Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Just found this thread, and read threw it a bit. Now of course I skipped around because its 200 pages! The truck looks good.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Are those summit racing decals in that box???
They better not be...because as much money as I have spent with them, those sons of biscuit eaters have yet to give me any kind of freebies.
Decals to adorn my toolbox cant be too much to ask...

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

OMG I hate them and toss 'em but they send me more

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Thanks! Gonna pull the bed off this week and pressure wash everything in anticipation of my 4/6 drop I ordered from Western. Any bed removal protips?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Get help don't be a hero, ask friends to help you lift it, etc

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Yeah I think I'm going to use my lift and then enlist 3-4 people to move it. Still using the wideband? Are you using any datalogging software?

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

LOL, thats it i'm boycotting them!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Awesome. You did clip the ends correctly didn't you? Lol

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

So after a week of driving the truck I had to add half a quart of water, thats better I used to add three times that before. So we will go another week and see what happens.

Re: Restoring Rusty - Arm Rests / Inside Door Handles
 

well as you recall my aftermarket LMC Truck arm rests gave up the ghost and did not even last a year, so it was time to go grandma car shopping

this lovely '93 Buick had the goods!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

well naturally our doors have a huge gaping hole right where we would want to mount this pull style inside door handles / straps, so time to check the scrap metal pile, and what do we have here if not an extra set of mud flaps - perfecto!

the door panels will still come off half a million times as will the doors themselves so these plates will be beautified eventually, we all know The Greg does not paint in the winter time, (and yes it's still technically Fall, but I'm just sayin')

Elegancia Francia

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

while at the MAN MALL (pronounced Junk Yard) I spied me a '76 square body and thought I would pull the dash out to give me something to weld on in the winter time, well, why on God's green earth (or dash pad in this case, ha ha) did GM have to put those three ugly race stripe indentations in that purdy little dash, why?

this seriously put a dent in my Naked Dash Winter Project - aka the NDWP

Re: Restoring Rusty - Seat Belts
 

I did make a mental note of how the mid mounted shoulder seat belts be mounted, here's how, about an iPhone height above the door striker bolt

this may not be news to some, but my '74 only came with lap belts that were floor mounted, so when I bought my shoulder belts I mounted them to the floor not knowing any better, some feller pointed that out to me on this forum, and it has bugged me since, so maybe some day I will remount them or more likely get a proper set that is floor mounted

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I've been playing Rusian Roulette with my parking break for about a year and finally decided to do something about it, so while at the Man Mall I extracted this parking break assembly after testing the racheting action on it and it seemed much better than mine

Re: Restoring Rusty - Parking Brake
 

for the record it is held on by three bolts, two forward facing go through the firewall next to the bulk head wire connector block and the third goes into the driver side kick panel (ie to the left)

Re: Restoring Rusty - Parking Brake Assembly
 

so I came home and yanked mine out - now guys told me to shoot some WD-40 on mine which I did but that didn't seem to fix it for long

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and right quick I knew what the problem was, a broken proprietary (funky wonkey twisty turney - can't just git at Ace Hardware type) spring that keeps the ratchet bracket down, mine was just flappin in the wind

hope you can see it broken off on one of these there pictures

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

mandatory stare and compare of the old and the new(ish)er

Note: how the factory decided to skimp out on paint and painted the entire assembly back in 1974 but said we can save a couple cents if we just paint the dog leg only in 1976 (can't blame Jimmy Carter for this he didn't start till '77, ha ha)

Re: Restoring Rusty - Parking Brake
 

this is how that spring is supposed to look like, see how it runs from right to left its about 1 1/2 inches long or longer than what mine was then wraps around that small metal bracket and points up

those of you with Eagle Eyes will notice that my old bracket had the little black spring to pull the hand lever back, where as my new(er) replacement assembly was missing it, no big deal we simply tranferred it over

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and that's all the updates for tonight

http://s3.amazonaws.com/manmadediy-u...son-advice.jpg

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I bet they put those indentations to strengthen that panel. Plus to reduce interior resonance for that Cadillac ride quality. Hahaha. I wonder if my 73 has those!

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Since my '74 didn't I would bet that your '73 doesn't either, and I wonder if they are there to allow for proper crushability in the event of an accident, part of their new crush safety initiative imposed by the Federal Government

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

you all know that for the most part I enjoy working on my truck Rusty, but this, this was a complete Nightmare to get out

Re: Restoring Rusty - Door Latch / Lock Mechanism
 

ladies and gentlemen the least enjoyable task - getting the dreaded rusty crusty door latch/lock mechanism out of the door if you have never gotten it out before

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I know, I know, sure it's easy if you know how, but I didn't ok, lol, I didn't know how those pesky GM clips went on and I hate them

you need to push the clip in with a pointy bit to get it to slide off, again hard to see that when its all rusty and dirty and it's dark in there, or the clip is facing the wrong direction

Top Tip: get a clip off that you can see, that you can get to, just to study it, you may not even need to take that clip off but do it just to learn how it goes on and off, that's what finally worked for me

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and yes we are going to clean the begeezus out of this

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

They can also be a pain to put back in ,but cleaner will help.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

You know I don't recall those indentions on my dash. Its been a long time since I've had the pad off.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Man, I love seeing your Man Mall trips. I recently took a trip to ours and found only two things worth grabbing. Found a nice quadrajet on an old 80's GMC square, and after dropping a bolt I happened to look up and saw the 1974 K10 next to it had a carbon fiber driveshaft. SCORE! Everything else was TBI shockingly, no 2bbls or 4bbls besides the one I snagged.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Try soaking it in some Evapo-Rust. It's like magic.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Thanks for the tip, I actually tried that product and even shared my write up on this thread (huge thread I know) and unfortunately it did not perform too well on 40 year old Rusty parts, so I stick with Phosphoric acid from Home Depot.

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

my brother saw this sexy beast by where he lives, and his wife goes: "Oh is your brother here?" man I wish, I love me some step side

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

minor injury report, that's what I get for working [ahem] indoors, get it, ha ha indoors

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

so I got a little wild hair up my caboose and decided to ride it out...

it appears you can remove the fender without removing the hood

Note: I used a size XL light denim jacket to prevent scratchability on the inner fender, I suppose any color jacket would work maybe even a size L as well, ha ha, on a serious note the two strategically placed 2x4s are supporting all of the hood weight

Re: Restoring Rusty - Driver Side Fender
 

this OG fender is worse than I thought, it surely deserves some MIG love

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

Re: Restoring Rusty - Door Hinges
 

with the fender off we could see the hinges, now you've all heard of the quote "square peg in a round hole", well...

Top hinge has one bolt that you have to get to from the inside of the cab, a bit of a P.I.A. it's the one hidden behind the round hole plug similar to a drain plug in the floors

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and here is the door all aligned and swinging shut with ease, not bad for a one man operation (I used a floor jack to lift the door up while I tightened the hinges, took a couple tries to get it just right)

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

I must say not having this tension spring in the hinge while aligning the door may have made it easier actually, but when the door was aligned I popped it back in, the color don't match cause it's from a donor truck

Re: Restoring Rusty
 

and perhaps the most rewarding part of all, removing the last of the badges