You are asking , the one thing that there are several different ideas, I suggest, doing a thorough search on the interwebs, for the different methods , then based on your skill, choose the ones that workes for you, also, look at POR-15 , paint over rust, great product, however , requires the correct prep, all of them do, however, based on what you have will tell you , which method will work for you, and the tilt column from a 81 will be a DD shaft, so you will need to make a coule of changes, to get it to bolt my to your older style shaft input steering box, good reading !!