Zero to Hero in 30 Days? Day 17: Enter Sandman

Last week was kind of a bummer,The rain and brutal heat kept progress to a minimum. The weather may have put the 30 day goal in jeopardy. If it wasn't the weather it's the rust, I knew this thing was a rust bucket but I had no idea it was this bad. What I didn't cut out and weld in with new metal I sandblasted,The entire box is covered in nasty scaley rust. Oh how I loathe sandblasting.I've been digging sand out of every orifice of my body for two days. But With most of the rust removed from the box I began priming with Dupont Variprime which is a self-etching primer, I like spraying Dupont because the mixing ratios are easy to figure out (variprime is 1:1) Some of the PPG stuff have goofy ratios that require a math degree to figure out.

Zero to hero in 30 days? day 15

This rocker panel made me cringe. Whoever did the bodywork previously applied bondo over duct tape and stuffed the rockers with grocery bags. The only option for fixing this trainwreck is to cut everything out and weld in new.

I used a cutoff wheel to remove the rusty rocker panel......good riddance

After I got the rocker off I applied POR 15 to the inner structure. Since this thing has such a rust problem I figured I should do everything possible to prevent further rust.

This rocker panel was a reproduction and not an OEM,so there was some fitment  issues. I've seen worse repro rocker panels and I've seen better. After some trimming I welded the panel in place, I plug welded the rocker along the pinch weld like it was done in the factory. I still need to finish some filler work and get it ready for painting. Now I have to do the same thing on the other side.

Zero to Hero in 30 days? Day 6 Rust never sleeps

It's been a long week,juggling work,insane weather and a crazy self-imposed deadline on a truck that is worse than I thought. Everything was going fine until I pulled off the side trim,Underneath was several nasty rust holes. Then my welder started working like poo,It turned out the 10 pound spool of wire I bought was too heavy for my welder,so I had to run to the welding store and get a two pound spool which worked much better.I ordered a new right front fender and rocker panels for both sides,They are supposed to be here wednesday,So I want to have the box in primer before the parts get here. I only have two more patch panels to weld on the box before I'm done. So I guess I'm on schedule.....as long as I don't find anymore rust.

Zero to Hero in 30 days?

 Laugh all you want but this is my dream truck. I paid $1000 for the "privilege" of owning this heap. Once I saw it I had to have it,a genuine 440 under the hood fulltime four-wheel drive  a 727 auto with 3.23 gears. My lust over the mechanicals made me overlook the questionable bodywork.Once I got it home I took stock of the situation and I realized what a huge pile of crap it was. It's now been almost a year since I purchased this beauty of a 1976 Dodge Powerwagon and I've endured plenty,shortly after I took possession of It I noticed the floors were horribly rotted and I thrashed hard to have it ready for what turned out to be one of the worst winters in many years. It actually ran well all winter,It was never garaged and the big 440 started every morning. The only mechanical malfunction was a fragged front driveshaft (a common failure especially with fulltime four-wheel-drive). Everything was going great until March 14 of this year when some nitwit pulled out in front of me.Everyone walked away uninjured but my beloved Powerwagon which wasn't much of a head-turner to begin with took another aesthetic setback. The insurance company declared the vehicle a total loss (no surprise there) after some negotiations I walked away with $950 and still retained ownership.After haggling with the insurance adjuster I was scrambling to find parts. I located a 73 truck for $500 and a 75 for $50 and in another epic thrash I managed to make one truck out of three(some must die so others may live haha).The photo at the beginning is the result of all my work,Not exactly overwhelming, In fact It's a bit disconcerting to have worked on something so hard and have it be so ugly. So I've given myself 30 days to get this thing painted. In the third act the hero always makes a comeback and thats what will happen. Why 30 days? Because I'm a born procrastinator and setting a firm timetable works good to keep my head in the game.Call it Overhaulin: White trash edition. Will I succeed? Or will the powerwagon simply implode into a pile of greasy parts? So cross your fingers and check back often for all the bloody knuckled updates.