The Truck of Doom: An Occasional Build Thread

[salans7]

As I mentioned over on the WHYDTYTT thread, I dropped my tired old seat off at the upholstery shop today, supposedly to be finished some time next week. I'd like to be able to bolt it back in as soon as I get it home, so that means the clock is ticking on the rest of the interior work.

With the GTmat and heat barrier down previously, it's time to get the jute in:

That stuff is surprisingly difficult to wrangle into place; it doesn't want to stay put, hence all the tape. Also, I didn't like how much thickness it added to the floor under the gas pedal; I know it will compress somewhat once the vinyl floor is down, but I don't know how much...and when you're sitting behind a 300, every millimeter of pedal travel counts. So I cut away the jute beneath the pedal; if this is a really bad idea, feel free to let me know.

Once the jute was down, I decided to put the flooring in the cabin just to give it a chance to flatten out and conform before doing the proper install:

Or...maybe not. That flooring has to be big enough to cover a supercab. I know the instructions say not to lay it out in the sun, but that's what's going to have to happen if I'm ever going to get it properly positioned.

Have you thought of using sandbags to get the floor to fit around places like the transmission tunnel?

[Dorsai]

Have you thought of using sandbags to get the floor to fit around places like the transmission tunnel?

I haven’t, but that’s a really good idea.

[Dorsai]

Have you thought of using sandbags to get the floor to fit around places like the transmission tunnel?

I haven’t, but that’s a really good idea.

Not a whole lot of progress today, although I did roll the truck out to the driveway to let it start sitting in the sun and softening up the new flooring. Hopefully tomorrow I can start working it into it proper position, such that I can start trimming it on Saturday.

In the meantime I've decided to try my hand at interior plastic painting, starting with the seat belt retractor covers. The rear portion of them (the part that faces the rear window) was doing the chalk thing, but overall they were in much better shape than I originally thought; I expected them to be very brittle coming off, but in fact the plastic was overall quite pliable.

For those of you who have done this before, a question: how much do I sand them down? I've gotten all the chalk off, and am now just generating pink dust. Or do I need to sand it down into the original color, as seems to be happening in spots? Also, do I need to sand the plastic that is in good shape?

As for the paint itself, I've got some SEM Napa Red along with plastic prep and adhesion promoter. The Napa Red is a little more maroon than original, but it matches my aftermarket door panels almost perfectly and will make a nice complement to the otherwise red interior.

[Gary Lewis]

Not a whole lot of progress today, although I did roll the truck out to the driveway to let it start sitting in the sun and softening up the new flooring. Hopefully tomorrow I can start working it into it proper position, such that I can start trimming it on Saturday.

In the meantime I've decided to try my hand at interior plastic painting, starting with the seat belt retractor covers. The rear portion of them (the part that faces the rear window) was doing the chalk thing, but overall they were in much better shape than I originally thought; I expected them to be very brittle coming off, but in fact the plastic was overall quite pliable.

For those of you who have done this before, a question: how much do I sand them down? I've gotten all the chalk off, and am now just generating pink dust. Or do I need to sand it down into the original color, as seems to be happening in spots? Also, do I need to sand the plastic that is in good shape?

As for the paint itself, I've got some SEM Napa Red along with plastic prep and adhesion promoter. The Napa Red is a little more maroon than original, but it matches my aftermarket door panels almost perfectly and will make a nice complement to the otherwise red interior.

Once you have the dead, chalky plastic off you don't have to go any farther. But I like to use a #60 grit paper so things aren't dead smooth 'cause they weren't from the factory. And in my experience, #60 will load up pretty quickly if you don't keep it wet.

Anyway, if the paint pretty well matches your door panels then it should work out good. Ford used way too much red in most of these trucks in my book, so I like going with maroon.

[Dorsai]

Once you have the dead, chalky plastic off you don't have to go any farther. But I like to use a #60 grit paper so things aren't dead smooth 'cause they weren't from the factory. And in my experience, #60 will load up pretty quickly if you don't keep it wet.

Excellent, thanks. And oddly enough, 60 grit is just what I was using...and yes, it loaded up quickly.

Anyway, if the paint pretty well matches your door panels then it should work out good. Ford used way too much red in most of these trucks in my book, so I like going with maroon.

Agreed, and it wasn't just the trucks; the first car I ever bought with my own money was an '89 Tempo, I still have nightmares about that interior! By far, the worst car I ever owned.

 

[Dorsai]

Once you have the dead, chalky plastic off you don't have to go any farther. But I like to use a #60 grit paper so things aren't dead smooth 'cause they weren't from the factory. And in my experience, #60 will load up pretty quickly if you don't keep it wet.

Excellent, thanks. And oddly enough, 60 grit is just what I was using...and yes, it loaded up quickly.

Anyway, if the paint pretty well matches your door panels then it should work out good. Ford used way too much red in most of these trucks in my book, so I like going with maroon.

Agreed, and it wasn't just the trucks; the first car I ever bought with my own money was an '89 Tempo, I still have nightmares about that interior! By far, the worst car I ever owned.

Very little progress today. I did trim off some chunks of the floor I know aren't going to be needed, to make it a little lighter and a little easier to move around in the truck. Also, I took advantage of Shaun's excellent suggestion - I only have one bag of sand, but I have several bags of topsoil I've been putting off applying to the back yard; they make pretty good weights:

I expect by around 3pm tomorrow the interior of that truck should be nice and hot, and the flooring about as flexible as it's likely to get. Hopefully I can get it positioned correctly and start trimming it down to the final size.

[Gary Lewis]

Very little progress today. I did trim off some chunks of the floor I know aren't going to be needed, to make it a little lighter and a little easier to move around in the truck. Also, I took advantage of Shaun's excellent suggestion - I only have one bag of sand, but I have several bags of topsoil I've been putting off applying to the back yard; they make pretty good weights:

I expect by around 3pm tomorrow the interior of that truck should be nice and hot, and the flooring about as flexible as it's likely to get. Hopefully I can get it positioned correctly and start trimming it down to the final size.

I think that's an excellent use for those bags.

I'll bet tomorrow afternoon things will be very pliable. Good luck to you.

[Dorsai]

I think that's an excellent use for those bags.

I'll bet tomorrow afternoon things will be very pliable. Good luck to you.

Since the flooring won't be at its most pliable until around 3pm today, I decided to get started on painting the retractor covers. I have no skill or knowledge whatsoever when it comes to painting things, so I followed the directions on the cans exactly: soap and water wash, then plastic prep, followed by a couple of hits of adhesion promoter, and finally three light coats of Napa Red at 5-10 minute intervals. I think it worked out very well:

Before:

After:

My only complaint is that you can still see the boundary between the good plastic and the plastic I sanded down, but that's not the fault of the paint. And really, who is going to be staring that closely at the back of the covers anyway?

The pieces dried very quickly, too...quick enough that I felt comfortable putting them back in the truck just a little while later:

Although it doesn't look like it here, the covers are almost perfectly matched to the door panels; the doors are a bit glossier, which I think exacerbates what little color difference there is. At any rate I'm judging this experiment a success, and I'll be repainting my kick panels this coming week.

Now to go check on that floor...

[Gary Lewis]

Since the flooring won't be at its most pliable until around 3pm today, I decided to get started on painting the retractor covers. I have no skill or knowledge whatsoever when it comes to painting things, so I followed the directions on the cans exactly: soap and water wash, then plastic prep, followed by a couple of hits of adhesion promoter, and finally three light coats of Napa Red at 5-10 minute intervals. I think it worked out very well:

Before:

After:

My only complaint is that you can still see the boundary between the good plastic and the plastic I sanded down, but that's not the fault of the paint. And really, who is going to be staring that closely at the back of the covers anyway?

The pieces dried very quickly, too...quick enough that I felt comfortable putting them back in the truck just a little while later:

Although it doesn't look like it here, the covers are almost perfectly matched to the door panels; the doors are a bit glossier, which I think exacerbates what little color difference there is. At any rate I'm judging this experiment a success, and I'll be repainting my kick panels this coming week.

Now to go check on that floor...

Matthew - The cover looks great. Well done!

As for the color difference between that and the door panel, I find it amazing what the camera sometimes shows. Things that look the same to the eye don't to the camera, and vice versa. I'm not really sure why that is.

[Dorsai]

Matthew - The cover looks great. Well done!

Thanks! It's amazing what can be done when you RTFM and then actually follow it.

Meanwhile, I'm not quite there yet on the flooring:

The sacks of dirt did a pretty good job of flattening down the folds and creases, but even after letting it sit overnight and into the hottest part of the day, the fit around the transmission tunnel is terrible. I got to wondering if maybe I accidentally ordered the floor for the 4x4 cab, but I checked and my order was 4x2, as it should be.

The other possibility seems (to me) to be that I need to trim material from the front of the floor, not the rear as I've been doing. This flooring is molded to the shape of the cab floor, and the transmission hump (obviously) gets larger the farther forward you go. If there's substantial excess at the front of the mat, then aligning the mat to the front edge of the cab is going to give me a too-big vinyl hump along the entire length of the floor, which might look like the picture above.

So...anyone who has done this before want to weigh in before I start cutting again? I probably get one more substantial cut in the fore-aft direction before it's too late.