My '78 620 Rebuild of a daily driver.

[Bandit240]

So for the last 4 years ive just been driving my truck and not really doing much more that oil changes. Well its time to give it a little make over. The motor and trans are great, but the body work leaves a little to be desired.

 

Heres a few pics of it as it sat a few days ago.

 

Ive spent the last few days taking it apart, cleaning rust and priming it. Right now ive got the fenders, doors, hood and bed off. Ive got to do some repair on the front left corner of the cab from when i smacked a honda.

 

Pics!

 

Heres the floors. Ive got a few holes on the drivers side, but they are covered with aluminum tape. It worked good for the last 4 years, so lets go another 4.

 

This is the damage on the LF.

The fender well is even bent pretty bad.(Note the HEI setup)

 

Heres the front sheetmetel.

[Bandit240]

Heres some pictures of the bed. It was dark when i took them, so their not too great. For the most part, its solid, but it does have a few rust holes. Im priming everything so i can find every little thing i can.

 

 

Ive got a heavy rubber mat that goes in the bed, so thats why i really hadnt noticed the rust.

[Llittle_Llama]

looks like your making a lot of progress though :)

[Bandit240]

Im going to spend all day tomorrow working on it. Got a new digi cam, so i will be getting pics. Might do some work on the bed, got a few cans of bondo.

[Bandit240]

Oh yea, im de-hooking it. Ive got way too many button up shirts missing the bottom 2 buttons.

[Llittle_Llama]

lol, hit me up after you de-hook it, we got room for more members, lol

[Bandit240]

I was going to do it years ago after i got the truck, in fact i already removed the tail gate hooks.

 

Any perks to the de-hooked club?

[Llittle_Llama]

well....pm me and i will tell you about it. no real perks, but you will be on eof the few (see elite) members on this forum :D

[Bandit240]

Got a little more work done on the truck today. Started working on the bent fender well. Kinda got it straight. The hard part is getting the boxed section on the front of the core support. Its smashed. Got the rest of the bed primed. Its got alot more dents than i thought.

 

Pictures!!!

 

Fender well: before

 

After

 

Here you can see how smashed the front is. When i hit the honda, i tryed to avoid it, but between the choice of the car or power pole, i took car.

 

Doors off, priming the cab. Still have chose the final colour. Its a toss up between orange and yellow.

 

Im going to fibreglass over the holes with West Systems epoxy.

 

Heres the bed.

 

 

My motor. I was happy when i did the valve cover.

 

 

More will be coming over the next few days since i will be working on it as much as i can.

[Bandit240]

Todays update.

 

I got some of the dents pounded out of the driver side fender. It looks a bit better now. Also got both front fenders primed. Got all the sheetmetel on the truck, but not bolted. Got some of the fibreglassing done on the drivers floor.

 

Ive noticed that the front seems to be sitting unlevel. The frame is level, but the body is a little goofy. Im going to try fix that tomorrow.

 

Ive got to figure out what grille to use once its done. Everyone around here knows my truck by the red/black grille and i like it, but it got broke up in the wreck.

 

Would you say my old number plate saw hell?

[Phlebmaster]

Nice work! Keep it up! :D

[Bandit240]

Thanks for moving the thread. I didn't think to put it here until after i had it posted.

[Phlebmaster]

Hey, no problem. Have you done any work on the motor? What are the specs?

[Bandit240]

The motor is just a stock L20b. Only mod i can claim is taking out the box under the dash for the dizzy and adding in an HEI module. That was done more to get it running again since the box under the dash seems to have died.

[Bandit240]

I hate waiting on epoxy to cure. Ive got the truck parked in the sun and a little heater on it, but its still taking forever to cure. Doesnt help that its about 55 outside.

 

Got the drivers floor done. Its alot better now than it was. Going to sand and paint it all soon. Ill get pics then.

 

On another note, i may be trading the F250 for an '80 310GX.

[Bandit240]

I got set back some on the truck. Wednesday a buddy of mine called and asked if id like to help take a sailboat to FL, sure why not. Hopped on the boat that afternoon and got off Thursday morning down in Beaufort. No heat on the boat, cold as hell and the owner was a total dumbass.

 

Now back to the truck. I did a little work on the bed. Ive got most of the small dents fixed and now im working on the big stuff. Im going to be filling all the seams in the bed. Mostly worked on the left rear corner.

 

Pounded in the big dent and sanded it to do some bondo work.

 

First bit of bondo done.

 

Looks kinda rough after primer.

 

Second go at it, looks alot better now.

 

 

Some misc pics of the rest of the truck.

 

Hood and doors.

 

Heres my fibreglass/epoxy repair on the floor.

[Bandit240]

Well i sanded and primed the second coat of bondo, looks alot nicer in the pic than it does in person. Still more work to be done.

 

[Bandit240]

Heres a quick pic. I set the bed back on today, hard to do with just 2 people. Dropped it once.

 

[slodat]

You are filling those body seams in the bed with bondo only?

[phatdave]

Nice Job.

[Bandit240]

Yea, im picking out the old stuff that was in them, then sanding the hell out of them and then filling them in. Ive got to fill them since some of my dents are right by the seam. Im also doing the seams on the roof of the cab.

 

Heres where the seam on the cab used to be.

 

I also found the little mirror that was on the truck when i got it. Im going to remove the big mirrors that ive had on it and put the little one back on.

[Bandit240]

This is how the truck looked back when i got it 4 years ago. You can see it only had that one little mirror on it. It was so nice back then.

 

[Bandit240]

Ive almost got the left rear corner done. Ive got to get some real thin filler to skim it with. Theres a few small pits in the bondo.

 

Tried to fill the holes by skimming the whole thing with bondo, didnt put enough hardner in it and it only half kicked. Had to scrape all that off.

 

All scraped and painted again.

 

Tomorrow is the front part of the bed.

[Bandit240]

Started working on the front part of the bed today. Its looking alot better now.

 

Sanded bare

 

First coat of bondo.

 

Primed to find all the bad spots.

 

[73dat]

looking goodddddddddddddddd.......................................:cool: