GrumpyGhost Rusty 1999 GMC Sierra Z71 Ongoing build!

[GrumpyGhost]

I watered down my floors, recleaned bed with reducer. Drained water outta my air compressor. Recleaned my spray gun in solvent. Then went to mix the bed liner!

 

(+_+)

 

What did I find, well there is a tintable version of raptor bed liner, and of course that's what I ordered! Except I didn't, I ordered standard black! Grrrr! This is white in color and has to be mixed with color!

 

This pissed me off so I quit for the night! Looking back, I guess I could have just sprayed primer, but I didn't make the booth big enough to set the bed back down on the stands.

 

Overall, it is a plus that I received tintable bed liner, now I can use it as a chip guard on the rockers if I thin it out a bit. I won't post again until the bed is primed!

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

After a day of letting off some steam, I have come back to the realization that this kinda work isn't for everyone and for a moment I lost my patience. This kinda job takes a lot of patience!

 

Where I'm at now: see pics

 

I decided before I wasn't going to use the dolfin glaze I bought, but have since reconsidered. Im using black primer as a guide coat.

 

Also I'm shaping the wheel well before primer.

 

I everglassed the front panel welds, now I'm applying regular filler over the everglass as a "pinhole filler" I won't be glazing it as it won't be seen.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

I forgot I put down seam sealer, it's the cheap kind. I'm using a block to sand, the DA was good getting filler flat, but not for final shaping. Especially the wheel well.

 

I did find another low spot on passenger panel, but I forgot exact spot and hands were covered in filler, so I kinda just put it down over a large area.

It'll buff out! Lol

 

I decided that I have a high spot and lightly tapped it down, but then it turned into a low spot, I'm guessing this may be a warped spot from welding, so I covered it with everglass to make sure it doesn't try an pop out so to speak.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

So everything is sanded properly and glazed over to fill pin holes! That's right, I'm done Sanding on the bed!! Finally!!! I literally spent the evening going over everything on this bed to prepare for primer! Only thing I didn't glaze was the front panel where I covered the welds with filler. It won't really be seen and is not exactly "flat" so to speak. I mainly covered it to protect and strengthen the welds.

 

I will admit that I was a bit worried about making the wheel well look untouched. I probably put down filler like 6 times! I'm am actually really happy that it only took that many times. I figured I'd be working on it for ages and was gunna put it off as a last "touch-up" item before I did base and clear.

 

As I said before I got in a rush and started cutting corners. Which is fine cause it's not a show vehicle and would have come out similar anyways. But I decided better of it.

 

The first 4 photos show how much everglass I had to use to hide the seam where I welded in the new 90° angle piece. It ended up being like 1/8 inch thick, oh well! The piece was also kinda wavy after welding it on, so I had to fill the whole bottom edge that won't be seen unless someone looks under. But it's all flat now so no one will be the wiser.

 

Tomorrow evening (knock on wood) I will be spraying 2 coats of primer on the bed. I'm not gunna do the bed liner until I do base coat which will be the last thing I do. Time to move on to the rear frame.

 

I actually have to take my rear diff cover off, pull the axels out, just to replace the dust covers. What a PITA. I plan to take whole rear axel off and drop gas tank to give me as much room as possible to clean and paint the frame with por15. Would normally be a big deal, but I have to replace the shocks and leaf springs anyhow.

 

This project has taken a real toll on my social life so I might take this weekend off or at least one day. I think I can still pull off getting this project done be mid July. Being a one man army, it's a lot to do in a month.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

Gotta invest in some goggles. I have a fan blowing in fresh air, but my eyes were burning towards the end of the coats. I did two coats.

 

I only see one spot where I need to add some filler. (Very last picture) My work on the wheel well is perfect! Holy crap is that a miracle. I thought for sure I would need to fix something on it. The corner under tail light where I added some filler is not perfect, but it'll be covered by the rear bumper so I'm not touching it.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

Welp, I found more rust!!! Go figure!!!! Somehow it didn't upset me one bit, probably because I was expecting it.

 

I pulled the gas tank and found the cross member was badly rusted, which I honestly suspected that there may have been a problem, you can see in last pic how gas tank sits up against the cross member and is prime location to hold salt!

 

Also, i haven't had a fuel leak, but I suspected them to be just about ready to go, once I dropped gas tank it moved the rusty gas lines just enough for them to start leaking.

 

The rear end is no longer supporting the truck, I kept running into problems! It would already be off except I can't get the pesky emergency brake cables off! Only one shock still had some "spring" to it. The shock on driver side where leaf spring broke I was able to compress with my pinky.

 

(Also in last pis is a sighting of my "bfh", it came in handy on pretty much every aspect of tear down!)

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

I may get a bit more done this evening but so far the pics tell the story. Didn't like the looks of the brake lines and may as well replace em while it's convenient. Also I figured out that the ebrake lines were stuck in the fully engaged position. They were frozen so I just cut them.

 

Rough Country kit didn't include new shock bolts! Meh! I had a heck of a time getting the ubolts off of the leaf springs so I could roll the rear end out. But so far I've only had to cut the leaf spring shackle bolts and lower shock bolts. I did order the other shackle I forgot to get. I destroyed the one I was gunna try and save getting the leaf spring off lol.

 

I also ordered a new diff cover. New soft lines and that adds another $100 to the already over budget! I planned to replace lines but the leaf springs did me in on budget! Gotta save were I can now! I didn't order new ebrake lines. Sshhhhh! I'll replace them eventually, but not a priority right now.

 

(Oh and yes, the bleeder valves on calipers cracked open with ease! Hallelujah!)

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

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.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

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.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

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!

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

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.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

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.

 

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[GrumpyGhost]

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!

 

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[Singer-Man]

That’s coming along nicely. Have you kept a running total for parts?

 

 

It is also a good idea to keep track of the hours you’ve invested in the project. Though it is difficult to quantify such – unless you’re a professional mechanic or auto-body man – doing so can give you a better idea of the ‘cost’ of the project

[Full Lock]

Wow thought mine had some rust. ?

Keep up the good work. Love seeing people keep bringin back these gmt800s.