Got the seats and carpet out. Was pleasantly surprised that the bolts came out with no issues.

Before



After


That didn't happen without some work. For about a week and a half I sprayed every bolt that I could get to. I used a product called . You can get it at Amazon, not cheap, but it does seem to work well. 3 days before I was going to remove the seats I then ran a thread chaser on each bolt, followed by 3 more days of Aerokroil. I started by using a 1/2" breaker bar to just get them to turn. I loosened and tightened each bolt about a 1/4 turn. Another shot of Aerokroil, let it sit overnight and then the next day I used a 1/2" air impact wrench, and they all came out , no problems at all. I don't know if doing all of that helped, but it certainly didn't hurt.

A few pointers
I had the Texas truck, already stripped out, so it was easy to locate all of the bolts. There were 6 bolts that I couldn't see.
1 & 2 - The front of the front row buckets, 1 on each seat next to the hump. Covered by thermal covering. I was not able to get to these 2 at all. They did come out a little harder, but not much rust on them as they are pretty well protected by the cover.
3 - The 2nd row bench on the 60 split side, on the left rear there are 2 bolts. The right one is hidden by a channel. I could spray it through a small access hole, but cold not run a thread chaser on it. It came out easier than the bolts I couldn't spray, but not as easy as the ones I could spray and use the thread chaser on.
4,5 & 6 - The 2nd row bench on the 60 split side, on the right rear there are 2 bolts, and on the 40 split side, on the left rear there is 1 bolt. These 3 were hidden behind a metal cover. I was able to remove the front 2 screws of this metal cover and gain access to all 3 bolts to spray and use the thread chaser. (Pic below)

Looking from front to back. In the blue box are the 2 bolts for the 2nd row seat belts that stick up through the middle of the 60 split bench. (These technically didn't have to come out). The red box to the left of the bolts is the metal cover.

Just take out the 2 screws you can see (front side of the cover), and there they are.


My seats and carpet are in good shape, so a little cleaning and they will go back in. Going to put heaters in the front 2 seats while they are out, it didn't have them and that leather can be pretty chilly when it's cold out. Plus heat on low makes the back feel good on those long drives.

 

 

Cant wit to see more. You have got a great start on it.

 

I'm not going to do anything until my truck is done. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with what is leftover. Whatever I sell will go on the Marketplace.

 

Got the running boards off and all of the cladding removed. Also removed front and rear bumpers as well as the front lights, grill etc.



Bumpers and grill and such were pretty straight forward. On the rear bumper (with backup sensors) I just unplugged both license plate lights and there was one plug behind the license plate to unplug for the backup sensors. The cladding was easy and had it all off in less than 2 hrs. I wasn't concerned with scratching anything as the whole truck will be painted, I was more concerned with not damaging the cladding. When I was done, it really wasn't scratched up too bad.
Here's the process I used.

I had tried a few different methods, using razor blades, utility knives, pocket knife etc, but this is what worked best. If you notice in the top pic, on the doors, there are 3 strips of double faced tape towards the top and one across the bottom. Using a long serrated bread knife (won't the wife be happy about this) and starting at the top corner I cut through the top strip of tape enough to get my plastic trim removal tool behind the panel to pry out a little. I then used the same knife to cut through the next 2 strips of tape, while prying with the trim removal tool until I could get the piece of wood behind the cladding. I then would cut the top piece of tape by itself, followed by cutting the other 2 strips at the same time, all the while advancing the wood to keep stretching the tape to make it easier to cut. I kept working across the door until all 3 strips were done. I then pulled the cladding out until I could get to the bottom strip of tape and I cut that with a utility knife. I used the serrated knife on the wheel well pieces too.

I was surprised that there was little to no rust caused by the cladding, although very dirty behind there. All the rust on the doors is coming from salt sitting on the seam on the inside. The wheel wells have some very small areas on the face that I don't really see any rust, but can feel almost like an orange peel feel. Not sure if that is fixable or if I will need new fenders. I really don't see any other rust around the wheel wells. The other weird thing is that there is more rust on the driver's side than the passenger side, pretty much down the whole length of the truck. Since the salt spreader is mounted on the drivers side of the salt truck, there is obviously more salt in the drivers side wheel track.

 

When looking for info on front bumper removal I did not run across any threads that had pics (although I usually have limited success with my searches). I also ran across conflicting info on the number of bolts to remove. So 2 pics to remove any doubt.

Two bolts on each side by tow hooks (from the front).


One bolt on each side behind the bumper on the support bracket.

 

thanks! 6 bolts total then

 

I got the body lifted off of the frame.



I originally thought I would lift the Ohio body just like I lifted the Texas body, but decided there might be too much damage to the rockers. I lifted on some channel. I will get some better pics of where I lifted at once I get the frame rolled out from underneath the body. Took about 3 tries to get the right balance. I tried to remove the least amount of stuff as possible and move both pieces back to my barn to work on it at home. It sure was nice to use the lift this time. I will take it back to my father-in-law's to put the body back on the frame when the time comes. We spent almost as much time looking things over to decide what to disconnect and where as we did actually doing the work. We were able to unbolt the AC compressor from the engine and leave the system intact and connected to the body. I tagged everything and covered all connectors and open pipes/hoses. There were only a couple of things we didn't get disconnected before we started lifting. The lifting went very slow at first, between checking to see that everything was disconnected, and disconnecting the few things we missed, and making sure we had the balance correct. More pics to come.

 

I just took my front bumper off last night for a fresh coat of paint. I removed the 6 bolts, but there was a bolt in front of both of the support brackets, not allowing for me to pull it off. I ended up removing 2 more bolts on the support brackets, and loosening the other 2, so I could twist it out of the way. Is there a trick to getting the bumper out with those 2 bolts in the way?

 

I don't recall any other bolts being in the way, and I know I didn't remove any other bolts on the bumper. Maybe there is a difference between 01 and 05? I don't recall reading anything about that.

I'm not where my truck is, or I would post a pic of the area where the bumper goes. Maybe you could post a pic of the offending bolts.

 

 

It's this one in your picture. Since there is one on both sides, I wasn't able to maneuver both brackets around the two bolts at the same time.

 

Jason,

The brackets where that bolts on are different. Now that I have both frames in the same spot, I have noticed some differences between the 2.

My truck (Ohio truck) is 2001 4x4 7.3L, the donor truck (Texas truck) is a 2000 2x4, V10.

Ohio truck:


Texas truck:


I'm not sure if the difference is due to the model year, engine type, or the front axle difference.

 

2001 looks like less metal on the bracket, so probably just a way to save a few pennies per truck?

 

There were 2 different styles of front crash bar. Maybe it relates to that.