Over 25 Years Later, Finally My 71 C-10 Truck Build

[hgs_notes]

Found something to do... As if there was a real shortage. I'm afraid to even think about a list.

I ordered a driver side door skin and both inner door bottoms the other day from Mikes Bump and Grind. They are Tri-Pro parts and Mikes got great prices, he's a site vendor for those who don't know. I also sold my old welder for $150. So the upgrade in welder cost me $50. I'll try it out on the new door parts.

Todays progress. I cleaned the inside of the passenger fender and sprayed it with epoxy primer. Also cleaned up and primered more of the cab. Pretty much got the firewall sprayed, though I saw a couple spots later that I missed. Sprayed the drip rail area, and the top side of the rockers and door jambs. I have a ding in the driver side rocker to fill and sand and a couple little spots on the cab roof. Once that's done I'll spray the entire inside of the cab and firewall again for a second coat.

That rubber seal around the steering column would not let tape stick to it. So I said the hell with it and sprayed it anyway. I figure once it gets painted, I'll just mask the firewall there and paint it black. I also went with a new primer mix of 8 parts primer, 1 hardener and 3 of thinner. Opened up the paint knob a bit on the gun, little more air pressure and more air in the gun and was much happier with the results. I got a smoother finish and it covered better. I only had one run and that was in an awkward area where I didn't move fast enough and was too close.

Pics:





Was the dent on the top side of the rocker. Turned out ok.

[hgs_notes]

Just found out I won an auction for headers. Flowtech ceramic coated for less than $150 shipped. I bought my Jimmy headers through the same seller, which is the Holley group.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...8602&viewitem=

Also got a set of door hinge pins and bushings off ebay. Hopefully those are on the way also.

[hgs_notes]

Every time I do something on my truck lately, I learn something. I'm learning how to put on filler and make it look fairly smooth. Learning what different products to use for the various situations. I've used panel adhesive, epoxy primer, my own HVLP spray gun, a little bit of hammer/dolly work. I've replaced the welder and used mine to fill holes, and fix something already, etc.

Today I learned to not wear loose clothing when spraying paint/primer. I got a little sanding to do. No biggy, but lesson learned. I also learned a little more about my spray gun. There was a part I did not remove for cleaning because it just wouldn't budge to remove it. While spraying tonight it was clogging every so often. Nothing serious for primer work, but still annoying. So I put a little more muscle into it and got it out and found a bunch of old dryed primer in there. I also found that an air channel had cast flashing blocking the hole. So I cleaned it out and learned another lesson.

Hopes these lessons help someone else out.

Todays progress: both fenders primered inside and out. Cowl panel primered on the back side. Inside of cab and firewall primered a second coat. It's looking pretty good. Have a couple small things to fix on the cab yet. Will need to do a second coat on the outside of one fender, clean up the topside of the cowl and prime. Next big jobs will be the doors, still waiting for parts delivery for those.






Here is where I filled 3 holes that were drilled for something. The welder worked great. There were 2 others on the wheel arch I filled also.

[lyrikz]

HGS, a REALLY good tip someone told me about on cleaning a gun. You put your cleaner in and spray it out like usual. Now take your cap that is on the tip of the gun and loosen it. Thats right. Loosen it up. Make sure its on by 2 or 3 threads but really looose. Now, put your cleaner in the gun, and pull the trigger lightly. Make sure the cup is covered because its going to gurgle in the cup. It back flushes the gun. That way you can get the other stuff your missing without takeing it apart.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by lyrikz

HGS, a REALLY good tip someone told me about on cleaning a gun. You put your cleaner in and spray it out like usual. Now take your cap that is on the tip of the gun and loosen it. Thats right. Loosen it up. Make sure its on by 2 or 3 threads but really looose. Now, put your cleaner in the gun, and pull the trigger lightly. Make sure the cup is covered because its going to gurgle in the cup. It back flushes the gun. That way you can get the other stuff your missing without takeing it apart.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that out.

Brown truck stopped by today:


I'll have to dive into door rebuilds now. Also got the new door hinge pins and bushings today. And I have a trailer lined up for hauling the bed to the sandblaster.

[hgs_notes]

The bed is at the sandblaster. Might be done tomorrow, but I won't hold my breath. It's going to need some work on the bed floor. The front edge is half gone where it meets the front panel. There is some rust in the rear corners also. The back couple feet are dented down some and I might try and pound it back flat, but I don't know how much success I'll have with that. The pass side wheel well has some rust on the front edge where it bolts to the floor. The bedsides are solid. We'll see what shows up after blasting though.

Once I get it back I plan to just spray it with primer to seal it up good, then set it on the frame. I have a lot to do on the back half yet with the gas tank fill and vents, exhaust, shock relocators, and I want to change the gas tank mounting straps, etc. The bed will probably come off a couple times yet to do the rust repairs and the other odds and ends.

I need to keep my focus on the doors though. I need to remember to order sound deadener so I can do the doors while I'm rebuilding them.

[hgs_notes]

Got a couple more hours in the garage tonight and sprayed primer on the other side of the cowl, a second coat on the driver side fender and the glove box door. The cowl panel is the only one that did not get any body work done to it. I have a small sample of paint that I want to try on the glove box door to make sure I like the color.

[wancosc356]

Everything is looking great man! I'm gonna have to come back and review your thread once I get into doing body work on mine.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by wancosc356

Everything is looking great man! I'm gonna have to come back and review your thread once I get into doing body work on mine.

Thank you. Remember to check out the Paint & Body section of the board also. There is a lot of good info there and if you post a question, you will get a good response fairly quick. A lot of good body guys frequent there.

I also bought a book and a DVD for body and paint before I started. I talk to a local body guy for tips, and there are some guys at the paint supplies store (Napa and Auto Value for me) that have been helpful. The more of it you do, the easier it gets. I'm not making nearly as many mistakes now as a couple months ago.

BTW, I like your bike.

[wancosc356]

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

Thank you. Remember to check out the Paint & Body section of the board also. There is a lot of good info there and if you post a question, you will get a good response fairly quick. A lot of good body guys frequent there.

I also bought a book and a DVD for body and paint before I started. I talk to a local body guy for tips, and there are some guys at the paint supplies store (Napa and Auto Value for me) that have been helpful. The more of it you do, the easier it gets. I'm not making nearly as many mistakes now as a couple months ago.

BTW, I like your bike.

Will do. Im gonna need all the help I can get. Haha. Practice makes perfect huh? From what I understand is that its not really "hard" per say, just tedious and time consuming and tiring. Sounds hard. Haha.

Thanks for the compliment on the bike.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by wancosc356

just tedious and time consuming and tiring.

Thanks for the compliment on the bike.

Exactly right. I'm liking the results so far though.

One of the first "builds" I was ever involved with was helping my dad rebuild a 1971 Honda CB450. Completely dismantled and rebuilt it. I was in Jr High at the time and loved it. My first bike was a 1981 Kawasaki 750 LTD. What a blast.

[wancosc356]

Originally Posted by hgs_notes

Exactly right. I'm liking the results so far though.

One of the first "builds" I was ever involved with was helping my dad rebuild a 1971 Honda CB450. Completely dismantled and rebuilt it. I was in Jr High at the time and loved it. My first bike was a 1981 Kawasaki 750 LTD. What a blast.

Good deal man. Me too!

Very cool!

[hgs_notes]

Nothing ever comes back from the sandblaster better than you expected. It's got a little more rot in the bed floor along the edges than I had hoped. I'm going to get some steel cut into strips and put some 90 degree bends in. That will work for most of the rust. The bed floor itself is fixable with flat pieces except for the back corners, which was expected. Not sure how I'm going to handle that yet. If anyone has patched these corners by the tailgate, please post some info.

Front left corner.


front edge



right wheel well


left rear corner


right rear corner


On another note, I've been having problems with my spray gun. It's a cheapo one, but worked ok the first couple times. The last 2 times it loses flow every few seconds for just a bit. Long enough to leave gaps in coverage as your moving. I thought it was partially clogged, but did the same thing after cleaning. I sprayed water through it to try and fiddle with the adjustments and I can't get consistant flow. It also had air bubbles going into the tank while spraying. I got rid of that with some adjusting.

The other gun with a paint tip on it sprays just fine. Not sure what to do with it.

[lyrikz]

I had a similiar issue with my expensive gun. The cap you put on top of the cup has a tiny vent. Well, my tiny vent was completely plugged and it would spray like you said... I would open the cup and look an dthen it would spray good for a second. ahah... I finally figured it out and pocked the hole in and it sprayed great.

[hgs_notes]

I had thought about that, but the vent is large, and it did the same with the cap off. I think it might be leaking air into the chamber behind the tip, where the paint flows into. Might need to tighten something up more.

[nuke1]

coming along great, Question, you are into the optima challenge, i read that elsewhere. When i went to SEMA, I went to the dinner for the challenge, but had to leave Friday nite, argh. I have met/know a few of those guys, great group of ppl, they are who insipered me to build my truck the way I wanted it.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by nuke1

coming along great, Question, you are into the optima challenge, i read that elsewhere. When i went to SEMA, I went to the dinner for the challenge, but had to leave Friday nite, argh. I have met/know a few of those guys, great group of ppl, they are who insipered me to build my truck the way I wanted it.

Before this year when I watched it on the HDTV channel, I had never heard of it. I just read some about it in Hot Rod also. I loved the cars that were in it though. That Cobra is awesome and I have wanted to build one since I was in high school. My first born is named Shelby. I've been thinking about selling my 2wd Blazer project to make room for a kit car.

[lks dcvn]

Just found this build thread - LOT of good work going on there!

Keep up the good work.

[hgs_notes]

Originally Posted by lks dcvn

Just found this build thread - LOT of good work going on there!

Keep up the good work.

Thank you, I am.

Took most of the day off from work today. The weather was great and I didn't have anything scheduled, so I spent most of my time in the garage. Took some measurements for patch pieces on the bed and went back over to the sandblaster. He has steel for sale. Got a piece for the front floor edge, the bottom of the tailgate and the side panels in front of the wheel wells. He'll cut me a piece later for the front bed panel along the bottom. These pieces are cut from 18 gage.

[hgs_notes]

Tailgate rust repair. Mine was in fairly good condition, but had some small rust spots along the bottom edge where it meets the bed floor. This was caused by the truck being used for years as a trash container. When we lived out in the country when I was a kid, we did not have trash pick up service. Instead we threw the bags into the back of the truck. When it got full we hauled it to the dump. So it sat outside getting rained on, etc. with food juices draining into the bed. Gross huh? I should apologize for that story, but it's the truth. Part of the inglorious history of the family truck.



Anyway, the repair. I had a piece of steel cut and bent to closely match the contour at the bottom of the tailgate. I cut out a slot where the rust was, all along the bottom.


I cleaned it out as best I could with a wire brush, etc. When I cut that piece out, the inner panel pushed inward a bit, maybe a 1/4", so I made a little brace from some scrap metal and tacked it in to hold it out level.



I sprayed some rust preventer/zinc primer in there as much as possible, and on the back side of the patch.


Then used the panel adhesive to glue the patch on. I used some well placed tack welds to hold it in position. And a few clamps as well.


I did it this way, mostly because I did not want to weld out 12 feet of bead on the tailgate. The patch will barely be noticed after it's installed and the bed liner is sprayed over it. It should be pretty well protected against rust also. It only took me a couple hours for the job. It was a nice break from door repairs. Let me know what you think.

[lyrikz]

That panel adhesive is pretty strong, i think you would be ok after it was linexed. I can understand not wanting to put all that heat in there by doing that much welding.

Looks good.

[hgs_notes]

Then I started work on the driver door. Started by cutting along the bottom of where the door panel goes, then went straight to the skin on the back side. I left the original door hinge area on the front of the door because I didn't want to reinstall all of the inner supports and realign the hinge, etc. Then I used my cut off wheel and an air chisel to break off the spot welds for the inner braces.





Found that the window channel was bent from whatever caused the dent in the door. I straightened it out some.

[hgs_notes]

Cleaned up the bracing with a wire wheel and got a can of SEM weld through primer. That is some expensive stuff, $14 a can. I'll need it though for when the spot welds areas are re-welded.


Then I started to cut the replacement panel to fit. Here's a tip, if you don't need to replace the whole bottom for speaker holes, don't do it. The bends on the repo panel are not the same as the original doors. Not even close. I don't have the tools or experience to try and make a match, so I just used what I had to do the best I could.

[hgs_notes]

I fired up the new welder and it worked great. My skills have diminished from lack of use, and I've never done sheetmetal like this before, but I think it went well. This is a very tedious process though. Tack...tack...tack...etc...grind...tack...tack....etc...



I got most of it welded out, but still have a lot of grinding to do, and more welding, then more grinding, etc... Here is the current status of the apparatus...

[Palf70Step]

Nice work. Lord it sometimes feels jobs like these never end. I thought I would be welding/grinding on my truck's bed till I was 80. I guess being older and learning patience really helped me. YOu are making really good progress on the ole girl!