A paint job...after all these years

(03/03/03) After 3 years of daily driving, service as a moving truck (when we bought a new house) and unfortunate neglect, the poor thing was looking slightly ragged.

I'd had to re-spray the front fascia with black primer, because the (supposedly) special flexible primer kept peeling off. And it just didn't match the sun-fading on the rest of the body.

I've made arrangements with a painter to shoot it in Torch Red, basecoat/clearcoat. He's going to repair all the little bodywork flaws and make it all nice and straight. In this picture you can see that I've removed the tonneau cover, so that it's not in the way. I'll paint that gloss black myself.

(03/08/03) I dropped by the painter's place today (he's doing the bodywork at his house and then he'll paint it at his shop) and found him and his partner hard at work. They'd removed the chrome trim ground off the rivets and ground down a couple of minor dents.

They'll be welding the trim clip holes closed, since it's gonna have a smooth look to it.

The bed and its POR-15 have held up pretty well over the last few years, so I was going to leave it alone. But then the painter said that he could spray a red bedliner in...and I thought that would make a real nice contrast with the black tonneau cover. So it's gonna get a spray-on bedliner.

And here's where I left it with them this afternoon. They're making real good progress, but I've told them not to rush. I'd rather have it done right than in a big hurry.

(03/03/03) Troy and his partner worked on it Sunday as well. By the afternoon they had done a lot of sanding on the fascia...

...and the hood and front fenders.

They'd also filled all the holes along the bed where the trim was removed.

There was a large dent in the right side of the top that I didn't even know about, but they spent a lot of time on that, too, as well as a couple of dings in the driver's door.

I wanted to include this pic because it shows something that you don't see too much any more. Troy's partner (I'm gonna have to find out what his name is) is using a body hammer and a dolly to smooth the metal instead of just grinding away and slapping some Bondo on it. I was impressed.

Here he's smoothing the area out. I think this is gonna turn out ok.

(03/13/03) The bodywork seems to be done on the left side...

...and almost done on the right side. The dents are filled and most of the filler has been smoothed.

They even fixed the sag in the middle of the hood. That sucker's been a pain since the day I bought it.

And on the tailgate the filler is smoothed and the stick-on bowtie has been removed. I may have one airbrushed on later.
There are rumors that the bedliner may be sprayed on 3/14. We'll see how that goes.

Next page: The paint work continues.

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