Tail Pan question

[ONEQUIKSS]

I would like your guys input on the Tailgate pan living in NY with all this salt rotted out the pan which the hinge bolts to I did look around before posting but alot of the posts are old and the pictures dont work. I have a 1987 K5 and cant see wasting the 140$ from lmc when I can Cut and weld a better one. any one have info such as material used etc? Or is there a better place to get body parts from other then lmc? Thanks Mike

 

[bablazer73]

living 140 miles north of you, I FEAL your pain bro! I have a piece of 2x4 box steel that i used to keep my truck working. It's just some heavy steel with 1" angle iron bolted to it and bolted to the body. It could have been welded in for better results, but it's been swapped into a couple trucks over the years since i built it! this is a pic of it in my 88. It was also in my 87. Ithink it cost me about 40.00 to make it.

 

[ONEQUIKSS]

sorry alittle confused whats the 1 angle for? did you run the 2x3 box steel the whole widht of the truck?



salt is for food not the road

 

[dyeager535]

Chevy did a poor job keeping the tire spray off of the undercarriage on these trucks. Obviously nothing is going to stop the rot forever, but a "pan" of some type underneath the truck keeping spray from the road off of it will help out immensely.

I don't have the salt problem, but running the truck on muddy roads for a week showed the same weaknesses you are talking about. A piece of rubber/flexible durable material run from the rear lip of the inner wheelwell, underneath the hinges/tailpan, would keep a lot of spray off of that area.

How does the body look forward of the wheelwell, where the seatbelts bolt in?

 

[ONEQUIKSS]

theres no rust past the wheel well just the tailgate pan and the only other spots are drivers and passanger side door sill

 

[bablazer73]

the 2x4 goesn the width of the opening( plus a few inch's more to go under the corners) Then the 1" angle iron is in the upright position on each end bolting to the body. those picture's suck. If I can get time, I'll try and get better pics.

 

[ONEQUIKSS]

ahh I understand now I have some metal around and will start building it out tonight thanks for your help