Shifting gears from all that suspension work, I've been working on cleaning up the frame and underside of the body to paint. Goal is to get that done, drop the body back on the frame for good, and then start final mechanical assembly. I will paint the outside sometime later.
In process of lifting the body
I was planning to lift it high enough to roll the frame out from under it, but once I got it up about 12" I realized I've got enough room to do what I need to, so I'm just running with it as-is. Before anyone yells at me, this was just during the lift, there are now additional supports between the body and frame to keep it from falling on my head.
Jack riser I built, its bolted solid to my floor jack. this also gives an idea of what the frame is like now, lots of surface rust but nothing serious. the body rot you see in the rocker is the worst spot on the body, and I have plans for a solid rock slider piece that will replace this whole area.
I'm lifting on a piece of heavy wall tube, with 2x10 wood blocks distributing the load between 2 braces that are under the cab. The back of the body is supported by a tube bolted to the body mounts, across some sawhorses.
I'm starting with a twisted wire cup on a grinder to knock the loose stuff off, followed by another grinder with a paint stripper disc on it (
LINK). These things work awesome but I learned quickly to stay away from edges, or you get to watch a $5 disc disappear in about 0.1 seconds.
Anyways a couple of afternoons of work has the frame from what you see above to this:
The plan is to shoot the frame with good old rustoleum primer and top coat, this will make changes later easier than if I used something like POR-15. The underside of the body will get a coat of this stuff (
LINK) since I don't see any way I will get 100% of the rust off the body. Primer will be followed by LizardSkin sound insulation, and finally a top coat of rustoleum with ceramic beads mixed in to (hopefully) help with heat insulation. Yes I know its a lot of work to throw at a crappy old truck with a not great body, but I am hoping the sound/heat insulation helps make it a halfway reasonable truck to put some miles down.
Before I spray the coating on the body I need to make sure all the holes in the body are welded up, so I've been making plugs to weld in using my new favorite toy - Blair Rotabroach kit
Some of these holes look like they were drilled with a dull masonry bit, or maybe a .45 ACP. You can see that the metal under all that surface rust really isn't that bad. Its not a show truck, so it'll work out fine. I'm more interested in keeping water out than how it looks, plus eventually the inside of the tub will get a coat of bedliner to hide all my crappy body work..
Random holes in the fenders, I'm just going to try to take these closed using a copper backer.
The worst hole at the back of the floor was bad enough I just cut out out with a 1.5" hole saw and made a larger patch.
I've also been collecting parts for the steering/hydroboost system as well as the rest of the plumbing, so once I get though this body work phase I'm hoping to be making some more interesting progress.
