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A week ago Monday at my suggestion, Kurt bought a 2010 Silverado for $2300. It’s a 2WD Work Truck with 170k miles and the 4.3 V6. This truck had been for sale for 11 weeks and he was asking $2900.

This truck needs work: broken windshield, slight coolant leak, blown out driver seat airbag, TPMS light on, driver door inside handle broken, tail gate not latching, broken headlight, both taillights broken, A/C not working, the support beams between the bed floor and the frame are quite rusted. We did a field repair after negotiating a price to bypass the power steering cooler which had failed earlier that day. I have a long list of stuff to fix. For this thread though I’ll focus on what is getting done. With some effort and money this can be a good work truck for Kurt.

Fix the Gate – item #1

The gate would not latch, so it was held up with a ratchet strap. With a little bit of effort I was able to determine the center latch was rusted – with some PB Blaster and some patience I freed it up. Fix the inside driver door handle – item #2

The handle assembly is permanently attached to the inside of the interior door panel. I ordered a replacement. Upon removal of the panel I could see the assembly was already replace once, and shoddily attached. There are plastic pins that retain the assembly when the ends of the pins are melted. I was able to melt the ends of these to get it to hold, used hot glue to replace pins that had been broken out by prior installer. Fix the headlight – item #3

The passenger headlight works but it was all broken up. For $80 two new headlights were ordered. Changed out both of them. The black structure behind the lens should look good with the black work truck front trim. Fix the coolant leak – item #4

There is an auxiliary port on the radiator that is not needed for the 4.3 V6 which had been plugged with a vacuum line plug and a hose clamp. This plug had cracks in it. When we were looking to buy it I noticed it was low on water, he put in a gallon to get it full. Other

This thing was dirty – like it had been sitting under a tree for a while. There was green algae in some places. Really needed soap and water to get the dirt to come off the paint. Trucks are big so it took a while. The prior owner has just spent over $600 to replace the battery and starter, fix a bead leak and get an oil change. Nice enough guy, but fixing cars not in his wheelhouse.

The rocker panels were all there when I looked at it but rusty. I was easily able to poke holes in them with my fingers. The hammer brought down a lot more rust. Frame has some rust but looks solid. Cab looks solid except for the rocker panels. Engine runs good.

Airbag system – item #5

The airbag light was on, and the driver side seat was split open where the seat airbag is located. I didn’t see any damage on that side of the truck but assumed these were related. As it turns out the connection to the driver seat belt retractor was corroded, and as far as the seat it appears the stitching on the left side of the seat back has just failed. I’m still deciding how to handle the seat cover split, but the system is operational.
Driver window switch – item #6

The switch panel would lower all windows, but not raise any window except the driver front window. In my learnings about this truck I found a video on how to clean the contacts, and that worked.

Fix the rust on the roof – item #7

Wanted to address the rust on the roof to open the possibility of getting the windshield replaced at any time. The rust spots on the front of the roof ran right up to the edge of the windshield. I removed all the trim at the top of the windshield (rubber pieces that are replaced when windshield is replaced) and was able to sand out the rust in the channel, as well as the rest of the rusted spots on the roof. The factory paint on this truck is having problems with adhesion. There are places scattered all over this truck where the paint is flaking off: roof, door jambs, under the floor mat, bottom of the hood, bottom of the cab, inside the front fenders, under the bed. Current plan is knock off as much of the loose paint as is reasonable (with the right pressure washer it would probably all come off) and touch it up mostly to prevent rust and a little to help it look a little more presentable. I’m taking BP’s recommendation and putting Rustoleum rusty metal primer on these areas, following that up with Rustoleum gloss white. It’s not an exact match but it passes the 20’ test pretty good. Prep includes cleaning out dirt, removing rust with wire wheel followed by a sander, removing loose paint with compressed air, then applying paint by brush. This oil base paint lays down nice and with the right amount of paint it does not leave brush marks. It’ll be fine for this truck’s purpose – probably more than I should bother with.
Other

About a week after it arrived I found the owners wallet in the truck tucked in the front seat near the seat belt buckle receiver. When I got to deep cleanout in the truck I found another guy’s drivers license under the back seat. I sent the wallet back to the owner, but he didn’t recognize the other guy at all. I’ve never come across two driver licenses in the same car so that’s a first.

Also this:

Fix the seat cover - item # 8

This turned out to be an inexpensive fix. There are plenty of Silverados at pull a part. After a YouTube video on how to remove the cover, and about $7 I had a replacement. The seat back seems to wear well and the odd split of the airbag seam is not common on Silverados.

I also located a center console that was in good shape - which is not common - most of them are worn through on the driver side.


Fix the power steering cooler - item # 9

The first trip to pull a part I found a nice one, but somehow managed to leave it behind. I was juggling a full seat I ended up not needing and was trying to manage the wheelbarrow. On the second visit I went looking for the first one, but it was not in the place where I was loading the wheelbarrow. So I found another in good shape from a 2013 and removed it. While I was looking for other parts I ended up finding the first one on the ground between a couple SUVs.

Installation was pretty straight forward. I was able to install it without removing the grille. Used syringe to pull out the power steering fluid to minimize spill when connecting it.


Bonus items


There are a lot of other things in the works - I'll post each when it is completed.

There have been several delays not related to the truck, and a lot of time put into the bed repair which is not done yet. I do have a few items to report.

Tow hooks

Acquired some at pull a part, which were cleaned, painted and installed. While I was under the front I noticed the air dam was disheveled so I reconnected it properly. More white paint and a little body straightening

Prepped the bottom of the hood including applying Rustoleum rusty primer - only addressing the rusted areas. Did a bit of metal straightening on the bottom of the passenger doors. Prepped rusty areas on hood and doors by cleaning off rust, applying Rustoleum rusty metal primer followed by Rustoleum white on bottoms of doors and affected areas on the hood.
<4832> - (pic was too big) Door lock and window controls driver side

Installed these and finished reassembly of the door. Passenger power mirror still not working so there is more work to do there, maybe a bad connection at the mirror? Hood ground strap

Every one of these at pull-a-part was broken, but a new replacement was cheap so I got one. Tow hitch receiver

This UHaul unit came from Pull-a-Part. It was under a truck that had been sprayed down with oil to prevent rust, so it was grimy and rusty. It was under $40 and it has all the hardware . I knocked off most of the rust, applied the rusty metal primer and covered the affected areas with black Rustoleum.

The bed

When buying this truck we could see the cross braces under the bed were rusted. Walking in the bed I could hear them crunching under there. It also had rust at the tops of the wheel wells but looked pretty salvageable.

To fix this the bed had to come off. This was not a very complicated process. Disconnect the filler neck, remove tailgate, rear bumper, taillight wiring and 8 bolts and its ready to come off. With a little help from the engine hoist it was off. This made working on the bed much easier. I stood it on the cab side or laid it upside down depending on what was best for the task.
The bed has 5 cross braces, only middle three were bad. They came off fairly easily by grinding out the remaining holding spot welds. I located brand new replacement cross braces from Dorman. There were other cheaper ones but these had weldable primer and I’m thinking they are probably a bit thicker metal. They should outlast the rest of the truck.
After that spent a lot of time cleaning rust off the bed. It had a lot more rust than I thought. Knocked off all the loose rust – the worst of it was the supports behind the tail lights, then cut out a lot of paper thin metal. After that I used the wire wheel and the grinder to knock off all the rust and clean up the metal in the areas where the new cross braces are to be welded. Since its cold weather I had to run a fan to exhaust out all the rust dust. This helped a ton keeping the air breathable and limiting dust on everything in the garage.
There were several dents in the passenger side quarter panel which I took the time to straighten. They are by no means straight but way better and probably good for the 20’ test.
Kurt provided some stainless steel scrap for patches. In total there are sixteen patches. I decided to replace the metal on the fenders too even though I had procured some rear fender flares to cover the rust on them. Those patches were fairly easy to make though since they are flat with the fender. There was some decent amount of forming required for a few of them – but this metal was reasonably malleable so this was not a bad task.
Once the metal was prepped I painted under where the cross braces are headed – using Rustoleum rusty metal primer and some misc spray can paint. Definitely left a rainbow of colors on the bottom of the bed. I also primed all the surface rust on the exterior part of the fenders. I brush painted Rustoleum white on these surfaces, and also used the spray can I had to paint the bottom of the inner fender wells white.
I then did final alignment on the cross braces, bolted them down and then had Kurt weld them in place. Those welds laid down real nice. He also filled some small holes in the bed – some of them not the best due to trying to weld thinner metal.
From there I cleaned up the welds, and primed them as well as the surface rust on the top of the bed.
I had originally planned to use up random spray cans on the underside of the bed, and getting some spray can white to do inside of the bed. Kinda didn’t like that approach and decided to see if I could use the spray gun to apply Rustoleum. With the help of a YouTube video I learned you can do this, and to use acetone to cut the paint.

This worked well. I didn’t go crazy with prep – it had been <24 hrs since I applied primer so it should adhere to that reasonably well. I didn’t even sand it. I just wanted that layer of protection and color coordination. After that the patches needed installed. Did all that with pop rivets.
Up next was addressing the taillight wells and the underlying supports. They were quite rusty, to the point where the fender was barely attached on both sides where it should have been attached in two places. I fabricated two patches for each side out of the stainless. Then finished rust removal, brush primed and painted these areas, then riveted in the patches. There was some measuring required, since the fenders were so weakly attached they had moved closer to the gate.
Once that was done I applied seam sealer around all the patches in the bed and in the wheel wells. Also found some correct bolts in my M6-1.0 hardware bin and installed the heat shield.
Finishing touches included touching up the seam sealer, rivets on white, and a few other blemishes, followed up by installing the fender flares.
Pretty sure this is the biggest single task in this project

This project turned out better than a “Poor Man’s Blazer” job and
should outlast the rest of the truck! A couple of things I thought about
reading the post….. When we used to do rust removal on trailers at my
old shop, we would take a box fan and put a WD-40 dampened furnace
filter in front of it to help with the dust in the air. Works sweet and the
suction from the fan holds the filter to the fan for easy changing and install.
We also did a bunch of welding on metal that was too thin. We called it
“chicken poop” welding because of the look of the end result. Good times!

GM

I'm way behind on updates - here's a big chunk of what happened after the bed repair was completed:

Rear frame

The biggest surprise on this truck was that there was rust damage on the frame. Before buying I specifically crawled underneath and looked at it, but I could not see above the gas tank. One cross bar that runs between the frame rails and over the gas tank was quite rusted at the bottom. Literally the bottom of this bar was completely gone just rust. There was one spot where the top of the driver side frame rail was rusted and needed a patch. Also the first cross bar under the bed on the driver side had a couple small spots that needed patched. All of this was due to basically the same thing – debris spills over the front of the bed and accumulates in the first cross bar, between the frame rail and the gas tank, and under the second cross bar.
The fix involved removing the wiring harness behind the bed, the spare tire and the gas tank, buying a pre-fabricated cross bar ($65), cutting out the old one, cutting out the rusted spots, fabricating some patches and welding it all back in. the replacement had side plates which allowed me to cut the frame a little big to get the new bar in. I measured to ensure the bar would go back in the same place. This prefit kit had the right dimensions on the bar, but the side plate that was pre-welded was not perpendicular to the bar and caused clearance issue with the tank, the side plates were too big and had to be trimmed quite a bit, and the gas tank strap bracket was a bit crooked.


Also cleaned the rust off the rest of the frame behind the cab. I used a combo of body grinder, pneumatic descaler, wire wheels. The last prep task was getting the spare down. The hoist mechanism has a secondary latch that will keep the tire from falling off if the primary fails. The problem with the secondary system is it gets rusty and will not release. I figured out how to release it and then spent a bit of time freeing up the mechanism.
After that it was time for paint. I used my air spray gun to apply Rustoleum primer followed up by gloss black. The primer left brown dust everywhere but cleaned up easily. The weather was nice when I put the color on so I had the garage door open, but that stuff is a lot stickier for longer and it made kind of a mess. I used old bed sheets on the hood and roof and I still found a bit of residue under them. It’s minor but it’ll take a bit of work to clean off.

For good measure I made some shields to keep stuff from accumulating in the frame.

Back half mechanicals:

Having the bed off makes working on the back half of the truck super easy. I took advantage of this to address several things

Brake hoses
These are 15 years old and I’m thinking as a work truck the last thing I’d want is to blow out an old brake hose carrying a load and trying to stop, so I replaced them. Working on the rear brake hoses from the top was so much easier. All the steel brake lines are coated and look great. The flare nuts on the rear were a bit rusty on the outside but they turned freely on the lines. I also changed out the front brake hoses. The flare nuts on those were seized to the line but I could just spin the brake hose to remove the old and install the new.
Rear differential cover
This thing was rusted so badly I was afraid to knock the scale off for fear it would leak, so I bought a new one with a gasket and bolt kit. The old bolts were rusted quite badly. Originally 13 mm, most came off with a 12 mm and one required a bit of grinding to make flat surfaces and that required a 7/16

Gas line
The fuel line has slide on connectors to the tank. Well one of the little metal tabs inside the line was broken so I got a replacement for that.

Taillights and wiring
There were only two bad bulbs, but the lights didn’t work right – this turned out to be several dirty connections – two bulb sockets and the wiring junction box in the back. After I opened the box I saw the new taillight housings had wiring harnesses and bulbs. Good thing too since the backup bulb socket was bigger on the replacements. The new lenses have black around the outside which makes them look much nicer than what was in there before.
The plug for trailer wiring turned out to be a dummy plug, with the factory wire plugged into the back of it. For like $15 I bought one and the factory wires plugged right into it. It seems so dumb that they run the wire back there but plug it into a dummy on the base model.

Spare tire lift mechanism

The tire is held up by a wire and a bracket. To lower you are supposed to be able to crank the thing down, but there is a secondary safety latch that gets stuck when it gets a little rusty. With the bed off it was easy to remove the lift mechanism and free it up. While I was looking at it I cleaned the rust off and painted it. Also put air in the spare and checked for leaks it seems to be holding.

Rear bumper

The bumper had been hit lightly, and the metal part that holds the trailer plug was rusted badly. There was enough I could make a template of the hole size and shape. I used that and some leftover stainless sheet to make a replacement. I also pounded out some of the dents in the bumper. Finally the plastic cover had a broken tab so I secured that with a stainless screw.
Putting it together

To install the bed I employed the hoist again, though this time I was careful in the bed not to scratch it up with the chains. I was able to set the bed on myself, just putting the two bolts closest to the cab in a little ways, then lift the back of the bed up just a bit to fit the bumper into the frame. It took a bit of adjusting to get the frame and the back of the bed to line up OK. It’s not perfect but the casual observer will not notice. Then 8 bolts and the fuel filler neck were attached, and the taillights went in. I made some minor adjustments to the rear post where the light attaches on one side to get it to sit in there decent.

For the gate, I had to adjust the lower hinge point on the bed since they were 1/8” too close. Can’t recall if the game was hard to remove, or if I moved something as I was fixing things. This truck had been hit on the left side (can see 1/4 panel was replaced long ago, and there was a bit of bondo on the lower left corner of the gate that has since cracked). It is possible this was leftover from the accident. Also the tops of gate opening is slightly smaller than the bottom of the gate opening. I don’t care the gate works fine.

The finishing touch is a black Silverado emblem on the gate. I bought a pair for $16 and they came with a template to align the letters. After I installed the first one I saw the template was actually crooked. I ended up peeling off the letters and using emblem adhesive to get them installed in a straight line.
The end is in sight.

The last round of updates before delivery:

New spark plugs
The exterior of the plugs looked quite rusty so I ordered new ones. OE gap is .060”, and the old ones were over .090”. They were so worn out I was surprised the truck ran as good as it did. With that little V6 in that huge engine bay, changing them out was pretty easy.

Front bumper
Had surface rust and a small ding from the inside. Some quick metal work fixed the protrusion, which was followed with sanding to remove the rust then coats of primer and paint brushed on. It looks way better. See pics at bottom for final result on the bumper

Brakes
I was not happy with the pedal travel when braking, so I went about the business of re-bleeding the brakes. I suspected the backs might have air so I started there. Tried a syringe to pull the fluid out but could not get consistent seal of the bleeder to the wheel cylinder. Ended up using the pressure bleeder . After some drama where the original hose blew out and sprayed brake fluid in the engine compartment it worked fine.
However, this did not clear up the problem. I adjusted up the rear shoes again. This helped but was not sure why my last adjustment didn’t work. Drum brakes on GM tighten when you apply brakes while backing up, so I tried some quick stops in reverse to adjust them up further. This helped a bit but eventually subsequent test drives uncovered a pulse in the brakes. It felt like the rear but to be safe I ordered all new pads, rotors, shoes and drums.
Fronts were delivered first. I changed them out and that cleared up the pulse, and improved the pedal feel quite a bit. I was not quite happy with the pad design seems like there is less material especially when the pad is new. With the aluminum wheels couldn’t keep the old ones since they produced a lot of brake dust, and I figured these will only get better over time as the pas surface will expand with wear
I was planning to change out the rear shoes, until I found the new shoes to have considerably less material than the old ones. Replacements are Bendix so I guess they are off the good list for now. Also the old ones were withing 1/16” thickness of the new ones.


With all these changes the brake pedal is good and brakes are good to go.

Scuff marks and overspray
With all this fancy equipment I had from working on the Charger, I went to work cleaning up the paint. This truck had a lot of scuff marks. Perfection was not the goal, just get the easy stuff off so it’ll pass the 20’ test.
When I was painting the frame I covered the hood, and the top and back of the cab. Unfortunately the black paint overspray made it around the paper and stuck to the rear doors. It was a fine mist but made it look like before I washed it the first time. On one side I used the 3” buffer and finishing compound, but for the other side I used lacquer thinner on a rag. I also had to clean up the back of the cab a bit since the sprayer blew the sheet up when I was spraying the bottom of the frame in a couple spots.

New tires and wheels
Last fall I found a set of 18” aluminum wheels used for $150. They are not perfect but way above standard for this truck. Spent just a little time cleaning the beads and these were ready to go. During my junkyard trip I acquired a set of lug nuts to match – it took several vehicles to acquire enough good ones. The TPMS light was on when the tires were full so I bought new sensors as well.
The last item was tires. I know Kurt is not going to have interest in putting snow tires on in the winter, so I went with an all terrain tires. I chose Bridgestone Dueler Ascent tires that were within .1” diameter of the original 17” tire size. These tires also can carry more load than the truck. They are not as good as true snow tires but they are rated for winter use and reviews were pretty good. I learned fairly recently I am eligible for employee discounts as a retiree from Bridgestone. I also learned when she quoted me $42 for road hazard that was per tire. Still trying to get that reversed.
Visually this is by far the biggest transformation for this truck.

Windshield
I had Safelite install it. Their website gave me an estimate of $401 but then after scheduling the appointment the invoice they sent was for $469. Turns out there is a $40 fee to recycle the old glass they didn’t think was necessary to put in the estimate. Great way to turn a positive into a negative. If that was in the original estimate I would have paid it. Instead I told them I would recycle the glass myself. The installed window looks good, though he did not clean up all the window seal bits and other debris from the dash and the floor. If this was an expensive truck I would have been super annoyed with that.
One thing I learned while working on this truck – every possible problem area has a commercially available repair part and they are not too expensive. 15 years old is not an issue – there are so many Silverados and people use them a lot.

Wall-E
Kurt’s business is named Wall Electronics. In every ebay listing photo he includes the item for sale and a little Wall E made from metal. I thought it would be fun to put Wall E on the truck – so I went with the white silhouette decal. It’s subtle and Kurt liked it.

Rocker panel patching
Original plan was to remove rust, paint the rest. Th back section of the rocker panels are still intact so I was going to fill the front section with expanding foam to keep the crap out of what’s left. However, once I was done prepping the metal I realized patching these would be fairly easy since there are very few bends to make. I had some sheet galvanized metal around and so that is what happened. I riveted these pieces on, painted them, and followed that up with some seam sealer. The rocker panels are very hard to see on this truck so the pop rivet look should not be noticed.

There was a small hole in the rocker panel a little ways below the door hinge on the driver side. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit more rust here than expected. Pulling back the door sill I found the floor to be rusted through. Also learned that the insulation under the floor mat was soaking wet. This truck has been sitting inside for over 6 months. I figure that at some point the rubber floor mat was hosed off (work truck has this not carpet) but the thing is not designed to drain so the water found its way under the mat and just never dried. I cut the insulation in order to remove/facilitate drying. After that I cleaned up the remaining metal, made a couple patches, painted and reassembled.

Inner fender mud flaps
One thing I could see plainly is any moisture coming up off the rear tires had a pretty direct path to the taillight supports – which considering the lack of proper galvanizing of the metal, caused a lot of rust up there. To try to slow this down a bit I made some inner fender extensions out of old Saturn inner fender material.

Spare key
The key was a bit sticky when turning on the ignition. I figured the barrel was worn out, but a video indicated it might be the key. I also learned there are rebuild kits for the barrel, and since Rhonda wanted him to have a spare key, it was a no brainer to start there. The new key works a lot better. There is a chip in the key, but the vehicle automatically learns the new chip – you just have to start the truck with the current key, then put the new key in and run it shortly after removing the old key.

Transmission lines
What started as a single transmission line hose leaking escalated into replacing all the transmission lines. I started by attempting to repair it when it appears that me fussing in there sent the other transmission hose leaking as well. Quick internet search found the new lines to be about $50 each, and another $40 to replace the snap in fittings at the radiator and transmission.
Problem #1 was the replacement fittings for the radiator would not fit into the radiator. This must be the original radiator and the design for the transmission cooler has inverted flare fittings. The replacement fittings were for a different design using NPT thread. I was able to locate the right fittings for this radiator
Problem #2 was when I installed the fittings in the transmission, I damaged one of them. The fittings are aluminum and when the socket was a little crooked it bent the top part that holds the clip.
Problem #3 was when I put the whole thing back together the connections at the radiator leaked. Using the old fittings it also leaked – and a lot worse than it leaked with the original lines. This led me to believe the lines were not formed correctly during assembly. Since the radiator still accepts inverted flare fittings I ended up modifying the new lines to have flare fittings. The bottom line took several attempts to get the flares right

Splash shield
I had to remove this piece to work on the transmission lines. At this point I realized the thing was really cracked up. For $43 a new one was a no brainer

Gate cap
There is a plastic piece at the top of the gate. First time I sat on the gate I realized the thing is not attached inside the gate and that would be a real hassle when unloading things. To remedy I put a fresh piece of two sided tape on the inside edge to attach it to the gate. I also plastic welded the cracks near the bolt holes, and replaced the torx bolts holding it on with some hex head bolts.

E-check
I test drove it for like 40 miles and then took it for the test. Status was “not ready”. No check engine light, but I know there are requirements that have to met while driving to say its been driven enough since battery disconnect. Sadly I got some codes when I turned on the key with the gas tank out so all the driving to get it home was erased.
During this process I learned the readiness statuses are stored in the ECU and I was able to use my scan tool to see them. A couple drives later and all the relevant systems were ready – took it to echeck and it passed easily.
I also found an error code that did not cause check engine light. This turned out to be due to a dirty throttle body. I cleaned it up but needed to recalibrate the ECU. There is supposed to be a way to do it with a sequence of turning the key on and off. This failed, so I then used my scan tool to tell get it to it to relearn the throttle body.

Belt squeak
For 5+ months any time I started this truck it idled so nice and quiet. After the first test drive it developed a squeak. I tried cleaning the belt and that helped but it came back. I put a little more tension on the tensioner and it stopped. I learned this is a common problem as these get older. Anyway a new belt and tensioner and its back to quiet.

Ready for production

I also gave it a final wash and delivered it to Kurt on 4/13.
I was guessing 200 hrs to refurb when it showed up and I ended up just over 300. I told Kurt I want to see it in 1k miles to check up on all the systems.

At a conservative shop rate of $150/ hour, that's now a $45000 truck. Turned out great, and was a fun way to spend some retirement time. It will get lots of use for sure.

-BP

I was thinking at $30/hr that's $9k plus the $6k invested its a $15k truck. And the A/C is not working yet.

I learned a lot here - some of which will be applied when I work on the Colorado later this year.

Kurt really likes it. He said the first time he put something in the bed he was trying to be careful not to scratch it up.