It's really not expensive to do,a $20 air powered wire brush,say $15 for the attachments,$100-$150 worth of POR-15 is all it takes. But unless you have nothing to do besides work on your truck it's gonna take a long long time. I've been going at mine for two months just because I don't have a lot of spare time,I'm about to go work on it some more,mine really doesn't have much rust at all,just surface rust in some places but the previous owner painted over it so i'm getting all the paint off because it looked horrible.

 

So lets get down to it. I figured I'd tackle the worst part first... both lower corners of the rad support were just about gone.







So I cut the bad parts out.



Cleaned up the bottom piece and welded some plates on each end for reinforcement.



Pinned it in place with some vice grips and welded in.







Then plated the open areas on the front corners to finish it off.

 

Looking good can't wait to see the finally outcome! You got ur work cut out for ya!

Wayne

 

Looking very interesting, curious to see the finished product. Good luck!

 

That's allot of work, - did you remove the bed, sand the frame ? My rear shackles look just like that, -well one of them does.

 

Just in the midst of finishing up on mine with what you're doing.

My only question is what made you choose this truck, with that set up?

And damn! Those leaf spring and cab mounts are toast.

Do you plan on doing welding restoration or grinding wheel and undercoating etc?

 

I'd also like to ask a question.

What makes taking in a project like this worth it? Seams that the cost involved in fixing it you could buy one without any rust.

Don't get me wrong I applaud you for doing this, jut curious as to what make it worth it.

Wayne

 

Not going to speak for him, but these are my thoughts anyway. Could he have gotten a better truck? Yes. I would take it as a challenge though. Something interesting to do, and would always have something to do. A sense of accomplishment would be there. No one else did it, but you. You took a rusted truck and made it into your vision.

Not speaking for him, but those Re my thoughts.

 

This project is actually all finished. I've done build threads on other forums before and always wait till the work is finished before starting the thread so I can post a steady flow of pics instead of posting as I get things done. Total time involved was one year working on it in the evenings and weekends, so posting as I go would make for a thread that had a lot of idle time between updates.

To answer some of the questions.... the bed wasn't removed, mainly because it had a 1/4 inch of Rhino lining on it and I didn't want to mess that up to get to the bed bolts. It made cleaning and painting the frame a little more difficult but I didn't mind.

The cost of fixing a truck in this condition is actually logical. I bought the exact truck I wanted for $6000 and total amount put in to it was $3000... so for $9000 altogether considering the final product, it made sense to me.

It's cool to see this thread is gaining some interest and hopefully you guys get some enjoyment out of it.... stay tuned.

 

Bet that was a fun year. Its always sometbing that caught my interest. Taking something damaged, aged, etc., and basically watch it come back to life.