Project uhhh... RUST??? (lots of pics)

[amodedude1]

Hey everyone, new here and wanted to share my first project.

It's a 1979 3/4 ton GMC Sierra 350 4-BRL and I've been working on it for around a year and a half on and off between school and work.

My goal here is to do as much as I can to get this truck restored. 79' Might not be the best/ most desirable year, but this truck is over 30 years old, and I'd love to have a nice old truck to use on occasion. I'm 19 years old in college and have never partook in such a long term and in depth project before, so I'm looking at it as a learning experience and am hopeful to see how it all turns out.

The engine is in good shape from what I can tell (despite it's outer appearance) and runs great now that I have gotten it going. I replaced the oil pan not too long ago and the internals seemed to be looking good. It doesn't burn oil or make any out of the ordinary noise other then being extremely loud running on open headers. I'll eventually need to replace the clutch though.

As far as I was told, she served as a plow/ landscaping truck her whole life and clearly has seen some better days in terms of the body. The millage is at 60,000 on both the truck and the title, but for some reason that is very hard to believe. I'm thinking more along the lines of 160000 haha. Who knows, it was a plow truck and did take a beating so I guess 60 is possible?

It sat in my driveway for quite some time until my neighbor graciously took pity on me and let me use his garage.

I'm starting from the rear and working my way up removing rust with a wire wheel first(lots and lots of rust) then sandblasting. Will be getting her ready for paint.

If I'm able to get down to bare metal on the frame I'll be shooting an epoxy primer and then a few coasts gloss black. (maybe some filler over the epoxy to smooth out the insane amount of pitting.

So first lets give you a tour of the truck as it is. Unfortunately I didn't start taking pictures until after I began work....

Here is a pic of the truck getting ready to be towed over.





In the shop...






Notice the Plow/front bumper... 2 for 1 deal!






The engine bay. I'd like to note that this is after an extensive amount of work. The engine bay looked at least 2x worse when I started. Just to get it running I needed to replace flue lines front to back, brake lines front to back, brake master cylinder, calipers, all pads, almost all wiring ext... NOT FUN haha (and I've even cleaned some of the rust off believe it or not)










Can you handle looking at all this rust!?!!
















Some cell phone pics of the rust....









Typical rot of the cab floor supports. This was a bad design on GM's part.



What used to be an inner rocker panel



Front fender



Bottom rear section of cab



4x4



Last but not least.... the rust bucket.... or should I say box?






So now that I have established that this has a lot of rust, let's move on to what I'm doing to fix it.

I've taken the the bed off just a few weeks ago, dropped the fuel tank, un-bolted the rear suspension and pulled the rear axle. I did just a little wire wheeling on the frame just to get all that nasty loose rust off her. I went crazy on a small section and was able to get down to some solid bare metal surprisingly, so things are looking good. After sand blasting, I should be down to a solid surface ready for paint prep.

[amodedude1]

So the bed is off and out of the shop ready to be picked up by the scrap yard since is is just too far gone to repair.

With that out work began to take out the suspension and axle. The U-bolt was rusted in place so me and my neighbor took an acetylene torch to then to break it loose. One of the bolts holding the spring to it's shackle needed to be cut off. It's that bad




Spring shock and tank out...





After brake lines and drive shaft were removed we pulled the axle.







FYI, that white stuff on the frame is phosphoric acid, it removes rust and is the same stuff that's in that Pepsi you are drinking. (You might want to reconsider finishing it. haha)



I made sure to mark each spring so when I was done with them, I would be able to put them in the exact same spot. IDK if that is really necessary or not but it can't hurt.

[amodedude1]

I also went ahead and took apart the leaf springs so I could get at some of that crust in between the leaves.

Wire wheeling worked miracles in them. Their no down basically to bare metal.

The final treatment for the springs will be a good one to two week soak in molasses.

Yes you read that right, the stuff you use in the morning for your pancakes. I bought 3 gallons of sulfured horse feed molasses off of eBay a few weeks ago. This stuff will kill your rust and is super cheap. It mixes about 1:9 ratio so I'll be able to make up to 30 gallons of homemade rust dissolver all for about $27 plus whatever shipping was. cant be beat!

They will soak in that coffin like thing you saw in the previous post.

BTW if you don't believe me check out these videos...

YouTube- How to Remove rust from metal and...

The springs once clean will be powder coated.


springs taken apart..



One spring that was wire wheeled and old worn bushings removed.