Prep and more paint!

I predict... More sanding... and much more paint in our future! hah! It's pretty amazing how much sanding and prep goes into the perfect paint job.. But one things for sure.. Dad and the guys at Horvath Hotrod know! And they have the sore hands to prove it!

Over the past month, the truck has been sanded down, primed, sanded down, bondo'd, primed, sanded, pounded on, bondo'd again, sanded, sent for first coat, and then sanded again before getting another coat!! And you know what.. its all worth it! The truck looks amazing.. And its not done yet!! :)

Here's Dad sanding the hood cowl vents on the truck.. each blade is hand sanded to remove metal sputter from the original manufacturing process.

Here's Dad sanding down the back side of the cab.. "Watch his magic sanding hands!" He sands so fast all you see is a blur!

Here is the radiator core support, primed and sanded.. Its hard to tell from the picture, but this is probabably in the best shape its been in 50 years!

Dad sanding down the door jam.. Its all about the detail! Joe and Dad joke about sanding.. You sand on a spot, you move on, then come back to the same spot and find something you missed that needs more sanding.. It just takes time!

Here's a close up on the cab.. as you can see, the firewall isn't being sanded because its already been lightly touched up and painted again before the cab was bolted back on the chassis.

The truck looks pretty cool with the flat red color (the sanded section) against the shiny red coat.

Truck taped off and ready to be repainted.

Dad wiping one of the front fenders down with Prep-sol.. They use this solvent to remove any remaining dust or debris from the panels before they're painted. Contamination can lead to small pock marks in the paint or what they refer to as fisheyes..

The calm before the storm.. All of the truck parts are in the paint booth ready to be painted!! Its magic time!

Eric painting one of the doors on the truck..

You're probably looking at the door thinking.. That looks sweet, but that doesn't look like the same color that the cab was painted with!! Well it is, but what you're seeing is only the base color.. Eric will later spray in the different metal flakes and then a clear coat to give it the color we saw on the cab earlier..

Here is the front hood being painted..

Once Eric has the first coat of paint on the entire hood, he'll spray rhino lining under the hood to make it stronger and should give the hood a clean appearance.

Hood looks great! Thats a lot of metal to paint!

Here is a great shot of the rear corner of the truck.. you can see the back and roof is now painted. It looks great!

The roof of the truck was in great shape to begin with and didn't require any metal work that I'm aware of.. The same could not be said regarding the gutters around the cab.. They were cleaned up and re-sealed early on in the project. They look brand new.. ok better than they looked when the truck was new from what I've heard.

There you have it! The first base coat is finished! I can't wait to see how they turn out after the metal flakes are applied and the clear coat goes on!

More Sanding!

Dad and the guys at the shop have been busy sanding the past few days so that they can paint the front end by the end of the weekend.

Here is Dad finishing the cleanup on the radiator support braces..

Dad sanding the hood of the truck.. Any imperfections not sanded down or smoothed out will shop up when painted.

Joe tapping out a slight crease found in the front hood.

In order to fully pull the crease out of the truck Joe used a metal shaper.. This tool is awesome.. It heats the metal up which allows it to shrink or expand depending on how you work the metal.. In this case Joe was able to shrink the metal which reduced the crease in the metal.

Joe's son Eric applied a thin coat of bondo to finish up the hood prep.. Ready for paint!

More paint and progress

Now that the cab is enjoying a nice new coat of paint, its time to start putting things back together on the chassis! Today was a busy day at the shop! :-)

The cab and firewall looks awesome next to the engine..

I love how the firewall turned out.. It adds a custom touch to the truck and hey its practical too! Just enough room to work around the engine!

This is one of the inner fenders that will be mounted in the engine compartment.

While Joe's son Eric was busy prepping the fenders and a few door pieces for paint, Dad set out to work on the radiator core supports so the radiator will fit just perfectly after its all painted and installed.

First coat of paint on the cab!

This weekend we got to see the cab of the truck painted with the new color we picked out! We were really happy with how it turned out.. It'll be a deep redish-maroon color.. Check out the pictures!

Cab sitting in the paint booth..

Checking out the color.. The paint has dark red metal flakes in it that really look awesome when you shine the light on it..

Interior shot of the drivers side door jam..

close up of the front of the cab and smooth firewall

I caught Jen looking through the doorway of the cab.. She liked seeing how the truck is starting to shine!

Glen, Zach and Dustin stopping for a quick generation shot..

This is under the cab of the truck.. its hard to tell but we've sprayed the underside with rhino lining a rust inhibitor you usually see in the bed of trucks.. it also should help slightly with insulation..

Here is the view from the passenger side of the truck looking in.

The floor and step of the cab looks pretty good! When we first started working on the truck, this floor was mostly rusted through..

Rear drivers side door jam.. This has been cleaned up a lot and looks really good now.

The inside of the cab looks amazing.. The dash has been cleaned up (unused knobs removed, etc.)

Headliner will eventually be covered in leather so it wasn't sprayed

Jen, Logan and Zach hanging out by the truck.. can't wait to see the rest of the truck painted!

Latest progress on the truck

The truck has been taken apart again! :)

The cab of the truck has been removed so Joe could finish the firewall (to make the adjustments necessary to fit the AC, and so he can make any additional modifications to the cab before we paint. Also, the chassis has been wrapped so it doesn't get any overspray or debris on it.. We probably should have done that months ago.. but hey.. we've never done this before.. but we're learning! :)

This week the doors and cab will have one last sanding to make sure everything looks good, then it will be ready for paint. Next up, is the bed of the truck.. We need to finish the fenders, mount the roll pan bumper and lights and secure the bed mounts (currently the bed mounts are too far back leaving too large of a gap between the bed and the cab of the truck).

Once the bed is ready, the wires can be run so we can do what we've all been waiting for.. to fire up the engine!!

The truck looks pretty funny with the cab and front section of the truck removed..

All wrapped up! Is it christmas already? Oh thank you Santa!!

Hand sanded, to make sure the truck is free of any low or uneven spots..

This is what the new firewall looks like. Wedges were put in the center to allow room behind the firewall for the AC unit and hoses.

Close up of the new firewall design. We still have plenty of room for the engine!

Here you can see the back side of the firewall with the wedge in the center. Also above you can see where the dash was cut in an attempt to fit the AC (removing the hinge for the glove box. Now with the new modifications to the firewall we decided to put the glove box hing back in place so we can still have a shallow but somewhat functional glove box.

Another view of the inside of the firewall behind the dash. If you look closely you'll see a bolt that Joe welded to the inside of the firewall to mount the AC unit.. He did it this way, so we didn't have to mess up the smooth firewall seen on the engine side of the firewall.

Dash has been sanded and the steering wheel has been covered to prevent damage.

Inside of the door jams have been sanded and a light coat of bondo has been applied to clean it up.

The doors look nice and smooth.. This upcoming week Joe is going to work on the edges to make sure they're consistent and smooth.. Any flaw's not taken care of now will show up during final paint.

The rear fenders had to be extended down to the steps.. The cuts and welds you see in the picture are to correct the geometry of the inside edge to make it look original and to make sure all of the edges and lines are smooth.

The inside edge of the fender has been shaped and smoothed to align with the hood.


Here is the front end after it was removed from the chassis. There is still some work that is needed to the fenders where they hook into the cab that will need to be done this week, but its really coming along!

We have Air Conditioning!!! Now thats cool! ;-)

One of the largest obstacles we've had to overcome is how to get the airconditioning unit under the dash.. Because we replaced and modified the original firewall (to make room for the Doug Herbert 454 big block engine), we lost the spacing we had to fit the AC behind the dash.. We've discussed cutting the firewall out, cutting the dashboard out, extending the dashboard, you name it.. But what Joe came up with was a new firewall design which allowed enough space to fit the AC unit without taking away from the look of the engine compartment. He made this possible by cutting out the inside edges of the firewall and welding in new panel recesses.. See previous blog: Prep for AC, Radiator, and Fuel Door

The new AC unit is actually pretty large.. And wouldn't you know it.. not that flexible. :) In this picture you can see the masking tape marking the section of firewall Joe had to cut for the access we needed.

It aaaaaalmost fits.. but not quite.. There are just too many obstacles to get around.

With the modifications made to the firewall, Joe was able to get the unit to fit in place! Whoohoo!!

AC unit welds to the inside of the firewall so we don't have to run bolts through our nice smooth firewall engine compartment.

Fender work

Here are a few pictures of the progress being made on the truck.. Joe at Horvath Hotrods has been finishing up the fender work on the truck (fixing a few gaps between body panels and betwen the front fender and the hood of the truck). Its coming along really well!

Creating the new edge.. maintaining a nice 1/4" gap along the edge of the hood.

Welding the new edge to the existing fender.

Blending the new weld with the fender.. Looks great right? After its sanded down further and a with a touch of paint.. it'll look awesome.!

Touching up the passenger side front fender edge.

Joe had to cut the rear fender and re-weld it to continue the curved edge down to the step.

The truck is really coming along!