Call me Frugal or maybe a tightwad, whichever I don’t care but the truth is I hate to spend money unnecessarily. This is the reason I decided to fix up my 1991 Chevy Truck with over 300,000 miles on it rather than buy a newer truck.
So what was wrong with it? Obviously it looks like a turd so that is something I wanted to fix without breaking the bank Mechanically it runs great but the front end was a bit loose as you might expect a truck with 300,000 miles on it would be. The interior is also in pretty bad shape so there was plenty to address on this truck.
I started with the body work.
There was rust holes in the rocker panels and cab corners and plenty of dents on the body to fix. I had to replace a broken grill and a busted rear window. I cut out and welded in the rusted out panels and fixed most of the dents with a body hammer and a little bit of fiberglass.
Finally got the body to an acceptable point, not perfect but good enough. I then masked it up and put on the primer.
Almost time for paint.
Because I’m frugal I wanted a good paint but I didn’t want to go overboard as paints can get really expensive depending on what you buy. I went with an Acrylic paint rather than a Base Coat Clear Coat Paint.
In the end it came out looking a lot better than it did before.
Next I addressed the suspension and steering components and replaced nearly everything.
Upper and lower control arms, ball joints, tie rod ends, pitman arm, idler arm, sway bar links, shocks and a leaking power steering hose and now it rides and steers like it’s new.
I also added a dash cover and seat cover and installed a new stereo. I can honestly say that I’m satisfied in the old beater and really glad I didn’t spend money on buying a newer truck