Damn dude! Want to paint mine next. What paint holds up to manzanita branches. Hahahaha

 

Um, Linex?

 

Ok, I skipped a day of posts because applying seam sealer isn't really that interesting. Especially when you forget to take pictures.

Sooo, that leaves the interesting bit... color. First I need to do another thorough cleaning and de-mask/re-mask the truck. Then a sealer coat. This is an optional step, but it does provide the best protection for long-term durability of the paint, and makes a uniform dark color underneath the base coat. For this I simply reduced epoxy primer 25% with medium grade (speed) reducer. This step makes me nervous about runs and sags because that's it, no more sanding until after the clear coat is on.



This stuff looks good, can't wait to shoot it. First I need to wait for the sealer coat to cure for a minimum of 2 hours though. Time for dinner.



The base only needs to flash in between coats, so no time to take pictures in between. 3 coats of base complete. Kind of looks silver in the photos, but it's definitely gray. It also has a satin appearance before the clear coat goes on. The satin look is so cool that it's tempting to leave it this way.









Now it's time for clear. This SPI clear requires exactly 30 minutes between coats if you're spraying 3 or more coats. I'm spraying 5 coats, so as luck would have it, it takes about 20 minutes to spray the whole truck one time. Walk back to the bench, mix up another batch, and it's already time to spray again.

DONE!!! Well mostly. The main part is done and I can take her back home. I do still plan on doing a satin black panel in the middle of the hood and in the center of the tailgate, but I ran out of time in my rental booth. Fortunately, this is the kind of thing I can come back and do any time after the clear cures. That, and I still need to do my color sanding/buffing, but that can wait. Kinda cloudy up by the paint booth, the paint looks a little like plain gray in this light. Then again, none of these pictures really does the paint justice. I just love this color.






Back home. Sun decided to come out.









You can really see the metallic here



Finally back home in the garage!

 

Looking sexy man, hope I can start making progress on mine soon lucky for me paint is a ways off lol. these are some damn good looking trucks especially when they're covered with a nice modern metallic.

 

Wow, Brian, your truck looks gorgeous! Excellent job!

David

 

Very well done Bryan, this has been a really fun journey to watch move along. Great choice on the color as well, it really make that dent side stand out.




t

 

Well, I know this is something I should have done before paint, but with great care, steady hands, and masking tape, I can avoid scratching the paint. I've decided to build custom door handles. There's nothing wrong with the factory design, I just want something unique and custom. Here are the factory assemblies.


The look I'm going for is a bit more streamlined and modern. My first thought was that I would cut the hand grip part of the handle assembly off and weld a new grip to the pivot arms. Once I took a look at the assemblies however, I realized that the handle and pivot arms are one cast piece of garbage pot metal. This does not make for an easy welding job.


Here are the faces of the pivot arms after I cut the hand grip off. It's hard to tell from the picture, but porous, barely magnetic steel is never a good sign. This means pot metal, and it's best to scrap the plan.


Well, let's take a look at the entire mechanism to see what I can come up with. The cast pivot arms have got to go, but the other part of the hinge is good quality stamped steel. That I can work with.


Now I'll just have to figure out how to reproduce these pivot arms with good steel. They're shaped kinda funny, they have an ear bent at 90° which keeps the end of the retraction spring.


I decided to build these in two pieces. One will be the u-shaped arm itself, the other will be the ear for the spring perch. After disassembly, I traced the outline of the arms onto a piece of 1/8" steel. I repeated this pattern 4 times (two arms per door handle, two door handles).


Then I crudely, very, very crudely cut them out with my plasma cutter.


After a little bit of cleanup with the sander, here's what I've got. In this picture you can see the good stamped steel factory hinge piece along with the plastic gasket, next to that the old pivot arms I replicated. Below those you can see the 4 arms I cut out, along with the 4 spring perch ears. Now I just need to weld the ears to the arms.


Here are the new complete pivot arms. You can see one of the original cast arms on the left, and the new one I made on the right. Just need to drill the pivot hole, and they're done.

 

That is some phenomenal work.

 

Thanks, hopefully it turns out like the picture in my head!

 

Ok, so the first two pictures were obviously taken before paint, I tend to be a little scattered in my work flow. I'm getting started on the hand grip/pull handle, whatever it's called. First I taped a piece of paper over the handle recess on the door to make a template. Then I rubbed my finger in some dirt. Most of you probably know this trick, but if you don't...


Rub your dirty finger around the contour of the shape you are trying to replicate to transfer it through the paper. This gives a fairly precise outline. The sharper the edge, the more precise the outline you'll achieve. This is a rounded edge, but works well as a good starting point.


Then I cut the shape out and scribed it onto some steel flat bar. I repeated, then cut out the two sections. This will be my pulls. The contour is slightly different from front to back, so I labeled the orientation for each side.


Here is the right side with just the edges cleaned up.


And here it is with some stylin' holes and the mill scale removed. They'll eventually be powder coated black.


Here's one side welded to the pivot arms and test fit. It's a little crooked here, but there's plenty of adjustment. It took a lot of test fitting before I was brave enough to weld them on. I had to be sure they would sit in the center of the recess. I also want them to sit flush with the door, but still allow enough room for my fingers to get it to pull it. Plenty more to come!

 

If I get a chance to come back to earth, I wanna be as talented as Bryan. I can't fold a paper airplane.
Nice work Bryan, nice work!

 

Haha, wow. Thanks! It's all trial and error

 

Totally laughing my *** off at this comment!

Great work as always, I need to see this thing some time.

 

Where are you in Washington?

 

Just south of Adna, around Chehalis, Centralia