Is this rust bucket of mine salvageable?

[nitrocharger]

Hello Everyone!

I finally got my account approved and I'm in the planning stages of fixing up my old high school ride.  When you are 16 and broke you overlook the structural integrity of a vehicle and instead paint it real pretty and make it go fast.  Now that I understand where I went wrong, I'm toying with the idea to committing to a frame off restoration.  I have a lot of rust in the floorboards that I understand can sometimes be fixed by welding in new pans.  I also have some rust on the frame and a crossmember that is completely rusted in two.  Do I have anything to work with or is it too far gone?

[Jason S]

Howdy from Kansas and welcome to the site.

Anything can be repaired, it just depends upon how much you want to spend...  As for your situation, I haven't had to deal with extensive rust as much as people from the northern states.

If the rust on the frame is localized to certain areas, you may be able to just weld in gusset plates. It really depends upon how extensive your rust issue really is. The photos are not real indicative for me.  If you clean up things a bit more, then a frame swap might be a quicker/simpler/easier option.   Cab sheet metal is replaceable, as you have already noted. 

I'm sure others that have much more experience with this will chime in soon.

[illinoisk30]

                  Welcome from Northern Illinois. Looks like you have quite a project there. I agree with what Jason S says earlier, anything can be fixed with lots of time and money depending on how attached you are to it. I have fixed cabs that are just as bad as yours and worse. Sometimes it is a learning experience to go ahead and fix a cab and do all the body work just to have the satisfaction of saying you did it. I did enjoy it but it is a ton of work. I had a small mig welder and plasma cutter that made the job much easier and enjoyable.
                  Your frame flange looks pretty bad. Looks to be the front hanger drivers side for the rear spring. I have a frame on one of my trucks where the flange completely rotted away and I had to purchase another frame. I paid $250 for it and was well worth it. You can sometimes find a good used cab for cheap too, it depends on how fast you want your truck back on the road and how much you want to spend. You may be able to fix your frame flange by plating it but then there is always the problem with rust starting again between the plates. Maybe after you get it apart and clean you may just be able to run it. The brackets for the spring are there holding much of it together and the inner bracket is "bridging" the problem area so you may be okay but it just looks bad. These are just my humble opinions, it is your truck and you do what is best .

[nitrocharger]

Thank you both for the reply.  The front of the frame has been well protected by all the leaking engine gaskets. 

The rear hanger area seems to be the worst but still solid when I hit it with a hammer.  I see that an un-nameable seller of vintage truck parts  sells new hanger brackets.  The bed cross member (which I cannot find anywhere) is badly rotted as well probably due to a broken bed floor.   I'd like to keep as much as the truck as possible as it has some sentimental value to me.  For anyone that's done a frame off on their truck with this amount of rust, could you give me an idea of how many years it took you to complete?  Also, if you have any advice before I start it would be appreciated too.

Also, anyone that has a good cross member for sale please let me know.

[illinoisk30]

The time it takes depends on how much time each day you have to put in to it. The two trucks that I have done were two totally different builds. My 1980 K30 took around one year with a basic cab still on frame restoration. It looked done and was for the most part but still finished things that did not affect it going down the road like the interior and finding a new grill. My other a 1977 K10 took around six years. Started on it right out of high school and worked on it a lot with almost every pay check going into it. It was a full frame off restoration with a lot of detail and plate and polish. One of these days I will post pics when I get it cleaned up.
                       With the right tools and some help you can go as fast or slow as you want. The main thing is Take Your Time. You don't want to go back and say "Yeah I should have done it this way".