Gotta Love GM Build Quality
 

So, the truck started pissing diesel all over Mike's driveway. We knew that there was some deferred maintenance to deal with, but this has spiralled quite a ways beyond the original scope of fixing some rusty hard lines.

GM's rust protection on GMT800 trucks is notoriously poor. The most famous issue is the uncoated steel brake lines, most of which have already failed and been replaced. Additionally, beyond those (and other) uncoated hard lines, the frame itself is not painted from the factory. Instead, it's shipped to customers with a wax coating that looks like paint if you don't touch it.

So yeah, net-net, the truck looks like this. And, of course, the part that makes this extra weird is that since I'm not spending time at Mike's house, he's doing the work and basically just tells me to get parts delivered.

Oof. That's a lot of brown. Hard to tell from afar how much is just surface rust versus corrosion that goes deep, but that's not good.

Well, he's got a little helper.

Is the pre-emissions diesel worth so much that it's worth doing all of...that? I feel like GM's model is "when it gets rusty throw it out," and you are really bucking the universe by ignoring that.

I mean, it's basically that or not have a pickup truck. Is it worth doing that? I mean, it's not costing that much money. And a new truck would cost a lot more than I can justify spending on another car.

Edit: Keep in mind that the closest equivalent to this truck new today is around $50k. This truck’s frame may look like shit, but the drivetrain has less than 60k on it. The utility of pre-emissions diesels has gone down since the post VW EPA clamp down, but it’s still nice to never have to deal with inspections.

I’ve also fixed a lot of little annoyances that GM got wrong, so it drives quite well.

This is almost all surface at this point. Also, part of the rust protection scheme for these trucks was to make the frame out of really thick steel. This truck is over 2,000lbs. heavier than a similar GMT800 half ton truck. Yeah, a lot of that is in the drivetrain, but the rest is in the frame.

The only disappointing thing about the LR4 is the amount of surface rust I find here and there on the frame. I've been hitting it with Rust Reformer spray every time I swap wheels and that keeps it under control. It also has a frame with thick steel which is why it weighs nearly 3 tons.:rolleyes: