Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

I got this truck in July 2019 and have already been working on her. We've named here Angie because... well it is hard to come up with a name for an orange truck. My wife and I like to give our vehicles female names so orANGe became Angie.

I don't know the history on this truck, but its pretty apparent that she had a previous restoration. Maybe 12-15 years ago if I had to guess. I can see rust repairs and things are a little too clean for a 71. Most of what this build is about is reverting PO "upgrades", and finishing where shortcuts were taken.

My intention is a nice, reliable driver. A mulch getter for my wife, and a trailer hauler for me. No plan to ever put her in a show. I only tend to work on her a few hours on the weekends so this isn't going to be an overnight rebuild, but I've already made some decent progress. Here are some pics of when I got her. The SPID was on the glovebox door. The VIN matches the title but the sticker is in too good of shape so I don't know that I believe much of the rest of it. Very little of the truck currently matches the SPID.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

This truck obviously had a few fuel tanks in its lifetime. Still had the filler for the in-cab tank. The bed (maybe not original to this truck) at one time had dual aux tanks. There was also apparently a rear tank with a filler in the driver side wheel well in the bed. When I got her, it was a rear tank with the filler in the bedfloor. With tailgate open, it was like a 4 foot reach to get to the cap. I live in Texas so putting your hand on the bedfloor to lean in wasn't a good option. It all (except the original filler on the cab - wife likes it) had to go.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

I am NOT an accomplished welder, and I do have to slather some body filler over my patches. But I'm happy with the results so its all good. Some shots of patching up the bed.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

I decided to go with a Boyd side fill rear tank. Fits well and tucks up pretty nice.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

And a couple more shots of the tank.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

And I went with a Hagan fuel door. I extended the fill and vent pipes with stuff I kept from a donor vehicle. I had to cut the inside of the bedwall and floor to deal with the angle of the fill. I made a cover that shouldn't make it too hard to sweep out the bed.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Fuel door area still needs some final bodywork and I need to install the magnetic latch to hold the door out even, but this is where it stands now.

I should get caught up on my progress in the next day or so.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

I'd mentioned this is intended to be my trailer hauler. So, I installed a Class 'E' trailer hitch, outlets for the trailer lights and electric brakes, and the trailer brake controller. One of the PO's had started rewiring the truck with a Painless wiring kit, but had basically left an unfinished mess with only essential connections made. After running wiring for the trailer brakes I put the wiring into conduit. I also installed a number of weatherpack connectors in the rear for right and left lights, the trailer stuff, and the license plate lights. Should make it easy to disconnect if/when the bed has to come back off.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Neither my wife or I were very sold on the "sport" mirrors on this truck. They just didn't look right on a 3/4 ton, and this is going to be a trailer hauler. Got a pair of DG4 below eyeline mirrors from ebay seller georgiaclassicsalvage. Mirrors were well packed and he even threw in an extra mirror head. Not sure why, but while the mirror and the tripod mount were in pretty good shape, the elbow was rusty as heck on both mirrors.

After patching all the holes for previous mirrors (at least a couple sets), I found measurements from a thread on this forum and installed nutserts. Got new elbows and have the mirrors temporarily installed.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Next up was rust around the original fuel fill on the cab. My wife wants to keep the fuel filler for "the original look". I don't really understand why this area would rust, but it was totally rusted through in a couple of spots. PO repairs were just fill in with bondo.

I couldn't find an aftermarket patch for this spot that kept the fuel filler hole. So, I pushed my limited fabrication talents and made a patch. It isn't perfect by any means, but is the most complex one I've made for either this truck or my first truck. It's still going to need a little more work and definately some body filler, but hopefully the big grommet on the filler will hide some of this ugly.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

There were some changes inside the cab as well. When I got the truck, the steering wheel was scraping while turning, and it had some kind of ratcheting floor shifter that I decided I hated. Way too much work trying to get into the gear I wanted.

Got a rebuilt tilt column with shifter and linkage from former member Randy500. It seems to be a well done rebuild, and was packed well and shipped quickly. Not sure why he's a "former" member, but I wouldn't hesitate to do business with him again.

Steering wheel and horn button are from LMC. Still not sure about using a 15" wheel, but this is the one my wife wanted and it does look nice.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Then it was on to the cab floor. The buckets and console that came in the truck were in pretty nice shape, but I was told in no uncertain terms that this truck needs a bench seat. I didn't object - that would have been pointless :)

With seats, console and the floor shifter out, I pulled the carpet. Basically, I think when the PO mounted the bucket seats the 3rd time must have been the charm. Along with the holes for the shifter, I had about 25 non-factory holes in the floor to patch.

Some were small screw holes I could just weld and grind. Most were almost 5/16" and needed to be patched. I decided that the best way to tackle this was with a hole saw mounted in the drill press. The plugs were a little rough but the edges cleaned up ok with the angle grinder and a 50 grit disc. I used a step drill to open the holes up to the size of my plugs. A side benefit of this was that drilling the holes bigger got rid of most of the distortion around the holes. The seats had been bolted in without any kind of backing under the floor.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Looking good, Your patch panels look very good also. Going with some Cab floor insulation while your at it?

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Then it was a lot of welding and grinding. I grind the tops off my welds with a cutoff wheel and finish with 36 and 50 grit discs on the angle grinder. Topped off with some temporary primer.

I was able to get a 67-68 bench seat from member TKCR. I'd done business with her before, swapping an 80's squarebody bench for a restored deluxe foam seat frame appropriate for my 78 GMC while passing through Ohio on a road trip. This 67-68 frame had only had surface rust. TKCR had fully restored this frame and tracks, and provided new foam for the seat as well. I highly recommend TKCR for anything bench seat related on these trucks although she does specialize in the squarebodies.

Any case, the seat tracks bolted right up into original factory holes on this 71.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

And this brings me up to date. I hope to have enough progress to post updates every week or so going forward.

I had noticed some bubbling under the paint in the driver side upper door frame, up under the rain gutter. I ground off the paint to find it had rusted through. Got out the stepladder and noticed bubbles under the paint in the cab roof around the same spot - damn! Sanded off the paint there and it was not pretty. Took a pretty hard look at the rest of the roof and found more rust in about the same spot on the passenger side.

I haven't figured out how I want to tackle this yet. I could try to fabricate patches for these 2 spots, but I know the rust you see is only a fraction of what is there. Or, I could purchase a new roof skin. About $400 and a LOT of work that would be stretching my abilities, but at least I would have a chance to deal with all of the rust up there.

I think that tomorrow I will cut out the rusted sections as if I were going to patch them. Get a better look at what I'm dealing with.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Thanks. Don't even want to mention how many times I went back to improve that fuel filler area patch before I decided to weld it in. I've got a stretcher/shrinker from Eastwood that helped a lot getting the edge shape right, but other than that it was shaping it over a piece of 4" pipe, welding in the lip for the filler hole, a lot of cussin...

On the cab floor, I will be sanding the whole floor down and spraying it in epoxy primer. On my 78, I sprayed over the epoxy with Raptor liner. I may do that on this one as well. Over that, I do plan to do some insulation and then a vinyl floor covering.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

So I cut out the rusted through areas of the roof skin. Things looked pretty nasty underneath.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

After posting these pictures on the main board and asking for opinions I ended up cutting the skin off about an inch from the edge all around. I still have to drill out all the spot welds, and cut much closer to the rear seam in order to get at those welds. The last picture shows that lip that the inner roof attaches to sticks up enough to block access. Other than the rusted through spots I'd already cut out of the skin, most of the rust on the outer skin is surface.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

The worst rust is down both sides above the door frames, and the header that goes behind the top of the windshield. Once I get the rest of the roof skin off, I think that I'll blast these inner parts to see if they are really as bad as they seem. Maybe I can get by with one or two patches and epoxy primer, then new outer skin.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

I would spray that roof cavity with Rust Mort, then epoxy prime. Once the roof is reassembled spray the area with Waxoyl using this spray gun: https://www.amazon.com/Professional-.../dp/B01AAOGFAO

I would also Waxoyl the rocker cavities as well!

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Thanks for the suggestions 68 C10 Driver. I'd been reading about shooting this type wax product down the A and B pillars. I'm sure it wouldn't hurt to coat the entire area.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Waxoyl is a good product, it protects my '72 MGB, a car that is known to be prone to rust.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Over the last couple weekends, I have been stripping everything out of and off of the cab. Took lots of pictures and put things into labeled bags. Today, I removed the windshield and rear glass without cutting the gaskets. I followed a method described by LockDoc in this thread: https://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/...d.php?t=527108. Worked great. Top lip on the rear window looks pretty "iffy".

Then I dug out a cab cart and cab lifting jig that I'd made when I did the '78. Worked just as well this time around for the 71.

Cab is close to being ready for blasting. I'm 60 years old and work alone on this. I'd prefer not to create work for myself, but felt that with the rust I'd found in this cab I needed to blast the whole thing and deal with it.

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Nice project Rick! Is it blasted yet? How bad is the cab?

Re: Angie - 71 GMC C25
 

Thanks Brett. I've been dawdling, both about updating this thread as well as blasting the cab. I have already dealt with some rust in the front floor corners where the sloped toe boards meet the flat floor. There are like 3 panels that all come together there. The rust wasn't too obvious until I flipped the cab onto its back and got a good look from underneath.

Also filled something like 30 unnecessary holes (drilled, bullets, etc), including where fuel lines went through the floor in the back of the cab. But I got the floor into pretty good shape and ran out of excuses to postpone blasting. I got the roof portion done and didn't find it to be any worse than what I could see once the outer roof was off. I want to get the underside of the floor blasted, primed and undercoated before I flip the cab back upright to work on the roof and blasting the rest of the cab.