[Jesse@Bluskyclsccrs]

Got some rrreally good progress goin on londoncallings burb! We decided to get the body all blocked out and painted. In doing this we can continue with the mechanical and electrical side of things and do the panels later so we dont risk chipping or scratching the doors fender hood because of the constant back and forth in and out of the truck.

So with that its painted! I have yet to get some pics of it cleared because we unfortunatly got hit with some rain today so we'll have to wait to see it all shiny and nice! Once it does come back I will get to sanding and buffing the quarters before the clear hardens up cause once it is it gets hard as a rock! (dupont keeps changing up the formulas on their 72200 clear).

The way I tackle my body work is I sand the entire panel and coat the whole thing in body filler. Its merely just a skim coat. This allows me to block down the entire panel to get it as straight as possible. (Especially with that 9'2" drivers side quarter panel! This is the longest panel I have ever done!) I start with 36 grit paper (basically dirt glued to paper) on a 18 inch long sanding board and go to town. That gets a "rough" cut going. I then get out my 36" long board out and block out the entire panel with 80 grit to get rid of the 36 grit scratches. This straightens out the panel even more since I'm using such a long block, the bigger the block the more area it can level at the same time. I finally reblock the entire panel with 180 grit sand paper to remove the 80 grit scratches. Once the entire panel is blocked out in 180 and there are no remaining low spots, (sometimes the entire panel needs to be coated several times but I lucked out getting it done in one) I mask out the panels and spray a polyester filler on the panel. This helps fill in and minut imperfections and pin holes left in the body filler and is an awesome product to block out perfectly straight with 180 grit once again and then following that with 320 and then prime the entire vehicle. Its a very very timely process but the outcome is outstanding.

I also did some surgery on the tailgate making one really nice tailgate out of two decent tail gates. The outer skin and inner structure of the replacement tailgate were in really good shape but the ribbed portion was all dented up but on his original everything was in opposite shape! So I cut the two apart and had my sand blaster blast the inside and out of the two peices and got the epoxied so there is very little chance of any serious rust coming through again. I then did body work on the seams and weld areas and inbetween the ribs and it is now looking brand new!


After I finish the lift gate I will move onto fixing the lift gate and move my way to the doors, fenders, hood, etc. and getting them in prime and ready for paint!

Heres some pics of the progress. This is of the truck in the filler prime I mentioned in the explanation of straightening the panels.

I didnt get many pictures of that cause there's really not much to see. These are a couple pictures of the truck masked up and primed.








Here is the progress on the tailgate. I tacked it together on a stand and then mocked it up to make sure it lined up well. It was way off so I was able to adjust it and continue welding. It fits exactly like it did before I cut it apart. I then did filler and body work to it to make the section line completely invisible. The inside is currently in final prime.







Here's the truck in the booth prepped and ready to go.









And some color pics. I will get pics of the body all shiny and painted once she can come out of the booth and not get soaked!!