1972...ish C10 - Finishing What They Started

[ClassicIron]

Now at this point I still wasn’t in a place to spend the time or money to do a full restoration, so I decided to start with a cab-back rebuild. I got all my parts on order and after 2 days had it stripped to the frame. There was nothing too surprising along the way, at least nothing a breaker bar couldn’t fix. Looking back now I’m not sure why I didn’t just pull the driveshaft out.. would have made things a lot easier.

[ClassicIron]

I threw a wire wheel on the angle grinder and got to work. I took the frame close to bare metal, but not fully. The base coat would later be POR15 which doesn’t like perfectly clean metal. After several 10 hour days and every wire wheel you could think of, I had a new appreciation for spending the money to get frames sandblasted and powder coated - maybe on the next project!

[ClassicIron]

I wiped everything down several times with paint prep surface cleaner and started laying down POR15 with a foam brush. The frame took two coats with about an hour in between. Two hours after that it had tacked up enough to scuff. Then I sprayed two coats of rattle can satin black. I was pleasantly surprised with how smooth it turned out! The rear drums had already been rebuilt years ago so I hosed them down with brake clean, then sandblasted and painted the drums with black caliper paint. I didn’t have enough jack stands to support the rear end to paint it all at once, so I started with the backing plates and threw the wheels back on to finish the rest after they dried. Since the rear end would have a harder life than the frame I opted to leave POR15 as the final coat - and I’m glad I did! Today I do a full chassis wipe down after every few drives and with one wipe using a shop rag it looks brand new. Dirt and dust seem to stick to the frame a bit more.

[ClassicIron]

It turns out by this point I got a little excited. Here are the only two picture I have of the reassembly, the day I started and the day I finished. Here’s an overview: I replaced all the brake lines/hoses front to back from Inline Tube. New wiring from the firewall back. Finned aluminum diff cover. Trailing arm bushings. Front and rear CPP nitrogen drop shocks, CPP rear shock relocation brackets, CPP bent track bar. I also replaced every bolt I touched with grade 8 hardware. I didn’t want to put the bed back on and cover it up!

[ClassicIron]

Here’s another