'Medusa The Damned' 90 C1500 Daily Driver Project

[CHIMPY]

Well Howdy folks,

I've searched near and far for a solid forum to keep a log of my progress and get some help when and if I need it. So I thought I would start out with some basic info about myself and then get into what we're all here for!

My name is Cail, I'm 21 and spend any time i possibly can working on my 1990 Chevy C1500 Silverado, Medusa, when I'm not working or out having a good time with friends. I was born and raised in Arkansas and moved to Chicago for schooling, which didn't last long. I've got a passion for tattoos and gettin' a bit of grease on my hands. So I guess I'll get into the project info!

I got Medusa a few months back and she's gone a LONG way! So here's some facts:

-1990 C1500 Silverado
-$1000 with title
-$2056 in repairs, upgrades, paperwork so far (will be changing as I go along)
-350 5.7 V8
-Standard Cab, Short bed (I guess the nickname for that is Shortwide)

So here is a picture of Medusa the day I got her home

You must be registered for see images attach

Instead of uploading every picture of all the things I've done to her since I'll make a list to shorten things a bit and give you all a general sum up of the progress!

::Rebuild so far::

-Visor removed
-Overspray of black primer scrapped, sanded, ground off of windows, chrome, trim, plastics
-Headlights and Taillights cleaned and polished
-Wheel wells, rocker panels, and hood cancer cut out, fiberglassed (don't judge me too much) and body filled (being a young man with a low income and no welding/metal-working skills whatsoever I decided to go with something I DO have experience in and went the cheap/temporary route)
-Light Grey primed, resanded, fixed more body work, and awaiting another coat before being ready for paint
-New starter
-Replaced 3 pulleys (power steering, tension, and idle)
-New serpentine belt
-Replaced front brake pads (Heavy Duty Duralast Gold) (Will be replaced again with better when i replace the calipers)
-Sway bar links replaced (Heavy Duty)
-Replaced ignition cylinder
-2 new back tires (General Grabber AT2)
-Re-mounted exhaust
-pulled window tinting
-Glued headliner back in place
-Timing adjusted to +3 because it was starting to bog a bit and shifting slower than it should
-Flashers re grounded after they started going out and not working whatsoever when headlights were on
-New Head unit to plug in my phone and with a remote (Kenwood)

So that's basically what I have done up to this point. There's quite a bit left for me to do before Medusa is where I want her to be, and I could make a list a mile long but I figured I'd save your time and just let you folks ask if you want to know anything!

So I'll throw a comment under this to show where it is at this exact moment!

Thanks!

-Cail

 

[CHIMPY]

Alright so here is my goal for her:

-Rough country 4" Suspension Lift
-Heavy Duty Brake Calipers (New Lines as well)
-Transmission mount, gasket and oil change
-Completely new Tensioner ( I have a chirp when first starting the truck up and that goes away when she warms up, that's the onyl thing i could think of)
-Replace Spark plugs (not sure what to go with)
-New Signal Assembly (w/o the cruise control)
-Gloss Black paint job/ Matte black trim instead of re-chroming everything / Chrome only for accents and viewable fasteners / Matte black wheel paint job
-Rally Hub Caps
-Mud flaps (All I've had to cut off to do body work and they were rust-welded on) (still looking for the perfect ones)
-Plasti-dip interior plastics
-Bench seat from a scrap yard ( Anything from 88-98 should work correct?)
-Mossy Oak seat cover and floor mats
-Chrome Allen head fasteners for tailgate guard (it's beyond trying to bend back to original shape)
-Rocker panel and hitch steps
-Carb jetting to run a little bit leaner
-4x4 bolt on fender flares to cover up my dented molding (rusted and fiberglassed to the body) and wavy body work

More to come!

 

[CHIMPY]

So here are progress photos to this point, I'll try to keep them as organized, chronologically, as I can.

This is the photo that it was advertised with

You must be registered for see images attach

After getting her home I took her into the alley to do a general look over and cleaning, just to look a bit more thoroughly than before I bought it and get my hands on every inch I could

You must be registered for see images attach

Just a tiny bit of over spray...

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

And the taillight after a good sanding and polishing

You must be registered for see images attach

A close up of the over spray and the dent in the tailgate guard

You must be registered for see images attach

After about an hour of sanding the top of the guard was almost complete

You must be registered for see images attach

My buddy and I tried out some wet sanding to see if it sped up the process

You must be registered for see images attach

After doing a little hammer work, the dent was practically completely gone

You must be registered for see images attach

After taking off the visor and a couple days hard work with a close friend of mine

You must be registered for see images attach

How the windows look after removing the tinting and before scraping the overspray off

You must be registered for see images attach

A better picture of the taillight afterwards

You must be registered for see images attach

Removing the headlights and turn signals for cleaning

You must be registered for see images attach

While I had them off I figured why not get rid of that ty silver paintjob on the grill

You must be registered for see images attach

Before and after picture of the headlights

You must be registered for see images attach

After the headlight cleaning and grill painted

You must be registered for see images attach

You must be registered for see images attach

After scraping for a good 2 hours

You must be registered for see images attach

And the tailgate guard completely cleaned up

You must be registered for see images attach

Starting to look nicer sitting out front!

You must be registered for see images attach

replacing the brake pads, and starting to realizing what a basket case she was gonna be

You must be registered for see images attach

and now realizing how badly I need new calipers

You must be registered for see images attach

How the wheel wells looked before touching them

You must be registered for see images attach

After knocking out the cancer and grinding down to bare metal

You must be registered for see images attach

The fiberglass begins!

You must be registered for see images attach

And during trying the "easy" way to remove my mud flaps I broke my finger after my wrench slipped off the nut. Ended up taking a cut off wheel to it. They were old and in need of replacing anyways.

You must be registered for see images attach

Almost done with the meshing!

You must be registered for see images attach

Meshing and fiberglass finally complete (I did both sides at the same time)

You must be registered for see images attach

Body filler stage one

You must be registered for see images attach

Body filler stage two

You must be registered for see images attach

Priming the bed so that I could get a better look at low spots and find other flaws to be fixed

You must be registered for see images attach

Painting the cab to match because, hey, who likes driving a horizontally two-tones vehicle?? And it helped with finding flaws too

You must be registered for see images attach

After maybe an hour of prep and a coat of primer, she's starting to look like a truck!

You must be registered for see images attach

Another sitting out front of the house picture

You must be registered for see images attach

Trying out Plastidip's Smoke and Glossifier, don't think that it's really what I want on her in the end, but for now why waste $10 in paint?

You must be registered for see images attach

The rocker panel from hell...

You must be registered for see images attach

And it's neighbor up front. And yes the mud flap is painted, I ended up having to cut it off as well

You must be registered for see images attach

The passenger side wheel well

You must be registered for see images attach

Yikes, after a bit of fiberglass and body filler. Kind of reminds me of something from a Marvel comic

You must be registered for see images attach

My little station for working on the rocker panel

You must be registered for see images attach

After a few more coats

You must be registered for see images attach

Aaaaaand the passenger side...

You must be registered for see images attach

That little hole ended up with me having to cut almost the entire face of the panel out.

You must be registered for see images attach

The wheel well up front

You must be registered for see images attach

sanding down some surface rust on the hood

You must be registered for see images attach

NOW I'm just waiting for this garbage weather in the midwest to stop and I'll be taking some more progress pics!

This weekend I sanded out and fixed just about every single flaw on the passenger side except the last few coats of filler on the rear wheel well, hopefully by wednesday I'll have the priming complete for the last time and throw so good close up and overall pictures!