1976 Chevy Truck 3/4 ton 4x4 - 2nd rebuild

[firefighter]

Thanks for the replies guys.

Oh yes thirsty, walking in the garage the day after painting the tailgate was great.... fresh paint smell and a glossy shine on it. A great feeling.

When I removed the same sticker from the tailgate, I did use the heat gun and it seemed to come off ok, but it was time consuming.
I started with the heat gun on the box sides and it took about 10 minutes to get a 12" strip done. The mess it was leaving behind made me give up that route. After I got it super hot, the sticker would begin to scrape off but the glue residue left was smearing all over the place.
I ended up using a razor scraper and skimming off the top sticker 1/2" at a time, then coming back with acetone and laquer thinner to soften and remove the glue residue. I've got that part done now but it was a pain alright.

mikek20: I've heard about the eraser wheel and I heard they work great. If I had access to one, I would have certainly tried it. My process was a little time consuming but I got it done.

Now on to some sanding and priming of the bare spots.

[jacknife]

 Looking Great FireFighter, I am really liking that color.

[firefighter]

Small update as I go along.....

I got all the body work done to the box that I was going to do. I didn't do much at all to the inside since it's a work truck.
On the outside I had to weld closed a couple holes that were originally for trim, and fix a few small dents. There was no rust on the replacement box I bought and I already undercoated the complete bottom.

I decided to paint the box in stages since there is so much surface area to paint.
I primed any repaired or bare spots on the outside and got it ready for paint.
I decided to first paint the inside as well as the outside rear and front of the box. I got that done on Sunday night as you can see in the pic below.
Next I'll come back and just have to paint the outside skin of the left and right hand sides. The taped overlap lines will be covered or in inconspicuous areas.

If you've never painted the inside of a box before, let me tell you that it's a real pain in the behind. You have to be a stinkin contortionist to get to all the inside corners, upside down places and to the complete center of the floor, all while doing a balancing act on a step ladder yet trying to keep your air hose out of the new paint. Now you see why I didn't want to paint the complete box at once? If you've ever painted a complete box inside and out in one shot, I worship at your feet.

Anyway, here are a few pics. I hope to have the sides painted in the next week or so. Spring chores are keeping me pretty busy.

Primer in the needed areas


Inside painting done

[gto109]

  I like.

[hotrod24]

WoW man looking good...

[bake74]

     Looks good firefighter.  Nice job.

[1987V204X4]

Dang your doing a great job!!!! Where about's in Iowa do you live ?? I'm in Des Moines...

It's to bad you already bought your tires and lift. I could of made you one heck of a deal .
I bought a 87 V20 about a month ago and it has a newer 4" superlift with brand new Fierce Attatude 315/75/16 tires.

I'm going to remove the lift and put a set of HD 4 leafs up front and go down to a set of 285/75/16. I will be putting a snow plow on this truck so I might need to do the add-a-leaf  but I'm not sure about that yet??? But the tires and lift sre like new, The leaf springs still have the superlift stickers on them. "01-234-06".  I'm thinking I will try and sell everything as a package deal or $200 for the lift and $600 for the tires. I'd think someone would jump all over that deal???
I will be listing everything on Des Moines craigslist here soon and mabe even try the swap meet next weekend at the fair grounds.

[firefighter]

As hoped, I got both sides of the box painted in color last weekend and had a couple guys come over after work yesterday to finally get a box back on my truck rebuild.
One by one I'm checking things off my list of completed things.
By the time I was done last evening it was dark outside. I need to get this thing out into daylight to take some true color pictures. This color for some reason is really hard to take pictures of under fluorescent lighting.

Anyway, that's where I am now and on to more finishing details.
Thanks for looking.

[reload]

Cheer up!

[codyC10kid]

Nice...im not a huge fan of the color but hey nice paint job...better than mine lol (im not done,i still have body work)

[Captkaos]

Looks GREAT!

[jaredts]

Nice...im not a huge fan of the color but hey nice paint job...better than mine lol (im not done,i still have body work)

I really, really love the color!  That truck looks great.

[firefighter]

These pictures are what the true color is. You try taking pics of this color inside the shop and the color seems to glow like it's full of radiation or something.   
It's an original Chevy color: 1970 Yellow Green Poly or 1971 Medium Olive Poly.

This weekend I got the bumper and hitch cleaned up and undercoated  where needed. Rear wiring and back up lights operating and tailgate installed and adjusted.

I also got the nerf step bar installed on the drivers side but still need to finish the passenger one.
I hated installing these, but am not as young as I used to be and this rebuild set the truck 3" higher that it was before.

Still working on final details but here is the latest and greatest.....

[thirsty]

That looks awesome firefighter!
I like all 73-87 trucks but especially 4X4 ones. Even better when they are lifted just a bit but still usable. Perfect stance as far as I am concerned. The color looks great outside. I have the same problem taking pictures of mine, the camera never seems to get the true color and no two pictures look the same.

You must be proud of that beauty!

[bake74]

     Glad to see it coming together, what do you have left before you can start driving it on the street ?