Very good work sir!
I had a 1997 Dakota with the 5.2 V8 that spent all it's life in Ohio, where it was never garaged and saw all the road salt it could handle during winters. My dad drove the truck before me, and I drove it until 277,000 miles when I sold it. The motor was never opened up any further than valve cover gasket deep, used only a tiny bit of oil, and the transmission was perfect until 254,000 miles, when it lost 1st gear and I had it rebuilt. At around 265,000 miles the timing chain got noisy due to stretch, so I replaced it as well.
It was an amazing truck honestly, but I sold it to a co-worker when I'd had enough with the rust. I had the downpipe flange/bolts on the manifold rust away, though the head mounting surface held up okay. Soon after that I noticed some play in the steering wheel, and found one of the bolts holding the steering shaft u-joint together had rusted COMPLETELY away, with the remaning one struggling to hold on! The rear bumper was bad enough that I replaced it, and the front bumper was well on its way. The bottom of the doors had just began to rot, and the rear bed corners behind the wheelwells had rusted through on the driver's side. The headlight buckets were mostly gone in the front, and the bottom of the core supports were beginning to look suspect - I used to joke that the truck was actually built using parts recovered from the Titanic. It was a good running truck, but I decided to sell it to a gearhead co-worker (with full disclosure) while it was still worth something, since the rust didn't show
that badly on a black truck.
Here are a few pics from when I sold it:
The guy I sold it to recently informed me of a "rear main seal leak" it developed after driving it for a year or so...... turns out the oil pan had actually rusted through completely just like yours
!!
Needless to say I feel your pain, but great effort!
Was that thing PARKED in salt water?
no smokey burn-out.
