"BUILD: 1970 C10 LWB--->SWB “Jumping Cholla”

[loudchevy]

It's hard to stop and take pictures when you and everything around you is covered in filler dust. Overall the body is in decent shape. A few dings here and there but nothing crazy, except the drivers door. I did my best to pull out the dent in the middle of the panel and got it within 1/8" of being straight. The dent was centered on the body line in the middle of the door. I tried to shape it and keep the bodyline without toooo much filler. I just have the top of the cab to fill a couple of spots and then seam seal the drip rail. I still have some body gap lines to adjust around the quarter panels, cowl, and hood.

I'll be happy when this body work is done. Once these last couple things are complete, I'll cover everything in a reduced coat of epoxy and then spray some high build primer for a final sanding.

No wonder why this costs so much for professionals to do. It's a ton of work.

[Chaparralman1974]

Originally Posted by loudchevy

It's hard to stop and take pictures when you and everything around you is covered in filler dust. Overall the body is in decent shape. A few dings here and there but nothing crazy, except the drivers door. I did my best to pull out the dent in the middle of the panel and got it within 1/8" of being straight. The dent was centered on the body line in the middle of the door. I tried to shape it and keep the bodyline without toooo much filler. I just have the top of the cab to fill a couple of spots and then seam seal the drip rail. I still have some body gap lines to adjust around the quarter panels, cowl, and hood.

I'll be happy when this body work is done. Once these last couple things are complete, I'll cover everything in a reduced coat of epoxy and then spray some high build primer for a final sanding.

No wonder why this costs so much for professionals to do. It's a ton of work.

Looking great Scott!! That is why it is called "Body Work"!! This is definitely the worst part of the project!


Clay

[loudchevy]

Some decent progress was made on Saturday. The firewall is now filled and sanded smooth along with some wavy portions of the top of the cab. I stripped all the panels off and started over with just the cab on the frame making sure it was level and square on the fame mounts. Then I slowly made my way to the front bolting and shimming panels to get the gaps to look nice. It's the best I got in me and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

We'll be pulling all the panels back apart soon and fitting the 454/700R4 between the frame rails. I still need to clean up the engine block and throw some fresh hugger orange on it. At the same time I'm gonna ditch the leaky chrome oil pan, clean up the serpentine belt accessories/brackets, and block off the mechanical fuel pump. Once the drivetrain is installed on the frame I really don't want to remove it, just add other ancillaries to it!

[Chaparralman1974]

Looking great Scott! That truck is coming together nicely.


Clay

[loudchevy]

Final item of test fitting....PO must have bumped into a pipe bollard or post because there was a big dent in the hood (where the filler is) on the passenger side and it continued down into the grill. I have put in a lot of time and effort into trying to re-use the OG grille, but it was just too banged up to get straightened and cleaned up to put back on the C10 and I gave up.

I bought a new reproduction piece from LMC as I didn't want to break the bank for a NOS piece. My expectation wasn't very high for it fitting right out of box and it's being the same thickness of metal, and I was right. However, after a few hours of tweaking here and there, I had it fitting pretty well. I had pulled off the mounting brackets from the OG grill, cleaned, and painted them to re-use on this repo. Once I got the mounting backets bolted to the fenders, most of the rivet holes on the new grill matched up to the holes in the brackets which was a nice surprise. I'm pretty happy with the end result even though I didn't drop the extra 150 bucks for the grill stamped with "CHEVROLET". The repo has the black color offset around the light bezels which I actually like better than the OG as it breaks up the shiny aluminum mass. The old grill will now become garage wall art!

[Chaparralman1974]

Looking great Scott!! I really have to step up my game a bit more to keep up with you!! :-)


Clay

[loudchevy]

I wasn't gonna do anything with the bed for a while, but I needed a change of scenery from bodywork. It's only going to get warmer from here out in Phx (90*ish in the garage already) so I decided to break down the bed so I can get it cleaned up and shortened. I only got (4) carriage bolts to come off cleanly. The rest took a combination of drilling, grinding, punches, and a BFH. The best approach was cutting a slot in the top to use a flathead screwdriver to hold the bolt and impact the nut off from the bottom, but that didn't always work out as some the bolts couldn't get a cutoff wheel on them. Overall, it took around 5 hours to break the whole bed down. If anyone needs the fiberglass toolbox insert that comes with the LWB toolbox option, hit me. The one I removed is in good shape.

[loudchevy]

Couple more pics....I also removed the stake pockets from the driver's side panel. I was going to cover the openings on the top rails anyways. The passenger side panel is banged up around the wheel well and it has the giant opening from the toolbox, so I'm not going to cut that side down. I'll be looking for a LWB or even better SWB panel to use in its place. The crud pile from the bottom of the bed was smaller than I thought it would be. At least it's a dry heat, right?

[raggedjim]

Nice work, it always amazes me how much crap can be hiding in the nooks and crannys!

In western KY it's 55 with 43% humidity!

Rg

[Chaparralman1974]

Great work Scott! Tearing down the bed is more work than it looks. It took me all day to do mine doing the same thing you did.


Clay

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by raggedjim

Nice work, it always amazes me how much crap can be hiding in the nooks and crannys!

In western KY it's 55 with 43% humidity!

Rg

Originally Posted by Chaparralman1974

Great work Scott! Tearing down the bed is more work than it looks. It took me all day to do mine doing the same thing you did.

Clay

Thanks Gents.

[loudchevy]

Life gets in the way and truck projects get moved to the back burner just like everyone else here knows. The boy and I finally got around to taking apart the cab, fenders, hood, and doors into their individual pieces for what I hope is the last time. I spent all day Saturday prepping the garage for sealing and high build primer on the doors and fenders to be ready to spray on Sunday. I wanted to be able to spray both sides of the doors at the same time, so I built up some redneck panel holders out of my sawhorses with some long 2x4's lol.

First coat was a reduced epoxy primer layer to seal up the exposed metal and filler. I waited 30 mins and then sprayed the 1st coat of the Eastwood 2K Urethane with a little bit of reducer on all 4 pieces, waited another 15 mins, and did the same mixture for the 2nd coat. The final coat of Urethane was straight 4:1 with no reducer. It was super nice spraying the high build primer on the panels. I had zero issues using my cheap Amazon A610 gun with the 1.7 tip. It's super rewarding to see the panels with their final primer sprayed on. Are they 100% prefect and show quality, no, but I did all the work myself and learned a **** ton in the process for which I'm very happy about.

My hood and cab still need some attention. When taking apart the truck I noticed a couple of places on the hood that I missed putting filler on. The cab still needs to be seam sealed on the drip rail and the other joints around the door frames, and front windshield. I'm going to try and get the hood and cab sanded and ready for the same sealing/Urethane spraying this weekend.

[Chaparralman1974]

That thing is looking great Scott! I am going to go ahead and order the same gun from Amazon. My HF purple gun is ok, but I want something just a little bit better. When do you think you will lay down the color?


Clay

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by Chaparralman1974

That thing is looking great Scott! I am going to go ahead and order the same gun from Amazon. My HF purple gun is ok, but I want something just a little bit better. When do you think you will lay down the color?
Clay

Thanks Clay, Not sure when color is gonna get sprayed. We still need to pick a color . After this long 3 day weekend, my next couple of weeks are busy so it might be a little bit longer than I would like to get back working on the truck.

[rodstored-72]

scott, progress is looking really nice & moving along, thanks for keeping us posted i think you and chaprralman are moving nicely along...

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by rodstored-72

scott, progress is looking really nice & moving along, thanks for keeping us posted i think you and chaprralman are moving nicely along...

Thanks! Chaparralman1974 and I like to text each other about how much we enjoy doing bodywork

[zicc1835]

well good to hear your back in it.... lookin good

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by zicc1835

well good to hear your back in it.... lookin good

Thank you, Sir

[loudchevy]

I spent the evening sanding the entire cab and seam sealed the door jambs and front windshield seams. Tomorrow evening the drip rail will get some self-leveling sealer, I hope I don't mess it up! Also need to sand down the entire hood and put some filler in a couple of places. Friday evening will be garage setup/prep for spraying. Trying to stay on pace to spray the cab and hood in Urethane on Saturday morning.

[loudchevy]

I got the hood sanded, filler applied where needed and the drip rail filled with self-leveling seam sealer last night. The sealer turned out ok, It dried on me quicker than I thought it would. The tape I laid down was just under the sealer edge and when I pulled it there wasn't a smooth transition, so I put more sealer in the gap and it dried a little wavy. I hope the high build will help conceal some of it. Maybe I can get a light sanding on it to help smooth it out? I hope it looks ok when it's all done as I'm tall and will be able to see it every time I get in the truck to drive.

Garage getting prep'd tonight for spraying tomorrow morning

[Chaparralman1974]

Looks great Scott...as always!!

I think that you can sand out the seam sealer. I also watched a video where a guy used a folded over scuff pad to help work the seam sealer. I think you can also dip a spoon or something into acetone to prevent sticking as you work it. But then again, you saw the abortion of a job I did to the underside of my cab, so don't trust me on it. LOL!!!

I am really lagging behind you....I have to put my a$$ into gear! :-)


Clay

[Chaparralman1974]

Scott, one quick question....for the drip rails that are vertical on the back of the doors...do you use the self leveling stuff there, or would it run down due to gravity? I am hoping to get to this stage at some point soon.


Clay

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by Chaparralman1974

Scott, one quick question....for the drip rails that are vertical on the back of the doors...do you use the self leveling stuff there, or would it run down due to gravity? I am hoping to get to this stage at some point soon.

Clay

Thanks Clay!
I didn't mention or show that I first put a skim coat of regular seam sealer along the whole drip rail to really get it pressed down into all the seams/joints. Once that layer setup for 15 mins, I re-taped everything and did self-leveling along the whole rail, even the vertical ends. I let gravity pull down on the sealer adding a little bit at a time until I felt there was enough to make it all the way down to the bottom of the rail. I had a little tape blocker/plug at the bottom of the vertical rail to catch any extra, but I actually nailed it pretty close and there was very little sealer to catch. I made sure the front of my cab was facing the house so the slope of the garage floor was heading downhill to the rear of the cab, it was just enough slope for the self-leveling seal to do it's thing. I used the tip of the applicator to spread out the fluid so it got all the areas covered (between rail edge and cab sheet metal) and gravity smoothed out the rest.

It's still a little tacky this morning so I don't want to touch it yet. I'm NOT going to let my impatience get the best of me, I'll wait until tomorrow morning to mess around with it if I even do anything to it.

[cj847]

On mine (just recently done) I used regular seam sealer on the vertical and self leveling on the horizontal.
I had some spots where the edge of the sealer was not a good straight line. After it dried. I sanded it until I had a consistent transition from sealer to roof. I think I used 80 and 180 folded over a paint stick or a piece of steel to get a sharp edge.

It's a bit of a thankless job as noone is going to see it, but it bugged the heck out of me.

PS> that stuff is no fun to sand.

[loudchevy]

Originally Posted by cj847

On mine (just recently done) I used regular seam sealer on the vertical and self leveling on the horizontal.
I had some spots where the edge of the sealer was not a good straight line. After it dried. I sanded it until I had a consistent transition from sealer to roof. I think I used 80 and 180 folded over a paint stick or a piece of steel to get a sharp edge.

It's a bit of a thankless job as noone is going to see it, but it bugged the heck out of me.

PS> that stuff is no fun to sand.

Thanks for the reply.
How long did it take to fully dry before you sanded it?