Brought my Dodge back to stock, more or less... (tons of pictures)

Totally not minitruck related, but hell.. this is our off topic forum, right?



I've been unmodifying the body of this truck since I got it. I picked it up in early April and it was all covered in decals and tacky BS. I don't like chrome, decals, or graphics. So here's what I've been up to...





April 2, 2009:

Previous owner's decorations...











April 5, 2009:

Pulled off all the nasty vinyl.









April 15, 2009:

A friend of mine (nateisanas on here) had to bring his truck into the paint shop, so we swapped wheels for a couple weeks. These are his Accuride 22.5s... kinda makes all the shiny crap look decent.









November 17, 2009:

I removed all the purple vinyl. Also got a topper from a guy on Craigslist, but it looks really goofy so I'll probably get a roll-up tonneau cover instead.

 

November 20, 2009:

I installed a Hell Bent Steel 2" leveling kit and took the truck out for a test drive and the rear mainshaft bearing in my NV4500 went out. I pulled the transmission, brought it to the local manual transmission specialist, and started on the bodywork while they got their hands dirty with the rebuild.

I'm planning on installing a set of 37x12.5x16.5 military tires, so right before the transmission went I had picked up a set of 16.5" GM motorhome wheels (thanks to Beefster for the guidance.) I had a local machine shop increase the pilot bore to 3.780 inches, then I media blasted them and had them powdercoated. Unfortunately, the transmission rebuild devoured all the cash I had set aside for tires and rear wheel spacers, so I won't have the tires on for at least a few more weeks.

As for bodywork, I started out by removing the purple bug deflector, spraying the grille with rattlecan bedliner, and pulling off the stainless rocker covers. When I got the stainless panels off, I realized the paint underneath was pretty well destroyed. The base and clear had bubbled and peeled off the substrate, so I'd have to respray the bottoms of the doors.

Additionally, there was a large dent on the bottom of the left door, which had been concealed under the stainless trim. I couldn't access the back of the dent, so my only options were to use a stud welder and slide hammer to back it out or to fill it with fiberglass filler. Unfortunately, I don't have a stud welder and slide hammer. I opted to leave it alone, since I'd rather have a big visible dent on my door than to have an improperly-repaired invisible dent. I'll be sprayed bedliner down from the lowest trim line (about three inches from the bottom of the door,) so it will be covered in a non-reflective finish, which should help to obscure it slightly.

This truck has little dings and dents on almost every panel, and dent repair is a slippery slope. I can picture it now: I'll start fixing the door and next thing I know, I'll have the truck in a thousand pieces doing a restoration.

 

Previous owner used clear silicone on the edges of some of the stainless panels. Silicone sucks to remove... I cut off the bulk of it, then scraped the remainder and thoroughly quenched the area with wax and grease remover:

 

Got my transmission back on Thursday (12/10/09):




Epoxy primer:






Urethane primer:






Guide coat and block sanding:

 

More urethane primer:










I broke out my cooler at this point:




Wetsanding:

 

Sealer:






Nasty eggshell off-white milky basecoat:












Here I am sitting in my isolation chamber where there were no fumes (my Sambar, of course! ) I was just waiting 20-30 minutes between the second layer of basecoat and the first coat of clear.

 

Clear:








Cooler is starting to melt... painting is a slow process:




Unmasked:








Here it is outside a couple days later:




Next up! military 37s, Unity pillar-mount spotlight, blacked out bumpers, bedlinered rockers, tonneau cover, and possibly some new Power Wagon emblems.

Colin

 

you do nice work...simple question tho.. is it a Dodge ?? there aren't any stickers left to tell me what it is.......

 

Should look like this when I'm done, minus the shaved door moldings:

 

They felt overkill, too! Talk about unsprung weight... man, the truck would get mixed up when you hit a bumpy stretch of road. They looked pretty nice, and the effect on the final drive gearing was really nice (brought my RPMs from 2500 down to 2000 at 70 MPH.) The military tires will be very close to the same diameter as those, but they should weigh less. Best of both worlds in that regard, but I'm sure they'll wear out much, much faster than commercial tires.

 

Haha, yeah. I've got too many project cars to not have a vehicle capable of towing a car trailer.

Here's today's work:

 

Maybe. I kinda like the bump strips.

Should look better when I replace all the clearance/marker lights with smoked LEDs. I'm going totally black and white.

 

I was thinking about replacing those 3500/CTD emblems with the "POWER WAGON" emblems from the newer so-called Power Wagon. I ordered a pair of them and they're e-goddamn-normous. I might just remove the emblems all together. Everyone knows a dually is a 3500, and everyone knows a truck that rattles is a diesel. No need to advertise.

You're kinda right about the bump strips on the flares... there's not really any good reason for them to be there, since the flares are urethane. It's not like it will dent if someone hits it with (the top of) their door, and the plastic should provide enough deflection to prevent paint chips. I don't really care if the paint chips on a plastic part, anyway, since it wouldn't rust.

Colin