I've seen fellows use a putty knife to lift the rubber, and work a long piece of insulated electrical wire in place under the rubber to hold it up while the rubber is taped under and up over glass, and then left until paint under the rubber dries .... then pull the wire out and rubber sets down on the paint.

 

That is a great trick, Tbear. I think I'll try it.
I want to tell about my spraying experience when I was painting the cowling. I was spraying away. My new gun was working great. The paint was laying down smooth and fine, and I was thinking that I have some serious painting skills. Then I moved to the other side of the truck to spray the passenger side of the cowling. As I sprayed over the louvers, the air pressure blew up some leaf fragments out of the louvers and settled on my fresh paint. ((Yes, I had vacuumed it out beforehand). That was when profanity erupted. Happily, I read in the paint instructions to wait 18 hours and the paint can be sanded and another coat applied. Hoorah.

I'm looking forward to seeing the paint with the clear applied. I've never sprayed clear, but I assume using the same movement speed and over-lap should be fine.
I have to say that it was a bear to align the doors and fender. It took quite a few tries, loosening and retightening, each time moving the door in or out, but luckily I was able to loosen the fender and play with that alignment too.
It looks as though I will have to buy the plastic splash guards that sit up inside the wheel well. They came oem starting in 76, but think they are the best way to prevent water from getting into the fender structure it is not supposed to be in. I do wish they were not so expensive.

 

That's a good looking start. Def too cold to paint here in KY outside.

 

Well, the day has come to spray. Today I'll spray white on the top section of the truck, from the middle of the groove up. Then I'll clean the gun and shift to clear, and go back and give the top section another coat, but this time with clear. My only concern is reaching the center of the roof with the gun. I am applying a bit of silicone under the corners of the windshield rubber before spraying. I will also be spraying some small areas inside the door jambs.

This time, when I spray the cowling, I'll turn the air pressure down a bit to avoid leaf particles flying out and creating a painter's nightmare.


Ready to roll!

 

What a day. Today I sprayed some of the door jambs where I had done work. I also sprayed the top of the truck, from the dent (groove) up. I topped it off with two coats of gloss clear. I think it came out good, except for a couple of places where I dripped water. For the life of me I don't know how that happened. I have a water filter in the line. Darn it.
I wonder how long I need to wait before I place masking tape on the fresh paint????? Anyone?






The wife said with a sad look: "This used to be a work truck. Now it's just purdy."

 

250 restorer,
Very nice work on the paint! Your getting there pretty quickly too! It looks like the paint laid down very well. I have never sprayed any clear coat. Thanks for the updates!
Regards,
Chris and Cheryl

 

Man that is going to be sharp. That white looks nice. Im assuming you are 2 toning it? What color are you doing at the bottom?

 

Well, _ _ _ that fresh paint sure is Pretty ! _ _ _ and glossy.

You've been busy cutting, bending, fitting, re-cutting, re-bending, and that is just for a hopeful Fit.
Then there is all of those little spot-welds to melt everything together.

As I was building up my current '77 F350 Crew Cab pickup, your thread brings back wonderful memories.
While working the dents out of the cab roof, I was very tempted to remove a roof support from a Ford Van, to weld in for additional support of the roof to prevent the "Beer-Can" effect. As I was sanding the roof filler, my body hammer slid off, caught the rain cutter and flipped around breaking out the rear door glass. Oh, and to make matters worse, I had welded up the non-needed front door mirror holes from previous owner's mirror removal. i was so proud to have finished welding up those holes, only to realize later that I welded those holes up with the glass rolled down. Soooo, _ _ _ that F-up, meant i was soon off the the local auto wrecker's for 3 new-used tinted door glass.
I completed my build-up in two years, and painted the cab with all glass removed.
I used PPG single stage acrylic, and was very pleased with the outcome. All body painting got three coats of topcoat.

Oh, speaking of painting the Chassis:
I have had very good luck painting my chassis with rattle-can gloos black or semi-gloss.
The use of the rattle-can paint is that it can easily be touched up at a later date.
Just me, _ _ _ I don't use Por-15 products, I guess I am old-school. I am not yet convinced that Por-15 neutralizes rust.

I haven't done an over-all finish paint job now in over twenty years, but I am concluding that once my Devilbis is cleaned with acetone, that I should be spraying some mineral spirits thru the cleaned gun to lube the seals with the mineral spirits for storage.

I was bs-ing with a roundy round hardtop racer one day and we were discussing carburetors and storage.
He said that him and his buddies simply store a known good carb in automatic transmission fluid to keep the gaskets pliable.
Something I had never yet considered. That made me think of Paint gun seals drying out and not sealing well. _ _ Hmm.

Back in the early '90's, I took an AutoBody class in the evening division, and the instructor was an ex aircraft painter.
He suggested us home-based-painters should consider using women's Kotex's as moisture traps stuffed into an in-line water trap.

Another item of comment:
Your overload springs and the cast iron 1-inch spacer-blocks that separate the spring packs are tough to find.
I found a pair on a 1-ton with dual rear wheels, and I think it was an early '70's model.
i was able to use the U-bolts, 1-inch spacer block and the overload spring packs.
For the frame brackets that the overloads contact when packing a load, i purchased a set from I think a late '80's pickup that has the poly pad that the springs contact. The two wheel drive frames are factory punched for the overload brackets, so with grade-8 bolts, those brackets simply bolt-on.

I see you have the Auxiliary belly fuel tank.
The short-bed 2wd '77 Crew that was my cab donor and misc parts donor, had a belly tank.
I removed the tank supporting brackets and tank, and modified the brackets to mount the belly tank to my F350 chassis.
The longbed box came from a standard cab pickup, so I has Fuel doors.
I cut some 2-inch square tubing to make frame mounts for the 2wd box to mount it to the narrow CrewCab chassis.
Oh, the personal-touches that we incorporate into our "Builds" seems never ending, and noone besides us, knows the extent. haha

I installed a Fat-Bob (fat-grip) steering wheel from an '80's series Ford E-series Van in my pickup, and really like it

Is there a supplier today for those plastic front fender inner fender splash inserts ?
Mine are in good shape, and i have removed them to clean and media blast the galvanized inner fenders to look pretty.
I even painted them with Clear Satin to seal out the elements for the next decade.

I helped a buddy paint his early '77 Bronco maybe five years back. I was the paint mixer and Stupid-Visor to guide my buddy in his first ever vehicle paint job. I kept thinning the paint until it flowed, and watched him closely for dry spots to re-coat.
We did this in pieces and parts, but I mixed all of the final paint together before spraying so pieces matched as close as expected.
He sprayed outdoors for good lighting. I thought he did a remarkable job, and he was elated.
Of course, his brother-in-law, who never paints anything, looked it over and said it wasn't Buff-Smooth. _ that Pissed him off.
He reminded his "B I L" that the bronco wasn't painted to be a Trailer-Queen show vehicle, but to be used for Hunting and 4-wheeling.

Keep moving forward, and nice work.
_ _ _ it used to be a work-truck. _ _ _ leave it up to the house-boss to chime in. hahaha

That is what happened to my CrewCab build-up. I started out just building up a Wood-Cutting pickup, then the more dents I smoothed, the nicer the pickup looked, so then moved on to another dent, and in the end, the pickup never got used for Wood-cutting chores.
The dead-lift of wood to get it up to the tailgate height was too mich, so I use a low-to-the-ground Stock Trailer for wood hauling.



Very nice efforts on your body work !

 

Hey guys. Thanks for the kind words. I have an inline water trap, but somehow I still dripped in a couple of places. Even so, I am happy with the job and happier still to be able to put it back together.
The lower part of the truck is going fire engine red. I should spray that today.
BTW, The Harbor Freight $16 gun is trash. I used and threw out two of them during this process, and never could get one to put out the correct amount of paint. Instead of a 50% overlap, as the manufacturer recommends, I had to double up each pass with the gun.
Today I will be spraying conventional syphon type gun.
Wow! I can now install the windows, the weather stripping, carpet, seat, belts, molding, bumper. And down the road I go. Cheers.

 

try draining your compressor. despite having a water trap and 20ft of copper tubing w/ drain valves in the bottom sections in my compressor set up, I will still get moisture when blowing air. I finally installed a flex drain tube for the bottom of my compressor was suprised how much murky fluid I got out of it.
Keep up the great progress. I'm wrapping up on my interior paint as we speak and will move on to the outside once the weather warms up a bit in the midwest.

 

I look forward to seeing more of your truck.
Thanks for the tip about draining the compressor tank. Of course. Why didn't I think of that?
Well, I sprayed the lower part of the truck today. Two coats of color and 2 coats of gloss clear. It was another long day. I have some photos, but I ran out of daylight. I'm get some tomorrow so you can get a better view.


The truck has come a long way.

I was shocked by the color when first I opened the paint can.

It took a long time to apply 2 coats of color and 2 of clear.


Now comes the time when I park at the far end of the parking lots, ha ha. All I have left is the tailgate.

 

That white over red POPs! You look to have done s SUPER job with it.You won't just park in the far way spaces, you'll learn to allow time for all the guys and gals coming over to swap stories of old trucks. You'll see.

I've even had a group of 3 Washington & Lee coeds walk out to the far side of a parking lot to chat because two of them's dads out on the west coast (Seattle I think) mess with old trucks. Then they went the other way back from the way they came and went in the Walmart. It never fails, people have stories.

 

I got some over-spray on my hood. I was thinking to wait for the paint/clear to cure a couple of weeks, and then to buff it with some rubbing compound to remove the os, and then to give it some wax.
Is there a better way? Is my method not to correct one? Thanks for the replies.

I was so used to the truck being blue and white that it sort of freaks me out every time I see it. I guess that will pass in time.

 

Oh boy. In my last post I mentioned overspray. You can see it on the hood. I was able to buff it out with rubbing compound, but it took some serious buffing. I was very happy to see it without that pink tinge.

 

Hey tbear. Thanks. I did get a couple of water drops in the paint, but all in all for a driveway paint job it came out good. I am happy with it.
Now it's time to reunite the bed with the frame and reclaim my garage. Having the stand for the bed on rollers really helped. Spraying the clear was strange. I depend on seeing the paint go on. From how it looks I can tell if I'm moving the gun too fast or too slowly. With clear you can't see it so you just have to move the gun consistently the same speed and hope for the best.