brcron007

Hi Mr Thrashingcow, She's really lookin good. Thumbs up

crewctd

looking good. I like the hood. Are you getting rid of the upper chrome along the middle of the doors?

thrashingcows

Not sure if I'm going to be putting the stainless drip rail trim back on right now or not. Regardless it will be stowed away for future use.

thrashingcows

Well I can't believe I forgot to mention that I re/re'd a Heater and A/C unit from a newer dodgre ram (1993) and then swapped it into the crewcab.

New'er unit ready for a re/re...



Old unit torn out of truck...

thrashingcows

New'er vs old....







Also discovered why I didn't have much heat...turns out the vacuum line running to the water shut off valve had worn a hole in it. So it was only getting a minimum of vacuum to open the valve and let hot coolant into the heater core.

thrashingcows

Over the long weekend I ground out all the sealant from the drip rails. Used this handy little wire wheel on the grinder. That wheel, and the sealant being torn up...looked like it had just snowed.



But be careful trying to get into the tight areas...I hit the roof with the metal nut on the underside of the wire wheel...put a few good gouges in the roof....


...Photobucket is being difficult. Tried for a hour last night to upload and post pics and had to give up. Still not working this morning.

thrashingcows

After grinding out all the sealant I used some small picks and screwdrivers to dig out as much of the old sealant I could. I then used a small flat brush to paint in some rust converting primer. Took a while to get into all the nooks and crannies, but got way better coverage then trying to spray primer from a can or gun.

You can see the rust through on the very front endge of the drip rail....

thrashingcows

Then use a bunch of old sheets and blankets I keep around for whatever...and some tape and start spraying primer then paint. I found some of that pre-mix touch up paint...from Canadian Tire, that closely matched the creme on the new box.

jimbo486

Excellent work, thrashing! What kind of sealant did you replace the old junk with? My truck could use this treatment but I haven't looked into sealant types to do so.

thrashingcows

No sealant...just a good down to bare metal cleaning..then a rust converting brush on primer...then another zinc based primer...then top coat. Hope to hold off the rust demon for another year. Want to remove all the rust before I seal things up permanently.

jimbo486

Gotcha. Didn't think about going in that order. Good idea. Any chance you could weld the gap from what rotted out, if the material is clean enough?

thrashingcows

That's the plan...at least right now. But I want to do it right, so I will probably pull the front windshield before I attempt this. Want to sand/media blast the area from the top and bottom to make sure I've gotten 99% of the rust.

Once that's done I'm considering using POR15 to seal up the drip rail from the top and bottom.

jimbo486

That's what I'd like to do as well. I've got a significant amount of rot under the drip rail, mostly on the driver side. My windshield is cracked so it definitely needs replacing but I'd like to be able to remove all the rot prior to installing a new piece of glass and know that it will NEVER come back!

thrashingcows

Well today I went and got the box LineX'd. I'm very happy with the results.


Before....




And after....

thrashingcows

Also got the new motor installed in the heater box....it blows a bit harder then the original that's for sure. Before you could barely feel any air moving on the lowest setting...now you can. And there is also considerably more air moving on the high setting.