Paint Progress

I left my hood, fenders, bed, tailgate, windshield cowl and fender flares with a local body shop to paint as they go as a side project while I prep the main body and clean up the chassis. They must be slow right now because they're already finished a lot of it!

I stopped by today to see the progress and I'm very pleased so far. The paint job will be better than new, as they are clearcoating over new Cardinal Red paint. (the original colour) These trucks came from the factory with a single stage paint.... no clear. So this will hold up much better to the environment and the sun.

The bed still needs some surfacing work and it will be painted soon also. The tailgate had a rusty scab at the bottom which they've ground out and filled.

The new paint looks deep and rich and has that "wet" look.

fender

hood

other fender, cowl and fender flares

current state of the bed

Tailgate

Rust never sleeps until you sandblast it

Though this truck is relatively free of rust issues there are some furry part that even the dry climate here didn't spare over 25 years.

Yesterday I took the drums, axle carriers, shackles and skidplates in to a DIY sandblasting shop to clean them up. It was fun watching the crud and rust flake away and I'm happy with the result. Pictures are reverse order. wtf

3 coats of high temp caliper paint for the drums. No clinical conditions needed here. This is industrial grade shit. LOL

Rust paint for the axle carriers

This stuff is super thin, almost more of a stain than a paint. So it gets deep in the pores of the metal. 

sandblasted skidplate

ready for paint

Massive compressors and sand hoppers. Businesses bring large scale blasting jobs here. A bit overkill for my handful of truck parts

Skid and axle carriers pre blast. Rusty and greasy

after

before

Springs and Bumper off

The family was out of town for the weekend visiting cousins so I spent most of Sunday in the garage and made some progress on the old 4x4.

The springs were stubborn but they eventually came free. The front pin bolt was basically fused to the rubber bushing so it took some persuasion. Now that they're out I'll send them to a spring shop to have new ones made.

The bumper was especially frustrating. A massive hitch had been welded to both the bumper brackets and the frame. I had to cut awkwardly through the welds and pry it off.

Rotten old springs. The one on the left has a broken leaf 

Axle supported on stands. I plan to take the drums in for sandblasting then I'll paint them

Bumper brackets welded on

I'll blast and paint the axle housing as well

Old gnarly u bolts and their expensive OEM replacements

With all the free space I decided to pop the fuel tank skidplate off. I'll be sandblasting and painting it as well. The tank itself is in great shape

Factory coating on the tank has held up well. Just needs to be cleaned. The pump and gauge pods are pretty furry but they'll be fine.

Now I can clean up the frame with a wire cup and flap wheel, then hit it with some rust paint.  Getting the bumper off left the end of the frame rails a bit mangled. Maybe I can weld in some gusseting. 

This will all look like new when I'm done with it. 

Next steps: paint and chassis

A local body shop has agreed to work on my truck as a side project and just like the Johnny Cash song we'll build it one piece at a time. 

They've so far removed the old rotten bedsides and welded (and sealed) on new ones. I sanded the hood and brought that to them with the new fenders and the windshield cowl. They'll be painted in the original Cardinal Red while I prep the body to be painted later. The original paint was a single stage application but this time it will be clearcoated for a longer lasting quality finish. 

In the mean time I'll be cleaning up and painting the frame and axle, and installing new leaf springs. 

Old bedsides removed. Everything solid underneath

new bedsides welded and sealed

Hood sanded down

Back to Work!

This truck wasn't touched for all of October and was starting to look lonely in the garage. Yesterday I found a little time to make a bit of progress. I finished taking the bed off and hauled it to a body shop to get the new bedsides welded on. While it's there I'll be able to work on the exposed chassis.

There's a big bulky ugly class IV hitch installed which someone decided to weld to the frame as well as bolt it on. I'll be removing that. I don't plan on towing and if I did I won't need a hitch that big... I can just use the bumper ball mount. This truck is only rated to pull 3500Lbs so it will be adequate in the rare scenario that I hook up a utility trailer or whatever. The hitch wiring was a bit of a mess and was spliced in a few places to tie in the camper wiring. I'll be pulling all of that out.

The frame has some minor rust but it's in pretty decent shape. I'll clean it up and hit it with some paint or rocker guard or both. The springs are badly corroded and one leaf is broken so I'm getting replacements made. Also there are some heavy duty bump stops which were installed to help support the weight of the camper. I'll be removing those as they limit axle articulation and are unnecessary at this point. I'd also like to sandblast the axle and hit that with some paint as well.