Builds Let's build a 79 Series from parts... (2 Viewers)

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More and more lights on the cluster.....definitely a good thing. We will have to figure out how to get rid of the ABS and airbag lights....since we won't be using them on this truck. Hopefully our instrument guy can figure out how to do it......the days of pulling out bulbs are over unfortunately with this cluster. I'm sure it's just a matter of eliminating an LED on the board or something. Best left to the pros I think.

Diff lock lights are really cool to see lit up and functioning...switch turns them on on and off.

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Also on the to do list is to get rid of this horrible chrome on the mirrors. Unfortunately the power mirrors are only available in chrome from what I can tell....I searched high and low for black power units....no where to be found. We do a lot of chrome delete packages on newer cars....we have our paint shop paint the chrome parts once removed and disassembled from the car. Over the years, I've seen where the parts on cars that really get driven take a beating. Since these mirrors have huge exposure...I'm thinking they need something different.

Option 1 is to spray some fine texture Raptor on them....not sure how easily they will clean up with bugs, mud, etc., but they will be super durable and have a look that will match the flares and snorkel(really textured finishes on those pieces). Unfortunately, once the are coated...there is no going back.

Option 2 is to have them done in a gloss black finish, like we normally do but then have matte paint protection film installed....that will give them the matte look I want and protect them. Pretty complex shape to wrap in one piece...so it will probably have seams which might look strange. This option feels like the safer setup but......I'm kind of leaning towards the Raptor.

Always nerve racking to pop apart mirrors.....especially if you haven't had them apart before. And they're new. And expensive. And hard to get. These weren't that bad fortunately.

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Also on the to do list is to get rid of this horrible chrome on the mirrors. Unfortunately the power mirrors are only available in chrome from what I can tell....I searched high and low for black power units....no where to be found. We do a lot of chrome delete packages on newer cars....we have our paint shop paint the chrome parts once removed and disassembled from the car. Over the years, I've seen where the parts on cars that really get driven take a beating. Since these mirrors have huge exposure...I'm thinking they need something different.

Option 1 is to spray some fine texture Raptor on them....not sure how easily they will clean up with bugs, mud, etc., but they will be super durable and have a look that will match the flares and snorkel(really textured finishes on those pieces).

Option 2 is to have them done in a gloss black finish, like we normally do but then have matte paint protection film installed....that will give them the matte look I want and protect them. Pretty complex shape to wrap in one piece...so it will probably have seams which might look weird.

Kind of leaning towards the Raptor.

Always nerve racking to pop apart mirrors for some reason.....even more so when they are new and not super easy to get.

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I sprayed my chrom bits with MonstaLiner five years ago and it has held up well.
As you well know, it's all about surface prep!
Do you have a blast cabinet to etch the surface first?
 
Also on the to do list is to get rid of this horrible chrome on the mirrors. Unfortunately the power mirrors are only available in chrome from what I can tell....I searched high and low for black power units....no where to be found. We do a lot of chrome delete packages on newer cars....we have our paint shop paint the chrome parts once removed and disassembled from the car. Over the years, I've seen where the parts on cars that really get driven take a beating. Since these mirrors have huge exposure...I'm thinking they need something different.

Option 1 is to spray some fine texture Raptor on them....not sure how easily they will clean up with bugs, mud, etc., but they will be super durable and have a look that will match the flares and snorkel(really textured finishes on those pieces). Unfortunately, once the are coated...there is no going back.

Option 2 is to have them done in a gloss black finish, like we normally do but then have matte paint protection film installed....that will give them the matte look I want and protect them. Pretty complex shape to wrap in one piece...so it will probably have seams which might look strange. This option feels like the safer setup but......I'm kind of leaning towards the Raptor.

Always nerve racking to pop apart mirrors.....especially if you haven't had them apart before. And they're new. And expensive. And hard to get. These weren't that bad fortunately.

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Had a friends 76 here in Japan with bed lined mirrors, looked a little off to me. Have you thought about de chrome and then paint? I want to say bleach is the common chemical to soak, but there is plenty online about it. Then Atleast you can do do adhesion promotor to plastic and paint. I was looking into it for my grille but also my mirrors are the same as yours.

I also could have sworn I saw a 78 Prada with black caps, but very likely they were painted. I’ll have to find where I saw them.
 
I sprayed my chrom bits with MonstaLiner five years ago and it has held up well.
As you well know, it's all about surface prep!
Do you have a blast cabinet to etch the surface first?

I was planning on doing a light etch on them for sure. I think that would be ideal.
 
Had a friends 76 here in Japan with bed lined mirrors, looked a little off to me. Have you thought about de chrome and then paint? I want to say bleach is the common chemical to soak, but there is plenty online about it. Then Atleast you can do do adhesion promotor to plastic and paint. I was looking into it for my grille but also my mirrors are the same as yours.

I also could have sworn I saw a 78 Prada with black caps, but very likely they were painted. I’ll have to find where I saw them.

Normally I would never do bedliner on anything on the exterior BUT......the heavy texture on the snorkel and flares may just make the mirror caps look OK....plus I can spray that Raptor with a really light texture. It will look like plastic....but I feel like it may look a little faded compared to the other plastic bits. OCD in full blast right now over this stuff.

I just checked out the chemical stripping of the chrome....wow. That is what I will try first.

For reference...this is how the OEM black one is...some slight texture on the 'impact' area
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This is the texture on the Safari Snorkel ...heavy.

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If you do the mirrors then you need to do the door handles. How about having them black chromed?

edit: and the lock cylinder and surround.

Funny enough none of that other chrome trim work bothers me. It's just the giant chrome mirrors. Maybe because the handles and lock stuff kind of blends in to the surrounding white paint.....all of it on a flat surface. Just disappears.

I bought an 88 4Runner and it doesn't have chrome door handles(bumpers, etc)....it looks really odd with those things in black I think.
 
Troopy work is going on.....just slowly. One step forward, 10 steps back. I spent a long time debating about whether or not it was going to be repainted after being painted. I'm not happy with the paint job. Everyone else seems to be OK with it though so they won out. Plus....my painter is busy with a 60 series that was repainted over quite a bit of rust....so that job just became a much larger job. My truck would have been back burnered for a while. So I'm just going to suck it up and deal with it.

Is the high gloss the main issue or something else? I'd like to avoid an overpowering high gloss as well (especially considering I may go with "that color" you suggested), interested in how you'll tackle that.
 
There are a couple of issues. The high gloss is too much for me....I wanted orange peel...lots of it. Not dry paint....orange peel. That's hard to do unfortunately for guys that either can't spray and rely on buffing to remove all their imperfections. So that's kind of what happened here. His body work was so so.....not middle east or south of the border bad but not what my heart was wanting(my brain was expecting it though).

So basically I got a color changed truck with some of the problem areas taken care of.....with way too much gloss.....too 'wet'....exactly what I told the guy I did not want. Turns out he's a drunk which I kind of started to realize....especially after 2 hour lunches. I've been so spoiled over the last 20 years with my numero uno painter.....I forget how crappy other ones are until I do something like this. Not all of them of course but in Tampa....that's the norm. One good guy.....100 bad guys. Frustrating.

But it's a work truck...so I have to force myself to accept it and not cry. If my normal guy did it, it would have been $12k and finished in 2021 but it would have been perfect. Then I would buy another truck that would become the shop truck....since I would be too worried about driving the perfect one. First world problems.

I wish I would have just sprayed the thing with bedliner....the 40 we have in here with Raptor that is eggshell smooth is absolutely beautiful.
 
I put monstaliner on my son's chrome and mirrors. So very simple. clean parts and spray. KISS. Keep it simple stupid.

Nice flat/satin black.

Two years later and it has held up amazingly well, even going down Colorado trails with brush hitting the parts.
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I put monstaliner on my son's chrome and mirrors. So very simple. clean parts and spray. KISS. Keep it simple stupid.

Nice flat/satin black.

Two years later and it has held up amazingly well, even going down Colorado trails with brush hitting the parts.
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Mine are headed to a Line X place that can spray Ultra......going to see how they look with that. $50-60 according to the guy to spray them. Not bad.
 
Normally I would never do bedliner on anything on the exterior BUT......the heavy texture on the snorkel and flares may just make the mirror caps look OK....plus I can spray that Raptor with a really light texture. It will look like plastic....but I feel like it may look a little faded compared to the other plastic bits. OCD in full blast right now over this stuff.

I just checked out the chemical stripping of the chrome....wow. That is what I will try first.

For reference...this is how the OEM black one is...some slight texture on the 'impact' area
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This is the texture on the Safari Snorkel ...heavy.

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That is a good point, matching texture may work well! The 76 was a Japan model with zero other black parts or texture... it just stuck out too much.

I hope the chemical strip works well, seems to be very promising based on others use of it! Looking forward to seeing the outcome!
 
That is a good point, matching texture may work well! The 76 was a Japan model with zero other black parts or texture... it just stuck out too much.

I hope the chemical strip works well, seems to be very promising based on others use of it! Looking forward to seeing the outcome!

Well........no good news on chemical stripping. I tried several products we had here.....Super Clean and Agitene(parts washer stuff)....no dice. Didn't even touch it. Wondering if there isn't some kind of difference in the coatings.

Going to take another shot at it with some Easy Off......
 
Well........no good news on chemical stripping. I tried several products we had here.....Super Clean and Agitene(parts washer stuff)....no dice. Didn't even touch it. Wondering if there isn't some kind of difference in the coatings.

Going to take another shot at it with some Easy Off......

Not that a Tacoma badge is the same, but very likely similar coating. This guy had great results with household bleach : Removing chrome plating from emblems
 

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