well after having my truck about 3 weeks im getting the itch to start taking care of the rust and bring the truck back up to what it looked like back in 2001 before it went up north and before it was beaten up.
so far I have changed the spark plugs, air filter, oil and filter and replaced the belt to get rid of the horrible squeal that the old one had. I changed the oil with shell rotella 15w40 and a bottle of lucas oil stabilizer and a motorcraft filter same as the new air filter.
Then I took off the front and rear bumpers and grille and sanded them down and painted them with dupicolor truck bed armor. next I started sanding down the bed sides to remove as much rust as possible and to remove the clear coat that was already pelling off. and then I pressure washed the bed sides to remove as much of the dust as possible and then used a grease and oil remover to take off the rest let it dry and started painting it with a rust blocker and then primered over that. next I had to add brackets to the bed sides because the bed is falling apart from past owners not strapping things down and stuff beating the bed apart.
one day I will have to replace the bed but do not have the funds nor the time to take the bed off and to replace it.
the picture with the tool box on is before I started sanding the bed. the picture with the brackets the small on is what someone else put on and the bigger one is what I put on and the you can see the after pictures of the bed and the picture of the tailgate is during all the spots you see where metal is showing is where there was rust and or where rust was under the paint and was starting to make the paint bubble and flake off. the pictures of the bed the white you see is just a primer and has not been painted yet. it has been a little while from when I last did body work and painting but I do not think it came out that bad

 

here is the tailgate after the rust blocker and the primer and it is sitting out to dry before I can apply the second coat of primer

 

Looking good!

 

here is the driver side fender after sanding down and cleaning off the rust and rust blocker and the same white primer

 

well after a couple of days I took the doors apart and mirrors off and started sanding them down same as the bed and tailgate I started with a 40 grit and worked my way up to a 800 grit to help give a nice base for the final coat of paint and clear coat here is the truck while I was taking everything off and the next picture are the rims after I finally got them clean again. I tried everything but in the end I had to go truckpro and get some acid based wheel cleaner to remove all of the baked on brake dust and whatever else was on them

 

Looks nice!

 

white is very convenient!

 

if you're using a rattle can, that looks great. white def is easy to work with. looks great

 

i have been using rattle cans for the white primer the rust blocker is por 15 and I am spraying that on. there have been some areas where I had to wet sand the por 15 so that it would look smooth under the white primer. and thanks it has been a long process. next on my list is going to be a alignment and brakes and possible front wheel bearings not in that order I will odds are start with wheel bearing and try to do as much front end work that it needs and then go for my alignment and then shocks and sway bar end links. the truck drives good but the steering wheel is off and I have a loud roaring noise in the driver front tire which leads me to think wheel bearing so I am going to replace both and maybe rebuild the locking hubs if I feel like it at that time

 

I'll stay tuned in to see updates. i love threads like this

 

started on the roof this morning as you can see from the first picture there is a lot of rust in the gutters(not sure what they are called) on top of the roof and it is equally bad on both sides but because of the sun the other pic is to glared out but you can see after how much better it looks after the por 15 and white primer its still a little wet and a bit hard to spray a flat surface like the roof but didn't turn out to bad

 

looking great

 

well I got done with the entire truck except for the inside of the bed. iam not to worried about the inside of the bed for the fact that it will have to be replaced one day so no need in throwing money at something that will be a long term fix. the first pic is after I finished the hood and roof. the second pic well I got a little carried away and started painting the bed it got sprayed with a ppg artic white and two coats of clear coat. a really big difference in appearance the picture does not do it justice

 

Looks nice.

 

those wheels SHINE!