Went to the Mansfield swap meet looking for more truck parts. I was able to score the radiator support I desperately needed along with a few other goodies. All of them were in the vendor lot furthest from where I parked of course.

One less rusty radiator support. While it has rot where the mounts are, the rest is intact & solid unlike mine. It also looks to have been dented & straightened poorly at some point. But it will work well enough, and I got it and the door parts below for only $80.

Lower door skins & inner door bottoms. These are repro parts that were never installed, but have surface rust form sitting. While I will need to do some serious de-rusting, I couldn’t beat the savings. A new rad support & door patch panels would have been over $250.

Also picked up another GMC grill & grille panel. I didn’t need these parts, but for $40 I couldn’t pass it up. The grille is nicer than the one from AZ, but the grille panel is rotted like my original was. I’m now planning to use the AZ grille panel & this grille on the truck. The AZ grille will likely become garage art along with my chevy grille.

Rot to be fixed on the rad support. While it looks really nasty, it is confined to a fairly small area.

Rot cut out, I left the inner most layer both because it was solid and for reference to make sure everything still lined up for the mounts.

New patch panel bent into the U shape needed and the first welds in place.

Patch cut & bent to match the angle of the original. You can see a pie shaped gap where I mis-measured the patch.

Patch fully welded in & trimmed to match. You can see where I added a small filler to bridge the gap in the earlier pic.

Damaged metal next to mount area cut out. I don’t have any good final pics, but I made a patch that fits not only here, but overlaps the other patch right up to where the bend is to build this back up to the OEM 3 layers.

Hole for radiator support mount drilled out.

Rot on passenger side cut out & patched.

I also drilled the bolt holes in the inner fenders now that I have a good radiator support to use for reference.

Once the welding was done, I rand a wire cup over the radiator support & associate parts and degreased them for paint.

Then the truck got moved out in the driveway so I could use the garage for painting(last time I painted parts outside the wind kicked up and I ended up with bumper braces that looked like 40 grit sandpaper). The tent over the back is because I’m storing most of the front end parts there.

Then the parts got laid out and painted. The silver paint is Masterseries anti-rust paint, the black paint is tractor paint from Tractor Supply. Since that pic I have gotten all the black parts done(baring touchup) and a second coat on some of the silver parts.

The edge of the firewall on the cab needed patching. As I did decide to go with “quick & dirty” repairs to the cab, I decided to cut this flange off and just weld a piece of metal across the gap.

So the rusted mess was cut free, the paint & surface rust were ground back, and a piece of steel was bent into an L and welded across the gap.

This is where I ended up. In addition to being easier, this removes the lip that was trapping mud & water and encouraging rust. The lip is still in place above where the fender sits, so it’ll look normal under the hood once it is re-assembled.

It turned out to be a right pain in the ass to weld the lower parts of this. The weld kept trying to drip off the metal rather than stick in place, and I couldn’t find a good technique to avoid that. So a lot of swearing later I slowly manage to tack it all together.

Once the welding was done and ground down, it was painted with the same tractor paint as the rest of the firewall.

Then the whole firewall got a coat of truck bedliner, which, in addition to being very tough, did a great job of hiding the runs & other issues from painting the firewall.

Once I finish the front end, it will be time to start doing some serious repairs to the cab, however the more I dug into it, the more I realized what a wreck the cab really is.

The rockers have been replaced once, and a lot of the factory bracketry was hacked in the process. The patches also go much further up into the cab that expected.

Between these and the dented roof, I’ve decided the cab isn’t worth trying to get right. Instead I’m keeping an eye out for a better cab at a reasonable price to replace this one with entirely.

In the mean time I’m going to do sort of “Quick & Dirty” repairs to it. Making things solid & safe but not try and get them right. I still have to replace the rockers and some/all of the structure under them as well as patching other issues.

I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to replace the roof skin & drip rails or hold off in hopes that the future cab won’t need that work.

The one sunvisor in the truck was beyond trashed. The garage door opener on it came with the truck, and is now a structural part of the visor.

A ways back I posted that I’d picked up some replacement visors, so I decided it was time to replace at least one. Three screws later and things looked a lot better.

Little projects like this are great, very little effort and a noticeable improvement.

For $235 shipped form AZ I got a rust free & fairly straight assembly that is cheaper than a new grille panel alone. It will need some cleanup & dings fixed, but it is miles better than what I had.

The only real issues are the missing outer buckets, a dent above the right headlamps, and a bullet hole next to the right outer headlamp. Honestly the bullet hole may stay, as it is pretty cool looking.

I’m not sure yet what will replace the GMC letters. I have seen some people use a Buick grille piece there, but I would really love to find a set of Chevrolet letters that are the right size so it looks kind of stock.

Also, when I bought the grille I asked if he could send me the mounting hardware, and offered to kick in some extra $$. He said he didn’t have the original bolts but would throw in some spares for free. What showed up was 30+ original style bolts already stripped of rust & paint. This should be more than enough to replace all the snapped/busted ones. Hell of a nice guy.

The day after the grille arrived I went to the first Swap Meet of the season at Stafford Speedway. Spent 3.5 hours wandering around looking at other people’s junk. I always intend to take lots of pictures, but it is so busy & exhausting that always falls by the wayside.

I did pick up this fender for $60. Why did I buy a badly dented fender? It has absolutely zero rot, and the dent is in the only place my fender doesn’t have rot. So I’m hoping I can combine the two into one good fender.