Rust Repair... good tutorials?

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JeezLouiseGMC

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My poor K1500 has spent many a winter up here in Kentucky and as a result my cab corners and rockers are a little crusty.. i am excited to undertake a little bodywork seeing as I have never done it before, but i am wondering what advice or tutorials yall might have. and advice is appreciated!

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letitsnow

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I would decide what you are after before you start this project. If you are just hoping to make the truck a solid driver - that can be done, and you will help keep it solid by welding in new rockers and cab corners. If you are looking to 'restore' the truck, usually rust repair is a never ending job - never really going to fix it all without spending way more than the vehicle is worth. It is a lot of crappy work. Many body shops won't even do it, no matter how much you pay them.
 
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Its not as bad as people make it out to be. Just sand it to metal, grind out the corrosion, patch as needed and cover her up! With a dual action sander and 80 grit discs, it took me about 12 man hours to get the whole bed down to bare metal with all of the corrosion ground out.
 
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although, how nice you want to make it look when you're done makes a huge difference in the time it takes to recoat. For example, if you couldn't give 2 ***** about surface finish or dents and whatnot you could just shoot an epoxy primer and top coat with poly in the same day. Or if its a spot repair just to kill corrosion, a rattle can touchup isn't unreasonable. just don't expect it to last as long.
 

kennythewelder

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Spend some time on you tube, there are a ton a good videos there on this subject. Just remember to remove all of the rust, or it will come back.
 

kevvan

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This guy did a reasonable job. Seems like a normal guy taking it on, and telling how he did it. He's pretty candid about his skills.
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He has a number of odds and ends on work he's done in his video library.

It seemed to me that this video was more of a patch job and not a proper repair but it had the basics of how to do it. I think what he did will likely rust again due to the fact that he had more rust going on, but...
 

JeezLouiseGMC

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I would decide what you are after before you start this project. If you are just hoping to make the truck a solid driver - that can be done, and you will help keep it solid by welding in new rockers and cab corners. If you are looking to 'restore' the truck, usually rust repair is a never ending job - never really going to fix it all without spending way more than the vehicle is worth. It is a lot of crappy work. Many body shops won't even do it, no matter how much you pay them.

A solid driver is all Im looking for, the truck is FAR from perfect...
 

letitsnow

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Then buy some inexpensive replacement panels and weld them on. You should try to cut the rusted areas back until you get to solid metal. Overlap your new panels and weld it up.

The correct way to do it is totally different, but this will put metal back where it once was, and last quite a while if you use rust proofing on the back side after painting.
 

CRF450R

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My poor K1500 has spent many a winter up here in Kentucky and as a result my cab corners and rockers are a little crusty.. i am excited to undertake a little bodywork seeing as I have never done it before, but i am wondering what advice or tutorials yall might have. and advice is appreciated!

JeezLouiseGMC
I just did cab corners and rockers and last summer to my 98. Order new cab corners and rockers remove the box and doors. The determine how much of the new panel you will use try to stay away from body lines. Also do not over lap you either need a stepper tool that indents the body a little bit so that your new panels mount flush or but weld NEVER OVER LAP. Also when your done your welding and the welds are ground down don't just applie bondo you will need to put on a skim coat of short strand fiberglass filler. After you applied that block it like you would bondo then apply your Bondo then Finnish with glaze after that 2k high build primer block that out you'll probably need three coats and blocked done each coat I use ever coat self etching then paint.I could send you a bunch of pictures that are basically step by step of how to do it and how to do it right. Also check out SWRNC diyautoschool on you tube.
 

letitsnow

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^^^ That is closer to right, but if worried about that, it gets tough to know where to stop. If you do it right, pretty soon you end up starting over at the firewall haha. My 1st career was an autobody tech at a high end shop. I have seen it all. Over lapping an old trucks rockers isn't the end of the world. You aren't really doing it right anyways. I overlapped my neighbors 17 years ago, and they still look ok.
 
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