2002 Z71 Restoration

[JoeliusZ28]

This is an overdue project thread that should have started back when I bought this truck in April. Long story short, this is my dad's old truck that I bought for no good reason. The price was right on it, and knowing my dad over maintains everything he owns i figured it would at least be a good spare / side job vehicle to have around. And i also figured if i didn't buy it was going to be doomed to one of the millions of lawnscape/snow salting companies in the area. Well so far, the cheap spare vehicle has been anything but cheap

What it looked like when I bought it in stock old man form. complete with some rust:
HONQ4942.JPEG

IMG_2982.JPGIMG_2979.JPG


The first item that needed to be addressed was the tires. The michelins it had were dry rotted and while the stock wheels have nothing left of their clear coat. So for another "long story short" I ordered a set or 285/70/17s and bilstein shocks to level lift and fit the bigger tires.

IMG_3009.JPG

The second item that needed to be addressed was the stereo... as the front speakers were blown. This was surprising to me because my dad was born half deaf and cannot appreciate loud music. Upon taking the door panels off I found the stock paper speakers had literally just disintegrated from age. GM quality. I replaced all four speakers with Infinity components.
IMG_3511.JPG


After this I took the truck on a trip to the sand dunes and it was starting to hit me that "s*** im actually enjoying this thing quite a bit."

IMG_3646.JPGIMG_3620.JPG
So now I have a dilemma on my hands. I like the truck but, the rust is getting visibly worse every time I so much as wash the thing. I've also had a nagging itch to learn some autobody work and I finally have a garage to do it in. So i went ahead and put my hand on the hot burner. It was going to be too much work to get done in a reasonable time myself so I pulled the bed off and dropped the rest of the truck off at a Curt's shop to have the rockers done. I'm doing all the repair work on the bed and chassis. Probably have 20-25 hours into this so far. Major pain in the ass but also equally rewarding.

IMG_4364.JPGIMG_4367.JPG




(more pics in the following reply...)

[JoeliusZ28]

IMG_4380.JPGIMG_4386.JPGIMG_4390.JPGIMG_4387.JPGIMG_4502.JPGIMG_4428.JPGIMG_4496.JPG

[JoeliusZ28]

Updates from Curt's shop:


49496947_299293114274322_6841818576802807808_n.jpg49296027_2213730585507218_368052841564078080_n.jpg49948227_955617024644103_3039822825264250880_n.jpg48421478_2297256613838647_330113016026628096_n.jpg49343219_210978083182028_1113726835654393856_n.jpg49058312_396521111087005_1215673953213743104_n.jpg48944826_273883779967858_8814938260666056704_n.jpg49577995_2289943561238591_4676002552389566464_n.jpg48424387_132345954349873_1406347750714376192_n.jpg49505614_365807304209083_3795412210918883328_n.jpg48390127_358385724718617_8585023872422641664_n.jpg

[JoeliusZ28]

And last but not least what has been burning way more of my time than the actual body work... cleaning the underside of the bed up. I think I've removed over 50 pounds of rust and debris from this thing, and I also think im going to have to go back and redo a lot of the welds on the bedfloor bracing. The rust pile on the floor is from the passenger wheel arch, and the broken grinder is my $7 harbor fake... i suppose i got my moneys worth


image_59676.jpgimage_59677.jpgimage_59678.jpg

[zeeman]

Look In good man! Keep at it.

[MP81]

Curt is a magician. He did some fantastic rust repair on my brother's Mustang this past summer.

Also, those paper speakers disintegrating isn't due to any kind of GM quality - door panels are considered a "wet" area, meaning water is intended to be in there, and then drain out (when it doesn't, that's when you get rust). Paper speakers do not stand up well to that.

Now that you have a composite cone, you'll be good.

[JoeliusZ28]

Curt is a magician. He did some fantastic rust repair on my brother's Mustang this past summer.

Also, those paper speakers disintegrating isn't due to any kind of GM quality - door panels are considered a "wet" area, meaning water is intended to be in there, and then drain out (when it doesn't, that's when you get rust). Paper speakers do not stand up well to that.

Now that you have a composite cone, you'll be good.

It was more the foam surrounds that were at fault than the paper cones, but you aren't wrong about that. The cones were no longer connected to the speaker base... at all.

Also, is everyone seeing the pictures in my first and second post? They don't show on my cell phone but they show here on my work pc.

[MP81]

I can't see them on the work PC - they seem to be linked to another forum, but one you have to be logged into to see attachments.

[JoeliusZ28]

Thats what it is... guess i got vbulletin?d. As long as it took to create the post here i figured the drag/drop was actually uploading the content rather than linking. Seems it did not. I?ll have to fix this later tonight.

edit: also whats the deal with apostrophes showing as question marks?

[MP81]

I think that's only if you post through tapatalk?

[farmington]

Not tapatalk. I don?t have it. Using an Apple phone.

[MP81]

Then maybe it's just the mobile site - I forget where the bug exists, but it's one of those.

Posting from a computer doesn't cause that problem.

[JoeliusZ28]

Alright pictures are updated now. Yeesh that was a project

[farmington]

Truck looks like it was worth putting some $$ and some effort into. Nice.

[JoeliusZ28]

Couple more updates from Curt tonight. He's definitely finishing ahead of me so im gonna have to bust ass to get this bed done now.

49811016_282198319159111_827593941141422080_n.jpg49585718_1135613206605351_7459100910195572736_n.jpg49949150_2000189983411396_4983607238250725376_n.jpg49708598_533665850377457_7610472016021291008_n.jpg