Truck Paint Story

Truck Paint Story - Aug-Sept 2005

My 1997 Kenworth has 820,000 miles on it and the last couple of years it was starting to look a little ragged. After spinning it around in the road 3 times at 70 miles and hour and rebuilding the sleeper, hitting a deer head on (twice, once the right headlight, grill and A/C core, and once the left headlight and fender), a semi-truck hitting it in the left fender while parked in Salt Lake City, a speeding pickup hitting the right fender in Houston, a chain breaking and snapping back into the grill, the paint fading badly and general wear and tear - it was time to paint it.

Trouble was I didn’t want to pay $5000 to $6000 to have it painted. I wanted to use the money to do some other things to the truck so..... I decided to do it myself. There were several times during the paint process that I would have serious doubts about this decision. End result is I painted the truck and made repairs for around $3500 (not including motorcycle box), estimated cost of having this done $13,000+. Saved $9500 dollars.

Tired of carrying my motorcycle in the open behind the sleeper. (See pictures of this here.) End of July I contract with a trailer manufacturer to make me a 102 inch wide box, 48 inches deep and 6 ½ feet tall to carry my motorcycle in behind the sleeper. Buy a lift system for the motorcycle to be installed in the box.
Sept 6^th 2005. My father and I began to strip parts of the truck to begin the paint process.
Find out most of exhaust system is in sad shape and needs replaced. Bummer, $1500 in muffler parts.
Went to buy paint for the truck. Almost had a heart attack. Imron 6000 Candy Apple Red paint was $520 a gallon. (A gallon of paint is only 3 quarts as they figure when mixed with a quart of activator it makes a gallon.) A quart of activator is $120. This does not include the clear outer coat (2 gallons + 3 quarts of activator), primer (1 gallon + reducer), lacquer thinner (4 gallons), ect. Total costs for paint somewhere around $1500.
Sand and sand and sand and sand. Realize that a semi-truck is way bigger than a car. Sand holes in all my fingers, ouch. Prep body.
Chrome is worn off a lot of the grill and is dented and rusted in spots. Go to Kenworth and price new grill. $1500 for replacement parts. Say the hell with that. Get a rubber mat, a ball-peen hammer, a rubber hammer and straighten out the grill and most of the chrome parts for the grill. Have a friend that works in a chrome plating shop. Friend chromes grill for $75. Looks good.
Out of ten clearance lights on top of cab and sleeper, 3 work. Backing plate that holds the light bulb sockets are rusted out (i.e. gone), remaining 3 show rust damage to backing plate. Manufacturer doesn’t make a rebuild kit, wants $34 each. Damn. Find a rebuild kit on Ebay for $10 each and order 10. The rebuild kit has plastic backing plate to hold and support the light sockets that won't rust out. Better than original.
To get the 5 lights off the sleeper top to rebuild them discover that I have to take the headliner out of the sleeper. Semi major job. Crap.
Hood doesn’t fit right against the firewall since I spun it out at 70 mph, hits the wiper blades. Cut ½ inch off the back of the hood and realign hood.
Finally get hood primed and ready to paint. My next-door neighbor is a painter. Paint hood with two coats of red. Paint won’t get hard. Bugs flying into paint. 16 hours later paint gets hard to touch. This isn’t working.
Take Imron 6000 paint back to supplier. They replace paint and give me a faster activator. Have to strip paint off of hood. Three days later get hood primed again and ready to paint. Paint hood on 4^th day. Only put on one coat of red. Paint won’t get hard, stop painting. Eight hours later paint gets hard. I am now mad.
Get on Internet and find the paint data sheet for Dupont Imron 6000 paint. Call supplier and chastise them for selling me this paint instead of ChromaOne that is dust free in 10 minutes instead of 6-8 hours. They call Dupont tech rep and inform me that you paint Imron 6000 with clear coat while the base coat is still wet. Will not trade the paint out. My painter has never heard of this, thinks I am crazy. Checks with his painter associates (He paints Cessna Citations with Imron 6000) they have never heard of this. Painter calls his supplier, they have never heard of this and call their Dupont paint rep. Gets told the same story. I check with another friend that has a body shop, he has never heard of this either.
I do not strip the hood again just wet sand it down and spray a coat of sealer on it. I have now lost a week in repainting hood. Dupont makes an accelerator that can be used in Imron 6000. Smallest unit to purchase in 1 quart for $120. My painter brings an eye dropper bottle (1oz or so) of the accelerator to put in the paint. Drop 5 or 6 drops from an eye dropper per pint into paint gun. Success, paint dries to touch in 10 to 15 minutes. Paint two wet cross coats of red, 5 coats of clear. Paint dry to touch before we get the paint gun cleaned. Minimum bugs in paint. Paint looks like a red mirror. Cool. Paint the entire truck with that one little eye dropper bottle of accelerator.
Prime rest of truck and get it ready to paint. Paint bottom of sleeper, success. Next day paint the top of sleeper, success. Next day paint cab, success. Truck looks good. I am happy.
Have other various problems but eventually get truck back together. Only thing left is getting the lettering (signs) put back on truck and painting and installing motorcycle box.
Motorcycle box has several delays in construction. May be done tomorrow. They are going to let me paint it there in their paint booth. Cool.
Waiting for new ordered GPS automated domed satellite dish. Park, push button, locks onto satellite, watch TV. Grin.
Thursday Oct 6^th, 2005. My motorcycle box is finally finished. My painter Terry and me go to Derby to paint it at the manufacturer. 4:30 we start to paint, 5:15 we realize we don’t have enough paint. Call paint supplier, they closed at 5:00 but are still there. They mix up another quart of paint (another $162) and wait for us. 6:20 we get back from Wichita with the paint and continue painting. No more problems, add 4 coats of clear coat and call it a night at 8pm.
Friday morning, 6am get the truck ready for the box to go on it. Go to Derby to pick it up at 11am. Box hasn’t been finished after paint (no seals, no door hardware). 2:30pm box is finally finished. Installed on truck and bolted down 3pm. Go to Moundridge to pick up my trailer, get home at 6pm.
Saturday get up at 5:30 and start working on the box. Realign the box to the truck, install electricity, hook up Rampage lift system, test lift system – load – unload motorcycle, install floodlights inside of box, wire 3-way light switches to each end of box. 8pm quit working.
Sunday get up at 6am and finish drilling and moving 5^th wheel to allow box clearance from the front of the trailer. Install and wire outside rear floodlights, finish routing inside wiring, seal inside of box against leaks, install GPS satellite antenna on top of box, load motorcycle. 8pm quit working for the day. Still have to file quarterly fuel reports. Still have some more work to fine tune truck and trailer but don’t have any more time, have to load for Dallas tomorrow. It’s good enough for now, everything works.