Now Painted!: Paint Prep - Need advice as I go (1 Viewer)

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Denver, NC
Hi All -

The time has come to paint (at least part) of my rig... The truck has apparently been painted on the DS as it's a black '97 which was single stage but this is clearly clear coat peeling (no pun intended). The passenger side and rear are good - the driver's side and hood are no bueno (see pics). I have a couple of options through friends of friends to get the truck shot but I will need to do the prep (as much as possible - must still be able to drive it about 70 miles to the painter).

So, I will post questions here in hopes that those who have gone before me can share some wisdom!

Here are the aforementioned pics:

Passenger side = good - just needs paint correction:

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Driver's side = Bad! Have a look:

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So, the first question is: Should I paint the whole truck which would allow me to do to BC / CC or just paint the bad areas (i.e. the Driver's side and hood)?

If I just paint the bad areas, I assume I should do single stage to match the rest of the paint?
 
Next questions are more prep-related:

1) Remove door handles or let them be painted with the truck? Have heard the handles / gaskets are NS so don't want to ruin the gaskets

2) Sanding the driver's side - do I need to get to metal given the clear coat? If so, I will need to shoot a self-etching primer at my place to seal it and then transport to the painter who will need to apply more layers of high build epoxy?
 
I would do the whole truck less the roof. Pain in the but on a truck that tall.. it will come apart easily and most of the clips are available. The flares are a pain. I left mine off and filled the holes. I wouldn’t recommend going to metal...if you know how to use a DA and not dig any low spots should be able to block it out with primer. Oh basecoat clearcoat. Only way to go. Good luck
 
Biggest question - how far do you really want to go?

-Just correct for the peeling clearcoat, or really get somewhere / major paint upgrade?

Do you do trails where brush ‘pinstriping’ is an issue?
If you say yes here, 100% SS paint. No question to me.
-Not the easiest to get nowdays, but acrylic enamel holds a shine & is extremely ‘pinstripe resistant’. Hard, shiney, low maintenance paint.

Since we see air lines & a moderate sized toolchest, do you have the airtools/willing to buy an orbital?

As for what to paint - aside from the flares, all my black single-stage is holding up fine on metal.
But aside from 3yrs in California, it’s lived in WA so rare we get a crazy UV day, or even see >90* for more than 10 day in Summer.

Driving the 70miles means essentially needing to re-wipe / onsite prep after you sand off the clear, and I’d just take down all the clear now since it’s barely holding.

—Quite frankly, I disagree with the above poster - I’d go single stage & do the roof.—

The single stage mainly to feather into the good paint as the pic looks on the PS. Then you’re back on solid paint.
I sprayed my hood in SS & unless you are shown where I masked the underhood, you’d swear I had factory paint & was super lucky/no stone chips on the leading edge.

This is a key ‘window‘ -to delete your roof rack & get that resprayed, something that yes-it’s a task but look how prized a no-rack 80 is.
The late headliner comes out the hatch just fine, and a helper inside to hold a piece of copper in a Vice-grip as a backer means you simply need to either fold the seats & buy a fire-blanket, or be creative with your helper holding a cooking sheet (what we did) -under each hole with the copper Vice-grip, then some primer on the metal inside - I brushed some on the 80 I did, so no overspray.

If you have a MIG, this would be a no-brainer to me.

IDK about door handle gaskets being NLA - someone else will need to chime in.
Were yours just sprayed over with clear, or are they still nice & serviceable?

70miles is quite a trip in the shape you need for spray - I helped a buddy where we landed at a paint shop ~2hrs before they opened to re-remove all the lights, bumpers, mirrors - all the stuff to be street legal.

He’d pulled them all prior to wash/prep/degrease, but we were doing ~30mi to N Seattle like your thing - even 2 of us working, and getting it all the way cleaned & ready to mask/shoot was nearly 2.5hrs for a standard cab, fullsize truck - but quality paint is 95% the prep as they say.
 
Thanks LINUS! - Answers below

-Just correct for the peeling clearcoat, or really get somewhere / major paint upgrade?
Do you do trails where brush ‘pinstriping’ is an issue?
If you say yes here, 100% SS paint. No question to me.

I plan to and would like to be able to wet sand them out which is a lot more doable with single stage.


-Not the easiest to get nowdays, but acrylic enamel holds a shine & is extremely ‘pinstripe resistant’. Hard, shiney, low maintenance paint.

I shot this stuff on a new set of fenders and half doors on my 40 - with some wet sanding and buffing I was able to achieve good results I think (note they could use washing!) - This says acrylic urethane - is that the same as acrylic enamel or no?

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Since we see air lines & a moderate sized toolchest, do you have the airtools/willing to buy an orbital?

I have an orbital but my compressor is a 3hp older unit with an aluminum compressor that won't run a DA continuously. I've toyed with buying a sanding pad for my electric random orbital buffer and using it instead.

Driving the 70miles means essentially needing to re-wipe / onsite prep after you sand off the clear, and I’d just take down all the clear now since it’s barely holding.

Yea, I was thinking I'd need to take it way down - my worry would be sanding through and hitting metal. I think you're saying just go on down to the metal on the offending side?

This is a key ‘window‘ -to delete your roof rack & get that resprayed, something that yes-it’s a task but look how prized a no-rack 80 is.

Yup, was planning to do the delete. Since the rig is lifted and on 35's, it would take a very tall man to see mistakes up there. I was planning to start my paint on the roof for this reason and work my way down. My concern is how to do all of this in stages. There doesn't seem to be a good place to break the paint. All I could come up with was 1) paint roof, 2) paint rear pillar and 3) paint rear quarter to passenger door - everything else masked and / or off the truck.

or be creative with your helper holding a cooking sheet (what we did) -under each hole with the copper Vice-grip, then some primer on the metal inside - I brushed some on the 80 I did, so no overspray.

I do have a MIG and am reasonably confident I could weld them closed. Are you saying your helper held a piece of sheet copper directly underneath the hole to be welded and then held a cookie sheet below that to catch anything that blew through from the top?

I know I can paint this thing myself with single stage and get it to look presentable. My biggest concern was the amount of work involved given I don't have a booth (meaning dealing with all the nibs, etc. I will get painting it without one). I have a garage and I could build a booth around the rig and wet the floor - that's about as good as I could do.
 
You hit all the points then for exactly what I’d be doing myself.

Upsize the compressor, consider buying a HVLP gun (my $80 Porter Cable is great, no need for a $300 Devilbliss unit).

I have wet the floor for my work but even my dad just blows off the floor in his shop & paints full trucks, and everything else has dust, metal powder from sparks ::everywhere:: -yet he gets excellent results on a simple housefan (little 12” thing, not even a box fan) - just pushing vapors out the door.

You & I are exactly on the same page then, your paint is acrylic enamel in the pic - and I was on PPG myself.

But- and this is the worst of it - dad said PPG solvent based paints have taken a severe increase as they subsidize their water based on the back of the petroleum line.

He went on the internet & found House of Kolor cheaper than PPG (!!!) - might explore that route yourself.

Exactly right on the copper/vice-grip & cookie sheet.

I tried a all-copper pre-1981 penny, was too thin after a few holes but luckily I have a big copper bar I bought for scrap price, and in hindsight I’d have bought one of those copper rounds that are like buying 1oz silver rounds.

They are like a few bucks on ebay, it’s the poor man’s precious metal of sorts, same vein as doing silver or gold rounds.
It doesn’t need to be perfectly flat, and you bend a 90* tab to hold onto in the grips as well.

But yes, the copper is nonstick to your weld, the cookie sheet catches any stray sparks - and after the fact we thought making a aluminum “ice cream cone” to be a ~6” wide shroud on the pliers would be a 1-hand solution for the helper under the roof.

Esp since you have a MIG & history with your unit/settings, I’ll unquestionably do the rack delete now.
-And like you say, paint the roof 1st, dial in your paint.

————————
As a suggestion, I have one of those Little Giant ladders (2 really) - scaffold mode & a platform is perfect for painting, but wobbly for sanding, real work - I have 2 of I-forget-the-brand platforms (maybe the premium Gorilla ones???),
— but they are ~$75 ea & AWESOMELY STABLE.

I can grab a pic of them if you want.

They are the most awesome way to wash/work on either the 4” lift/315’s -80 or my G2 Tundra with 6” lift/35’s.

Even motor work too, height adjustable, have outrigger feet.
 
Oh, I forgot to add - I simply covered the glass moonroof by opening it & closed a fresh sheet of butcher paper I begged from the grocery store in it - no tape or anything for the welding stage / spot primer.

I say that as sparks melt into glass, but bounce off plastic - so save yourself “pockmarks” in the moonroof while welding by either using aluminum foil or butcherpaper.
 
Welding spoon
They used to have these at harbor freight.....
cool tools that make the copper backing for welding a one person job, FYI...
One example - 4 inch Magnetic Copper Welding Backer

Even better then. I’m old (Or well on my way) - new to me.

———————

I missed the question earlier, but I’d only sand deep enough to hit any factory paint you can put a solid tooth into/bond to new primer.

No need to strip to bare metal if any factory paint still lives under the paint that was aftermarket to the vehicle, but I would remove all the post-factory paint to start on known good as applied paint.

I had certain repair spots doing the clearcoat bubbling on the 450 beyond the norm factory clear flaking off — it was 100% aftermarket repair work - I think that was still early waterbase paints - and esp that being possible I personally wouldn’t shoot new paint onto any remnants of it.
 
We patched my roof rack holes by just taking a brass drift to dent them down so they formed a small V. Then JB weld steel stick to fill them. Then bondo, paint, and clear. That was ~70k miles ago and no issues.

Sure beats dropping an early model headliner...or any headliner in general.

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I would pull the windows and door handles including the windshield. I found rust forming under the seals and was glad I was able to wire wheel it clean. Also found the quarter glass seals torn and leaking water into the quarter panels so I had to address rust in the quarter panels. U can buy aftermarket door handles new with seals for cheap. But I was able to clean up my old handles and the gaskets were fine. I used base coat and clear coat. Just the ppg paint cost me 2k.
 
I would pull the windows and door handles including the windshield.

How difficult was it to remove the windshield? I did a search but didn't see much.
 
Are any of the windshield edges touching the re-work paint, or are all 4 edges touching good paint?

Does the windshield seem OE ?


—I’m hesitant to jump on that train myself due to how much it seems people talk of the difficulties getting a good install.

Paging @baldilocks - IIRC he mentioned buying adhesive, his post seemed he understood the scope of a good install.

Another point is if you go all the way pulling bonded glass, yadda yadda - you hit a point where a full color change isn’t a ton more of work (!!!) - so unless you want, don’t let us push you over the scope of the simple area of paint correction / improve you want to do.

That said, your 40 paintwork pic was great, so this looks to be far from your 1st sprayout!
 
Are any of the windshield edges touching the re-work paint, or are all 4 edges touching good paint?

Does the windshield seem OE ?


—I’m hesitant to jump on that train myself due to how much it seems people talk of the difficulties getting a good install.

Paging @baldilocks - IIRC he mentioned buying adhesive, his post seemed he understood the scope of a good install.

Another point is if you go all the way pulling bonded glass, yadda yadda - you hit a point where a full color change isn’t a ton more of work (!!!) - so unless you want, don’t let us push you over the scope of the simple area of paint correction / improve you want to do.

That said, your 40 paintwork pic was great, so this looks to be far from your 1st sprayout!
I have yet to R&R a windshield and my recent reseal of the three year old rubber gasket on my 80 isn't old enough to tell us if the Permatex windshield sealer I used can be considered a good fix.

@Rifleman posted good info about a Butyl sealant and primer earlier today in a thread titled "80 Windshield R&R". My research turned up confirmation that butyl type sealant is what we should be using to seal these old school windshield gaskets. Wish I had dug deeper before i used the non-solvent silicone based permatex product that I used on mine. Time will tell.....
 
I have yet to R&R a windshield and my recent reseal of the three year old rubber gasket on my 80 isn't old enough to tell us if the Permatex windshield sealer I used can be considered a good fix.

@Rifleman posted good info about a Butyl sealant and primer earlier today in a thread titled "80 Windshield R&R". My research turned up confirmation that butyl type sealant is what we should be using to seal these old school windshield gaskets. Wish I had dug deeper before i used the non-solvent silicone based permatex product that I used on mine. Time will tell.....
Yeah, don't use a silicone-based product on your windshield, as it uses moisture to cure and therefore enhances corrosion.......

Butyl or urethane is better.
 
Yeah, don't use a silicone-based product on your windshield, as it uses moisture to cure and therefore enhances corrosion.......

Butyl or urethane is better.
It’s put out by permatex and labeled as windshield sealant and I’m pretty sure they know what’s up. The sealant put out very low odor and takes longer than RTV to cure. This tells me it is a neutral cure sealant which does not use moisture. Actually, I used it only between rubber and glass as I’ve had no leaks between the body and gasket.
 
Ok folks - here's an update and some questions... I now see why the driver's side was repainted (at least in part). Found lots of bondo near rear tail light - in one place I'd estimate it is ~1/8 - 1/4" thick. There are several weld spots visible on the inside of the panel (and the start of rust) that don't make sense to me. Here are my questions thus far:

1) are the welds where they used studs to pull the dent out or did this thing get shot with a shotgun??? Doesn't make sense that they would use studs when such easy access to the panel is achieved by removal of rear tail light.

2) Would you sand to bare metal in this area and refill? What would be the advantage(s) of doing so?

3) I've already cut into metal (sanded with DA and 120 to see what I have) - how quickly do I need to seal this with primer and can I use rattle can stuff until I'm ready to paint for real?

4) Given what you're seeing here, would you take the whole driver's side to bare metal or scuff and paint? I'm thinking of de-flaring so might wind up painting the whole truck (though I was trying to avoid).

Thanks all!

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