Craig posted on October 11, 2010 13:42
With the exterior cleaned up I spent the weekend addressing mechanical issues:
- Checked all the belts
- Checked all the hoses
- Replaced all fluids
- Greased everything I could find with a zerk
- Replaced the dried/cracked wiper blades with Silblade Flexblades
- Pulled the carpeting out of the rear cargo area and started getting rid of the few rust spots. The goal here is a trail rig and not a show car, but I do want to do my part to insure long-term integrity.
I first tried to remove the rust by applying a single thick layer of the Naval Jelly and using a wire brush. I’ve used this approach before and been quite successful with it. This time however, the it barely made a dent. The rust was thicker than I first thought. I pulled out a scraper and went to work.
About 45 minutes later, I applied one more coat of Naval Jelly and this time it yielded pretty good results.
With only a little bit of true surface rust left, I applied a few coats of rust neutralizer, and the following day put on a couple coats of regular paint. The rust neutralizer goes on clear, and dries black anyplace it interacted with rust. It’s wet in the photo.
Fortunately, I have a number of accessories from my last truck that I've been keeping in storage. I'm hoping this build will come together fairly quickly as a result.
While I waited for the Naval Jelly to do it's thing, I did a quick test fit of the fridge/fridge slide, and marked the location where I'll be installing large Rivnuts to secure it.
I was hoping to avoid using the fridge slide as they are really quite heavy, but with the RRC tailgate it's the only way to easily access the fridge. I considered mounting it in place of a portion of the rear seat, but I like being able to carry passengers and have the fridge along.