All,
I know I have a lot of reading to do in this forum, but I thought I would get some specific feedback to start my journey into the body/paint world and know a bit more on what to search for and read deeper into.
I have had 40s for the past 20 years and have done a ton of wrenching and modifications. I am a wrench and not a welder and it is now time for me to finally get the body on my 1981 BJ44 back into safe and rust-proofed condition.
I want to take the body off and blast it down to bare steel, repair all rust with new panels and steel patches. I then want to seal the living crap out of the body and protect it from future rust as much as humanly possible. Right now I am leaning towards POR-15 or a high quality epoxy primer, PPG paint, and then LineX on the underside of the tub and firewall. I am also thinking of doing lineX smooth inside the tub in high wear areas. All LineX wil be body color matched to white.
I digress... The first thing I need to do is to find places to blast and weld the new steel in. I am brand new to welding and not sure I am up to the task of the metal work needed to fix the rust issues I have. I'm all about learning, but just don't want to booger up my tub to the point where I hurt more than help... So how does one choose a good body shop/fab shop to take on something like this? Is there anything i should be asking about or looking for, or any red flags I should look out for?
Any and all advice would be helpful as I want to do this right the first time and have peace of mind for another 20 years...
Thanks in advance!
I know I have a lot of reading to do in this forum, but I thought I would get some specific feedback to start my journey into the body/paint world and know a bit more on what to search for and read deeper into.
I have had 40s for the past 20 years and have done a ton of wrenching and modifications. I am a wrench and not a welder and it is now time for me to finally get the body on my 1981 BJ44 back into safe and rust-proofed condition.
I want to take the body off and blast it down to bare steel, repair all rust with new panels and steel patches. I then want to seal the living crap out of the body and protect it from future rust as much as humanly possible. Right now I am leaning towards POR-15 or a high quality epoxy primer, PPG paint, and then LineX on the underside of the tub and firewall. I am also thinking of doing lineX smooth inside the tub in high wear areas. All LineX wil be body color matched to white.
I digress... The first thing I need to do is to find places to blast and weld the new steel in. I am brand new to welding and not sure I am up to the task of the metal work needed to fix the rust issues I have. I'm all about learning, but just don't want to booger up my tub to the point where I hurt more than help... So how does one choose a good body shop/fab shop to take on something like this? Is there anything i should be asking about or looking for, or any red flags I should look out for?
Any and all advice would be helpful as I want to do this right the first time and have peace of mind for another 20 years...
Thanks in advance!
