80's Ranger 4x4 for the Trails

[Roert42]

Hey, it's a new form of lift.... clean all the crap out of your truck

Cheap HP boost too.

 

[eightynine4x4]

My truck has like nothing in it, so maybe there's 1 HP more than all y'alls trucks. Ha!

I picked up some Citristrip Gel today. Will slap some on in the morning and see what the hell goes down after a few hours.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Honestly I don't think you can go backwards with that paint, it needs to come off, it's way too thick and rough to do anything over it... Looks like the free paint available at the recycle center where they mix all they get together . Even if you damage the original it's either doing it now or later...

 

[eightynine4x4]

i used the Citristrip. It works! It actually doesn't strip very much OEM paint at all, but attacks the hell out of aftermarket layers and/or accidental splatters from somewhere. Amazing. I will 100% end up using it to remove something or other in the future.
After letting a few coats dry with reapplications between, the thick grey primer peeled right up using a plastic cooking spatula. Farily easy to lift.

But, i decided to just starting stripping this thing to the bone and commit a little of the next several days to this since the weather is as good as it's going to get before it gets truly cold. It'll be sunny and a high of around 65/70 for the next 4 days.

First pic is the left side of bed with Citristrip sitting wet, second pic is right side of bed after i had already Citristrippd that side and hand scraped the bulk of the loosened grey primer and then dove right in with the rotary sander.

Here's my current working theory about the history of the truck... Somebody bought the truck used cheap for off roading purposes but it had a business logo on either side of the bed. Some random mom and pop business logo isn't going to do, so they took a wire wheel and just ripped right into the logo. In doing so, but not caring much, they made the raw metal appear super toothed up with grooves all over the place. Then, having some wisdom about raw metal quickly rusting, they hand slapped a thick coat of some enamel primer very hastily. Then they thought they'd just make it even rougher and (thankfully poorly) slap some truck bed liner all over the cab.

As i was removing the layers, i swear i could make out some letters that were green and red. Additionally some negative spaces of OEM paint that surrounded those letters. I'm now also noticing that the patches of light green on the hood are actually on TOP of the black oem. So it's starting to make sense. There must have been logo work there too.

I only spent about 20 minutes rotary sanding. 40 grit because i wanted to move fast and also i already have to make lots of grooves smooth so why i not just add to it. I didn't get through the whole side of the bed but fairly close.

Now i'm wondering... what are my limitations regarding time and rust? I've heard the raw metal can start rusting almost right away. Do i need to never leave it overnight exposed? I didn't pick the best season to do this since it goes down to 40 at night right now, but i'm sure I can make due and get it done.

In a couple days I'm going to pull it into the garage where it will live through this body work. Once it's in there, the temp won't be quite as low at night. I plan to strip it fully, do some bondo/filler stuff, do some dent work, do some possible fiberglass stuff, and primer/sand a lot. At the same time I plan to do all of the body mount replacement work. Gonna drop it down and kill the 3" body lift. If i miss it, i can pretty quickly put them in again since all the hard stuff will be done. But i have to see what it's like without the body lift.

Regarding the raw metal and idle rust, what's the order of events here and how quickly?

 

[eightynine4x4]

What is this switch at the bottom? It's a momentary toggle, ON/OFF/ON so there are two temporary positions and otherwise it stays in the center.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Not factory so your guess is as good as ours.

Possibly a horn or something.

 

[eightynine4x4]

Here's the Citristrip after sitting for 16 hours with grey primer lifted off, above the OEM paint around wheel well.
The second pic is after about 3 swipes with the spatula, about 5 seconds of work. If you look in the first pic for the non-Citristripped OEM paint towards the left, that's what we're honed in on in the second pic and you can see the blotch of OEM paint still sits there but the OEM paint is in fact removed around it. So, given enough time, the Citristrip will remove OEM paint too. But i think that it will be a great product for letting sit for an hour and removing stuff that's blotched on top of the OEM.

In the second pic you can also see the handiwork of someone prior revealed under the thick grey primer. Sure looks like someone had attacked it with a wire wheel.

 

[eightynine4x4]

Question..
When stripping and sanding before priming, do i need to remove absolutely every patch of old primer so that the metal is 100% cleanly exposed? Or can i just generally get it all off and smooth and just start from that? Those small spots seem to take the most time with sanding.
Also, i've already found small dime sized spots where there must have been shallow dings/dents that were filled with primer. So no matter what i'm going to have those underneath.
I feel like i just need to get it mostly removed and remaining patches don't matter much since i know i'm already going to be doing multiple layers of priming/sanding. So long as nothing is particularly bumpy or has a clear edge to it. Smoothness being king here.

 

[Curious Hound]

Use a thick nap roller to apply the new paint and you'll never notice those spots.



Just kidding.

 

[sgtsandman]

Use a thick nap roller to apply the new paint and you'll never notice those spots.



Just kidding.

I would have suggested a 5 gallon bucket and a rag mop.

 

[eightynine4x4]

I'm gonna just not try too hard to nail this bed precisely since it'll never be perfect. There are small bends here and there in the edges and the whole left edge of the bed has a long subtle rise/drop to it from some kind of incident which i'm going to be hammering down somehow. But i'll give the bed a good try with sanding as smoothly as possible to the touch and then spreading a thin layer of body filler virtually everywhere around the formerly wire-wheeled sections of the bed and trying that out as a new base to start sanding and priming over.
This is all happening today and tomorrow. I found that Rustoleum's Black Sandable Primer is a good approach with this whole truck. A perk is that it gets me in the black appearances immediately so i can stop staring at grey and silver and i can work with it section by section. The bed sides are also a good simple test of this product. I'm not going to even try to work out the rust at wheel wells first. Once i've got a decent black primer of multiple layers on the whole bed, i'll start to attack the wheel well rust rot will heavy duty filling methods. Those will be their own project and it doesn't matter if i need to keep re-primering around them while i rip those apart. I can just keep re-primering and re sanding to blend.
My thinking overall is that i can use this black sandable primer all over the truck and take it day project by day project and never have a fully raw truck all at once. I can probably not worry much about rain as well since the truck will never be a giant mid-project status and things will be sealed up at the end of each day i work on it.
Rumor has it that this product can actually become the top coat in the end if you keep sanding fine enough to bring out some gloss. It sure would be convenient on this truck to be able to patchwork the whole thing over time and never have to commit to a spray job deadline, just considering the primer as the actual paint. Once it was nice enough all over and of course thoroughly blended and buffed and what not, I could then get it clear coated or do just do that myself in some kind of controlled environment somewhere. I suppose the black color itself might not end up the ideal tone, and in that event i could consider spraying it with a top coat before clear coating it. It would be ready for it. But it's very convenient to be able to just see how this stuff turns out and maybe that's the top coat and i can keep ripping it open in areas.

The bed will serve as a test. The cab is the worst part of the project due to the B pillar having those dents i mentioned. I'm not considering body work on the hood and fenders because i'm going to swap replacement ones on with undamaged ones of the 83-88 era. I've found a few options locally already. The doors i'll prefer to swap too since the drivers side is too messed up to work with.

Are all 83-92 doors the same at the metal core? I know the door card designs changed. But for example if i put on a 88 door will my 89 door card's speaker mount inside still? In these 89 doors there is a cutout to allow for the speaker body to go into. Would suck if i got an 88 door and it appears the same on outside but things like that didn't fit on inside and i couldn't use my 89 door card.

 

[eightynine4x4]

Reports:

-Rotary sanding stubborn areas of paint sucks
-Citristripping stubborn areas of paint doesn’t suck

Sometimes it takes a few goes (ie 24 hrs a piece) in certain stubborn spots, but citristrip always does the job.

I have the bed more or less bare and after bailing on sanding it’s been easy work but requires patience. No more old blotches. There are some “negative spaces” needing filler/bondo, but no “positive spaces” making approaches challenging. Now it’s more straight forward.

I was also able to get one area nice and cleared for a couple stages of comparative testing. Long story short, I think multiple rounds of rattle can sandable primer is a reasonable cost/effort/result. I did a couple layers and sanded it up to 1000 grit and it looks pretty impressive. But I did a giant smattering of body filler next to this section to see if it resulted in something smoother (remember there are wire wheel marks all over the bed sides) but after a good bunch of labor getting that sanded down to just the marks being filled, it didn’t turn out any better than just primer layers. I think it will all take me more primer layers than most vehicles but it really isn’t very difficult. This truck is not going to end up mint, just aesthetically decent.

 

[eightynine4x4]

Below is a fully raw side of the bed. I got both sides to this point. Had to go at it with a DA using 60 grit for hours at high speed and a whole ton of elbow grease to get all the hand brushed thick grey primer, then factory black, then some kind of red, then the factory grey primer all off. So here you see the damage done by some previous owner, I’m still guessing a wire wheel.

I applied some self etching primer on both sides of bed, then after drying I applied a first layer of black sandable primer. I decided I wanted to at least see the whole general result of that first, then start digging in with whatever body work seems appropriate. This truck has so many flaws that it’s just not worth going about this in a traditional sense, so I’m going to let a lot of the beat up character make it’s way into the final look. Fine by me. I enjoy the history. I’ll probably end up with a satin kind of level of gloss, so that the paint doesn’t look like it’s trying to be flashy and new, but more like something that was a thrift store find.

A lot of those wire wheel marks are rather filled in by a smattering of stuff. So, after doing an etching layer and a first primer layer, it’s already looking far far smoother to the eye than what you see here. I forgot to take a pic of the etching layer which was an army light green. I’ll follow up with pics of the black stages as they come. Later in the week. Might be pulling the truck into the garage tonight since I’m worried about morning dew.

 

[Curious Hound]

Kudos to you. I am NOT into all that sanding and painting. I would have had to accept the brushed look.

 

[eightynine4x4]

Here’s a stupid question..
In terms of the stance of the truck, ie related to the factory suspension and/or a lift..
Should the body line be level? I’m finally seeing this thing sitting on perfectly level ground, the garage, and the bed is pretty lofty and the truck leans forward. I even pumped the two front tires fully, and left the rears lamely half filled, and it’s still higher in back. Like this, the top of body line edge in back is around 5” higher than in front. With rear tires pumped it’ll increase a smidge.

I think this may make my life a lot easier though.. Perhaps these rear leafs are strong enough to keep the bed balanced with the front suspension, and I can just remove the extra block from the stacks and put on the OEM ubolts and for now call it a safe enough truck. I could postpone that rear overhaul for a bit.

With that extra block out, the rear suspension would be around 2.5” lowered, which probably means around 3” lower in back, so still would be around 2” higher than in front.