Archive for October, 2004
October 10th, 2004
82 GMC K3500 Dually, 4×4
Time to paint the 82 GMC K3500. 22 years later, the original paint didn’t look too bad, but there was extensive “veins” of rust running under the paint over the entire truck.
First, take it all apart.
Next, strip it all down to bare metal and get rid of the rust.
There wasn’t too much body work. A handful of holes to weld up.
Now seemed like a good time to add that cowl induction hood and help the blower breath a little better.
We cut openings in the back of the cowl hood, wrapped the openings with copper sheetmetal and used body filler to float it all together. The result was 2 nice “scoop” like openings that kept air from getting between the inner and outter skins of the hood while making the cowl hood functional.
The rust extended to the door jambs and the underside of both doors. I used single stage DuPont to jamb. This blended well with the original jamb paint and allowed me to color sand … as you can imagine, this garage isn’t very dust free.
Painting the underside of the hood.
Priming the truck after all the rust was removed. I did a coat of etching primer first to help keep rust away.
Painting the back of the cab, head of the bed and behind the dually fenders. This was base / clear and shot in the “dusty” garage, but, most won’t be in highly visable areas, so, I’m not too concerned with dust.
Bolting up the fenders.
Tapped off at the paint shop ready for the booth. I tried my hand at shooting base / clear metallic and came to the conclusion, I had no idea what I was doing. I met up with a tech, Sherman, from Finish Master (a paint distributor) who agreed to paint my truck and give me a few pointers.
In the booth (can you see Sherman there!?) He shot 5 coats of color to get good coverage and 2 coats of clear. I followed him around that truck 7 times watching, picking up tips and getting in his way. I’m surprissed he didn’t kick me out of the booth! It was a good learning experience. I’ve done a bit of practice painting since then and have gotten much better with the tips I picked up. But, there is no way I could’ve pulled off this paint job on my own. I also learned the importance of a good paint booth. We had a heated, downdraft. What a difference a high end booth makes. There was no dust on this truck when it came out of the booth.
See, no dust.
This side too.
Back in the garage being reassembled. I dragged the wiper arm across the cowl on my last day of assembly (figures). Sherman talked me into painting it myself (I think he was just sick of my truck by now!) I put together a suto-booth in the garage with fans at both ends. It did well at venting the space and keeping me alive, but didn’t do much for the dust. The cowl turned out good even with the constant battle with dust. Chasing Sherman around the truck 7 times paid off.
All done!
THANKS
To Rony for all his hard work disassembling, removing rust, performing body work and much more.
To Jeff for disassemble, cleaning, polishing and undercarriage detailing.
To Mark and all the guys at Finish Master for their advice and support.
To Sherman for all his paint work and tips. Sherman says he’ll never paint a truck this big again. Don’t anyone tell Sherman I have a crew cab dually 4×4 up next. We’re gonna need a larger booth Sherman!