Thanks all. My apologies for the use of the f-bomb in my original thread title, Warthog..
Yes, my friend is a big-rig diesel mechanic who works at a shop with a paint booth that you can fit a semi truck into. We prepped it and re-painted it, when I got it the paint was very oxidized and rough almost like sand paper. I acquired some more Mil-Spec CARC "sand" from my source and we repainted it with that. It really needed a new coating after sitting out in the desert and getting sun burnt all of these years.
The truck has been work from Day 1, and I enjoy working on it because everything is pretty much easy to get to, they are basic, but tough. The 1 nemesis that I have been battling since Day 1 up to today is air intrusion in the fuel, I suspect that it is coming from one of the hard line compression fittings at fuel injector, left-bank. And speaking of fuel injectors, these Bosch fuel injectors are extremely basic, I removed all 8 of them put each one in a vice, cracked them all open, and cleaned the heck out of them with solvent, re-assembled them, pop tested them for spray pattern, re-installed in truck. I tell you what, after replacing the Fuel Filter with a really good screw on style filter, and cleaning and re-installing all of the injectors, my truck runs night and day better.
Today determined that the radiator is leaking from 6 different places, pulling radiator tomorrow to have it professionally re-cored at a local shop. Always something to work on!
So many things I'd like to add to it or modify also.. Air Conditioning, 6.5 Turbo swap, COMM radio/stereo system, sound dampening/cab insulation w/LMC carpet kit.. ahh the wishlist goes on, I enjoy it for what it is in stock condition for now.