2002 Z71 Restoration

[MP81]

Sexy.

[JoeliusZ28]

Anyone a body guy by trade here? Wondering what the recommended method is to seal up a plug/flange weld. Since this steel is so thin and easy to warp, and the fact that this seam will be hidden under the flare, I decided to flange the bedside and do a seam/plug-weld joint instead of the typical stitch weld. It worked in the sense that it seems much stronger and doesn't seem prone to warping. However now that I have this tacked into place I'm thinking about the bare metal that will be inside this seam, and wondering how prone it will be to rusting inside out. In theory if i seal it externally 100% the bare metal inside should never be an issue. I could undo my 3-4 tack welds and spray the joint with weld-through primer. Not sure if its worth the headache or not, welding with the primer might be a lot messier. I could also try to leave just enough gap on the outside to "fill" the seam with paint, but not sure how well that would work.

Curt_irocz what say you?

[MP81]

Use the Zinc weld-through primer.

We use that in similar situations when reworking the Fiat Doblo into the Ram ProMaster City.

[JoeliusZ28]

Use the Zinc weld-through primer.

We use that in similar situations when reworking the Fiat Doblo into the Ram ProMaster City.

Thanks, It doesn't make the weld splatter or burn through or anything like that?

[MP81]

No, I don't believe so - assembly plants tend to get whiny about that kind of stuff, but I see it used pretty widely in a lot of the car TV shows as well. It's good stuff.

[Curt_irocz]

You can use a weld threw primer on the inside. Before you weld it in. But if your concerned about the inside rusting... you can take the body plugs out of the inner wheel well, and coat inside. Or take the tail light out, and use cavity wax with a long wand.


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[JoeliusZ28]

So when I started this project in December I thought I was going to have this thing back together by the end of January. I guess its a good thing I haven't made a career of scoping projects. Over the last month and a half ive invested several hours wokring on just a single patch panel. I'm sure I could have avoided much of that time spent with more experience in bodywork, but thats half the reason I wanted to dive into this. Unfortunately I'm now at the point i think its best to cut my losses on patching these bedsides. I was trying to balance a thin line between shitty welds, or good welds that would warp the panel, neither of which were acceptable. Long story short, its warped pretty bad. Even if I were to just deal with the wavyness in the panel, the weld seam is gonna come back to haunt me. Slapping on a full bed side is just sounding a LOT easier at this point.

So in summary it looks like im in for all new bed sides, new front fenders (I happened to score a set for $40, so that's a win!), and at that point it might as well be a complete paint job. That also isn't including some frame repair that might be needed. You could say I've bitten off a little more than I can chew with this one I'm probably going to take a breather from this project and switch back to the K10 for a while since I'm probably closer to the finish line on that one.

warp2.jpg

[GlennT]

Looks great! I'm getting to the point where I need to decide whether to tackle rust more seriously or move it on. I've had my 2001 Silverado since April 2004. It's been a great truck, but now the front cab mounts are rotting out. If yours are still sold, you may want to poke around in there, and see if you can treat it somehow, even with just lanolin oil or something. Mine were full of a hard cake of sand/dust, which was the very same thing that caused the rockers and bedsides to rust. If I had only known that crap was trapped in there....

If I ever decide to save my truck, I will be using body panel adhesive for the wheel wells. My truck had the same rust, but a bit worse. I wish I had dug deeper into the rockers. I only did outer rockers and cab corners. The inner is still bad. Wheel wells are very similar on mine, other than I had cut the rust out YEARS ago and put POR15 on there. I covered them with fender flares.

The problem I have now is, I have spotted small spots of rust coming in higher up in a few spots on at least one bedside.

At any rate, I used 3M Body Panel Adhesive for the rockers and cab corners, and it was fantastic to work with. I held everything in place with rivets while the adhesive cured. For the cab corners, I knocked the rivet heads off with a grinder, and smoothed it out with body filler. I wouldn't use it for a full rocker redo (too much of it is structural), but for what I did, it's fine. For wheel wells, it would be perfect. And it's so much faster than a million tack welds.

[GlennT]

FWIW, I hear all the time that you can head down south and pick up a whole bed for $500-600. I believe that's where the $1000 beds on Craigslist come from; people just running down south, and snagging those and dragging them up here to make a few hundred dollars.

[JoeliusZ28]

Thanks! You know, its almost tempting to cut the patch out and see if the panel straightens itself, then i could glue another one in and save it. But i think chances are, the warping is into the original panel even without the welds pulling on it.

This truck definitely had worse cancer than i realized. I am crossing my fingers i don't have issues with the frame and cab mounts after all this.

[MP81]

had worse cancer than i realized.

Generally a true statement any time rust is involved.

The small rust bubble on the outer wheel lip of my brother's Mustang ended up requiring quite a lot more to be replaced.

[JoeliusZ28]

I haven't dug far enough in to verify yet, but its looking a lot like i am going to need to do this repair to the frame

https://www.autorust.com/product/chevrolet-and-gmc-1500-rear-tank-support-crossmember/

how ironic the stock photo for this is the same truck as mine


Who would have thought a truck that looked so good would be so corroded underneath?

[DynoDave]

Wow...seriously? Had no idea. So what rots...the box frame where the tube mounts, or the tub itself?

[JoeliusZ28]

As far as I can see right now, nothing on the frame has rotted away but I am VERY suspicious of the crossmember tube right where the gas tank wraps around it. It looks like moisutre and salt has gotten trapped there and festered several times. Based on that I'm willing to bet once I drop the gas tank I'm going to find that crossmember tube will crumble to dust. And even if it doesn't im not sure I want to trust it. Thankfully I don't think I will need to repair the other crossmembers like was done on that truck but we'll see. The gas tank one is apparently very common.

[landstuhltaylor]

If you see some, it's probably only 10% of the rust that is actually there.