Lining the fender wells

Last week while we were spraying so much bedliner, we thought we would go ahead and spray the fender wells on the 70 Beetle we’ve been working on. This is so much better than undercoating because its tougher, looks better and is a true urethane product. We started by sanding the areas with 80 grit paper that we wanted to spray. We then masked off the areas that didnt get liner. Prepped it all up, and sprayed 2 coats of liner on here. Once it was dry, we untapped it and as you can see, it looks great. This car is really starting to look good.

Straightening the curves

Now that the outside of the bedsides are straight, its time for the insides. Same steps here as the outsides. Block out the primer to find the highs and lows, tap the highs down and fill the lows. Since this truck is 45 years old, it has some wear and tear. We are going to go ahead and also fill the pitting that has occurred from years of use along with the spot welds to make the insides of these smooth as silk. Its little things like that that make it a little different than the others.

Bed liner and hood primer

Its a block party!

In the words of Ice Cube, today was a good day. Lots of body work was completed on the quarters, the bottom of the  hood and bottom portion of the bed floor was sprayed with epoxy. Once the epoxy was dry the bed floor was sprayed with bed liner. Tomorrow we plan on flipping the bed floor over, spraying epoxy on it and bed lining it as well. We will also spray the top side of the hood with high build epoxy and I hope to re-prime the bedsides. Its a tall order but we are really close to finishing up the body work on the bedsides.

Let the fun begin

Here you can see we have gotten started on the bodywork on the ’71 C10. This truck will be restoration with a few twists to make it more fun to drive and look better than when it was new. Paul worked on sanding the bottom of the bed in preparation for its epoxy coating followed by Raptor liner bed liner. The top side will also receive the same treatment. While Paul was working on that, Jordan and I was straightening out the bedsides. This truck has seen its days as a work truck. The beds are not in horrible shape but do need quite a bit of straightening out. All the molding holes have already been welded up as well as the side marker lights. These areas must now be straightened. We primed these panels a few weeks ago using PPG’s Vibrance line of high build epoxy. We then blocked the bedsides out with 80 grit sandpaper and started the body work you see here. Once the outsides of these bedsides are straight, we will prime these 2 more times to be sure they are nice and straight. This will ensure a slick paint job that you can also use as a mirror. Cole worked the hood over really good. Cleaning the pits of rust out and sanding it so we can apply epoxy to it as well. We also metal worked the hood out at this time to minimize filler. Tomorrow we plan on spraying some primer and bedliner so stay tuned.

Big day for the Bug

Today was a good day for the Beetle. We knew we would be finished up with our collision work on Thursday this week so we took some time to finish sanding the Bug and started prepping it for paint. This morning we slid it in the booth wiped it all down and started spraying it. After a good coat of sealer, several coats of base coat was sprayed inside and out on the body. We then let that all sit and dry thoroughly until after lunch. Once back, we followed the base with a couple coats of PPG’s high solids clear coat. As you can see it turned out pretty nice. We still have to find fenders and paint them as the original ones are just a bit too far gone to fix and a couple of other little parts need spraying. Once this body is good and dry it will go back on the chassis. We hope that happens late next week.