'65 GMC 1500 project. From the Netherlands

[Prowbar]

Originally Posted by Jim A

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That hood hinge area corrosion is awful. Snow and salt impaction?
My 1960 is really clean there, even though its first ten years were in Alaska.
Only bad areas are rockers and lower door posts. And a little floorboard.
I hope to see your finished product pics some day.

I'm also surprised by the amount of rust about the hood hinges. Other trucks don't have this much rust in these spots.

I'd love to see your truck Jim, if you're willing to show it on the forum, especially since you owned it for so long.


As for my truck, this is how Goliath looks now. The front end is completely tore down.

Decided to leave the engine in place for now. Sorry for the rag on the engine, its purpose it to keep peoples dirty hands from "inspecting the engine"

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I am hoping to remove the large crossmember tomorrow. I'll support the engine using a jack stand under the timing cover, just like the motor mount in the big trucks.
The crossmember can then be sandblasted.



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Got the inner fenders, radiator support, battery box, bumper, grille all straightened out, dents removed, rust repaired, ready for sandblasting.
Big parts in the photo will be farmed out, the small items I can do myself.



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Disassembled the front suspension, am taking everything apart for sandblasting. New balljoints will be installed.



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Here is a shot of the straightened out bumper. It was pretty crooked on the driverside. Along with the big dents in the front fender I am assuming they drove into something substantial. They crudely welded the bumper back together. Took me quite some time to reweld it and straighten it under the press. I made some support blocks from wood to aid in straightening.

New hardware will be used throughout the rebuild. Getting the proper Grade 8 bolts here is very difficult (I can get Grade 5 easily) so I am compiling a big list of items to purchase while I'm in the US.

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Hope to start on the epoxy primer and paintwork next week.

This time we're doing it proper. Having a good time here

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[Prowbar]

A lot has happened since the last post. Got the whole front suspension torn down to rebuild. Sandblasted all the parts in the blasting cabinet.
I made an extension for the cabinet to be able to blast the front crossmember. I could not reach every spot, but at least I could do the cast pieces and sides.



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Here are all the parts from the front suspension sandblasted and prepped for paint. I could not remove all the pitted rust with blasting, so I lightly coated the bare steel parts with the rust treatment that I have good success with. This is applied in a light coat with a brush, left to dry ~15 minutes and the excess wiped off.



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Here are the first parts in primer. I assembled the spindles and wheel hubs before painting. I assembled everything with ceramic grease on the fasteners. I used a 2K epoxy primer. This will be followed up by a 2K topcoat, gloss black like the original.
The spindle/backing plate on the right only has a light coat on the picture.



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Here I am assembling the control arms. I marked everything before disassembly to clean up the control arms. All the threads and rubber seals looked very good. I am replacing the grease fittings, using the old ones for painting.



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While assembling I ran across an anomaly. The book lists this dimension of 3.50" as a reference measurement. I centered mine as best as I could and came out to 3.60". If I put it at 3.50" the control arm was pretty off centered in the control arm. Not sure what is going on here, any of you might have a clue?



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Because I had the steering box, idler arm mount and front crossmember off, it was a good time to repaint the outside of the chassis rails.
I am reusing some of the old hardware but have bought new nuts and have new bolts for the steering box/idler arm mount. Grade 8 bolts are a PITA to come by here and they are expensive (~5 USD per bolt...)
I only but what I need, they come in a phosphate finish only so they will be painted anyway for rust protection.

Before I leave for the US I hope to put together the front suspension for primer/paint the body panels. The truck will be moved into storage for the time being.

[Prowbar]

Update time!

Last time I left off that most parts were sand blasted, some in primer.
I continued spraying 2K epoxy primer on all the suspension parts.



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Here are the parts in the gloss black topcoat. This is a industrial quality 2K polyurethane paint (Sigmadur 550)

Both primer and topcoat laid down very well, even considering I was painting at low temperatures. I did preheat the parts to offset the cold and to prevent moisture from forming.



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Time to start assembling. The new phone that I have doesn't have the same picture quality that the old phone had, which is a shame.
Using part existing and part new hardware. I am using ceramic grease on all fasteners.



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Using new upper balljoints and lower balljoints. Here I am pressing in the new Moog 7053KT balljoints.

Continued in the next post.

[Prowbar]

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Here I am reinstalling the front springs after both upper and lower control arms were reinstalled. You have to pay attention that the spring is properly seated in the spring pockets. It took 2 jacks to get the travel required to compress the spring fully.

I noticed some yellow paint marks in the front crossmember which convinced me I have the Heavy Duty spring package (I have the 10 leaf leafsprings in the back too, I took 2 leafs out of them previously)

The front springs are so heavy that I could not fully compress them to start the nut on the upper balljoint spindle without lifting up the truck, so we used a large steel tube to hold down the frame so I could start the nut.
Then I torqued both balljoints nuts to spec.

I kept track of the alignment shims and put them back in the right order, but plan to realign the truck after I come back from the US anyway.


The local company that does all the zinc plating for me finally had my parts ready so I could continue the front suspension work.

I went ahead and assembled the front brakes with new hardware:



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Had the dust covers zinc plated, cleaned up the wheel studs and pressed them in. Cleaned and repacked the wheel bearings.



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Finally ready to lower it back on its wheels. The new dust caps are from Dorman, part number 13977. Took me a while to find replacements but these fit well! I also installed new lug nuts.



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The parts that I got from Pat (Rustbucket on the forum) finally arrived!
A set of OEM bumper brackets, the patch panel I need for the hood corner, and a headlight ring. I also ordered the correct large flange hex head zinc plated bolts to reassemble the body panels. These came from Ebay and the seller only shipped to the US, so Pat snuck them into the box for me.



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The weather is warming up here. Already have most of the body panels in primer, plan is to shoot the radiator support, inner fenders, filler panels in gloss black this week. This will be the last week before flying to the US to I have to put the truck back together for storage.

Plan to do one more update before I leave! Have a good weekend!

[Prowbar]

Here's the last update covering the front end sheet metal.
As mentioned I blasted the small items myself, larger ones were farmed out.
I recieved the panels back sand blasted, they did a nice job. I went around the nooks and crannies to get the last dirt, blasting media out and then coated the double seams with the linseed rust treatment. This should prevent rust from forming between the seams. The picture was taken before the excess was wiped off.



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The next step was to spray everything in epoxy primer. I used the same high build primer as I did to coat the front end parts. Here are the radiator support and bumper with a good coat. I use the wires to move the parts around.



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The high build primer is easily sanded smooth to create a flat surface for final paint. This was my first time doing it and I learned a lot about body work. Paint doesn't hide any flaws!

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The parts were then sprayed in the Sigmadur 550 topcoat. I then continued to prepare the parts for assembly on the truck. I chased all the threaded holes in the panels and add the fender seals to the inner fenders. I bent staples from stainless steel TIG wire to replicate the factory look.



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I wanted to use new hardware but had a hard time finding the correct bolts for the sheet metal panels. I ended up finding them on Ebay, Pat (Rustbucket) shipped them to me.

The left is the Ebay large flange bolt, the middle is an original sheet metal bolt and the bolt on the right is the typical small flanged bolt. The bolts with the small flanges are used mainly for the bedsides and fenders.



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Continued in the next post.

[Prowbar]

Here are the headlamp mounting plates. They were black on my truck, so I painted them black as well. I riveted the adjuster screw nuts to the plates, as well as the springs.

The holders for the lamps were zinc plated. I freshened up the headlight rings.



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I ended up painting the grille and bumper in white but the paint did not spray well and leave a good finish, so it will be redone. I did get a almost perfect color match with the original, so the plan is to use the color from the paint and match it in a 2K polyurethane paint and redo the whole thing.

I am also planning to black out the bar behind the GMC letters.



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Here is a shot of the installed bumper brackets. I sand blasted and painted them.



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The parking light lenses were long gone, so I bought new reproductions.
I had the original "buckets" zinc plated and riveted them together with new gaskets.



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Here is a picture of the restored engine bay. I forgot to dust off the heater box

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The truck has been parked in storage for now, since I'm leaving for Wyoming tomorrow. Hoping to resume working on the truck when I get back.

See you in 6 months!

[FetchMeAPepsi]

Great progress! I dont always comment, but I'm really digging your thread. Enjoy America! Wyoming is very friendly and fun, though I imagine it's going to be covered up in a blizzard by the time you get there!
Maybe let us know you got touched down safe!