1986 K10 shorty revival

[gmachinz]

For the dye, I don't use the SEM stuff-there is a local paint shop that among other things, mixes custom vinyl interior paint. My door panels are the original blue color but I simply "fogged" them to freshen them up-I believe they use DuPont paint for interior spray dyes-on my can label it reads:


C8792J
Code: 24CN
Color: DK BLUE use 304S vinyl resin for low gloss
Year: 1987
SHADED

I basically took in a nice, clean untouched kick panel for them to scan and he suggested (as always-he's done a lot of interior dyes for me and they've all been perfect) to use a low gloss resin so they look factory when dry and not too glossy. Then, my cleaning process to remove all grime and prep for paint is to use a combination of hot water and Comet to clean the plastic surface-with a thorough cleaning, plastic primer is not required-the color adhesion is in the dye solvents themselves. I have restored a lot of gbody interiors so I am pretty experienced with my dyeing skills...lol. Attention to detail is the key. I try never to do complete color changes-that's just asking for trouble-I may dye it if it's close-like using red panels to dye brown, for example. Since my interior pieces were all blue to begin with, it took me 2 cans at a cost of $36 to freshen up the interior trim.

[Greenlee]

Nice work! I used a lot of Suburban parts and never thought about trimming the door panel inserts.
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[rs74]

Have you had bed experiences with SEM? If I have to touch up any of my stuff that is what we was thinking about using. I have never dyed anything myself. When "fogging" are you meaning just a light layer spayed on. If you can post up a pic of front of the can so I can look into it. I would be interested in your process after cleaning and spraying it on. Is there anything else that you do after spraying?


Gotta love those G-bodies. I have a 79 Cutlass that I have had since high school. That has been 21 years now. How time flies.

[gmachinz]

I've got a few pics uploading to photobucket...I'll post them here in a few minutes. After a mist about 3 or 4 light coats on the pieces, I let them sit for about two weeks and let them fully dry-or evaporate out the solvents before handling them at all. Then, you have to be mindful of not using anythign solvent or wax based to clean them-a damp soft cloth is all you should use to clean or dust off your dyed interior plastic-never use any kind of armor all, etc.

[rs74]

Originally Posted by gmachinz

I've got a few pics uploading to photobucket...I'll post them here in a few minutes. After a mist about 3 or 4 light coats on the pieces, I let them sit for about two weeks and let them fully dry-or evaporate out the solvents before handling them at all. Then, you have to be mindful of not using anythign solvent or wax based to clean them-a damp soft cloth is all you should use to clean or dust off your dyed interior plastic-never use any kind of armor all, etc.

Hmm, good to know that. You have some good info going here. Thanks.

[gmachinz]

here's a pic of the blend door hinge attachment that is the weak link in the design-once epoxied, it should never break.

[gmachinz]

Here's a pic of the dye I used for my interior...house brand can but I think DuPont paint mix.

[gmachinz]

For those who want to use a factory style GM aux. engine oil cooler like this, you will most likely need to replace the seals and gaskets in both the lines and the engine oil pad adpater block so you need to pick up a Fel-Pro #ES72671 from your neighborhood parts store-it has what you need for both the V8 and V6 engines....it's about $10 or so....but you no want any oil leaky leaky in your driveway!

This set was donated by a generous 1990 Suburban chillin out in one of my favorite boneyards. It mounts on the trucks just like it did in the Burb...easy-peasy.

Soon I'll have the trans cooler w/fan that the same Burban also kindly gave up...pics coming soon on that one.

[gmachinz]

Well I went to the 'yard and scored a crazy nice cluster bezel surround that while I hate to cut em up, I have to modify it for my Delco CD player-also found both lower fender splash guards for my pickup-courtesy of an 89 'Burban.
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[gmachinz]

So, I had a brake job to do and then change out the fuel pump in my DD 1995 Buick Roadmaster wagon today before i could play around with my Shorty....so I thought today would be a good day to pull the crappy OE fender off since I need to replace it along with the drivers door. I already bought aftermarket inner fenders and prepped/undercoated them a month back or so-and, this gave me the opportunity to inspect the drivers side lower cowl area for any signs of rust-none were to be found I'm glad to say! As you check these pics out keep in mind rust wise this truck is above average for what you normally find here in the midwest! So, I merely scrubbed the areas dry, sprayed some 3M undercoating in the rust prone spots and then proceeded to install my inner fender. There's a lot I do prior to bolting a new inner back on-I wirebrush, etch prime then paint all fasteners, then, I spray undercoated all over the protruding threads of the fasteners so rust can't start there either. I even cleaned the plastic lower splash guards before re-installing. I'm on the hunt or rust free OEM fender and door for the LH side at the moment so here's some pics of todays progress:








Then after cleaning they get undercoated....






splash guard installed....probably what saved the floor supports! Gresat upgrade for older trucks!



Undercoated hardware...once dry, it'll match the rest of the undercoated inner fender....I also seam-seal and undercoat the gaps of the bolt mounting locations to keep water out of those areas to eliminate rusting out from behind the inner fender where they bolt to the cowl brace.



This is the outermost bolt location for the LH inner fender-after undercoating the 15mm bolt head, I snuck in-between the inner fender and cowl brace to completely coat the protruding threads and nut to keep water off the bare threads-this also helps keep rust at bay. Knowing where all these sneaky areas and how they are prone to rusting where everythigng else on a truck seems nice is the key to keeping the body in good shape for years to come. How many times have you seen an otherwise rust free truck except for the inner fender bolt locations....where there are big gaping rust holes because water got behind them? This is how I seal the rust out....



So that's it for now....I'll post up pics of the fender/door install then hopefully carpet and a completely new interior all finished! That will be this weeks project.

[gmachinz]

Been slacking a bit on moving forward.....spent some time gathering parts for my 1980 Monte build lately. But, I have carpet for the truck but have been hesitant about installing it since I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure out where a tiny water leak is coming from-then today after about two weeks of fretting I finally found it! Inside the wiper linkage cavity there is a seamsealed section that extends across the whole front of the truck....well, the damn OE seam seal had cracked open about 2" and it was letting water get by and leak slightly inside the truck and it was coming from just above and around the steering column area. Since its real tuff getting in there to dig out old sealer and apply new, I decided to wirebrush by hand the area where its cracked and spraying a very liberal amount of 3M undercoating to it-that should take care of the leak....now I can go about finishing the interior!
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[gmachinz]

Thought I'd throw a few misc. pics up-here's some of the serpentine bracket set I'm using-the motor is goin into another project but the bracket kit is the same-I've got several setup like this on the parts shelf....and, pics of the electric fan setup I designed for my use with a Motorcraft 2-speed 4500 CFM fan.

[gmachinz]

Here's a couple pics of the Crown Victoria fan I installed on my truck-it's rated @ 4000-4400 CFM or so on high speed so I have it wired to the 3-speed harness I designed so now I have a nice, progressive electric fan which should prove superior to the mech. clutch type fan from before. I did need to trim about 1/2" off the shroud for clearance but with this massive integrated shroud it has, airflow is ridiculous!




Here's a pic of the thermostat housing I'm using-it had 2 ported vacuum switch locations which now serve as my low and medium temp switches to trigger 2 of the 3 speeds for my electric fan-the third is a high speed bypass for when I turn the AC on.



This system is protected by 50-amp MIDI style HD fuse and the whole relay setup only has 6 connections to make! Clean and easy!

[gmachinz]

Well, today between two different salvage yards I managed to score nice LH and RH power mirrors from some Gladiator conversion vans. I wasn't sure if I wanted plain stainless mirrors (stock), the black 1991 style power mirrors (which would mean changing doors out) or the van style which are the same as the stock mirrors but have a curve towards the door a little more. I'll get some pics later....kinda dark out right now. I separated the power mirror harness from the rest of a spare power accessory harness I had stored away.....slightly different coded wires and connector ends but I can splice it to look factory. Weird that the mirrors only require a 3-amp inline fuse.....
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[gmachinz]

So I tried to keep a small budget with the transfer case and trans.....BUT, it appears the forward drive clutches in the TH350 are trashed. 205 t-case works well but the tranny won't go into any forward gear....had some grey clutch disc material in the pan when I inspected it but I guess it wasn't as good.internally as I was hoping. So, I'll post updated pics once I track down a 4x4 TH400 trans....if I have to pull it again, a stout one is going in its place!
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[gmachinz]

....so, I have the TH350 out and getting rebuilt and I found a pair of G20 van power mirrors so I figured I'd go ahead and start putting the door panels on. Things that had to be taken care of first was a leaking cowl seam, running the power mirror harness which I found varies between the 1991 Suburbans and conversion vans.

Then, I got distracted with another truck I found with factory buckets/console so that got my attention.....lol. anyway, here's an updated pic of the interior as of right now....a few of the trim pieces are from LMC but for the most part, everything is restored OEM interior trim. I think I've also decided to go with silver for paint to go with the dark blue interior. http://m975.photobucket.com/albumvie....html?newest=1
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[gmachinz]

Here's a few updates: dyed and installed a set of factory GM door panel speaker pods...and. I'm moddign the LH door panel for a power mirror switch from a 91 Suburban...planning on using 1991 conversion van style power mirrors.

[8lugnutz]

Originally Posted by gmachinz

Here's a few updates: dyed and installed a set of factory GM door panel speaker pods...

Man, I'm looking for a set of these! My 1980 K10 has the factory door speakers, I just replaced the speakers this weekend, but don't have any covers. You know of anyone that has a set for sale?

[8lugnutz]

By the way, NICE job on the door panels!

[gmachinz]

Thanks! Yeah-I had the door panel speaker pods listed on Ebay last week-I was on the fence about selling them to begin with and nobody bid on them anyway so I thought ahh...what the heck-might as well use them. I don't want to use kick panel Q-Logic stuff-too aftermarket-ish looking....I like a factory appearance. You might luck out on here tho-there's a couple guys selling parts all the time-you'll hafta keep an eye out for em.

Well, an hour and a half later I have the power mirror switch installed just like GM would have done it....

[8lugnutz]

I'm on eBay daily and didn't see them. I wish I would have, they'd be in my truck!
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[gmachinz]

well, they were kind of a medium blue....originally in a 78-79 Silverado. They weren't dry-rotted but were very close to starting-that particular junkyard was wayyyy the hell out in the country and has about 600-700 73-up pickups, k5's and suburbans as well as duallys, etc. spread over about 80 acres. It literally took me all day to navigate that yard to quickly check out the trucks and few gbodies they have. Out of all those trucks, only 1 had provisions for door panel speakers so it was a cool score. Heck they have several complete 68-69 trucks with nothing missing! I love them country junkyards...if you don't mind getting chased by at least 3 small swarms of wasps, dodging cow-pies everywhere and keepign an ear out for timber rattlers...(I heard there could be some anyway)-then yeah, it's a blast! lol

[gmachinz]

UPS delivered some goodies the other day-this is my trans pan for my TH350 that is being built for my Shorty. I sure hope B&M is still USA made-I try to stay American for performance stuff.



Here's a close-up of the van style power mirror on my truck...



Here's my drivers door panel installed-finally! I picked up a rust free GM door and rebuilt the hinges, then hung it. In case you were wondering, yeah I plan to paint the truck in the spring-until then, I just couldn't handle the crappy faded black interior it had before, I had to rectify it.

[rs74]

Originally Posted by gmachinz

Here's a close-up of the van style power mirror on my truck...

Lookin good! I have those same mirrors on my 84 K30. Just don't have them hooked up.

[gmachinz]

Yeah-I have a set of the 90-91 style mirrors but sold my last pair of power mirror doors so I had these as a backup so I thought what the heck. The van power mirror harness is slightly different with the color coding-I think they have a yellow wire instead of white-and, the plug-ins are slightly different from the K5's and Burbs to the conversion vans.

I also swapped from the pickup map pockets to the Suburban style too-I like the velcro flap. I went to a salvage yard that has about 600-700 squares (that's about 75% of what they have total too....!) and I spent 3 hours walking around before finding a whole slew of Suburbans and only one had a decent enough drivers door fof me to use on my truck. Anyway, I'm going for a stock appearance but updating the interior at the same time....we'll see how she looks in a few days...my new carpet should be here soon along with a new brushed aluminum instrument cluster insert I need to install over the woodgrain.

Bouncing between truck projects is pretty tiring...lol.