don't get to the blower unit now I will never be able to reach the bottom bolt after I put the shinny new(er) inner fender back on, so that baby had to come off for a wash and a respray

trying to figure out if there is s gasket between the fire wall and that blower box cause there aint much left of mine if there was one

Re: Restoring Rusty - Cross Eyed Rusty
 

while I was literally watching the paint dry I decided to see if I could figure out why Rusty is cross eyed, well the only plastic part in the headlight assembly is what broke, that white little piece that holds the adjusting screw to the radiator support, go figure, darn plastic!

some turn signal bulbs are out too, so making a short list for AutoZone for tomorrow, lol

Side Note: very impressed with the heavy duty quality headlight chrome bezels, love working on this truck, easy to take in and out too

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Your truck is looking good! Is that paint from Jerry's Paint? I used their matching paint on my 87 GMC and was very happy with it.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

yup, that's the place

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Keep it coming dude.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

with a long day ahead of me (needin to wire wheel the driver side frame rail) I started out doing anything but that

first I washed the headlight bezels since I took one off to fix the cross eyed shine, then took the second one to "stare and compare" in order to figure out what the heck was wrong with the first

I noticed the bezels were blacked out in the middle, that got me to thinking maybe some 2,000 sand paper and etch primer and we could black out the entire thing, but I am shelving that idea till summer

then I just HAD TO figure out why some turn signals worked (driver front good, driver rear bad, passenger front bad, passenger rear good) WTH

cleaned and washed the lenses, and after checking the bulbs its most likely the flasher doohickey

Re: Restoring Rusty - Blower Fan
 

what else can I do before wiring that fame rail, I know I can acid wash that blower unit housing thingie

first pics are the dirty originial

next pic is just washed with a garden hose

next pics are rust free using Phosphoric Etch & Prep from Home Depot (that's what I wanted when I bought Muriatic acid last time I was there)

so housing is prepped and should get painted tomorrow

"Your submission could not be processed because a security token was missing.

If this occurred unexpectedly, please inform the administrator and describe the action you performed before you received this error."

cute error

Re: Restoring Rusty - Frame Rail Prep
 

ok, lets take a look at that frame rail we need to clean and wire wheel and Metal Prep and finally POR15 it

when I painted the front bumper it nearly killed me to bolt it up to that dirty rusty frame rail RoadKill style! lol

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

it was a fogy Sunday morning when a lone man sat in his black T and blue jeans on the garage floor sanding and wire wheelin the frame of his truck, wire wheelin and sanding

eventually sounds of the first football game could be heard from his old boom box from across the garage, and he was still sanding and wheelin and sanding some more

for the record I aint gonna paint the drive side till later on, just showing you the contrast of an almost cleaned side and how it used to look

Re: Restoring Rusty - POR 15 Time
 

more time went by, and more dust flew and the man thought to himself:

"wait a minute POR stands for Paint Over Rust not Paint Over Perfectly Clean Metal"

so he said enough sanding already it's time to wipe it down and paint

bought a quart of POR 15 for $55 bucks, a pint for $32 would have done it, as I believe a quart is enough to brush it on the entire frame of our trucks, one coat at least

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

You are making great progress ,looks gooder .

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

LOVE HOW IT TURNED OUT, though we'll see what it looks like when it's finally dry I got the Semi Gloss stuff so hope it tones down a bit

I did mask off the suspension cause I did not want to paint it until I disassemble it and clean it later on, and I didn't want stains here and there on it, that looks tacky.

Advice if I may. It is a ton of work to paint the frame with the engine in the car and the car assembled on the frame, a lot of tedious work, the electric tools do not reach in all the places, so a lot of it is manual.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

That looks great. I can't wait to see it dry and see how it looks then.

Re: Restoring Rusty - Fire Wall Touch Up
 

had a bit of paint left over from the inner fender so decided to touch up the fire wall behind the blower unit, it aint perfect but all we are going for is mo better

man the fumes from just shooting this little area in the garage are reduncolous, I did wear a 3M 6001 mask though

Re: Restoring Rusty - Fire Wall Touch Up
 

Sure is lookin good!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Looks nice.

Re: Restoring Rusty - Undercoating the Inner Fender
 

finally I got to shoot the undercoating on that inner fender, at this rate I will be done with the truck when I'm 107 years old, LOL, but what do you expect from a paint booth enclosed by nature with organic climate control, hee hee

man this Rust-Oleum Undercoating product covers really well, but it does not dry fast at all, it's been 4 hours and it's still wet as if I just sprayed it

last pic is a close up of the texture

Re: Restoring Rusty - There's a Transmission Here Somewhere
 

if they gave out medals for the dirtiest grimiest drive train / undercarriage my truck would get both Gold and Silver medals

check this out, how does Rusty compare to your trucks?

Re: Restoring Rusty - Turn Signal Replacement
 

got a driver side turn signal lens at the junk yard for $7 bucks so replaced that, did you know GM started using torx screws for them sometime after '75, mine was still phillips so I was totally unprepared at the junk yard to pull this part, had to get a bit creative with needle nose pliers, they also wanted $6 bucks for a used flasher thingie, so I passed they sell for that much new at AutoZone

Re: Restoring Rusty - You Hoser
 

just had to replace that accordion style universal upper radiator hose, I can't stand those things, AZ $18 bucks

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

If you saw the motor in my old truck you'd think you saw a twin. It was super grimy. So grimy my buddy refused to help me pull the motor, till I cleaned. He manned up and did it anyway. My crossmember had no rust on it thanks to the oil and sludge.

Re: Restoring Rusty - Lower Radiator Hose
 

Decided to also replace the lower radiator hose after I took it off to clean it and realized there is a rusty spring inside of it, time to go. The replacement hose did not come with an internal spring yet it was molded to fit, nice.

Contemplating why the upper radiator hose costs $18 yet the lower radiator hose only costs $13 (same brand) both from AutoZone, LOL

Regardless parts are cheap and in abundance, that's another reason to love these trucks!

Re: Restoring Rusty - First Set Back
 

Due to the family oriented nature of this site, lets just say we have experienced our first MINOR SETBACK!

So after I sprayed the Undercoat on the belly of the inner fender I noticed it was still super wet to the touch 4 hours later, than 8 hours later. I read the instructions and they said to not use when below 50* degrees, well it was over 60* when I shot it. I also shook the heck out of the can before spraying and in between squirts and the two coats.

Put the fender inside the house over night (the wife didn't take too well to that, love that woman and evicted it the first thing in the morning back to the garage - I was already at work)

Anywho in the morning there was a puddle of about quarter cup of liquid in the valley of the upside down inner fender.

What did I do wrong?