'89 rcsb s-10 lq4/4l80e

[Motoracer838]

Jeez, I hate rust, sorry to see how big a project this is turning into...

Joe

[JayinMI]

Yeah, I'm not thrilled, but whatever. I found a $250 '86 cab on Craigslist, with no title, but the one I have now looked great until I started poking things with a screwdriver. At this point, I'd love to find someone down south or out west that would be willing to cut a lower a-pillar out of a rust free truck for me.

But, what I think is GOING to happen is that I need to open the kick panel up some more, get all the loose rust out, reinforce it somehow and make a new inner kick panel.

Jay

[Motoracer838]

Yeah, I'm not thrilled, but whatever. I found a $250 '86 cab on Craigslist, with no title, but the one I have now looked great until I started poking things with a screwdriver. At this point, I'd love to find someone down south or out west that would be willing to cut a lower a-pillar out of a rust free truck for me.

But, what I think is GOING to happen is that I need to open the kick panel up some more, get all the loose rust out, reinforce it somehow and make a new inner kick panel.

Jay

Jay, if nothing else pops up quickly, give me an idea how big a piece you need and I''ll figure out what it'll cost to cut a "chunk" out at the yard I go to and shipping. I know you have a lot of time in this one already, if it were mine, I'd put some effort into finding a better cab before moving forward with work on this one, I have a serious hate for rust repair, there's better things I can spend my time on... like almost anything...

Joe

[JayinMI]

Picked up a little 21 gal air compressor this morning. I was going to get a Quincy 5hp 60gal, but I need to run 230 out to the garage to use it and I needed air before I would be able to afford to have that done. This will get me by.

I cut the kick panel up higher and it's pretty sketchy behind the hinge. I'm thinking it will need to come off to repair that area.

Inner piece is (obviously) the inner rocker panel, outer is the outer rocker (duh), piece in the middle looks like it used to be a part of the a-pillar.



The middle piece I will probably have to fab up. Or at least something similar.
It looks like the inner kick panel slides down between the middle piece and the inner rocker as well.

The area right above the hinge is in great shape on the inside.

Jay

[JayinMI]

Haven't done much lately. I ordered another left rocker to use to reconstruct the inner structure. Last one took like a week, so hopefully it will be here by this weekend, when the temps will be out of the 90s.

I almost don't want to inspect the passenger side. As usual, with S10s, there was a coolant leak in the cabin from the heater core, and while there doesn't appear to be any major rust in the area, the seam sealer is no longer adhered to the seams. The rockers have similar "surface rust" to the driver's side, so hopefully that side will be an easier repair.

Some day I'm moving out of the rust belt.

Jay

Edit: Oh! Actually, I removed the lower hinge. There were 4 spot welds, and a bunch of seam sealer holding it on. But it came off without damaging anything. I need to replace some of the metal behind the lower part of the hinge, but above where the rocker panel will reach. But I need to rebuild the inner structure panel first, then the lower inner kick panel, then the outer kick panel, then put the hinge back on. Then I need to repair the upper hinge pin holes, because they are wallowed out. Looks like someone replaced them in the past, but maybe used the smaller bushing, but the hole was ovalled out and since there was no support for the outer part of the bushing, it cracked and allows the door to sag about 1/2".

My plan is to order some 5/16" (.3125") copper rod. Use it to temporarily replace the hinge pins, reinstall the door, then weld around the rod. In my mind, the mig welding shouldn't stick to the copper rod, but will stick to the hinge and leave me a perfect 5/16" hole for the hinge pins to fit in. I can always file them open a little bigger (or drill them depending) to use an appropriate sized bushing....but I'd like to avoid the bushings if possible.

[JayinMI]

Well, I got sick of waiting for the second rocker panel to show up, so I decided to start fixing the inner rocker panel.

]



There were 3 drain slots in the original panel, so I made a jig to press them into the new piece I made.
It looked like there were 4, so that was how I made the jig, but upon closer inspection, it turned out there were only 3,
so I flattened out the extra one.



Pressed them with my Harbor Freight 20 Ton press.



Clamped in place



Welded up (not as pretty as I'd like, I was playing with welder adjustments, but it should clean up ok)



Then I went to dinner with my GF.

Need to make a patch panel for the front part of the inner rocker panel, then I need to make the inner kick panel and hopefully the other rocker panel will be here.

Jay

[JayinMI]

Today I spent the day doing front brakes on the daily, but my second left rocker showed up.

The other day, I ground down my welds on the piece I welded in. Not all the way, but it looks alot better.



Today I marked off where I'm going to make my initial cuts...then I'll section it to fit.





That will probably happen this weekend.

Jay

[JayinMI]

Little more rust repair...a lot more to come. I need to get this corner finished soon...

This is the inner rocker side that attached to the front left body mount.
It attaches to the piece I replaced earlier.

IMG_20180610_175323218 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

I cut off the rusty bit, and used a template I made from poster board to make a replacement. While it was apart, I double checked the inside of the body mount, cleaned any leftover loose stuff and treated the inside with Rustoleum Rust Reformer. The faces that are getting welded to got coated in 3M weld through II primer.

IMG_20180610_175139256 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

IMG_20180610_183822933 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

IMG_20180610_194011105 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

IMG_20180610_193723805 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

IMG_20180611_070529770 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

IMG_20180612_210644711 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

IMG_20180612_210603658 by Jay McGraw, on Flickr

That's it for now.

Jay

[JayinMI]

My co worker and I were talking and I mentioned the truck. He asked if I had it running yet. I chuckled.

Jay

[rixtrix1]

Man, what a project you have. Glad I live in Arizona, where the only body repairs are from shoddy body work. Thanks for sharing your trials and tribulations. I have a neighbor like your PITA, too:(

[JayinMI]

Yeah. Someday I hope to move out of the rust belt. As it so happens, the truck is still in the same stage. I spent a lot of time overthinking how I was going to repair the inner panels, and finally was like "I need to get that corner of the truck back together before it gets cold." And then it was 21 degrees. I came to a decision how I was going to repair the inner structure, and hopefully I get a chance to work on it before it STAYS in the 20's.

It looked great right up until I poked a screwdriver through it. lol

Jay

[Project Bike Truck]

Dude you are the man! Your perseverance is amazing!

[JayinMI]

It's more laziness than perserverance. lol. I'm hoping to get the floor/rocker area reattached in the not too distant future.
Sadly, this is just what project cars in Michigan look like. I've had several suggestions that I should just get another cab,
but this is the 3rd S10 cab involved with this project, and I'm just to the point where I'm going to make it work.

Once the floor is back in, I can fix the captive nut in the passenger front body mount, pull the engine back out, notch the crossmember, install the oilpan again and put the engine back in...then the plan is to install the steering column I built and the Jeep Cherokee steering shaft and at that point, it should be mobile enough to push it outside and clean the garage. lol

But it's my busiest time of year at work, so all of that may take a while.

Jay

[JayinMI]

Well, after over thinking this inner structure piece for almost 2 years, I finally said "F it," and got to work.

I went out to the truck and found pieces of the old, rusty rocker. From there I looked at the clean area and determined the approximate shape I needed.

IMG_20190327_152832314 by , on Flickr

You can see that it looks like the panel ended about halfway through the curve.
So, that's where I cut my original rocker replacement. I had messed up a little at the back and the gap was too big to weld up, so I used that as my base, and then used my 2nd, untouched rocker for it's intended purpose.

I cut it at the line closer to the front.

IMG_20190327_133050238 by , on Flickr

Voila! I used a punch I bought probably almost 20 years ago (for VW floors) to punch holes. My intent had been to weld the two pieces together, with the holes on the back side so I wouldn't have to smooth spot welds...but changed my mind.

Didn't end up having to section it, fortunately.

IMG_20190327_140746178_HDR by , on Flickr

Refit the outer rocker and clamped everything in place before marking it this time.

IMG_20190327_170201446 by , on Flickr

Then I made some backers to fill some gaps.

IMG_20190327_172832256 by , on Flickr

IMG_20190327_173500496 by , on Flickr

IMG_20190327_155256592 by , on Flickr

The back side of everything got hit with weld through primer, and is drying.

I need to cut the extra 3 or so inches out of the factory rocker, and prep the surface of the rocker where I replaced the back piece, and I should be ready to weld things on.

After that I can proceed with the inside kick panel, bottom of the fender and floor.

Might be a while, I have some other things going on, but shouldn't be 2 years.

Jay

[JayinMI]

Today, I made a cardboard template for the inner kick panel area (Pic in next update) and there was a stamping in the chunk I'm replacing. But it's relatively small, and (I believe) unnecessary. Trying to decide if I want to go to the trouble of making a jig to press it back in or not.
It was about 30 today, and is supposed to be in the 50s on my day off, so hoping to get some more welding done then.

Jay

[Motoracer838]

Good to see it moving forward.

Joe

[Jaymzz]

Looking good! A little bit of progress is always good. For me sometimes it is hard to go out in the shop and work on my own after working on cars all day at work.

[JayinMI]

Looking good! A little bit of progress is always good. For me sometimes it is hard to go out in the shop and work on my own after working on cars all day at work.

Same here. I have like 3 projects at work coming back to back, and I'm trying to get my own car ready for a car stereo meet in May.

But I finally figured out how I'm going to get everything to fit.

In some of the earlier pics, you can see I had to cut out the metal behind the lower hinge. I test fitted the rockers, and determined I need to start there. So I clamped it in as best I could so it met up with the rocker pretty well. Made a patch panel, and welded it in. Then removed the rocker again.

Then I'll make the inner kick panel piece, attach that, and then put the rocker back on for the last time.

Jay

[JayinMI]

So, I got one layer of the area behind the hinge welded in. The welder was acting a little weird (because I was using an extension cord, probably) but I got it attached. Last night I made the outer layer piece, and did 3 tacks and ran out of wire. Sigh.

OK, so tonight on my way home, I grabbed some wire, got it loaded in the welder and got about 3/4 of the way through welding the outer piece on, and ran out of gas. Of course I'm on 6 days this week, and won't be able to refill/replace my bottle for a while.

Anyway, it's moving along. Kinda. lol

Jay

[BigMikeIndy]

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