[theastronaut]

It rolled over to 150k on Mother's Day.




I wasn't sure what to do with the bed when I first got the truck, it doesn't really match the condition of the rest of the truck. The inside looked extremely rough from sitting outside for the last ~8 years with the drains plugged, and it looks like they didn't shoot clear over the inside of the bed when it was last repainted so it was super faded. I've thought about swapping on a new bed, but that would be later down the road. I had some free time yesterday so I wanted to knock the worst of the ugly off until then.
I scrubbed the sides with steel wool and CLR, then coated them with Penetrol. The floor needed a lot more scrubbing with a stiff wire brush to get the loose rust off, then I rolled it with old leftover tractor enamel I had laying around. The paint was still wet in these pics, I used matte black paint so it dried duller.












Did a quick clean up on the interior.






I found a $250 boat with a supposedly good Mercruiser 165 on Marketplace. It's the same engine as the 250 but with a better cam, finned aluminum valve cover, and different intake/exhaust manifold. This should let me get the current head swapped out sooner than waiting on the machine shop.