Fender bender

Jordan has been devoting the past few days to the C10 project. He has the body work on the doors pretty well wrapped up and today started on the fenders. Here again these are new parts but not without issues. The owner wanted to do fill in the turn signal holes that were in the fenders to match the way the quarters were done. This cleans up the look of the truck. It makes the sides look smoother. When that was done, they left the inner lip where the light use to mount and it didn’t look good. Although it will be hard to see and most people would never notice it, we would. So the first part of the day was spent grinding away all the metal that wasn’t needed on the back side of the fenders. He then started blocking out the front side to bring the high and low spots out. Once those were found he started straightening.  A hammer and dolly were uses to minimize the amount of filler. It looks like a little too much heat got to the panel when the patches over the signal holes were filled because the fenders were a little warped around the area where the lights use to be. Its hard not to get any warping when welding sheet metal because today’s metal is so thin. This is why there is just a large patch at the fronts of the fenders.  He should have these finished up tomorrow and the goal will be to get these and the doors in their first coats of primer by Thursday.

C10 in progress

Over the past couple of weeks we have been plugging along on the C10 project. Repairs on the cab are moving along. The firewall is pretty smooth, work on the cab continues and work on the doors has begun. Although these are new doors they still came with a few dents that needed attention. We blocked them out to find the low spots and high spots then straightened them out. We will be applying our high build primer over these doors in the next day or so and they will receive another blocking followed by a final prime with regular urethane primer. Once that happens we will have 2 more panels ready for paint.

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.

What a Challenge

The new paint job on this 1971 Challenger is all wrapped up and ready to go. We had only a few minor places to repair on this one before spraying a nice base coat clear coat to bring it back to life. Once the paint had a few days to cure, the factory stripes were installed and really make all the difference in the world. It looks like a different car. The green paint with the green side stripes were at first a little questionable but now that they are on, Wow! What a difference. I really like the look of the color combination. Once the black vinyl top is on and a few bits of chrome here and there, this will be one sharp car.  The owner will be bringing it back for some grand finale pictures when its all done.

I’m coming home

Today, Carolina Girl went home. The final touches were performed which included the installation of the front and back glass, emblems and a final detail.  Keep your eyes open for this one. As nice as it turned out, he will be driving it when the weather permits.