What would you do with this?

[e rock]

I'm not a paint & body person. It's not my forte'. I'm ok with that. The majority of the body work I've done on my '40 involved welding in pieces that roughly matched the original shape and rattle-canning it to match.


Working on Grandpa's truck is a different story. I want it to look decent. Not that it matters, but this is a '71 Chevy K20 that my grandpa bought new and I finally inherited it a few years ago. After a few theft incidents, I'm finally getting it ready to be a daily driver.

Prior to my possession, my uncle owned and, largely, took good care of it. When spray-in bed-liners were first becoming popular, he had one put in. Several years later, it began to bubble and lift from the bed. At some point, he manually pulled the liner out of the bed, which took about half of the paint with it including almost all of the paint on the bed rails and the top 2" of the bedsides. I think this happened right about the time it got parked out behind the garage.

So, now I'm finally getting around to stripping the paint from the bed, but the interface from clean metal at the top of the bed sides to the good paint has a decent lip of at least 3 layers of paint. And the paint didn't come off in exactly a straight line along the edge of the bedliner so I have to do something with it unless I wrap the new bedliner 3+" over the rail, which I don't really want to do.

Holy novel - sorry.

So, should this be all sanded smooth and re-paint the entire bed side? Or use a filler of some sort to match the paint level and paint just the seam to match?



It's dark now but I'll be working on it tomorrow and will get some pictures then.

 

[cruiser88]

It will be trial and error the first time for you but yes you can. The way its done...well its called"feather edging"

You use a combination of sanding and buildup of primer....spot puddy etc.

 

[e rock]

It will be trial and error the first time for you but yes you can. The way its done...well its called"feather edging"

You use a combination of sanding and buildup of primer....spot puddy etc.

Yeah I think that's the direction I'm leaning after working on it more today.

Unfortunately the wire wheel exposed some substantial rust holes on the bed floor, so the painting is getting pushed back in the schedule a little further...


Just to cover up the exposed metal, I guess I'll throw on a couple coats of primer, then sand and level the edge in stages as time allows.

 

[toomanytoyzz]

If the bedliner was lifting in areas it usually means rust is the culprit. If you want to do it right you should take the bed off the frame and media blast it to bare metal. This will truely let you see what you're in for. It's better to do it right the first time than putting band aids all over the truck. This way you can also treat the frame and paint it while the bed is off. Pickups are pretty easy to restore because once you get a clean bed and front clip you're way ahead of the game. There isn't much to the cabs, and they're easy to get on and off the frame. Hope this helps.

 

[e rock]

If the bedliner was lifting in areas it usually means rust is the culprit. If you want to do it right you should take the bed off the frame and media blast it to bare metal. This will truely let you see what you're in for. It's better to do it right the first time than putting band aids all over the truck. This way you can also treat the frame and paint it while the bed is off. Pickups are pretty easy to restore because once you get a clean bed and front clip you're way ahead of the game. There isn't much to the cabs, and they're easy to get on and off the frame. Hope this helps.

Yeah - see that's how I would normally do a project, and it would end up being a year-long process. I just can't swing that right now - too many other things to get done that are more important. I hate doing temporary fixes, but I think this one's going to get done "good enough" for now and then next year I'll plan to devote some more time and money for it. I'll get it blasted and probably end up replacing the entire bed floor with a repro one rather than fixing all the holes.

 

[toomanytoyzz]

One good thing is that chevy parts are CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP!! My father-in-law is redoing a 69 c10 and he got everything he needed to replace the severly rusted cab for under $300.