GrumpyGhost

Well to start, apparently I pulled a muscle in my back behind my shoulder blade when I freaked out about the hot ember that went in my ear. So I took Thursday off the rest it. Today it still hurts but said screw it. Threw on some biofreeze and went to work kinda sorta. I set the truck on fire, oops! It took me about 3 hours to get the rocker fitting how I wanted it. It took awhile because I would tach weld it in place before test fitting the door and fender. I couldn't clamp the panel and close the door so I had to tach weld. Also the door is a pita to put on by yourself with a hurt back, don't worry, I used my legs! I didn't finish welding it in because I have to make some filler pieces for gaps from cutting the panel a bit to much. Also I ran out of argon/CO2 gas. Anyhow the fitment it a bit tight with the door towards the back of the rocker because I need new door hinges and the door sags a smidge. Oh well, something to tinker with in the future. As always sorry for the essay! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Welp, I didn't invest in a welding jacket and instead wore my old work long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt, I then cut up an old cut off and used that to cover my head under the welding helmet! It was a humid day and I went through 3 shirts. Not a fun day at all! Now then, inner rocker and inner cab corner is installed. I still need to tach weld the inner cab corner in a few spots but I won't cry if I never get to them. I am currently trying to fit the outer rocker and as I said before, it doesn't fit the best. It will work but I have to man handle the crap out of it. I may try slightly bending/adjusting it Tomorrow. I'm going to wait until I hang the door back on before I start bending the rocker however. I feel like I got quite a bit accomplished today considering I've never cut and fit metal panels like this before. The inner rocker was the hard part and I'm glad I got it over with! Crawling under the truck and welding while trying to not burn myself was a real chore. I did get one hot spark go inside my ear and that was not pleasant. I can still hear fine and it doesn't hurt, but I probably have a piece of metal burnt inside my ear. I also finished the brake lines today and man do I wish I waited till after welding in the inner rocker. It was fun squeezing the welding tip through all of my brand new brake lines and not accidentally burning one. As always, sorry for the essay! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

New brake lines are mostly in, I need 2 unions to finish. Did I mention I hate brake lines! All but one line on the abs module had been "fixed" before I did them. I ended up leaving 2 lines that were spliced into old lines as a quick fix from when they busted on me. I replaced the master cylinder lines up to were they had been spliced into. I didn't like the shape of the unions on the side where they flared the old lines so I'm replacing them. I could tell they didn't double flare and probably had trouble flaring the old rusted line. The third and last line ran from the abs module to the left front caliper which was tricky to route. I used a 70" line with a fitting converter on abs module. (Same as one pictured in master cylinder pic) Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

I finally had that moment were I went, oh S*** what have I gotten myself into! Because I have a 3 door extended cab, I have to do about twice the work to replace the driver side rockers! When I was ordering panels a couple months ago, I saw there was a inner cab corner and I just brushed it off as no big deal and originally didn't order it. I could have just cut out the bad of the inner cab corner, but it actually helps support the middle pillar for the roof. I am in complete new territory when it comes to this kinda stuff, I don't have a manual or directions, I'm just cutting and drilling by the seat of my pants! I'm not a fabricator or a welder by any means, I more of a mechanic who watched and helped occasionally sand and buff at a body shop for a summer. Good Lord is this crap testing my patience, I dare y'all to count all the spot welds I have drilled. As to what I did today: I got all the old rust crap panels off of the driver side! Finally!!! I forgot to get a photo of finished product. Also had to remove my rear seat and panels. That was about the easiest part of my day today. I also got the bump stops installed and the ebrake cables laying where they run on the frame, didn't get them hooked up. Other things on my mind. Tomorrow begins fixing all the metal I bent out of shape with the air chisel and lining up the new panels for install, I'm hoping I can get the driver side finished in terms of pasting in and welding the new rocker on. There are so many spot welds I'm crying inside just thinking about it. Im also considering not drilling all the holes in the new panels. Saves me from having to worry about not getting a good seal on the welds without a piece of copper to plug weld. And I don't have to drill holes. Only downside is I have to weld from backside by the frame. So I have to use a crawler and not burn myself or my helmet. I might invest in a welding jacket! I also need to get a welding blanket cause the inner rocker spot welds literally are under the carpet! So many spot welds. It was a real nightmare. I can see why body shops charge so much for this job! I honestly feel that they should charge more! Granted now that I've done it, if I ever had to do it again, it would still probably take just as long haha. Also I have never seen so much seam sealer. They packed the crap out of the floor corners at the factory. Once again, I apologize for the essay! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Didn't do much tonight, cleaned and spray painted the gas tank straps, rear bumper stop brackets, and the spare tire crank. Also painted my chrome pitted exhaust tip. I didn't por 15 these items because well, they are replaceable. Also ordered new ebrake cables, and the rubber bump stops. I decided I may as well get it done while everything is easy to get to. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Umm yeah, gotta remove the interior backseat panel to remove the inner rocker corner. I'm srsly considering just cutting the inner cab corner off and not putting the new one in. Been a real pain to remove the inner rocker as well. Didn't work all day as planned and didn't get far at all. Hopefully this is the hard side to do and the passenger side will go like a cool breeze. Ha-ha fingers crossed! I've decided that I might as well replace the last of the original brake lines since I have easy access to them. They look real bad. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Been busy with work and holidays, finally got a night off to do some work on truck. Spent about 3 hours cutting out old outer rocker. Inner rocker is where the real fun begins, like srsly 60ish spot welds to drill out! I Test fit the new rocker, looks good in photo from afar, but reality is it fits like crap. I planned to overlap the edges a bit, but that may not be possible and reason for the rocker not lining up very well. Regardless anything is possible with a welder as they say! Ill be spending a full day on the truck tomorrow. Hopefully get the driverside metalwork finished so this weekend I can do the passenger side which should go much quicker! I won't hold my breath though! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Not like a true paper gasket, but yes it was a paper gasket, I have a rubber one that came with the new diff cover, I just gotta buy or clean out a bucket to drain the brand new diff fluid in, cause that friggin diff fluid ain't cheap. I figured the felpro one would work fine, but I also wonder if I filled it too high with fluid and it's coming from the pinion shaft seal. Haven't finished my investigation yet. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Oh yeah forgot to mention that my rear diff is leaking, first photo you can see a small pool of oil under the diff! Grrrr! I probably should have put some gasket maker stuff on the felpro gasket! I'm afraid to tighten the bolts much more without breaking them off in the diff! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Only did rear half of frame, freaking taking forever! Once again I did one coat of por15 then top coated with engine paint, except I got the gloss black this time, didn't mean to buy the flat black that is on the bottom of the bed. Anyhow I think I'll have just enough por15 to finish the rest of the frame or close to it. My original plan to paint all at once didn't take into account how hard rust is to paint with a foam brush! Probably should have bought a large acid brush but whatever, foam brush is 30¢ Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Got most of the dent out of the driver side. Screw a dent puller, I used a much more expensive borrowed porta power! (10 ton one at that, most are only 4 ton!) Need to do a bit more with it, but I'm not that committed to working on it, just wanted to make sure it was gunna work and not dent the inside panels as I popped out the outside. Also test fitted the new panel and it lines up about perfect considering. I took off my step bars and never removed the brackets because I took one off and found the body mount bolt was a new one that came with the bars. It was about 1/2 inch too long to tighten back down. So I put it off till now. Low and behold I went to the "spare parts bin" to find some washers to fill the gap as I didn't want to mess with buying new bolts that had to be the perfect length. I figured I threw the old bolts away but as I was searching for washers, I happened upon the original bolts! Lucky me! I lost my heavy lifting helper for the weekend as they are on vacation and don't want to risk door removal alone. I could probably handle it, but I just don't see the need to risk it. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

It's ugly, but I had some time to weld on the cross member. I wasn't able to seal weld the bottom of the pieces I made, but I got 2inch beads on each side of the bottom of the new pieces along with the top sections which you can see in pics. It'll eventually rot out again, but I think I'll search for a good cross member in junkyards and replace it as a whole piece in the future. For now it is structurally sound again. Gunna por15 the frame tomorrow and hopefully remove the doors and get driver side rockers off. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

I tightened down the front shocks, also got the torsion keys installed. Went and rented a ball joint press/C-clamp. I asked AutoZone guy when they closed, and he said in an hour and a half. So I said to myself challenge accepted and told him I'd be back to return the press before they closed and he said good luck. Pshhh, got the whole job done in 30 mins. Went back to AutoZone and the guy was like, did you give up? I was like yeah, I used the torque gun instead of a socket wrench! Of course I didn't tell the guy that I wasn't using the press for ball joints. But still I chuckled a bit inside. I forgot to get a pic of the truck leveled, I also decided to actually read the directions that came with the leveling kit. Apparently the lift blocks for the leaf springs have a certain direction they are supposed to go. Now I gotta check them. They looked square to me when I put them on but whatever. My fault for not checking and reading directions. I also cut out the cab corner of the driver side off. I'm not looking forward to the 7 million spot welds!!!! I also cut the junk off the cross member so I can fix them. I have some extra 16 guage metal left over from the wheel well. So I decided to make pieces out of it. I'd say they look dang good for me just using my hands and a body panel hammer. I also picked up some rubberized undercoating to spray inside the cross members. I guess it "dries" wet! Hopefully it'll slow down the rust. I didn't feel like paying for more weld thru primer for inside of the pieces I made for cross member, so I'm just gunna throw some undercoating on it and call it a day. I also have been dealing with my rotors hitting the new dust shields I installed. The dust shields hits the rotors just on the inside of the hat for the ebrake pads. So I had to take the rear calipers back off and grind down the brand new friggin dust shields. I didn't bother painting the parts I grinded, I feel it was a mistake buying the things in the first place. Hopefully they rust off faster then the first ones! I also only worked on this for about 4 hours today. Maybe 5 hours if you include running to AutoZone. I got 3 weeks to get this bad boy finished. And about 2 months of work left lol jkjk. But it is a bit much to do in 3 weeks and only having my spare time to work on it. If I didn't have be an adult and have a real job. I'd say I could have it ready for paint by Friday. Wish me luck. Also I'm not replacing my door hinges now. I can do them later, I did some more special magic to the driver door to make it close nicely again for a minute hopefully. I may replace the hinge pins on passenger door though, it likes to squeal when opening and closing even with lithium grease. Lastly sorry for the essay of a post! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Gotta go rent a ball joint clamp. I got the old key out using a regular c clamp. Lol I attached a video of how easy the front shocks compress by hand using Tapatalk. Also posted photo of compressed shock compared to normal. Spent most of evening getting the torsion bars unsiezed and old keys off. Actually easier than I thought they would be.http://cloud.tapatalk.com/s/594dd94db2d5c/Snapchat-290552082.mp4 Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Got the fenders off and front wheels off so I can start frame/suspension work/painting. Still haven't messed with rear cross member. Driver side fender has a little rust where the fuse box mounts. No biggie, just clean and por15! The fenders are a real pain to take off! Especially the driver side, I should have probably YouTubed how to remove them, but I don't think it would have really saved much time. Noticed one outer tierod is shot, thanks Moog! Jkjk, it's been a few years since I did them. Overall front half of frame is in crazy good condition compared to the back half. I'm considering changing the ball joints while I'm doing all this since I have them, but then again I've got my hands full already! Time will tell! I think I'm going to take doors off, and cut out the old rockers and stuff before I paint the frame. This will give me more access to clean and paint the frame. I'm almost out of por15 and really don't want to buy another quart, so I'm hoping if I do all of the por15 painting at once, I can stretch it vs wasting a bit when I paint stuff separately. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

I forgot to say that $2000 also includes the $450 I payed for the "New Bed", now that im thinking it over more, I think I'm at $2180 as of yesterday with fuel lines. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

I have all of the receipts, I'll get around to adding up the total soon. As for the price of what I'm doing compared to paying someone to do it. I doubt I could find someone or a body shop that would do everything to the extent that I'm doing it. I would guess I would have to go to someone who does full restorations. The hotrod restoration/body shop I did an internship at quoted me $1400 for cab corners and rockers, and another $1200 for wheel wells on bed. This is also the "friend price." Also they would not have touched the frame or any other part of the bed, just fix the "major" areas and be done. I'm probably about $2000 or so in parts right now. I haven't bought the base paint or clear yet which will be about $200 to $250 depending on how many quarts I decide I need. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Truck is finally inside. First pic looks as though frame is painted, but actually it's just wet because a storm had just blown through not 10 mins earlier. It's a tight fit now, but I got everything inside. I just used ratchet straps to hold gas tank on as it's coming right back off tomorrow. Last pic is showing how much of a rake the truck has now with the new leaf springs and rough country spacers. It's kinda hard to tell with bed off, but I don't sit flat in my seat, can tell I'm leaning forward a bit. I took it for a test ride after bleeding the brakes of course!! (I would never dream of doing a burnout with the rear calipers not having any pressure : ) Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

What a friggin nightmare! Not really, just not how I wanted to fix the fuel lines. I had to pay $19 dollars for a quick connect hard line. Srsly, I would have just ordered a fitting to go on the mylon lines, but I need to move this beast tomorrow! I spent the evening working on this since I spent the day with my father! So some of the pictures may be crappy night time filtered. I wanted to use unions and my flare tool to fix the lines, but AutoZone didn't have the fittings I needed, so I opted (don't shoot me) for compression fittings. I plan to replace all the lines in the future, but for now this will get me down the road. I tried to make the new lines follow the factory routing as best I could. Overall, cost way to much for the "quick" fix, but looks good! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Welp, it's back together kinda sorta, I still need to torque some stuff and shackles are not tightened all the way. Haven't bled brakes, still need to replace fuel lines and toss the gas tank on truck and drive it indoors. I am actually pretty happy with the "cheap" rough country shocks. They are the N3 shocks, which I guess is the third generation of the shocks they have offered since the release of their leveling kit. I've found that a lot of people wine about the poor quality of the shocks, but I gotta say they seem to at least be a slight upgrade from my stock Z71 shocks. They are double the thickness as well so I don't feel like they will break if I do some offroading which is honestly not something I do often. It's seems ridiculous to me at least, to buy fox or Bilstein shocks for a mostly highway driven vehicle. Anyways, I'm getting closer to getting back to body work again, which so far I prefer over this mechanic crap. Really tough on my hands, but I ain't no crybaby, I only wear gloves when messing with chemicals and stinky diff oil. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

In last post I showed pics of old shackles still in place. Change the shackles I said, it'll look better I said! Out of this whole deal so far, getting those shackles off were the worst part over anything else. Like garrrrrrr! Throw a hammer, smash a TV, shotgun a beer. Repeat. Lol I only have a 3inch cut off wheel and it has a stupid guard! So i didn't have the depth to cut through the bolt on each side. So I visit my grandpa who has enough tools to open 2 car shops and all he has is a grinder that can take a 6 inch blade. Of course it has a guard as well, and I couldn't get it off. So I went home, use the little cut off wheel to cut the guard off the big grinder. Then I broke the blade about half way through the first cut. The pieces of course flew into my leg area if ya know what I mean. So I said screw this thing and got my bfh and went to town, luckily I didn't bend any vital frame parts. I was mad pretty much the entire time as it is also high 80s today. But the ole bfh came through and took care of that anger lol So after spending about and hour on each shackle (not including when I removed the top part for old leaf springs), I cleaned and painted the old leaf spring parts that have to be reused. I also cleaned and painted the frame sections where the leaf springs will cover and I won't be able to get to after they are in. I didn't get the leaf springs connected in the rear, also everything is just finger tight and the frame is still on jack stands. But I will say that it's look good compared to a week ago. Ill show y'all how to polish a turd haha. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

The frame is almost ready for paint, I have been fighting with pop up thunderstorms and have decided that I can finish rest of frame work inside. Sadly I have to fix fuel lines and install new brake lines before I can bring the truck inside. My goal is basically to get truck indoors today, my welder also won't stretch that far outside to fix the cross member. So I'll have to redrop gas tank indoors! Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

It's been very hot these past 2 days, anyways, I'll paint the diff after u get the rest of the frame fixed and cleaned. New metric bolts which cost an arm and leg, lock nuts, and felpro gasket, new diff cover came with cheap red gasket, but I had bought a felpro previously when I changed fluids before, but saw the rusty bolts and thought better of getting into it at the time. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

Shaft lock bolt wasn't broken somehow, they usually are with high mileage. As for the ring and pinion, the ring is in perfect shape. The pinion is okayish. Some scaring on a few teeth, no broken teeth at least. I can see it lasting until I put some real power to the rear end. Then it may blow up, but stock power it'll be fine. And yes I have the rare open diff 4x4. No g80 locking bullcrap that leads to a grenaded diff. Kinda sucks that I just changed the fluid in this about 2 months ago. Oh well, I changed the axle seals while I had the axles out as well. The dust covers I got are okay, but they will disappear over time to rust like the originals did. I may paint/por15 diff tomorrow, got most of the diff cleaned with wire brush. Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk