1995 GMC K1500 Reconditioning

[Salty K1500]

Hello everyone. I am making this thread to document the work being done to fix up my truck, and hopefully entertain some people along the way. The truck is a 1995 GMC Sierra K1500. It has the typical 350/4L60E combo with 3.42 gears. Just over 200,000 miles on it, and as far as I know the original engine/transmission, and seeing as I bought it with 116,000 on it, there's a good chance that's the case. I've owned the truck of 13 years. The first 7 it was my daily driver. Was reliable for the most part, ran into some issues which I'll get into when I give a more complete history of the truck later in this thread. After those 7 years I bought a Tacoma for daily driving and came close to selling this truck, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. The truck then became a backup vehicle for a few years, until recently where I've had it quite torn apart to fix a lot of rust on it. My current goals with this truck are as follows; rid it of the rust, fix anything and everything that I find that's broken, get it repainted, and then later on freshen up the drivetrain. I don't want a perfect truck, as I fully intend to put it to use at my house and at work, where I often act as an utility inspector on greenfield construction sites, so having the four wheel drive and ground clearance is nice. The only thing this truck won't ever do again, if I can help it, is drive on salty roads. Anyway, I'll post up a picture for now and I'll get more pics coming later on to show the truck over the last 13 years. Have a good day, Mike.

https%3A//i.imgur.com/amzzC5j.jpg[/img]']

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[Salty K1500]

So here's the earlier photo's I currently have available. These are all from early college, about 2013-2015.

https%3A//i.imgur.com/23Yoeoq.jpg[/img]']

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https%3A//i.imgur.com/oiChNBY.jpg[/img]']

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https%3A//i.imgur.com/sQjt2wy.jpg[/img]']

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https%3A//i.imgur.com/k2qLo72.jpg[/img]']

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The black 400 was my roommate's brother's truck. I think it was a 96 or 98, C1500 with a 5 speed and I want to say the 4.3. Never mind the hideous taillights, those are long gone. I did like them at the time though. The reason my truck has a Chevrolet banner is because the original was stolen off the truck on campus when I was out of town. It was shame, thing was rust free. After that I noticed a lot of 400's around town with mismatched tailgates. The chevy tailgate came off of an 89 I want to say, I liked the emblem too much to remove it.

https%3A//i.imgur.com/HkAvolB.jpg[/img]']

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I always saw this black K1500 around campus, but never met the owner. They made a point to park near my truck a few times at the library. Apparently neither of use knew how to park then, it looks like I'm on the line and the black truck is well into two spots. Then again, no one on campus knew how to park their vehicles.

https%3A//i.imgur.com/u4tt0OB.jpg[/img]']

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I want to say fall of 2014 I put on new headlights, I still have these on and still like them, but I think I'll buy some better quality ones once I get the truck repainted. Might stick to this style, but haven't decided yet. Around this time I tinted the windows as well.

 

[scott2093]

Never mind the hideous taillights, those are long gone

I still have altezzas on mine..Once they quit polishing out, I'll upgrade...I'm stuck in that loop with the other parts too ... lol

Pretty truck..youbetcha

 

[Salty K1500]

I still have altezzas on mine..Once they quit polishing out, I'll upgrade...I'm stuck in that loop with the other parts too ... lol

Pretty truck..youbetcha

Oh yeah you betcha bud. Of all the stereotypical Minnesota mannerisms, the you betcha is probably one of the only I don't say.

And I hear you on that, I typically don't replace stuff until it's broke. However, that has changed now that I'm fixing it up.

 

[Salty K1500]

Sorry in advance for the jumping around of dates, I'm remembering stuff as I look at pictures, and I've got said pictures saved all over the place.

Anyway here's a pic of when I got the cab corners/rockers fixed the first time. This was in the fall of 2013. I had a diesel repair shop do it. Was about $600 out the door, said they welded in new metal. They did do pretty damn good job of blending the paint in my opinion.

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Here's the diesel repair shop's work 10 years later, as I am now ripping it apart to repair it more correctly.
https%3A//i.imgur.com/tqtZ2eO.jpg[/img]']

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https%3A//i.imgur.com/FNS9QQM.jpg[/img]']

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I don't know if they did weld in new metal or not since everything was so rusted, but that is a whole lot of bondo. Ironically, it probably made the truck look better from the outside than it was seeing as there was pretty much no metal on the back side of the bondo. At any rate, I'm cutting all of that **** out and welding in patch panels now. Pics to come on that.

 

[GrimsterGMC]

It's unfortunate that when we are in a position of having to trust others to do work on our trucks that they often take advantage, especially when you cant see what is underneath their work. When I had my truck repainted I went in the there every other day and they still tried to stiff me but I made such a big noise about it they had to do it right in the end, but it should never have had to get to that.

 

[Salty K1500]

It's unfortunate that when we are in a position of having to trust others to do work on our trucks that they often take advantage, especially when you cant see what is underneath their work. When I had my truck repainted I went in the there every other day and they still tried to stiff me but I made such a big noise about it they had to do it right in the end, but it should never have had to get to that.

I think I got what I paid for with that one, but I agree it's unfortunate that there are plenry of people out there that will take shortcuts at another person's expense. That's part of the reason why I try to do most of my own work when it comes to my vehicles/property.

 

[GMCTruck]

One doesn't see a 1/2 ton with roof marker lights too often.

 

[Salty K1500]

One doesn't see a 1/2 ton with roof marker lights too often.

Yeah they were on the truck when I bought it. I'm not a huge fan of them, but I don't think I have the skill to weld the holes shut without warping the crap out of my roof, so they're probably staying.

 

[CumminsFever]

Beautiful truck to start the repair/restore with!
It may not be new, and it may not be purty at the moment, but it's a chevy, it's worth fixin!
Thank you for taking us along on the fixup journey, and of course we all hope there'll be some project creep. A light here, a seat there, a 383 and 4l80e. Lol!