83' M1009 Rebuild to Civilian

[Massboy]

More pictures from the latest work. Blasted the wiper area apron, the rear shield (under tailgate, bolted to chassis and bumper), and the inside of the OEM hood. The hood was from a donor blazer that is absolutely straight and just had some surface rust from the insulation padding. One of the new fenders has the emblem mounting holes that will need to be welded and then body worked. No "Blazer" badges going on this one.

 

[Chevy305]

I've had a lot of good luck with big eBay sellers. They'll do just about anything for ya to prevent getting a bad rating.

 

[Massboy]

Completely finished all sandblasting of the body inside and out. Just need to weld in the patch in the cutout area and I can finally put the welder away. Might have to sandblast a few other parts later but no more on the body finally. A little tired of using the mig too. In a day or two after it's all vacuumed out it will be POR'ed inside on the floor and the complete underneath. Any place we can get the POR with the spray gun it will be getting it. Once that is done the body will go back on the chassis. Looking forward to that. Body man has started going over the new fenders, hood and tailgate. Some more work there but no bad.

 

[Massboy]

Got some pictures of the completely sandblasted under body and I cut the holes in the chrome bumpers for the shackle brackets. I loosely mounted the bumpers for now as a test fit. Should really add some pizazz to the final look.

Been on vacation with the wife but had lousy weather so came home early. Hope to get the POR on this week. Went to NH and climbed Mt. Washington on the Harley. The weather broke pretty hard with the wind, clouds, and rain coming down sideways on the climb up. "0" visibility on the ride down with temps about 40d's. It was a white knuckle ride on the way down as the road was invisible and a mile was packed dirt full of braking bumps. Lots of cars with terrible drivers. Quite the experience on a street bike bike with the wife!

 

[Massboy]

couple more pics with one of the roof with all the small usual dents taken care of.

 

[Massboy]

Did the POR 15 on the under body today. Our weather is pretty humid right now and it dried really fast. Really looks good, almost new underneath. I really liked the way this stuff sprayed on. Thinned 5% with the POR solvent.

When I went to the paint shop the woman who runs it told me I would need to use the metal prep that POR sells even if I had sandblasted. The metal prep is a fair amount of work as you have to apply it and keep all the metal wet for 20 minutes then wash it off. With the upper part of the truck in filler and bare metal I have no intentions of washing down the body. I called the 800# for POR and they told me if the truck is freshly sandblasted that the POR should be directly applied. That is what I did.

The rest of the body should be getting primed in the next day or so.

 

[496truck]

What I remember about POR is the metal prep stuff was for bare metal that was not "etched" or any other mechanically roughened surface. Your metal was sandblasted therefor it has a rough surface for the POR to bond to.

Do you plan to topcoat the POR with anything? At the very least you should consider it. The more layers on the underside of a truck, the better. A rock chip in that POR only leaves the bare metal exposed. Water or moisture will then start to rust and get under the POR coating and it will start peeling up, revealing rusty metal underneath. That POR stuff isn't the "be all, end all" that they claim it to be.

 

[Massboy]

I will be using a seam sealer in all the seams on the under body like where the rear floor meets the top of the rear cross member. Once it is all sealed I will be top coating the POR then I will be using the spray on rubber undercoating in the wheel wells and stuff.

 

[496truck]

Sounds like a good plan.

 

[Massboy]

Gotten more work done. Picked up some SEM black seal sealer and sealed all the underneath areas I described in an earlier post. The military fuel filler neck vent pipe was perforated by rust so I cut it off after sandblasting and welded on another tube from a civilian donor and etch primed the assembly. I wanted to keep the military fuel neck because of the large diameter of the neck. I hate when diesel foams and comes back on the smaller civilian fuel filler necks.

The whole body got primed with three heavy coats and will now sit for about a week to dry up hard. I will put it out in the sun as often as I can to help harden it. After that it will get block sanded again and all the imperfections corrected.

Also assembled the after market tail gate completely to make sure all the interior pieces fit correctly. I found the power regulator wanted to keep catching on the window sash as it passed over the center plate of the regulator. I welded on a piece of sheet metal that now acts as a ramp for the sash when it passes over the center section when going up or down.

 

[Massboy]

Sanded down the lousy primer on the tailgate then etched primed it. POR'ed the inside of the tailgate, the fuel filler neck, the piece in the bed that goes over the filler pipe (and always seems to rot out),tailgate window sash, bottoms of the rear bumper splash pan and front wiper apron, inside of the tailgate pan, and with what I had left, the spare tire bracket. All these small parts getting done little by little.

 

[Massboy]

Few more pics.

 

[Massboy]

it's been a busy summer and not a lot has been done until these last few days. My body guy blocked the first priming and has now primed the second coat. I got the body off the rotisserie and back on the chassis. This means I can start doing a lot without having to wait for the body guy to come by.

Used my electric hoist and a 2x6 under the roof w/fabric straps to lift the truck off the rotisserie. I used another strap around the rear tailgate hinges and hooked up to a come-along off the roof truss to help with the body's rear. Went to Harbor freight to pick up some of those wheel dollies to help me move the chassis around under the body to line it up. Worked like a charm and got the body mounted by myself is about an hour. Used all new rubber donuts when mounting it. Cant' believe how easy it was to mount. No damage either to any part of the roof line or tailgate area. Looks really great back on it's own "legs".

Mounted both inside fender and one outside fender just to get a feel of how it will look. Have to paint the door jams now so we can mount the doors. Body guy will do that and a little work on the tail gate so it will be ready to go for paint. I did POR the insides of the front fenders and the inner fenders. Looks really sharp.
All for now.

 

[Massboy]

Painted the jambs with color, put the doors on and adjusted them. Ran the wire for my new heated mirrors from LMC through the rubber conduit first then riveted it on the jamb. Put on the front fenders and lined them up. My body guy is going to check all lines on everything then fix anything that needs it. Still need to do body work on the tailgate. Will be spraying color on all the orange paint on the dash and inside the body soon. Only doing a little at a time. Lots of assembly and dis-assembly of the aftermarket parts. Lots of fitting of everything. Once all is correct it will be final block sanded and the front fenders removed for painting color. I will do some work on the rest of the truck and make sure everything is correct under the hood with the A/C before the fenders go on. I don't want to be working over the new paint if I need to.

 

[Massboy]

Some more pics.

 

[496truck]

What color is that? Looks black in the pics, maybe a metallic black or dark blue metallic?

 

[Massboy]

GM Charcoal metallic. Not sure of the number, will have to ask my friend with the body shop who mixed it.

 

[496truck]

Now that you point out it's charcoal I can see it, pics don't show it very well. Probably very similar to the color of my wifes Impala.

 

[Massboy]

Paint is Standox brand. GM code 805k, dark spiral gray. Base coat is pearl, not metallic.

 

[Massboy]

Been a while since my last post. Lots of work done but kind of slow process. The hood needed lots of attention because of the braces underneath causing some sort of distortion to the top skin. All body work is done and it has been all blocked out with 400. Now I'm just waiting for my buddy to have space in his shop so he can paint it. It will get a final 600 block sanding after another complete look over for any issue. Fenders, hood, tailgate, and small misc. pieces are off to all be painted separately. Inside has been painted black so the orange is gone finally!

While I'll been waiting for it to go I've done a lot of dash and wiring work. All the duct work/heating/cooling has been installed and checked. Put in the batteries and checked the glow system. Found the temp sensor corroded and not making continuity. Fixed that and the system works fine now. Fired it up and it ran perfect but the alternator was extremely noisy. New one added today. Bad heater blower motor, did that today too. Double checked all wiring to find some things needing attention. Found a bad 4wd switch in the transfer case so I changed that out.

Dash cluster is all installed and everything is working except the intermittent wipers. I believe the module is bad. Will look at that later. Installed my heated mirror switch and the new radio I have. Picked up new Pioneer 3.5" speakers for the front and some real nice Alpine 6x9's (shallow) for the rears. Hooked all the speakers to check on the wiring and everything worked great. Also hooked up the tailgate to check the function and found the switch bad. Took it apart and repaired it. All is set now, just waiting for it to go to paint.

It is drivable and I'm going to take it out of the garage on it's own power tomorrow. This chassis has never been under it's own power since I've owned it until now.