A little restoration

Thank man! Now let's hope the stealership will give my frame some new life..............?

 

So, no new frame, which I figured, but, it failed state inspection. So I have one year or less to figure something out.
It's amazing that I now think of the truck a nothing more Than an anchor. It's worthless as a whole vehicle now.

 

I have followed this thread, and your work is solid. Have you thought about swapping the frame yourself? Difficult, yes, but I bet frames aren’t too expensive.

 

thanks @Boyk1182. Yeah, I'm not really set up to do it myself. I'm sure I could do it myself though, given enough time!

 

So I finally ordered a set of fogs for the truck. I went with Caliraised as they are one of the manufacturers that have a plug and play product that looks nice as well. They are a belated Bday present to myself, as I spent my Bday in the hospital.
They had a sale going prior to Black Friday and I had a $50 gift card from the kids I wanted to use, so, win-win. They were helpful over the phone to coordinate the gift card and sale price. The package arrived in just a few days, nice & quick.

I took a couple of weeks to get good weather and feel good enough health-wise to install them. Yesterday was the day. I opened the box and there were no instructions. No biggie, just went to their site and watched a video. Hmm, nothing on how to put the pods and frames together. OK, lets figure this out. Product comes with 'U' brackets, nuts and bolts. I ordered the brackets that mount in the bumper. They are well made and coated. I test fit the pods into the brackets and they fit. Unfortunately, the frames scrape a little of the black paint off when sliding into place, bit it will never been seen. Putting the nuts and bolts in place to hold them both together is another matter.
The cooling fins on the back of the pods have a slot L&R to capture the nut to thread the bolt. Unfortunately, the nuts provided are too small for the slots so they will not capture in the slots and they fall out of the fins. What I had to do was balance the nut in place while holding the pod on its side and then drop the bolt into place. This turned out to be a huge pain in the ass, as the slick surface of the pod allowed the nut to slide at the smallest movement.:

Once I had the bolt in place, it held the nut against the pod wall. Then I had to keep pressure on the bolt, turn the whole assembly on its side so I could get tweezers in between the fins and start to thread the nut on until it finally caught. This took several tries on each of the four bolts!

Then, because the slot for the nuts were too large to capture them, I had to jam a screwdriver between the nut and the fin so I could tighten everything up:

Ok, so that was assembly. Install was as easy as advertised. I took out the cups that fill the spot for the fogs, slipped them in place and used the provided nut with nylon to tighten everything in place. I did test out the short wiring harness provided to make sure the electrics were good before I put everything in place, all good! I added a zip-tie to hold the extra loop of wire up and away from the bottom of the bumper.

They do look nice! ( yes, truck needs a bath )

I purchased fogs to keep people from pulling out in front of me. It has happened to me three different times in broad day light! ( plus my Prerunner was pre-wired for fogs. I just has to get the factory interior switch )
Quick driveway test. Being LEDs, I hope they will last a while.

 

So I feel like I am now in the 21st century with the addition of cruise control!!!!! I wanted to use all OEM parts, but $225, I had to go after market for the switch. I found OEM ground wire and side door on line.
I followed this YT vid by Faye Hadley;
https://youtu.be/GU9LHDHJZEY

 

Ok, update on the rust situation. I took the suggestion of @loosnut and took the truck to Hendrick's welding near me. I think they did a nice job, cost was $300.00. I will be continuing the the work on the rest of the frame, like I did on the front.
Went from this:

To this:

They primed it, painted and under coated the repair. It's not too bad I think. I may have ground the weld down a little more, but it is not a show truck, but my DD. When I have the chance, I will inspect the inside with a bore scope I purchased just for this issue.
I also have to create some kind of a heat shield to keep this from happening again.

 

Had to fix one of my tail lights last week. Noticed it was sitting crooked. When I went to check it, it fell out into my hand. Grrr.
Looking at it, both of the tabs for the mounting bolts had broken. ( Don't know how it did not fall out and hang by the wires ) Not wanting to spend money on tail lights just yet, I had to fix the tabs. So I grabbed some sheet styrene, super glue and baking soda and got to work. So far the repair is holding.

 

So far the tail light repair is holding.

Onto another project that has been waiting for almost two years. I had asked for and received a set of 'Step Shields'. They are made by 'AVS'- Auto Ventshade. I saw another member had installed them to protect the door sills and they looked good. My first issue was surface rust under the existing step panels that cover the wiring on the floor. The driver's side was the worst, both front door areas were rusty;


This damage came from the plastic panel rubbing the paint away. ( as I'm sure you could guess )
When I removed the panels, I could see how sharp the edges were on the panels, no wonder the paint came off. In the image below you can see the sharp factory edge is. The rust has stained the plastic. On the left is the mod I did to elevate that issue .

Using a file and 400 grit sandpaper and I removed the sharp edge.

I only filed the fronts, not the rear panels, as there was not rust under them. I then used a wire wheel and Dremel grinder to remove the rust on the rockers.

I sanded everything down with 400 grit before adding etching primer and then the Bedliner paint. I made sure the Berliner paint covered the top of the sill and went down over the edge where the door seal is because the paint was wearing away there as well. I was in a rush to beat the sun setting before I was done painting, so I don't have any images of the painting process. After painting and de-taping everything, I kept the doors open for as long as I could, not closing them until about 9:00 that night. I pulled the door seals out, below the door checker, and taped them up out of the way for over night. The next day I started to finish things up. I added a thin strip of Anti-skid Tread tape that I cut to width to place under the factory cover. I didn't want the paint to rub off again. Once the tape was added, I re-assembled the factory parts and then added the step shields. Driver's side:

Passenger side:

I did the same for both rear doors, but without the painting because it wasn't needed. Just a little primer showing;



The step shields look nice and fit nice as Well.

 

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I just wanted to say thank you souch for sharing my video on here, and I'm so glad it helped!! I dump my heart and soul (and all my free time) into my channel, so reading stuff like this really means the world to me.

 

( my thread is not old....it's middle-aged! )
I haven't had time to work on the truck, stuck in VA on a DoD contract.
You are quite welcome Faye!
I have watched many of your videos, informative & fun stuff!

 

So after months away from home working, I am finally back. When the truck went in for inspection last month, the mechanic said swaybar end links need changing. So I was all set to do that last Thursday, but I realized I no longer have Jack Stands! They were Harbor Freight and I returned them last year after hearing and seeing the Possible collapse issue. I wanted to order American made, but $226.00 for a pair of US Jack, jack stands was jus too much. The other option was Hein-Werner, but they did not go high enough. So I went with Torin. The Torin's also had the retaining bar that goes through the teeth for added safety. Happiness is when two really means four, which is how many I ended up ordering. The write up was not clear on quantity. With all of the gift cards I had been hoarding for the past year, I purchased two ( actually 4) jack stands and a set of the rubber pinch weld adapters for the top of the stands. The adapters are too narrow, but you can force them onto the top of the stands. I will have to remove a little material on the rubber to make them fit. The boxes were re-taped when I received them, but I got them next day due to Amazon Prime. They were new condition, so no complaints here.

Now that I could support the truck, time to get to work. I used this YT video for the basics. But be advised, my factory nuts were 17mm NOT the 18 as he states. But the video made the job look super easy, and it was.
https://youtu.be/fh_HgXajLLM

The nuts on the end links all broke free with just a little effort with a pipe added to the breaker bar. Of course, the last bolt had to be sawed off with a hack saw. It took less than ten minutes.


I went with Moog links purchased locally. My mechanic recommended them and they could be returned if there was an issue without having to wait on shipping. The Moogs are a little beefier than the stock links. You can see that all of the boots were torn, but there was still grease in them. The new links went in supper-easy. I double-checked the torque numbers with the manual. Job done. Now if I could only find out what is still causing that suspension 'click' I get. I though this would get rid of it, but no.

Thanks for looking!

 

Looking good!

 

Ok, Frame paint update!!!!
In 10/2019 I did a bunch of clean up and painting on the front of the frame and 'armor' plate. Started around post #66. After two years, (that was two years ago?!) you can see the before and after;


The POR 15 has not only pealed, but has rusted under itself!!! The drawn line is where I stopped the POR-15. Slight peal there, which is expected.
If you look at the crash bar, it was primed and painted with Rust-0leum. No evidence of pealing, cracking or fading. The POR-15 has lost all of it's super high gloss where as the Rust-Oleum, is still a bit egg-shell in finish.
I will not spend another dime on POR-15 any time soon. It was $30.00 for a pint two years ago! I think I'll stick with Rust-Oleum.

 

Man you just saved me some money! I was stoked on POR 15, to salvage some of my frame/engine brackets and suspension bits, but now I'll go a different route! did you use a rust neutralizer under the rustoleum?

 

No neutralizer. Should have, but was not aware of a good product at the time. I did use a rust converter. There is more about that earlier in this thread. I used a small wire wheel in my drill and sandpaper to remove what I could reach. Everything that was removable was sandblasted clean. The thing that shocked me was the rust under the POR 15. I am currently applying shit-ton of OSPHO neutralizer to areas of the frame the are rusting. Images of that soon.
Glad I was able to help with some info.

 

I finally got the rear shocks replaced. They needed to be done last year, but I was working out of state for 9 months. This was the first chance I have had since returning home. Now, two years ago, I had to add a rubber spacer on top of the Pass side shock due to a crushed rubber washer. It unbolted real easy then. Now that I have to change them out, I have to cut both shock off. ( of course )
The new spacer before I got started;

This gave me a chance to use the 'Big Red' 6 ton jack stands I ordered this year. I ordered two sets by accident. I though a quantity of '1' meant a single stand. When I selected two, it was two sets. The price was good for the single stand I thought I was ordering, but when I saw two sets sitting there....awesome price. I wanted to oder from US Jack, but their prices were just too high to justify the cost. US Jacks look like they are worth their price though. One of the boxes was a bit beat up, but they pack them good enough to protect them. there is also I nice thick coating of paint on everything. These also have the safety pin I wanted.


Time to cut. I used a 'wheel of death' to do the job. A hack saw was not practicle.

When I compared the shocks I ordered to the ones on the truck, they looked like a match. When I tried to install them, they were not a match. Either I ordered the wrong ones or they sent the wrong ones from Rockauto. I ended up with base model 5 lug shocks, not the Prerunner's I need. You can see that these were due for a change. That cover is blue under all of the grime!


With both shocks already off, I wasn't going anywhere. Used the other car to go to PEP Boys to get a set of Monroe's. These were recommended as OEM replacements and cheaper then Advanced and Auto Zone. Besides that, they look better than the yellow and blue Bilstein's.
The Monroe's bolted in, no issues. The top bolts are supposed to get 15ftlbs to tighten. Anyone know how many foot pounds this is? Can't get a torque wrench on that because of the bed. They are very snug on there. I'll just keep an eye on them. All things considered, still an easy job. ( thankfully)

 

did you use the POR-15 cleaner and metal prep before using the top coat?

 

No, I did not. I don't recall reading that the paint won't last if you don't use the prep products, but it has been a while since I did my research. But I did not need to do that with the Rustoleum.

 

I did the 3 step process with POR-15- first I wire wheeled everything, then the cleaner, metal prep then the top coat, followed by two coats of matte finish. I did this back in April and it still looks good.