New Paint

June 2001

Background | Choices | Preparation | Paint | Reassembly | Cost | Postscript

Background

The old paint jobs was really starting to show its age and the hood was really faded, but I was having a hard time justifying a new paint job for a trail vehicle. It wasn't until I started preparation for the new angle-iron rock rails that I had a good excuse. After pulling all the fake diamond plate off, the mess underneath became visible. There was a lot of surface rust and many holes. Removing the rust took it down to bare metal. Now I must paint it! ;-)

Choices

I was having a really hard time deciding what color I wanted, so I used Adobe Photoshop to produce photos with many different possibilities. It was great being able to vizualize each option, but that didn't make the choice any easier.

See the possiblities...

Preparation

I wanted to have an inexpense paint place do the actual painting, but I planned to do the prep work myself to keep costs down. I started by removing everything I could that would not be painted. I also wanted easy access to the dash so it could be painted too. This involved removing the roll cage and most of the switches, knobs, and guages.

I also sanded down the hood where it was blistered and rough. The rocker panels were pretty banged up, so I tried my hand at some body work. I got "Cuz" from Napa Auto Parts. It is a lot like Bondo. It took me a while to get used to using it. It sets up really fast, so I could only do small sections at a time. Between batches, I sanded it flat and marked the areas that still needed built up. After many hours of filling and sanding, I thought I had it ready to paint.

Paint

After calling around a bit, I decided to go with Maaco. The owner of the local shop, Mike, was really great and spent a lot of time with me figuring out what I wanted. In the process, he nicely but firmly told me my that I shouldn't quit my job and start doing body work. ;-) He showed me what I did wrong and offered to redo it all for $100. I decided I had learned enough for this round and agreed to have him do the work.

I had a very hard time deciding on the color, but I finally left the Jeep with Mike with the instructions to paint it "cranberry". Two hours later I called him back and changed the order to "Corvette Yellow". He just laughed and said that he had expected me to change my mind at least once. ;-)

I got the jeep back a week later and it looked great! The paint job wasn't that great, but it was much better than what it had before. The quality was about what I expected for an inexpensive paint job. There was lots of overspray, and anything that I hadn't removed was just masked, even the marker lights that I had loosened and asked them to remove. Oh, well. You get what you pay for...

Reassembly

Once I got it home, I began putting everything back together. I started with the dash. I had removed all the lights and knobs, so I decided to replace them all with nice new ones from 4 Wheel Drive Hardware. They look great. I had a hard time getting one of the heater cables removed, but I finally got it. I now have everthing working including several gauges, lights, and knobs that have been broken since I got it. While I was at it, I tie-wrapped all the wires up so they weren't tangled in the pedals and snaring small animals. ;-)

Before putting most of the trim parts back on, I painted the metal ones black and scrubbed the plastic ones so they kinda look clean.

Before and After Shot

Cost

Postscript