The Joys of Driving a 15 Year Old Truck in The Rust Belt.

Steverino said:
Oh boy. That sucks. And yeah, looks like the bed's going to have to come off.

Might as well replace the fuel pump while you're at it. :(
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I watched a youtube video this morning, and the guy didn't remove his bed.

I think rather than trying to drill them out, I'll actually take an angle grinder to them and try to punch them out after I've ground the head off.
 
Prages said:
I watched a youtube video this morning, and the guy didn't remove his bed.

I think rather than trying to drill them out, I'll actually take an angle grinder to them and try to punch them out after I've ground the head off.
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That's good to hear. Good luck. :)
 
Phil513 said:
DO EET!
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Not going to happen for a while. We're spending tomorrow at the lake, Sunday is Mother's Day, which means we'll be on the road or at my parent's house all day. I'm not going to try to tackle it after work. We have a race next Saturday, then leave for Georgia for a week.

The earliest possible day that I'll do it is Memorial Day. I may even wait until the following weekend.

The hangers and shackles and bushings sure are pretty tough.
 
jelloman said:
Did you get a bunch of grade 8 nuts and bolts? And some undercoat spray to cover them with?
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The kit I bought came with all the bolts and are pre-painted.

What I SHOULD do is pull the bed and wire wheel most of the rust off of the frame, then put a coat of POR-15 on it before I put the new hangers on.

What I'll end up doing is leaving the bed on, grinding the rivets off, maybe taking a steel brush to the worst part of the rust, shoot some spray can Rustoleum on it, bolt everything back together, and hope I get another year or two out of it.
 
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Prages said:
Not going to happen for a while. We're spending tomorrow at the lake, Sunday is Mother's Day, which means we'll be on the road or at my parent's house all day. I'm not going to try to tackle it after work. We have a race next Saturday, then leave for Georgia for a week.

The earliest possible day that I'll do it is Memorial Day. I may even wait until the following weekend.

The hangers and shackles and bushings sure are pretty tough.
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Looks like we'll be working on our trucks the same weekend then.
 
I got inspired and did the broken side today.

The grinder worked like a charm.

The hardest part was getting the old bushing out. I tried to twist it out, pound it out, and even burn it out. I ended up drilling several holes into it and using needle nose pliers to take it out a tiny piece at a time.

I left the other side for another day.

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I did also wire wheel the back half of the frame, shot some rust treatment spray on it, and gave it a coat of chassis black paint.


The pictures make the frame look a lot worse than it really is. It was just surface rust. Nothing deep.

The hangers and shackles, on the other hand...

Let's just say that I'll be doing the other side pretty soon.
 
@Phil513

You'll be happy to know that I only used one grinding disc (and it's still got a lot of life left) and it took me about 1/2 hour to get all four ground down.

I was surprised to see that there were actually two bolts and two rivets. The passenger side is 4 rivets. I guess the assembly line was short a few rivets the day my truck was built.

I ended up grinding the bolts off too, though. Seemed easier than trying to get a rusted 15 year old bolt out the regular way.

Also, I ground the heads down until I could see the outline of the shaft, then took a chisel and hammered it between the hanger and the frame. The hanger popped right off, the bolts popped out, and one of the rivets popped out. The other one needed a nudge with s punch and a bfh.
 
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Fantastic! That's pretty encouraging. One of the benefits of a desert vehicle is no rust, so mine might go even easier.

Very cool, I'm glad it went well. Did the new bushing go back in fairly easily?
 
Phil513 said:
Fantastic! That's pretty encouraging. One of the benefits of a desert vehicle is no rust, so mine might go even easier.

Very cool, I'm glad it went well. Did the new bushing go back in fairly easily?
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No.

I had to do a bunch of scraping inside the spring, lube the bushing, pound it 3/4 of the way in. After that, it wouldnt budge, so I used a large c clamp as a press and got it the rest of the way in.

Honesty, getting the rivets out was the easiest part of the job.
 
Prages said:
No.

I had to do a bunch of scraping inside the spring, lube the bushing, pound it 3/4 of the way in. After that, it wouldnt budge, so I used a large c clamp as a press and got it the rest of the way in.

Honesty, getting the rivets out was the easiest part of the job.
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Yeah, I'm thinking I'll be using the vice at work to squish them in place.
 
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