J10 Refurbish/repaint (moved from PRIS)

[Towtruck]

Doors are in color. Right one turned out well. Left has a run on the window frame and another just below the door handle. The media blaster told me "satin black is not your friend if you get a run....difficult to blend in a repair...might have to repaint the whole panel...." The window frame is easy....I'll just sand it out, mask the rest of the door and shoot it again. I'm thinking I might get away with a spot repair by the door handle....or maybe mask across at one of the accent creases, and spray above.... Any advice from y'all is much appreciated.

The polyester primer worked out well, panels are straight as an arrow, although there are some sanding scratch marks in the paint. That primer is very soft and sands easy, but it loads up fine grit sand paper very quickly. Guess I got tired of endless sanding. Next time (fat chance) I'll block it with 120, sand with 220, and then spray on a coat of urethane sanding primer. I find it much easier to work with fine grit paper as it is not quite so soft.

The "easels" worked well. Had to lay on my back to shoot the bottom edge of frames....otherwise great access. One step job instead of spraying the back side in a separate session from the exterior. (There are two 1x2's sticking out from the easel. They slide into the access holes on the back side of the door).

DSCN1534 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1535 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1536 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1538 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1537 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1539 by Rufus, on Flickr

[Towtruck]

Frustrating day today. I did fix the run on the driver side window frame by sanding the entire frame and repainting. Looks fine. But then I attempted to spot repair the run under the door handle. When I sprayed it (with a small detail gun) it initially looked good (while still wet). But when it started to cure, the slight overspray around the repair dried to a different sheen from the repair area and the rest of the door. Looked sort of cloudy. Wasn't awful, so I could either live with it, or sand and repaint the entire door. I repainted the door. Looks fine, although the spray job isn't as nice as the original. No sanding scratches though, as I worked them out when I sanded the color back.

I spent some time this afternoon installing the inner fenders and the tail gate. Tomorrow I tear down the paint booth...happy days. The fenders and hood are scheduled for installation on Thursday. Door mounting on Friday. Maybe side windows as well.

DSCN1543 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1541 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1540 by Rufus, on Flickr

[rang-a-stang]

What did you use for fender welting? I re-used my factory ones but more because I was lazy...

[Towtruck]

I bought some wide door edge protector at O'Reilly's. Eight foot lengths...adhesive pre-applied. The media blaster recommended splitting some cheap, soft tubing lengthwise and gluing it on the edge. The originals on my truck were coming loose, and we wanted to powder coat under them anyway.

[Towtruck]

This morning I tore down the paint booth in the garage...three months of that nonsense. Lots of junk hiding behind the plastic...but it was surprisingly clean junk, Very little dust behind the barrier. The Mylar covered flexible hose is the conduit that I plumbed into the furnace plenum (in that closet) for piping heat into the garage. The only issue was chemical smells would seep into the house via the hose when the furnace fan was off. So, I'd warm up the garage and then cap it off when not in use. The hose was especially handy for directing heat on panels waiting for paint.

This afternoon I installed the front fenders and doors. That transmission jack is my assistant when installing the doors by myself. Edges are taped in critical areas. No chips. Everything is currently covered in sanding dust and oak tree pollen...desperately needs a wash. But the panel fit is good and they're nice and flat. The satin black paint is very unforgiving and would show dings or unevenness in a New York minute. Planning to install the front roll pan and hood and then mothball the project until the Fall. Too many other projects demanding attention.

DSCN1545 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1548 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1550 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1552 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1546 by Rufus, on Flickr

[SOLSAKS]

HEY MAN

looks great !!!

a lot of dang work !

great job.

on the way to being finished.

dave in NC

[Towtruck]

Thanks. Yes, a stupid amount of work and time invested. I put it aside for about a week in order to clean up the garage and fix a few things on the Jaguar. Already getting hot outside. Today I sanded and painted a heater motor scroll I got from forum member 8man (thanks, man). I'll install it, the hood and the front roll pan in the next few days. Might get around to the side windows before mothballing the project for the summer. The boat is screaming for attention (black trim on side and around windows). The HVLP gun will see some service. I'll use left over urethane semi-gloss from the truck project as it should do well with UV. I'll post some more photos of the truck when I get the front end finished.

DSCN1560 by Rufus, on Flickr
IMG_4248 (5) by Rufus, on Flickr

[Towtruck]

Okay, this is the last of the Jeep project until the Fall. I got the heater box and fan assembly cleaned up and painted yesterday...installed this morning. I had forgotten that the two components have to be installed together and had the heater box bolted down when I realized I'd have to loosen it up to get the fan assembly in there. I also had to remove the passenger side hood hinge, which was just loosely fitted.


This afternoon my neighbor and I mounted the hood, and I spent the rest of the afternoon aligning inner and outer fenders, hood, and front end sheet metal. It's still not quite where I want it, but close. (I swear the perimeter of the early hood is shaped slightly differently than the later stamping). Anyway, all of the front end sheet metal is installed, albeit barely in some cases.

The front roll pan fits better than before as I spent some time fabricating new hidden mounting brackets. That said, the joint between the right fender and the roll pan needs more adjustment....the issue is actually where the fender and the radiator support panel meet up...bolts need to be loosened and panels shifted slightly.

....the truck is covered with smeared and smudged yellow pollen and sanding dust, but here are a few in process photos.

DSCN1573 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1568 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1571 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1572 by Rufus, on Flickr

[Kaiserjeeps]

Very cool. There are some really nice truck projects going. Hope we don't have to wait to long for the next update.

[Towtruck]

The most that will get done before it's moved to storage for the long hot Texas summer is final panel alignment and the rest of the front end fasteners....and I might wash off the crud to see how it looks when clean. (I'll be following your project for my Jeep fix...amazing detail).


Later, Gents

[SOLSAKS]

well towtruck,....

it is looking good

it would be hard to not touch it all summer,....

but looks like you have other toys toy play with

...that is,...if you can quit working on them long enuff to enjoy them,...haha.

we will wait patiently for the next stage of restoration.

dave in NC

[Towtruck]

OK, this is the last, last update before the truck goes into storage. I should have put it away last week.

Yesterday I loosened up virtually every panel on the front end and muscled everything around to get the best alignment within my capabilities. (I had to shim the radiator back toward the engine to get the hood to close because I had lowered the cab another 1/2" during the painting evolution). The biggest improvement is that the roll pan now lines up quite well with the forward bottom corners of the fenders. Not too bad given that I slapped that pan together from an old hood. I still have to put a rubber bead in the 1/8" gap at either end to prettify it. The truck still needs a wash as evident from the whitish, smeared areas on the panels.

No time...high winds and baseball size hail are forecast for early evening and over night. So I spent the morning trying to cover the vehicle in the event hail stones punch through the corrugated plastic roof on my storage (junk) shed. It's primarily a sun shield with some fairly tough tinted corrugated roof panels, but previous experience shows it will crack with golf ball size stones. I expect baseball size would punch right through. The other issue is that if hail piles up, the whole dang thing could cave in...it did so some years ago when snow piled up. It's a sun shade, not a tornado safe room.

So I spent this morning bomb proofing the truck for hail and/or a cave in. Removed the tail gate, which is very vulnerable because there's a gap between the gates to the shed and the roof. I covered the bed and roof with plywood and then plastic. Then I snaked that heating duct tubing from the winter painting phase around on the hood and covered that with plastic. That hose is very springy...should absorb a pretty hard lick before the sheet metal dents/dings/collapses. Now that I've gone through the effort, it won't hail, but I'm ready....Semper Paratus.

DSCN1582 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1579 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1586 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1588 by Rufus, on Flickr
DSCN1589 by Rufus, on Flickr[/B]

[Frank Ziebert]

Fingers crossed for you.

[Towtruck]

Fingers crossed for you.

Thanks. We dodged the bullet. The system arrived a couple hours later than predicted (after the sun went down), so the strength of the thunderstorms was reduced. Still golf ball size hail around, but not as widespread as feared. The weather guessers took a lot of flack on this one. Mall parking garages were filled to overflow...people who couldn't find a spot just drove around inside for an hour until the front had passed. TV had photos of things people had strapped to their cars for protection...inflatable mattresses were sold out in stores. One car had a matrix of inflatable pool toys all over it...large rubber duckies were popular. One lady had large double doors on the front of her house, so she opened them and pushed her car inside the house. Anyway, the truck is being moved to the storage building later today. Thanks again.

[SOLSAKS]

dodged a bullett is right,....

glad no damage.

while reading your description,

I could see the inflatables on the cars you mentioned

in my mind while reading your description.

hail = bad

dave in NC