Wow that is some ugly rust Dave. That GMC would just go straight to the recyclers here. I will no longer complain about the rust repairs I had to do.

 

having lived in Buffalo the first 32 years of my life, I've dealt with more rust than I care to ever see again. All the road salt ate vehicles like a rat eats cheese. Surface rust starts in 3-4 years, rust thru a year or two after that. I had a 72 Vega I bought new, it actually rusted so badly that it literally broke in 1/2 in 6 years! The SE is somewhat better, but the humidity and heat still deteriorates from the top down unless stored under cover. That's why I went to the SW (NM) for my 99.9% rust free truck. Well worth the trouble and expense for the pleasure of working with solid steel.

 

LOL well the GMC, which was a mostly complete truck, went to a rat rodder who was going to cut out the whole floor anyway to channel the cab. So believe it or not it will be "saved" and not scrapped.


Yep salt eats cars. Around here if you dont hit the car wash during the winter to clean the stuff off it just destroys the underside of everything even when the outside looks good. Older stuff is rare around here just because of rust and normal attrition so you take what you can.
As far as this truck I bought two, this one is the rougher one. I was not sure if I was going to save it or dump it, but I decided to save it. No going back now, it will be on the road this summer if all goes as planned. Killer is the bad winter, until this snow melts I cant even get the chassis outside to paint.

 

Left corner work continues, the only good thing is the passenger side doesnt look as bad as this side..I think.

Rivets drilled out and welds cut, rear cab mount removed.



Made a pattern of the inner cab corner and then removed it, cut back the floor and found a lot of damage to this side of the crossmember.



This is as far as I am going as far as teardown on this side, repairs are next. Before cutting out the crossmember rust I am going to repair the rocker, tack weld it, and hang the drivers side door to check fitment. If all looks good then the rocker will be welded solid and the repairs can begin one layer at a time.

 

RUST

 

First piece made, simple patch with a step in it for another piece that fits over it. Tacked in place to the corner before going to far.




Repaired the upper hinge mount and hung the drivers side door. First time a door has been on this cab in many years.



Gaps and fit looks good, opens and closes fine so the door opening is good and the repairs can continue.

 

Left rear corner work continues, yes I hate rust.
2 layers of metal sandwich the rocker panel from what I could tel from the damaged area. Outer piece went over the rocker and tied to the inside of the rear pillar. I dont have a spot welder so I use plug welds.




Same deal with the inside piece. This was part of the floor panel but I will make it separately, plus I made it larger than the factory part stiffen up the rocker. Plug welds on this one as well.




next will be to cut the rotted parts out of the crossmember and repair it.

 

crossmember repaired, upper flange cut out and replaced, center cut out and replaced. Next is the floor pan and inner cab corner.

 

I'd have thrown in the towel a long time ago! Excellent work and persistence! Is that Eastwood's weld-thru primer I see?

 

Thanks, I am doing my best to keep focused, but when I need a break I read up on the other builds going on here..then I want to go do more work! Build threads are great motivators.
That is regular metal primer, I am using a wirewheel to clean things up and then spraying with primer on hidden areas. Once all of this is cleaned, seams sealed, primed, and hit with raptor liner it will outlast me, especially since there are no plans on winter driving. I think the reason the floor was so bad was because it has been sitting with no doors for many years so water just sat inside everywhere.

 

You need a western cab or sections of one.

 

yep, having a pair of cut off cab corners and the lower 12" of the rear pillars would help a lot!

First piece of the floor repair welded in.

 

I thought my cab corners were bad, yours are a little worse. At least my rear floor is solid, but a po decided to rivet a big perice of sheet metal over a small hole and made a huge hole in the process on the back cab wall. Thats gonna be the hardest part of my cab. Luckily one of my parts trucks has a pretty solid back wall, so im gonna cut that out and use it.

 

Yes... That's how you do it.... When you get a bit tired of your build, you take a break and browse around on other builds. Then you get some inspiration and want to go back to yours to do some work.... I know the feeling LOL...

 

Yep these corners are pretty bad. Originally I thought my rear floors were ok but not once I started grinding on them. Everthing will be plenty strong when I am done, just lots of welding. It's only metal, heat it and beat it