Everybody Needs a Truck - 1996 K1500

Dang.  Never seen one do that before.

How's the tranny?  Hate to send you down the rabbit hole, but as long as you have the engine out...

shifts good, pretty sure it's been rebuilt or replaced at some point

Did you paint the whole frame? (Por15?)

Any rust issues with the frame?

I'm jealous that your doors are 100% intact. The bottoms of mine are rusted out.

i did the front half of the frame when i had the front clip off. i used vht chassis paint. ill do the rest when i have it on a lift

no frame issues, just surface rust

doors are pretty solid, i had the bottoms stripped and recoated when i had the roof fixed

35s and new wheels going on today, pics later

replaced regulators on both doors, speakers too

installed missing lock rods etc on drivers

replaced pass side window as the track was rotted off

bought a remote from amazon for $20 and got the keyless entry working

new(er) steering wheel, 6x9s and a cheap blaupunkt touch screen head unit

got the clear side markers when i bought my headlights and decided to run them for a bit, not bad, dont hate them

new power seat, sweet

working

Very sweet truck-

That's about all I got.

badwaytolive said:

Very sweet truck-

That's about all I got.

Thanks, it's getting there!

I got a really great deal on a set of Firestone Destination MT in 315/70/17.

Then I just had to decide on and buy wheels to fit. Landed with 17x9 -12 American Racing AR72 in black.

Had to pick up the front a bit with the torsion bars to fit, rub the rear of the wheel wells some at full lock, I'll let them self clearance.

not much to report, running and driving great this winter

November of 2019 I decided to clean up rust and paint the back half of the frame. Dad suggested pulling everything off the frame to do it right. So who was I to protest. Took it right down to the frame rails.

First step was to pull the bed off, used a come along into the garage overhang rafters.

Drill, cut, grind and chisel out about 100 rivets and here we are. Everything was pretty solid, just rusty.

Grind for 10 years then hit with etching primer. Wooden suspension did not offer much compliance.

Make it all black. ORD shackle flip, replacing the 4" lift blocks, shown in this sequence of pictures.

Reassembly begins. ORD shackle flip, ORD UBolt flip and Dorman stainless brake lines among the additions.

you can see the ubolt flip here, done for clearance and to get rid of the rust holders that used to be on the bottom of the axle.

Mostly finished going back together.

Back outside for the first time. During this process I also installed a 1.5" body lift that I put together with Zone 3" pucks I cut in half and a sourced longer grade 12.9 bolts. The bolts were all OE GM/Chrysler bolts that were the sizes needed. I wanted to use those to be sure of quality and to get the build in washers that the original bolts had.