2016.04.18 - UDPATE! - NOW 95% RUST-FREE.....!!!!
For anyone who doesn't know about 1st Gens..... that means that I've now thrown away 95% of the original truck!!
Here's how it all went down on an impromptu "MPS" weekend:
Weather was AWESOME all weekend, so I used it as an excuse to roll the truck out of the garage for a change of scenery.
It was a bit disheartening to see how much flash-rust was on all the tubing, etc... so I spend a couple of hours sanding and cleaning, then wiping everything down with Boeshield T-9 so hopefully I won't have to deal with that again before the truck gets blown apart for paintwork.
I've got two different shops working to prepare items for the new rear bedfloor and permanent rollcage installation. I should be getting the first parts this week, but in the meantime I still needed to cut a total of 6 cagebars that were welded through the floor to the frame below. To make the cage removable (and to allow me to install the new bedfloor in a single piece) I need to convert those tubes to plate-style floor mounts just like all the others. I had the measurements accurately figured out and clamped a section of 1"x2" rectangular tube to act as a cutting guide for my Sawzall so that the cut wouldn't end up being a complete hack-job.
I had to pull the rear wheel to get the correct angle with the Sawzall and to get some decent working room, but with a little patience I got the 3 cuts completed on the passenger side:
The driver's side was a bit trickier because there was an entire bedside in the way!

So I decided that I'd go for a "2 fer".... get the access I needed, while also removing a TON of rusty metal in one fell swoop!!!
Dropped that rear section out onto the floor, and immediately ended up with a really cool "racecar looking" view of the truck...
That gave access to the cage bars that needed cutting on the DS, and with the cutting guide / Sawzall trick it worked out great. After dinner, and spending some time with the family I went back out into the garage to do in final bit of rust removal. The rear bedfloor had already been chopped into 3 large pieces (with the center removed quite a while ago)....and at this point, the only thing holding the rearmost section in place were a few tack welds on the rear temporary cage plates..... a few seconds of grinding was all it took:
So at this point, I've removed and thrown away:
- Front fenders
- Core Support
- Inner Fenders
- Firewall
- Cab Supports and 50% of front floors
- Doors
- Rear Bedsides
- Rear Bedfloor
About the only parts left to throw away are:
- Remainder of rear bedfloor
- Vertical step panel into rear area
- Front floors (again)
And the only remaining rust will be the stuff inside the original windshield frame. I'm not really sure how to get inside those cavities to deal with the rust, but I'd like to figure something out. Realistically I'm down to only a windshield frame and firewall.... so maybe I could just throw that part on the roof of my truck and just drive to the closest chemical dipper and have them deal with it....
-G