70 C10 resto-mod (was Chevy culture shock)

Chevy has been in the auto business for over a hundred years and they still haven't figured out how to paint a truck yet!

I have a 67 and 69 F100's with original paint as well as a 76 Scout and 80 Mercedes. ALL WITH ORIGINAL PAINT! No Chevy product I have ever owned has had its paint last much past 15 years including my current 2006 Duramax. A good sneeze inside the cab at speed and there is a ploom of paint behind you. What the heck?

And lets not forget about the thin plastic fuel lines on the fuel injection spider in the multipoint FI Vortecs. Try changing one of those on an Astro van with the beam across the top of the engine.

The thing I do LOVE about my 2006 Duramax is the Engine was designed by Isuzu and the transmission was manufactured by Allison! Has ANYONE ever loved a 6.2/6.5 Chevy diesel? LOL!

P.S. I changed my 1980 Mercedes over to a Ford EDIS ignition when I change the mechanical fuel injection over to a electronic fuel injection using a Megasquirt brain. The Ford EDIS is the simplest ignition system I have ever seen and can REALLY easily be retrofitted to almost anything!
In the past Ford has had it's problems with bad paint and body rust. My first new Ford was a 1977 F150 with full time 4 wheel drive. It was an excellent truck, but only got 11 mpg regardless of the speed or load. When I sold the repair shop it went with the sale and had less than 23,000 miles on the odometer.

I replaced it with a new 1978 full size Bronco. That was repainted twice by the factory, and had the tailgate replaced when it rusted from the inside out. The 78 Bronco was replaced by a 1987 Bronco. That was also repainted twice by the factory and had the tailgate replaced. When I sold it there was also a hole rusted through the floor behind the drivers seat. The 87 was replaced by a new 1995 Bronco. The paint and body held up fine for the 55,000 miles I had it.,

In 1999 it was time to go to a different style vehicle. I traded the 95 Bronco off on a new Expedition. I'm now on my 3rd Expedition (1999, 2010, 2020). So far they've all been rust free and the paint has held up reasonably well. For some reason at about 4 years old the 2010 had a large section paint pop off on the hood. Fortunately the factory once again picked up the cost of the repairs.
 
P.S. I changed my 1980 Mercedes over to a Ford EDIS ignition when I change the mechanical fuel injection over to a electronic fuel injection using a Megasquirt brain. The Ford EDIS is the simplest ignition system I have ever seen and can REALLY easily be retrofitted to almost anything!
I had a "waste spark" system on my Honda 750 from the '80's. Worked great, though those Hitachi cdi modules were a little flaky. The idea of sparking in the exhaust cycle was an alien in principle at first.
 
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Another baffling Chevyism, "distributor wrench" cuz the bolt barely has a head on it and is stuck under the dizzy. Probably fine with a 9/16 wrench.....but my tools are all metric :D
 
In the past Ford has had it's problems with bad paint and body rust. My first new Ford was a 1977 F150 with full time 4 wheel drive. It was an excellent truck, but only got 11 mpg regardless of the speed or load. When I sold the repair shop it went with the sale and had less than 23,000 miles on the odometer.

I replaced it with a new 1978 full size Bronco. That was repainted twice by the factory, and had the tailgate replaced when it rusted from the inside out. The 78 Bronco was replaced by a 1987 Bronco. That was also repainted twice by the factory and had the tailgate replaced. When I sold it there was also a hole rusted through the floor behind the drivers seat. The 87 was replaced by a new 1995 Bronco. The paint and body held up fine for the 55,000 miles I had it.,

In 1999 it was time to go to a different style vehicle. I traded the 95 Bronco off on a new Expedition. I'm now on my 3rd Expedition (1999, 2010, 2020). So far they've all been rust free and the paint has held up reasonably well. For some reason at about 4 years old the 2010 had a large section paint pop off on the hood. Fortunately the factory once again picked up the cost of the repairs.

Some where before the turn of the century all the auto makers were forced to go from solvent based paints to water based paints and there were definitely paint problems with all American manufactures. From what I have seen and from what you are saying Ford worked out the issue around 2000 or so. My 94' Astro shed paint like a snake sheds its skin, but I knew that when I bought it used. I was expecting Chevy to have solved their water based paint issues way before my 2006 model year like the other American manufactures had. I say American manufactures because I never really noticed paint issues coming from the Japanese companies.

Just noticing pickups on the road I see a lot more paint issues with 15+ year old Chevy trucks than I see with Fords or Dodges. I don't really trust Chevy as a company and I would not put it past them to formulate a paint with planned obsolesces several years after their trucks are out of warranty. For cars, I have always owned Japanese cars except the one Mercedes. But a Toyota pickup just isn't in the same class as an American pickup if you want to put a camper on or tow a heavy trailer.

I purchased my 2006 Duramax in about 2014 when gas prices were very high and it had 140K on it when I purchased it. The truck itself is very sound and runs and drives very nicely now at almost 200k. I avoided the Ford 2003+ diesel engines like the plague. I have absolute respect for the Cummings diesels in Dodges but at the time they were using their heavy duty car transmissions in their pickups unlike Chevy using an Alison, like what I would find in a real truck. I know Dodge eventually started offering Aisin transmissions which is a terrific match for the Cummings. But all the 2006 vintage Dodges Cummings in the 140K I saw were due for a costly rebuild.
 
There's an old Chevy down the street with that patchy water-based paint from the 90's. Primer is still holding on just fine though
 
I had a "waste spark" system on my Honda 750 from the '80's. Worked great, though those Hitachi cdi modules were a little flaky. The idea of sparking in the exhaust cycle was an alien in principle at first.

My 1980 Mercedes 450SLC it a great car but it used a completely mechanical CIS fuel injection system. There was a large round plate on a lever in the middle of the intake and as more air enters the engine the plate lowers due to the air speed then the lever opens a valve to let more gasoline trickle into intake right on top of the intake valve for each cylinder. It is an impressive piece of engineering but wear affects the balance and a replacement was more than the car was worth. By some freak of luck (or maybe it is just that they are both Bosch) fuel injectors from a 5L Mustang fit the fuel injector bosses in the Mercedes intake manifold perfectly! So with a bit of fabrication I was able to change the 4.5L Mercedes engine over to electronic fuel injection. The old version of the MegaSquirt computer I used would only batch fire the injectors (2 injector channels - first set of 4 injectors then the second set of 4 injectors 360 crank degrees, 180 cam degrees apart). Works great! After I got the fuel injection working I disconnected the distributor and replaced it with the Ford EDIS system using a 39-1 wheel. I am VERY impressed with the EDIS and the only connection it has to the fuel injection computer is a single wire which the computer tells the EDIS how much advance to run at any particular moment. The bank fire injector system is working well enough that I have never found a need to upgrade it to a sequential multi-point fuel injection system like the one supported on the newer MegaSqurt brains.

The wasted spark of the EDIS was a little weird for me at first too but it didn't really seem that foreign since I was already running a bank fire fuel injection system. The EDIS system has been completely reliable for, geeze, 12+ years now.
 
There's an old Chevy down the street with that patchy water-based paint from the 90's. Primer is still holding on just fine though
The primer on my 2006 held out longer than the paint. But when it started getting a little dusting of rust on top of the primer I knew I had to paint it if I wanted to keep the truck. But, you are right, there are a lot of older Chevy's running around half naked in their skivvies!
 
I must have been vey lucky with the Chevy V-8 vehicles I've owned over the years. First was a '77 Malibu with the window on the distributor to set dwell. Second was a '66 C-30 Dually with a flat bed which at some point required a new head gasket (very easy job) and a '59 Nomad wagon which I foolishly sold before moving to NC from CA. Luck of the draw I guess.
 
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