"Rocky" - 1981 F250 Restoration

It's basically all rustoleum - primer, color, and clear coat. Nothing special. I think I have a dozen cans of each. Which means it's not a $50 paint job. But it's also still way cheaper than even the most entry level Maaco gig...

You're going too far with the paint, I think.   You say hunt truck, so if you want it red, scuff it, paint it.  Then wet sand to get the majority of the dusties, trash, etc out of it.  If you sand through, call it character.    In a project like this, I bet at this point, the original beige is looking like a pretty good color.     Just touch ups instead of entire repaint?

My truck was apparently Maaco'd at some point in dark blue.   Over a disintegrating two tone Explorer scheme.   I would love to have that Explorer theme back, but that's quite a bit of work.   Still trying to figure out how I might bring back some hint of it's former glory.   I like a survivor/rat kinda vibe, so I have plenty of options.  And mine will never be a full restoration - just not what I want.

If you are serious about a hunt truck, then don't sweat the details - scuff it and paint it red.   Heck you could probably paint it safety red industrial enamel with a roller and thinned paint and it look pretty good.  $50 for a gallon would likely be cheaper than the spray cans.   And I'd skip the primer altogether.   Use the factory finish as the primer coat.  

Your idea is looking good though.  I remember as a younger man thinking that about the only color F100s were was red/white.  So many red/white F100s.   But they look dang good now.  And any 2 tone is great in this age of white/silver/black trucks

Gsmblue wrote

What paint and where from? I have been gagging at the cost of rattle cans..

Me too.

Check your signature.  It's supposed to be Elyza right?  

I'll bet you continue the process of painting as you get better at it.  

rcarlisle wrote

You're going too far with the paint, I think.   You say hunt truck, so if you want it red, scuff it, paint it.  Then wet sand to get the majority of the dusties, trash, etc out of it.  If you sand through, call it character.    In a project like this, I bet at this point, the original beige is looking like a pretty good color.     Just touch ups instead of entire repaint?

Practice.

The bulk of what I do is to learn things and acquire new skills. The truck itself is a by-product, not the goal. It's a good frame and good engine but let's face it, in Colorado a 4x2 carbureted rig is always going to be limiting. But I had fun and learned a ton. It'll serve me for a year or two then I'll almost certainly swap it for a 4x4 of some kind.

I've never wet-sanded anything before, nor buffed a clearcoat. Now I know how.

Good points.   I'm learning that if I keep wetsanding my paint, it gets smoother and smoother - I'm on 800 grit last time on parts of it.   Started with 320 and 400.   Then 600 and 800.   Might actually put the buffer on it next time and see if I can have a shiny spotty paint job.  

Or I may do as you and LEARN more.  For me it will be about patina paint.  It will go out of style, but I will still like it most likely.   I have found that a Rustoleum 2X color I have on hand is pretty dang close to the respray blue that is on the truck.  Or I may try to mist on some metallic blues of the original two tone to give it just a hint of that color.  

Fun things about these trucks is that you can learn so much and not really destroy the value.   I like my 4 x 2 and try to NOT drive it in rain or foul weather.   I have a fully insured newer FWD car that gets bad weather duty.

I have a theory that these trucks don't rust so bad if you aren't flinging a bunch of wet crap up under them.  Mine is about 95% solid with only the smallest spots in the cab corners.   There is a really solid truck I want to buy in tow that hasn't been driven in years.  Just sitting in a driveway.   And it has no rust I can see.  It's that sky blue, so rust would show easily.  

Keep learning.  I'm certainly following this thread to learn as well.  

Yeah absolutely. I think I have an additional advantage on the rust in that while Colorado has its challenges (harsh weather, high altitudes, super slick mud) one thing we have very little of is road salt.  Hail is more of an issue than rust, to be honest, but one nice thing about these old trucks is they were made of stout stuff. I don't think Rocky ever saw a garage, let alone spent time in one, but there's not a dent on the hood...

rcarlisle wrote

You're going too far with the paint, I think.   You say hunt truck, so if you want it red, scuff it, paint it.  Then wet sand to get the majority of the dusties, trash, etc out of it.  If you sand through, call it character.    In a project like this, I bet at this point, the original beige is looking like a pretty good color.     Just touch ups instead of entire repaint?

My truck was apparently Maaco'd at some point in dark blue.   Over a disintegrating two tone Explorer scheme.   I would love to have that Explorer theme back, but that's quite a bit of work.   Still trying to figure out how I might bring back some hint of it's former glory.   I like a survivor/rat kinda vibe, so I have plenty of options.  And mine will never be a full restoration - just not what I want.

If you are serious about a hunt truck, then don't sweat the details - scuff it and paint it red.   Heck you could probably paint it safety red industrial enamel with a roller and thinned paint and it look pretty good.  $50 for a gallon would likely be cheaper than the spray cans.   And I'd skip the primer altogether.   Use the factory finish as the primer coat.  

Your idea is looking good though.  I remember as a younger man thinking that about the only color F100s were was red/white.  So many red/white F100s.   But they look dang good now.  And any 2 tone is great in this age of white/silver/black trucks

X2 on too far for a hunt truck.
I think if I was using the paint you are I would have gone with roller & paint brush for the places the roller could not get to. Wet sand & buff should come out pretty good. Check Youtube for    roller paint jobs.
Only time you need to prime is over bare metal you do not need to prime over the the color base that is on the truck.

Heck I did not do 2 stage on my 2 color (red & white) as it was way more work than I wanted to do. Painting it 3 times = red-1 white-2 clear-3 and if not done right would need to wet sand and buff NOT ME!
Mine is single stage and no wet sanding & buffing and it looks good. I did use auto paint.

Then again I knew how to do this so did not need the learning curve you did.
Dave ----

I have repainted motorcycles before.   My thought is that the makers put way more effort into making the factory paint stick than I ever could, so smooth it out and paint over that.   We did prime/seal on one.   Other I did in back yard straight to paint after scuffing it.   Same with auot paint - if it's stable, then scuff/smooth and put new paint on it.   Prime if you need to smooth out a base or whatever.  Some of the fancier colors are pretty translucent.  

I had a 92 Dodge Dakota that was the Electric blue.   Needed paint, so I was trading out paint for race car lettering.  Told the dude to prime it all in one color or he'd be sorry.  He thought he was smarter than me and would spot it in with primer and then paint.   He painted it 2 times, THEN decided to prime it all in one color.  

Solids are pretty easy usually though.  I hope the white you have covers the red without bleeding through and shifting to a pink or muddy white.  

You have to watch some solids too.
The Candy Apple Red on my truck is see through, mostly clear, and why I primed the whole truck.
Because I painted the inside and inner fenders I could see it would take many coats to cover.
Dave ----

Again, it's not the truck that's getting painted. It's the owner, who's learning to do it. "Too far" isn't about the metal, it's the point where I mastered it. Y'all are just worried I'm going to dominate the Truck of the Month club

Today's project is unrelated. I still have the truck up on jack stands from replacing my left rear shock. I was going to leave it that to have more clearance as I replaced the rear fuel tank, but as I reported earlier, my receiver hitch is in the way... and one of my jack stands is under it.

But I can't remove THAT until I put the wheel back on, and what's stopping that is my studs. A bunch of them were in bad shape, but I'm not in a position to replace them right now so I've been running a cleaning tap on them. That's slow going (if you do it right but also aren't a machinist with all the toys) so I've only done 5 so far. If we get a little more sun I'm going to try to finish the rest and get it back down on its wheels.

Always something impeding the march of progress.    

Even with a mill and a lathe it would be slow going as I wouldn't use either of them on the studs.  It would take too much work to remove each one and chuck it in the lathe.  And if you have it out go ahead and replace it.

Anyway, I hope you get it done easily and soon.  

Yeah slow and steady wins... something something, right? Anyway I'm sure you know the drill. I remove as much surface rust as I can with a Dremel and brass wire wheel, thread on the thread chaser, dribble some tapping/cutting oil, three turns on, a turn or two back. Repeat. Clean with brake cleaner to remove all oil and debris. My tap is a cheap-o but since I only have 8 studs to do (left rear) and may never use it again, it's doing the job OK. Just tedious.

But it works. I can (mostly) thread the studs on (most of the way) by hand now, and not have to impact them literally all the way on! :)

Set a goal today of getting the truck back off the jack stands so I could pull the receiver. Couldn't find four of the 8 lug nuts though! For the life of me I don't know what I did with them but we've had some snow so maybe I accidentally shoveled them into the grass. It should be 50 tomorrow so I've got myself a "garden hose and research project".

In the meantime I did a bit more paint work. Pretty badly, I had a bunch of orange peel spots where the primer didn't adhere because I did a lot less prep. I'll clean those up and throw on a second coat tomorrow. It was worth the rush though. It's supposed to be warm this weekend but also windy, which makes painting (in your driveway) either difficult or madness (depending on how determined or mad you are). You don't need 3 guesses as to which I am, but maybe I can at least get a few more coats applied. More snow coming next week...

Yep, I know the drill.  And slow & steady will eventually win - in this case useable studs.  But lots of times there's a dance involved - two steps forward and one back, two forward and one back.  (I took one back yesterday so I'm hoping today will involve two forward.)  So maybe your search for the lug nuts is the step back?

Or, maybe the orange peel is a step back?  Did you have a day with four forward?  

Not four forward... but it was a productive day I suppose.

The orange peel was my fault, I was just being sloppy prepping the door and front panels. "Just wait for summer to paint it" doesn't work for me - I have other projects, and by summer will have other obligations. And I have things that "lack of paint" is holding back, like installing bed rail trim and other bits. But I'm perpetually fighting the weather here. Colorado is a tease - we'll have snow and cold but then a few sunny 55-65 days in between that actually make for decent paint days. (I don't have the luxury of doing this in a garage.)

Since I was running out of time and knew I'd have a busy work week plus snow next week I figured what the heck, I'll give her a quick sand/wash and throw on some primer, see what it does. It wasn't bad, but I had some specs where I didn't do enough cleaning - probably tree sap or other contaminant. They're easy fixes though. I just hit them with a small wire wheel on the dremel, cleaned them again, then put on two more coats of primer. This time I got good coverage and a smooth coat. I sanded that (more or less) smooth, then got some color on it today.

No photo though because I finally sat on my phone one too many times and it gave up the ghost. Time for a new one.

Meanwhile I also got the fourth (left front) shock and coil replaced so I can cross suspension off my list (til I find a new issue). Next thing is rear electrical: trailer plug, license plate, and lights.

What's the latest word on tail light bulb holders? I know these can be hard to find. It looks like from the MPC mine would be E1TZ-13A409-A, which is 81/83 F100/F350 "WIRING ASSY (REAR LAMP CONNECTOR". But I don't need the whole harness. It's just my reverse lamps that are the problem. (Brake lights are fine.) The previous owner didn't have bulbs in either socket and they're full of... something, I honestly don't know what. It looks like some wasps threw a party with tree sap as the punch. I tried cleaning it out with a pick and it's just not coming out.

I see Dorman has this 85898 part which is a "multi-purpose light socket". It looks like it might fit the housing and I know that despite it being 3-wire for the turn signal bulbs I can just short two of the wires to make it a stop lamp holder. But... it does seem hacky... LMC is back-ordered on the part. Does nobody else make a replacement for this?

painting while there is still snow on the ground! well I guess that's one way to keep the paint from drying too fast and going grainy

You know what they say "why it there never enough time to do the job right the first time but time to do the job a second time"?

What dose that back up light socket look like?
Have you look on the hooks at the parts stores?
I dont see the need to get a 3 wire socket and mickey mouse the wiring for it to come back and bite you some day (see first line above).

On the trailer light harness they make a harness that tees in between the frame harness & tail light harness.
Check out Etrailer.com for trailer parts & supplies. No cutting into the trucks harness.
Most come with a flat 4 plug but my trucks & trailer use a flat 7 light plug so I cut the flat 4 off and ran the wires into the flat 7 plug.
I also have 12 volt power & trailer brakes on my flat 7 plug.
If I need to pull a trailer with flat 4 I carry an adapter from the trucks flat 7 to the trailers flat 4.

Dave ----

Some paint progress. Overall I'm happy with this as a learning experience. I'm getting a fairly good surface where I'm putting in the effort. This is now at clear-coat 1 so the surface finish will improve as I get the final coats on and leveled/polished. The only big goof was an area where I didn't let the color coat flash off enough (it was shaded by a tree branch of all things) and got a lot of wrinkling in the color layer. I'm not going to bother fixing it totally, just sand it level with the rest learn from it and move on.

It's been an interesting experience. Honestly the single hardest thing was just working outside. The conditions are SO variable with the temp of the metal (I have an infrared thermometer) varying from 50 (I don't paint below that) to almost 100 even on a cold day, because of the sun. And the slightest breeze makes it super hard to get an even coat on anything - and this is Colorado, there's ALWAYS at least a slight breeze. If I had a garage to work on this in I bet I could get much better results on a future project. (Speaking of weather, it was 67F yesterday, it's 52F today and it's going to snow starting tonight! It'll probably be another 3-4 days before I can paint again.)





For the light bulb sockets I'm referring to the reverse/back-up lamp. My left side isn't great but is probably salvageable. My right side is a hot mess, it looks like it was filled with tree resin, somebody rattled a screwdriver around to clean it out (and bend all the connections), then it was refilled. Must be some kind of story here but I really just want to replace the socket:




I didn't have any luck sourcing the exact part number here - I assume it was sold as a whole harness. And I didn't like the look of the Dorman option. But as luck would have it I just found this listing on ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/133895268666

It looks like the exact thing I need and the price was right so I went ahead and ordered two. We'll see how they work out.

Good job! Tough conditions to paint in.

That bulb you ordered looks a little better than the one in your truck!