Interior

Interior

Windshield

I failed to take many pictures of the truck when I first got it.  I wish I had.  This is after a repaint and body work, but shows the replacement windshield at least.  Doh!

Safety First

So for me first-things-first is to make sure all the 'road safety' things were at least really well checked out so things like Brakes, Emergency Brake, Lights, Steering, Wheels (rims), Tires, Battery, Leaks, Shocks were all in decent shape, fixed, or replaced.

• Brakes were all like new, the old fella who'd owned this Truck (single owner 239k miles on it) had taken reasonably good care of the truck, and the brakes appeared to have been recently serviced.  (thankfully) so Check-Mark-OK on that.
• Emergency Brake Check-Mark-OK
• Lights, not so great...
• Found
• One headlamp out.
• One Front Signal Lamp broken
• One Rear Signal/Brake Lamp cracked.
• For $90.00 on Ebay (including shipping) I replaced all the external lighting. Check-Mark-OK
• Steering, had A LOT of freeplay, this is simple to adjust on the Steering Gear Box.  And probably never had been done.  Loosen the top lock-nut, and screw the screw in/out as needed.  Use VERY TINY INCREMENTS.  A little here goes a LONG WAY.  Test Drive after someplace where you can't hit anything!!!  I over-tightened this initially and had the steering so stiff I could barely turn it and shift at the same time.  So word-to-the-wise use tiny increments, and go test drive it.  Remember to lock down the lock-nut before each test drive.  Check-Mark-OK (easy fix! and FREE)
• Wheels (rims), well these were in really sad shape there were not original.  But I liked the style of them, so I spent a day stripping the rust, and nasties off them.  The following day I painted the centers Satin Black, the center-caps Silver (looks a bit like brushed aluminium when it's done) and left the outer rim edges Chrome.  I just buffed them to a shine.  Added a black pin stripe on the chrome part also.  These Came with the truck so they were free except for the cleanup, and repaint and clear coat I put on them.  Total investment was probably $50.00.
• Tires, I replaced all four of them for $273.00 with 195/70R14's.  The originals had 205/70R14 (rear) and 195/70R14 (front).  The were badly dry-rotted and cracked and I wouldn't have wanted to drive on them for more than a few miles anyway.  The new tires came with new air valves, and mount and balance was about $30.00.
• I Hate dead/weak batteries on any vehicle.  It's a serious pet-peeve of mine.  I replaced it with a high end Optima Red-Top battery for $190.00 ($12 core return).
• The Rear Differential had a leak, which was solved simply by tightening to the two bottom nuts/bolts on the Diff.  (relief, because I had visions of having to yank the diff out, or replace the main gasket, or seal and those where just fine.
• Replace all four shocks with basic shocks (for now) for $80.00.
• Replaced badly cracked OEM windshield with a new one from Safelite $300.00

So, the next thing was to clean up the insides (big time)...in the next post.