85 K10 rebuild (aka CreamPuff)

[melloyello]

Put new brake hoses on the front and tore down the fuel tanks and cleaned everything up only to find a pin hole in the passenger side tank. I think the rust was keeping it from leaking. There goes another $100.

[JohnnyPopper]

Reminds me of a '64 Porsche 356 gas tank, sat in a wet insulation condition that caused multiple pin holes.

I cleaned up the rust and brazed the holes closed. Never leaked again!

All the brass puddles were on the bottom so out of sight/mind 

[melloyello]

Reminds me of a '64 Porsche 356 gas tank, sat in a wet insulation condition that caused multiple pin holes.

I cleaned up the rust and brazed the holes closed. Never leaked again!

All the brass puddles were on the bottom so out of sight/mind 

The brackets on the driver's side tank were heavily rusted. They aren't designed with a way to let water out. Add the plastic guard that surrounds about 60% of the tank with no drain and it's a recipe for rust. I have drilled a couple of holes in the bottom of the brackets and will probably do the same for the plastic guards also. I'm tempted to just leave the plastic guards off the tanks.

[melloyello]

Got the passenger side tank installed today. The new driver’s side tank came in today but won’t have the new brackets til the end of the week. Also, disassembled the transfer case today. No pics of that though.

[melloyello]

Replaced the transmission filter, painted new tank and put sending unit in it.
Got the transfer case sealed up and put a coat of paint on it


Got the new tank straps. Didn't know that they don’t come with nuts welded on them. All I have here to weld with is a lil 90amp harbor freight flux core wire welder. It gets the job done but spews slag everywhere.




Picked up a set of 906 Vortec heads today for only $200. That should help free up some power.

[melloyello]

Got both tanks mounted up, installed the transfer case and installed rear driveshaft. Front driveshaft needs to be lengthened about 2”. Someone must have swapped this shaft at some point.


Straightened my bumper and got a coat of Chassis Saver on the backside of the bumper, the bumper pad and the brackets.

[JohnnyPopper]

That was one butt-ugly bumper!

Was the front and top chromed before?

I have the same, but used wheel silver paint

What is Chassis Saver?

[melloyello]

That was one butt-ugly bumper!

Was the front and top chromed before?

I have the same, but used wheel silver paint

What is Chassis Saver?

The top and rear of the bumper was originally chrome. I’m pretty sure the front side of the rear bumper wasn’t chrome. Then again, I’ve never seen a brand new one. I do need to know what I should use to fill the gap/seam around the diamond plate. I don’t know if was originally black, beige, clear or white.
Chassis saver: https://www.magnetpaints.com/underbody.asp

[melloyello]

Not much to report. Had some doors to put up in the house and had some stumps ground down so had to move some dirt around in the yard.
I did manage to get the underside of the bed cleaned up and took a few dings out of it. Got her on stands so I can paint the underside. Going to have to order a patch panel to get rid of some Swiss cheese.



Got the hood hinges and some other small bits cleaned up and put a fresh coat of paint on them.



Can anyone tell me where I can get these bedside braces for less than $20 each? That's ridiculous. I'll make my own before I pay that for them. Everywhere I look seems to show "stepside" braces.


My dog's so cool she needs shades on a cloudy day I guess


And a pic of my lil helpers

[melloyello]

I've never been a paint/body guy so I'm doing some practice on small pieces with bondo, primer and sandpaper.


Trying to save some money by reusing as much hardware as I can. These little grille fasteners cost $2-3 each. One was missing so I had to modify one similar to these to fit.


Let me just say that I am disappointed in Chevy here. I never knew this center strip was polished under the paint. Why did they paint them? Grille is assembled and ready to install.

[Mike81K10]

Coming along nicely!

[melloyello]

Coming along nicely!

Thanks. Little bit at the time. Started playing with my welder a little late yesterday with some thin scrap panels. Haven’t welded anything that thin with it before. All I have is a little 90 amp harbor freight flux core welder but looks like it’s going to work for what I need.

[melloyello]

Did the first of my body panel projects today. I have never done any panel replacement so go easy on my work. I figured I would give it a try since I was quoted $1200 just to replace my cab corners and rocker panels. Not saying that that's too high but it's too rich for my blood if I can learn how to do this stuff on my own.
Let me say first that changing from the Harbor Freight flux core wire to Lincoln flux core wire made a huge difference in my little 90amp HF welder. It arcs easier and has less spatter now. With that said, today's project was getting rid of the rust on the left bed rail.

This was a result of a toolbox or possibly multiple toolboxes that had been bolted down through the bed rails. I counted a total of 8 holes drilled in this small section. Needless to say it looked like swiss cheese.




First came the removal of the rusty section of skin. This one section had 6 spot welds.



What was left of the skin



My homemade panel. Made with a body hammer, dead blow hammer, a couple of clamps and the 90° angle of my wood shop table. Use what you got.



New panel fitted



Nasty flux core welding



I figured since they had 6 spot welds I would do the same



Time for some bondo and on to the other side tomorrow I hope.

[Mike81K10]

You did good on the patch panel. If you can use Flux or MIG with your Lincoln, like my Hobart welder. I would recommend getting gas and doing MIG to get much less spatter.

[melloyello]

You did good on the patch panel. If you can use Flux or MIG with your Lincoln, like my Hobart welder. I would recommend getting gas and doing MIG to get much less spatter.

I bought this welder originally just to do odd jobs here at home. Mainly if I needed to repair my exhaust or something like that. This welder doesn't have any provisions for adding gas. And what's worse is it's an AC output welder. A DC output welder would be better for flux core as I could reverse the polarity. If I was to get the HF 170amp welder offers DC output and I could add gas but that welder requires 240volt and I'm not setup for that. I am going to stick with this one for this project so I don't have to spend $500+ on a new welder along with all the other money I'm having to spend to do this restore. Thanks for the info though. I was actually looking into adding gas a couple days ago until I found out I couldn't.