johnwestmartin

Hey!

So some of you helped me put my engine back together. After three weekends, I finally got it running BEAUTIFULLY. Just found a WICKED deal on shorty headers so I'll have of the mechanical aspects pretty sound.

Now I want to turn my focus toward the aesthetics...



My truck is medium calypso green and all of the body paint is in pretty great condition (minus dents / dings), but it seems like someone did some haphazard bondo job on the rear fenders (rust issue I'm sure). Then to mask that, they painted a navy blue strip about six inches wide across the whole lower part of the body.


My thoughts:

First and foremost, I want to sand the bondo completely down and blend it back into the body shape. Do the best I can for other dents and body work.

Then, I want to repaint the dark blue it the same color as the rest of my truck.


So, should I sand it down to the original color and then do touch up? Or sand it all the way down to the bare metal and then primer / paint.

Is it possible to feather the new paint into the old paint seamlessly? Should I give the entire truck a quick spritzing and just go heavier on the lower portion to ensure a blend?

Clear coat? Do I need to do the whole truck again? Should I?

Lastly, how many quarts / gallons of paint should I need? What's the going rate for that (roughly)?

I'm a carpenter / remodeler so feathering and manipulating that "just noticeable difference" is my forte. I just need to know if it's a futile effort and it's just easier to pay the four grand for a respray. Unless they could respray just the section that I wanted to do. Lots of questions...

Any advice on this would be a great help, I tried searching but haven't found a similar enough problem. Some folks wanted to paint over their two tone, but nothing like this.


Thanks so much,


John

94FordI6

The bondo over your rear wheel wells is there for a reason, there's probably little metal and mostly bondo, trust me I've been there. If you don't clean all the rust out it'll start to bubble your nice new paint job in a year or two, I also experienced this first hand. Lastly you can cut a bunch out and put a patch panel in but good luck keeping everything straight on such a large body panel.

I plan on getting a southern box for my truck, the only down side will be getting the paint to match the rest of the truck.

Chris_1

iTrader: (1)

You'll never blow that paint in seamlessly - it will show. Especially because the first place anybody looks for body work is the wheel wells,
I wouldn't recommend spending the money on a paint job unless the bodywork is done properly and perfectly first.
Better to leave a patch paint mark than a shiny flaw. IMHO