My '87 V20

[87V20Kansan]

In June of last year I got the green light from the CFO to buy a truck again. I had been a couple years without after selling my '06 2500 Cummins which hurt me deeply to do. It was the right thing to do as money was tight and I had a lot of equity in it. After having to do that I decided that I would build my next truck, as once I get that far into a vehicle I have a much harder time getting rid of them. I also have a '79 Malibu coupe and a '78 Malibu wagon that I'll never part with.

When I bought this '87 I decided for the first time in my life I was going to name a vehicle. It looked like an old, rough and ready hay hand when I picked him up. Far from worn out but showing his age. I knew an old man from back in my teenage years that was always good to my grandfather. He always kept up the farm while we were back in the city. Reliable as the day is long. I thought his name was fitting for this truck. The truck is now known as Cecil.

Here he is the day I brought him home.

[DuckAholic1]

Congrats!!!  So, Howz Cecil lookin now???

[87V20Kansan]

First things first, remove all traces of additions and poor repair to the wiring harness. All of this had been added by the previous owner to bandaid the real problem of the bulkhead connector at the firewall having a poor/corroded connection. Cecil had no constant 12v power in the fuse block. Therefore the horn, dome light, courtesy light, radio memory, and clock were non-op. P.O. evidently didn't know how or didn't want to take the time to diag this and fix it correctly. Note the parts store airhorn that was also non-op. All is well now. Proper 12v constant has been restored.

Removed excess wiring:


On the ride home I noticed a lack of power on grade and a stutter at tip in of throttle. A proper tune up with cap, rotor, plugs, wires, and a new o2 sensor solved those issues. With the truck running right it was time to dive in to the body. Originally I was going to straighten up and save what the P.O. had completed. As it turned out the only thing I saved from him was the cab corner repair. The image of the driver's side in the first pic is primer covering up the bare metal that was exposed when the Silverado body moulding was removed. The driver's side bedside proved to be good. The passenger became very disturbing when I ground the primer and filler off over the wheel arch.



That, ladies and gentlemen, is how NOT to repair rust with a patch panel. What the P.O. did here was buy the commercially available repop wheel arch patch panel. He then cut out the body a half inch shorter than the patch piece. Then using a pneumatic flanging tool, hammered a flange into the remaining bedside, drilled holes into the patch and plug welded the patch to the bedside. Two major problems here:

#1. Hammering that flange into the bedside shrunk the metal so bad that it pulled a concave arc into the bed side from front to back. When viewed from the taillight forward to the back of the cab, the bedside actually was sucked in toward the center line of the truck over a 1/2".

#2. That overlap in the panel was nothing more than a water trap, making rust completely unavoidable. No weld through primer was used either as I discovered when I made the choice to fix this problem.

New Bedside. Knowing what I know now I will go to Texas, Arizona, or New Mexico and find a rust free bed when this one starts showing any problems or, heaven forbid, a wreck happens. Repop bedsides suck, that is all I can say about it. My friend and I  had more time and money in this bedside to make it straight than what a whole GM bed would have cost. Never again.


Finally straight


One thing that I have always thought makes a HUGE difference in the appearance of these trucks is getting rid of the roof seam. So away it went.




Fit a new cowl hood from Goodmark because I always loved the look of a cowl hood on these truck. Also in this pic I filled the badging holes in the fenders. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the doors before paint but I welded the holes up for the mirrors in the stock location because I wanted to move them forward and down on the door to line up better with the wing windows. Pics to come for that.


So when I bought the truck it was set up with a 4" suspension and a 3" body lift. I have never been the guy to go for body lifts.....ever. But in this case I did and here is why. The P.O. had gone through the trouble of trying to hide the body lift, and I kind of liked that idea. He had added a rear roll pan and lengthened the front filler valance between the grill and bumper:



To that end I lifted the driver side fuel tank 3 inches to make it appear factory, deleted the passenger side tank altogether, (More reasons for that later) and in a few weeks when the weather warms up I will extend the front inner fenders down to the frame rails and make filler pieces for the rear wheel tubs.

Finally in primer and on the trailer, headed up to the booth. The buddy helping me is a collision repair painter and one of the best I have ever seen. There was obviously no blending color on a new paint job, but this guy is like Picasso when a blend is involved. Small side note: Along the way I picked up a set of !BRAND NEW! military H1 runflat beadlocks with 37" BFG Baja T/A's instead of the 35" Boggers. The 45 minute drive home when I bought the truck with the boggers was enough for me. The thing sounded like a DC4 prop plane at 65 mph. A set of 2" CNC'd 6061 t6 spacers do the trick for offset correction.

[87V20Kansan]

In the booth and ready. Products used were Nason primer, Nason 2011 GM arctic white base, Dupont  three stage 2010 Cadillac Black Diamond, HOK Tangelo pearl orange, and Dupont Chromaclear.



Also visible in this pic is the door jamb. I took the time to metal work and smooth all of the spotwelds and seams out in the jambs.





Buttoned up getting ready for the trip home:

[87V20Kansan]

I am a man of many talents and have been tinting glass since I was 16. Glass installed and tinted:


Tailgate installed and lined up well. That took some work to get it to play well with the repop bedside. Shims, slotting hinge bolt holes, twisting the gate with a ratchet strap and tow hook on the front of a Suburban. Curse....grumble.....Blarghh....never again...


Face is back on. Hand brushed all of the stainless and bowtie. Repainted the insets in the emblem also:


MMMM Straight!


Dash restored and at least functional. Carried the color on to the glove box door.


Lastly the only pic I have of it on the road before the weather turned off. Sorry it's at night. More good pictures as soon as the weather comes back.

[87V20Kansan]

I am in the build stage of the step bars that my wife needs to be able to get in this thing. Pics for those will be in the projects section next week sometime. Then it is on to the door panel fab. I used to build custom car audio for years so that will be fun! Also there is a set of 2012 cloth buckets and console in black with gray inserts from a standard cab Dodge that will be installed as well. I will be happy to answer any questions. Hope you all enjoy the pictures as much as I have enjoyed this build.

[bake74]

     Very nice, and thanks for the informative pics.

[winky]

dude.... wow... im speechless haha hopefully ill be that good  with body work and painting one day. (collision repair isn't really all that difficult making art like your truck... definitely requires some serious skills) good job, your truck looks amazing man.

[DuckAholic1]

Wow...speachless!!!!! Awesome job!!! I can only dream of having that much skill,time,resources, & $$ to do such a great job on my truck. heck.. I'm still trying to find time to do a Brake Job!! Any voluntiers??? Keep up the great work, & keep the updates coming. Enjoy seeing the progress!! 

[87V20Kansan]

Thanks guys. It's been a fun one for sure. Very rewarding to say the least. When the weather clears up I will clean it up and get good pics of it. It is a truck still so I use it in the crappy weather. I cleaned for a few days on the underside, hit any surface rust stuff on the cab and bed with a rust converter/stopper, then painted and undercoated everything before the salt flew this time. Hopefully it will all hose off easily. We shall see. When the interior stuff kicks off I will take lots of pics. Door panels completely from scratch with 6.5" components. Amp rack and lighting on the back cab wall and a 10" sub in the floor under the passenger seat. Remember from earlier in this thread? There is no passenger side fuel tank in the way! Hold on to your hats. We are just getting started.

[winky]

cant wait! definitely one to watch

[Tonka]

Unbelievable!! Love that hood and that interior looks great too

[87V20Kansan]

Update. Took the truck to the pinstriper finally. I'm really happy with the result.











Those are all cool pics and really make me happy. But the glovebox door is the one I was most excited about. Clint was my cousin who passed from CF. He loved orange. We always talked about painting his ride orange at some point. He almost made his 21st birthday; a long time for a CF patient.

[87V20Kansan]

I also whipped this up the other night. I don't smoke in my vehicles and I wanted somewhere a little nicer to have control capabilities other than shoving switches in the bottom of the lower dash panel.
Plans are for cargo lights in bed, off road lights in front and back, one for a spare should I decide to add something else.

[dvdswan]

you truck came out beautiful.  the eye doesn't know where to look at the detail 1st.  great color scheme too.