Im wondering if any one has any ideas for some cheap things I can do to my truck to make it look a little bit better until I can get the money together to paint it for real (right now its just spray paint). Im just trying to get a few ideas to make it a lil better and give me something to do since its supposed to be in the upper 40's to low 50's and maybe even 60's and I wanna be outside.

 

Depends on the look your after...

Could add decals, chrome pieces, paint accent lines or parts, etc.

 

Remember, every sticker adds 5 horses

But really, I had a little surface rust on my Mustang II. I sanded the whole thing down and, like you, spray bombed it with black primer until I could do a good paint job on it. Not wanting to leave well enough alone, and having a bunch of sandpaper left over, I colored sanded the primer. I got the whole car super smooth (started with 1000 and went all the way to 3000), compounded it too, and then waxed the crap out of it. Yeah, some of the body imperfections shown through and it wouldn't be mistaken for a show car, but it was pretty cool in a rat roddy type of way. It took a ton of elbow grease and a little time but, for a couple of bucks for paper, compound and wax, you could do the same thing.

Here's how the II looked, though keep in mind that it wasn't fully assembled and the lighting was poor in this pic.

 

Restore your headlights back to normal?

 

I like the front bumpers with the factory rub strip and its prob cheap. With paint, the truck looks really good already.

 

get the front end of of a 92-96 out of a bone yard, unless you like the look of the 89-91

 

thanx the truck has came along way. and i do like the sanded primer it looks pretty good. but first i need to fix the rust and i don have the money for that lol

 

i do really lik the look of the 87-91 for some reason it just looks tougher to me.

 

If that was my truck what i would do is basically go for the black out look... If i didnt want to spend the ungodly amount to have it painted i did this on a 93 eclipse and it will come on pretty darn good if you do it in a area that is above 65 degrees and with little dust... Rust-oleum offers actual automotive paint that comes in 12 oz cans which is Acrylic Lacquer. I would first put 2 coats of primer on, then 2 coats of the Rust-oleum paint then 2 coats of clear over it, it would cost you about $50-$75 bucks to do the whole truck and is fairly easy to do. Then i would use the black chrome paint and do the bumpers, mirriors and rims so all the would have been chrome parts will be black chrome. Which you could do also with little money. Tint the windows with 35 percent which would cost about $110 if you have it done. and for roughly $225 bucks you got a completely different truck It just depends on your budget and what you want but just some food for thought... If my truck was black i would do this exactly what i said cause you dont ever see a 4x4 truck like ours anywhere thats completely blacked out... it would look B.A.! and it would be something nobody else has near you thats for sure.

This is how your bumpers, mirrors, rims would look with the black chrome spray paint...

 

 

TINT the windows

 

fix the cab/bed alignment issue

 

Its not an external change, but its something worth doing: Drill a few holes in the inner fender metal of the bed. On the inner fender, there are 2 humps (or pits if your looking from the wheel well) that press up close to the bed side. This catches anything like dirt and rocks and is the reason all of these trucks rust out on top. Cutting those out or drilling big holes will get that dirt and rocks out and save you lots of heartache after your paint job. If your a real overachiever, you can then fog the hell out of it with rubberized coat spray through the holes in the bed rail.

 

i do really wanna tint the windows i need to buy the tint. i think i might do it myself. and there isnt any cab/bed alignment issue that i no of. it looks like it in the second pic because my front tires on a hill

 

I would take off the body lift... then id level the front... tint the windows to 5% and more than likely remove the visor...