Chevrolet must have used reject parts

[wayne pick]

My truck has plastic rustproofing plugs on the inside of the rocker panels. anyone else have them?

 

[ryan77]

I had a blazer that had them and my deuce has them!

 

[212sparky]

my deuce has the Zebart plugs in it

 

[LIFTEDANDTURBOM1028]

I cant find any rust on my 85 M-1028 i must had got lucky and no dents just the holes where thay hung stuff.

 

[Keith_J]

No more rust on the hood. Lots of sanding and phosphoric acid pickle, then Rustoleum primer.

I let the phosphoric acid set over night, in the morning there were large areas of the e-coat peeling up. More feather sanding required to paint.

It is done, might need a bit of spot prep before final 383 match top coat.

Important notes when using phosphoric acid, it WILL change paint color.

 

[Terracoma]

Important notes when using phosphoric acid, it WILL change paint color.

And etch/stain concrete.

 

[wayne pick]

my deuce has the Zebart plugs in it

Wow, Zebart, thats a blast from the past. My friend worked at a Ford dealership in the early 80s, and I saw him "Zebart" many vehicles, mostly trucks. It looked like plain old cosmolene to me. Applied properly, that stuff seemed to work well.

 

[JUNKYARDJOHN]

I worked at GM Truck & bus at Van Slyke & Atherton rd.s in Flint MI. from 1984-1988. I was a layout inspector. One of 6 for both lines, both shifts. They assembled blazers, suburbans & pickups. Yes.. they were all e-coate dipped, just like the civvie models. It seems about every 10th job was a military job. TRUST ME GM valued that military contract so much, that making sure that they were being built to spec.s was a top priority,& cutting corners & using inferior parts, would have been just plain silly. Every assy. plant has a repair area. They were built by 4000 people, very few who gave a rats butt about anything. I was amazed when they'ed hit the end of the Final line, & 99.9 of them would start right up & drive away. G.M. lost money on every job that ever went thru repair. .. ANYWHERE. It took 6000 people to run that plant, but absenteeism was so bad that they had to employ 8000 people just to make sure they could run both lines. Two military inspectors were supposed to be on the grounds at all times, but I hardly ever saw them (as they dressed in civie clothes & 8,000 people worked there) unless there was a problem, & there almost never was with military jobs. Shoot... compare them to any civvie truck of the same era. I've finally got three.

 

[JGBallew]

Wow, Zebart, thats a blast from the past. My friend worked at a Ford dealership in the early 80s, and I saw him "Zebart" many vehicles, mostly trucks. It looked like plain old cosmolene to me. Applied properly, that stuff seemed to work well.

Kurt Ziebart lived within a stone's throw of me , when I lived in Michigan.

It was a two part process IIRC, a light oil, kind of like LPS-1, then a gummy, waxy stuff thinned with mineral spirits. "Waxoil" or "Waxoyl" I think. Smelled like floor polish to me.

For the most part it was reasonably effective, but a lot of dealers I was told would "thin" or cut the mix. You'd just see too many cars with the treatment rusting as fast as ones without.

My parents had an Audi 100 (One of the first biodegradeable cars) that was Ziebarted by the stealership, but even with that, it still fell apart from rust within a couple of years.
Once my dad had consigned it to the back yard I tore into it to see how things worked.
You could see where they'd not done much more than drilled the holes, waved a can of the dope near the car then stuffed in the plugs and collected the money.

So the process was only as good as the person applying it.

 

[Keith_J]

I'm certain there is a beautiful coat of red under the CARC on the right fender of my M1031. I'm not saying this is a reject, it is just a recycled part. Fenders, doors and hood are painted as parts,

 

[wayne pick]

Kurt Ziebart lived within a stone's throw of me , when I lived in Michigan.

It was a two part process IIRC, a light oil, kind of like LPS-1, then a gummy, waxy stuff thinned with mineral spirits. "Waxoil" or "Waxoyl" I think. Smelled like floor polish to me.

For the most part it was reasonably effective, but a lot of dealers I was told would "thin" or cut the mix. You'd just see too many cars with the treatment rusting as fast as ones without.

My parents had an Audi 100 (One of the first biodegradeable cars) that was Ziebarted by the stealership, but even with that, it still fell apart from rust within a couple of years.
Once my dad had consigned it to the back yard I tore into it to see how things worked.
You could see where they'd not done much more than drilled the holes, waved a can of the dope near the car then stuffed in the plugs and collected the money.

So the process was only as good as the person applying it.

My friend used the wands supplied by Ziebart. It was a time consuming process. I could see where dealerships would tend to cut corners as the application was not charged on the clock but a one time fee.

 

[islandguydon]

Lol, Its funny to think that people actually believe they would have went out of busines.... lol. Mechanical issues? They built some of the most reliable cars out there. All manufactures have there faults and they have all built junk at one point or another.

Spoken like a true Michigander..!

 

[ryan77]

The only trucks out of gl that are rust free are ones that have never seen rust! Drive ur m1031 in one chicago or michigan winter and the cancer will eat it down to the bone!!

 

[wayne pick]

Oh, no arguments here, in New York the DOT drowns the roads with rock salt and liquid calcium chloride after a few flakes fall, talk about overtime. As I said, my truck was rust free when I purchased it. After one very mild NY winter, a few surface rust spots developed and were delt with as soon as I found them. As far as quality goes, my cab has never been disassembled and all the spot welded seams along with the door and hood seams are about as good as you could ask for. There are no rattles or squeeks. Only the stuff I bolted to it makes noise like the plow frame. I also doubt GM would go out of their way to collect and then install inferior parts on anything much less vehicles for GOV contract. The labor effort would out cost the payoff. I cringed the first time I put a drill bit to the cab installing a wiring harness for the plow controls.

 

[WARWAG]

I happen to feel that the mid 80s Chevy truck was one of the best designed and used the strongest of parts. People down play the NP208 but mine looks to be original and while its not as beefy as the NP205 thats in the M1031 its still plenty strong for what the vehicle was designed for. They may not ride as nice as the new 2012 trucks but I can guarantee you that these old boys will out live there younger off spring and all there fancy smancy computer controlled this and computer controled that. Theres more calculations going on in a mondern day truck than in the Space Shuttle! No these trucks are built well. We get the pleasure of building them stronger to meet our individual needs.