A little history of the truck. The truck was a farm truck for the first 18 years of its life, so it's been worked. 88,000 original miles but looked like 388,000. My father inlaw bought it and let it sit like all of his other vehicles. He needed a place to park it, so it ended up in my yard. I used this truck when going to the dump and picking up material while renovating my house about six or seven years ago. I was driving it in a snow storm approaching a red light when the brake pedal went to the floor. So with no brakes there it sat for a year until he came and brought it to his new residence. It sat again until june of this year. I was looking to buy a truck when he suggested that i put some work into the 85. I knew this truck needed a ton of work and was reluctant to try and fix it. I had never attempted this much work to a vehicle. The price was right so I decided to bring her back to life!

I have begun assembling the chassis and have taken quite a few pics along the way. I'll post a few a day to get everyone up speed if anyone is interested in seeing a newbie trying his hand at a frame off.

 

ill gladly watch this one! ive been waiting for a good time/money situation to do something like that to mine

 

 

Looks good, what was your process on getting the bed bolts off?

 

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Thanks! Two people, one under the bed one on top. I took a dull chisel and hit the high spots around the top of the carriage bolts and grabbed them with vise grips and heated nuts with mapp gas. They all came out no problems surprisingly. The bottom bed panels are toast so I wasn't worried about damaging them.

 

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What are your plans for the frame?

 

fun! give us more

 

I wire wheeled the whole frame and took a portable sand blaster to all the tight spots, cleaned and prepped using por 15 products then I put two coats of black por15. I did the same on the axles and som other misc pieces. I plan on going over the por with some tie coat primer and then two coats of topcoat.

 

I was only planning on releasing a few photos a day, but, alright here's some more

After you use the prepping spray it flash rusts but from what they say it helps the paint bond
...and some paint

 

In case you couldn't tell, we love pics here! The frame looks great.

 

Thanks a lot! It came out alright, but it dried weird and seems flat in some areas and glossy in others. The paint is kind of hard to work with. That's why I have decided to topcoat after all leaf springs and ubolts are installed.

 

I can't wait to do a frame off restoration on mine. How much money do you have in paint on the frame(estimate)? And is that a 351w HO you've got?

 

Well, I haven't put the tie coat or topcoat on yet, so without that about $165. I still have 1 1/4 quarts left for underside of cab, bed and trans.
Not a HO just a reg 351w.
Another $50 for the marine clean and prep & ready