Bang for the buck Functional Renewal of rust belt '99 C2500

[62barsoom]

Man, what a beautiful vista behind your truck. That's one thing I've
noticed, so many of these GMT400s live in beautiful country!

Congrats on your good fortune...

Thanks, part of why I love it here. My morning coffee view helps me get going.

 

[Road Trip]

Thanks, part of why I love it here. My morning coffee view helps me get going.

...and according to that pic, a little later on you are going to enjoy
some extremely fresh eggs.

Well played, sir!

 

[62barsoom]

The clean(er) exterior starts to make the rusty interior bits look rough by comparison

OK, when I originally bought the truck I actually thought that it was
pretty cool for having the no-nonsense vinyl floor covering instead of
carpet. I envisioned going to the treasure yard, getting good & dirty,
getting into the truck, getting that dirty also...and after returning to home
base just hose it out if need be. No muss, no fuss, no worries.

It's not that I didn't look, but more like nothing really caught my eye
on the interior. But after all the clean up on the exterior, I opened the
door, and now the interior of all things had become the visual sore
thumb. Hey, where did all this rust all over the bench seat supporting
frame suddenly come from?

Driver's side rust at floor level, no doubt from salty splash from PO's winter boots? Much worse than passenger side.

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With the seat removed, it was easier to see what the recovery plan would entail.

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Too long to fit in the blast cab, resorted to old school low-tech surface prep on the bench seat frame. 90/10 rules in play.
(90% improvement in 10% of the time required when striving for Perfection.) Git-R-Done!

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Note: This is a work-in-process shot of initial rust removal. Final prep sanding using 220 grit on an air-powered DA sander not shown but done.



Sometimes you paint something in order to make it stand out. THIS is the paint you use when you paint something in order to make it disappear from sight!

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For more information, here's an Amazon page. (link) IMPORTANT: Prices for the exact same thing are all over the place -- shop around & save! (link)
Easter Egg alert: If you are wondering if you can clear coat over this & would like to see what that looks like, that's what I did to the quad box cover on far right.
It's definitely not a single hue battleship gray like the plastic cap color might suggest. Actually much closer to my all-time favorite Corvette color -- Steel Cities Gray. (!)

I have come to rely on this paint for all the items that I need to paint in
order to protect from corrosion, (accessory brackets, etc) but at the
same time I don't want to draw undo attention to the part itself.

Shiny paint tends to emphasize the tiniest flaws in the surface/surface prep.
This dries not exactly flat, but more of a matte finish. Actually, it looks
like freshly cleaned cast iron. Super forgiving!

Here's a side by side photo of the passenger side -- 'as found' on the left vs. post sanding/prep/Cast Blast paint on the right:

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OK, hit the 5-photo limit. In the next posting, I'll get to show you the finished product.

I'd never seen the Seymour product before. Eastman sells a nice, long lasting cast blast as well. I've had it last years in an engine bay
.

 

[Road Trip]

I'd never seen the Seymour product before. Eastman sells a nice, long lasting cast blast as well. I've had it last years in an engine bay.

I've used the Eastman stuff - worked well. I first saw the Seymour cast blast
at a vendor's tent at a Fall Carlisle show, and he had sprayed a couple of
sample pieces. Man, it really had that greenish-gray freshly cleaned cast
iron look to it? So I bought a couple of cans...and since then have gone
through a couple of cases over the years. Never once disappointed.

You know what? Thinking about Eastman, what are the chances that
that Seymour is the OEM & is just putting a private label on their cans
for them? A customer is a customer...

 

[62barsoom]

...and according to that pic, a little later on you are going to enjoy
some extremely fresh eggs.

Well played, sir!

Those two are buddies, and escape artists. I'd just gotten the fence and gates chicken proof, Again. Coffee means scratch is next, the rest are in the weeds behind the fence. And yes great eggs, they're well feed and free range. Those weeds hide a spring just full of goodies. I see them with crawdads, worm snakes, and salamanders occasionally.

 

[62barsoom]

I've used the Eastman stuff - worked well. I first saw the Seymour cast blast
at a vendor's tent at a Fall Carlisle show, and he had sprayed a couple of
sample pieces. Man, it really had that greenish-gray freshly cleaned cast
iron look to it? So I bought a couple of cans...and since then have gone
through a couple of cases over the years. Never once disappointed.

You know what? Thinking about Eastman, what are the chances that
that Seymour is the OEM & is just putting a private label on their cans
for them? A customer is a customer...

Wouldn't doubt it. Private label means they can charge more right? I'll keep my eye out for the Semour.

 

[Erik the Awful]

I'd never seen the Seymour product before.

I used Seymour bed liner in WCJr. It's garbage. I took the time to clean and prime the bed, but it scrapes up if you look at it funny.

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[Kens1990K2500]

Greetings fellow GMT400 enthusiasts,

Just about a year ago I heard through the motorhead grapevine that
an unusually clean (for upstate NY) older Chevy pickup was being
offered for sale.

I didn't get my hopes up, because it seemed that other people's
definition of 'clean' didn't seem to jibe with my own...by a long
shot! FWIW, my personal Prime Directive for buying my next
ride can be simply stated in 2 simple rules:

1) Don't care about the miles or the current state of the
mechanicals, but it has to be rust free.

2) it has to have a manual transmission!

Rust is bad juju. While I've been fortunate in buying
a series of low-cost vehicles that have given me more than they
have gotten...I eventually lost every single one of them
to rust. Not the outer surface cosmetic issues, but
the no-kidding showstopper stuff. (ie: the unibody where
the lower control arm is supposed to connect to is MIA.)

Of course, getting rid of a car that broke your piggy
bank and gave you nothing in return is always pure
joy to jettison. But when you lose a faithful
traveling companion that would run for you even
when it shouldn't have...that is the very definition of
sadness. (No doubt anyone reading this in an old
truck forum is picking up what I'm putting down. :0)

...but I digress. If you go here you can see a brief
description of the '99 C2500 drivetrain in my
Introduction thread.

But when I saw the truck in person, the truck just exuded
a quiet, heavy duty minimalism...the zen of a proper
work truck. (!) When the big block fired right up and
rumbled like Niagara Falls, I knew that this was going to
follow me home. :0)

Like my favorite aircraft (F-106 & SR-71) the GMT400
series has the same kind of classic 'form follows function'
styling that never gets old -- I actually prefer this less
busy look to today's offerings?

Finally -- enough of the setup. First, here's the truck after
a good cleaning / wet-sanding / machine polishing using
the Meguiar's Mirror Glaze product line:

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But in order to truly appreciate what a (relatively) rust-free unicorn
that this truck is here in Salt City, take a look at three other trucks
still on the road that I picked at random, all within 5 minutes of where
I'm typing this in:

Mechanic's daily driver at my favorite tire store. (Note: Photo taken late November '22 -- a frosty commute)

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Local Plow Truck:

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(Neighbor's newer lashed-up pickup)

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The Moral of the Story? Anything > 10 years old in Syracuse
is rarely seen. And almost always, if seen they aren't clean.

So...if my following posts seem to show successful old truck
ownership as an unrelenting focus on stopping rust before it turns steel to dust...
remember that I have no fear of mechanical issues, but at the same time these photos
definitely keep me up at night. :0)

Who'da thunk? Neil Young was right...

Holy crap, that third rusty truck looks like a Ford truck I saw on the road recently. The frame was fubared, because the cab and bed were angled like a V.

 

[Kens1990K2500]

Believe me, I do understand. My truck came out of the upper Missouri / lower Iowa area. In restoring mine, I’ve spent probably triple the time under the truck as I have on the paint and visible exterior. Here’s a couple of before and after pics to compare. Some of that is old undercoating that’s flaking off, but there was plenty of surface rust in other places I had to grind away to fresh metal.

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Holy crap, that frame is clean! How did you prep it, with a DA and 220 grit?

 

[johnckhall]

Holy crap, that frame is clean! How did you prep it, with a DA and 220 grit?

Scraped off all the old undercoating , sanded to bare metal with angle grinder and stripping discs , treated with Corroseal rust converter , light sand 220 grit , primer/filler coat , light sand with higher grit to knock down imperfections , 3 coats of VHT satin black roll bar / chassis spray paint.

It was a process for sure , but it turned out well.