The first truck, the Red Nissan Titan, was the slightly worse off of the two. You can see in the first picture the Titan with it’s face removed and the damaged front bumper and end cap in the second and third picture. The end caps, the damaged left one shown in the third picture, slots over the ends of the bumper to provide a bit of body color to the otherwise chrome front bumper.

The last picture is of a Ford F250, also with it’s face removed. Like the Nissan Titan above, it too simply needs a replacement bumper. This truck, though, was damaged less than the Titan. While the damage is visible to the naked eye, trying to get a picture of the damaged area proved to be an exercise in frustration and futility.

Both of these trucks are quick and easy repairs that shouldn’t take us long to complete. That is one of the nice things about these full size trucks … they can take a quite a lick and shrug it off with little more than a scratch.

The owners were very happy with the repair and excited to get their car back. Another quality repair … another happy customer.  I say call it good.

The floor pans are installed and the little bit of rust on the right side quarter panel has been removed and replaced with new pieces.

There is still quite a bit of work to be done, but not as much as there was back in August when I first saw the car.

The owner of this truck is the same customer that owns the 1971 Custom-Rod I worked on a couple of years ago. Where that truck was built, to the best of my abilities, to be perfect, this truck will be built, to the best of my abilities, to be the opposite of that truck. The worse it looks the better the owner will like it.

Scott is starting his rat rod project with a good foundation. This truck is, as you see it here, basically has he bought it, complete with the flat and faded or missing paint and a general look of disrepair. But looks can be deceiving because the truck has the full rat rod treatment under the skin. This truck features a fresh Chevrolet 383 small block, turbo 350 transmission with an upgraded shift kit, 3.73 rear end, and for that little extra something, it is dropped 3 inches. Oh, and everything works … right down to the cigarette lighter. I have personally seen this truck simply boil the back tires, both of them, for the better part of block.

So, what can the JMC AutoworX shop offer? We are going to smooth some of the welding … not smoothed as to make ready for paint, but rather to make the welds look like they have been there a long time. We are also going to spray some good old-fashioned red primer on the truck in such a way that it looks like the paint has faded away to reveal the primer underneath.

The owner asked us for suggestions and we have been talking around the shop about adding a bit of character to the truck in the form of a bullet hole … but that might be going a bit too far. I will have to run that one by the owner first.

In any case, by the time we are done with this truck it will look like warmed over death. It’s going to be great!

The first picture shows the car after the application of the base coat. The base coat is the color layer, the part of the paint process that actually contains the pigments that give your car its color. The base coat dries to a nearly flat finish as you can see.

The last two pictures show what happens after the application of the clear coat. The paint suddenly comes alive with the depth clarity that you expect in an automobile finish. It is the clear that gives the finish it’s pop, the gloss and depth that makes automobile finishes what they are.

Tomorrow we will put the mirrors, handles and molding back on it, get it cleaned up, and this car will be ready to go home.

The first three pictures show the initial step when preparing a painted vehicle for new paint … you start by sanding the area(s) to be painted to roughen up the paint so the new paint has something to stick to. The third photo shows an area on the front door where I have already completed the sanding process.

The fourth and fifth photo shows the damaged area sprayed with primer to seal and protect the sanded area and to give the new paint a smooth surface  to bite into.

The fourth picture makes it look like we were spraying primer all over the place, but in reality the splotches above are where I was adjusting the gun by spraying primer on the masking paper to check for pattern and flow.

The last picture shows that I am not nearly as wild with the gun as the fourth picture suggests.

After the shell was masked we shot the entire thing with a coat of epoxy primer for maximum adhesion. The epoxy primer, as the name implies, is a very “sticky” primer that binds like glue to the surface and provides a solid base for the following layers.

The last three pictures show the shell being painted in a brilliant white to match the owners truck. We’ll let that dry overnight then it will be ready to go back on the truck tomorrow.

Blocking a car is when the person doing the sanding, that would be Jordan and I, use a long flexible block with a bit of sticky back sandpaper stuck to it. The block allows the sandpaper to really dig in and remove filler from the high spots while at the same time skating over the low spots. This allows the bodywork to be made perfectly uniform so that the paint, when applied, looks it’s absolute best.

The first picture shows me using a file sander to get the rough contours right. I always finish the sanding by hand, but the file sander is a good way to get it close without all the time and effort of hand sanding.

The imperfections we are trying to remove are so small you can see them. At least I can’t. But I can feel them. The second pictures shows me checking the progress, feeling for high and low places so I know where additional sanding, or more filler, is required. The third picture shows that more sanding was required.

While I was working on the roof, Jordan had the unenviable task of sanding on the dash. The technique used on the dash is the same as any other panel on the car … the difference is you are are scrunched up in the car, making the sanding a lot more difficult.

We didn’t get finished blocking the car today, but without the having to deal with the ringing phone and other distractions, we got a lot more done in three hours than I would have guessed.

The first three photos show the frame as it arrived. It had been sandblasted, to remove all the rust and gunk that had collected on the frame over these many years, which left it with a slightly rough texture and a light gray color. Pictures two and three show a couple of the repairs that Kelly and his son over at Murphy Rod & Custom made. There was a bit of rust that was cut out and repaired and someone in the past had hacked the front part of the frame up with a cutting torch. You can sort of see the repairs because of the shiny places where the welds were made.

Because of the shiny places from the repairs, I had to do a little preparation before the Chassis Saver is applied. As tough as Chassis Saver is, and as well as it binds to metal, the surface needs to be rough so the material can get it’s teeth into it. You can see me applying an etching primer to the repairs in the fourth photo. The etching primer will help protect the metal from rust, but it will also give the Chassis Saver something to latch onto.

Photos five and six are of me just getting started applying the Chassis Saver. The Chassis Saver appears to be a glossy black, but it will flatten out to a semi-gloss as it dries. While Chassis Saver is available in both semi-gloss and gloss finish, the customer chose the semi-gloss finish for this car.

Oh … and pay no attention to my bottom hanging out in the photos. I swear, extra-large painting uniforms are getting smaller every year.

The rest of the photos are of the painted frame and suspension pieces. I like to do these types of jobs, jobs that use Chassis Saver, on a Friday because Chassis Saver takes a long time to cure. By painting the frame on Friday it can hang in the booth and cure over the weekend and not be in the way or delay other projects. By Monday it will be fully cured so we can take the frame down and prop it on the floor out of the way somewhere until Kelly is ready to come get it.

Get a good look at the frame now if you are interested. The next time you see it … there will be a car sitting on it.

The only reason we could turn the truck this fast is all the stars aligned. The damage was minor, all the replacement parts were in stock, and there was enough hands in the shop that that day so that we could make it happen. It’s not something that we normally could do.

In any case, this Tahoe is none the worse for wear after the run-in with the animal and is ready for delivery to it’s owner.

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