The 94 Gets some needed body work and rust removal

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Same. I need to paint all of my junk and just don't have the patience to do it...

I don’t mind the painting, although I haven’t done much. It’s the bodywork and prep that is a major time suck that I don’t have time for

 

[ForgedCrank]

I don’t mind the painting, although I haven’t done much. It’s the bodywork and prep that is a major time suck that I don’t have time for

haha, yea, everyone hates the prep work, and it sucks that it's the most crucial part of the entire process... the painting is easy.

The encapsulator (silver looking crap) application took me about an hour to put down and I spent a considerable amount of that hour sipping cold snacks. The de-scaling and lacquer thinner cleanup was probably around 15-20 hours of labor... keeping in mind, I work slow and detailed, getting into every crack and crevice (where rust usually grows and gets out of control). And the Eastwood stuff wasn't bad, I just used a mini-paint roller for the easy stuff, then a 2" paintbrush for the hard to get to areas. I thought about spraying it (you can spray it with a 10% reduction or something like that), but it's a high solid content/ high build and I don't have a shi**y gun for spraying garbage and I'm not in the mood to use my good gun for that stuff. I figure no one but me will every see it anyway and the finished surface wasn't all that bad really.

The part I hate the most when spraying is the equip cleanup. doing small batch stuff like for example, doing 1 cab corner at a time. thats like 5 gun cleanups to get to a fully prepped and ready to paint surface.

 

[Lefty]

Looking good

 

[rumblecloud]

The part I hate the most when spraying is the equip cleanup. doing small batch stuff like for example, doing 1 cab corner at a time. thats like 5 gun cleanups to get to a fully prepped and ready to paint surface.

I'm not very experienced at painting, but even in my limited attempts I agree with the clean-up crap 100%. Plus I never really know how much paint to mix and always make too much and that stuff is expensive.

 

[Lefty]

I'm not very experienced at painting, but even in my limited attempts I agree with the clean-up crap 100%. Plus I never really know how much paint to mix and always make too much and that stuff is expensive.

I've got two guns, but I prefer to use Duplicolor aerosol in bigger twelve oz cans from NAPA. They adjust the color to a perfect match, not just the VIN number, but the batch number, then use a scanner to adjust to my own truck, finally custom mix the color right at the store, I got the formula. I think they even have it on file.

Yes of course, one could always argue that the spray gun is cheaper to use. It is if you spray larger areas. One could also argue that the pattern is better. Perhaps. I buff the finish down to one thousand grit. They also sell a very nice clear coat which I wet sand down to 5,000 grit. It doesn't take long, then I use a polishing compound.

This picture shows a painted lower bumper and valance which had a very bad scrape. I only painted the damaged area and feathered it out. There is no line left at all between old and new.

There is no real cleanup whenever you spray from a can, no thinners, no solvents, no cleaning the gun and no goofing around adjusting the tip or the spray pattern. There's a little bit of money saved therefore when you clean up. There's a lot of time saved in cleanup too.

 

[Lefty]

I don’t mind the painting, although I haven’t done much. It’s the bodywork and prep that is a major time suck that I don’t have time for

I kept spraying cans of primer over my first truck. Next thing I knew ten or fifteen years go by and half the truck is primer. Finally I just went crazy and sprayed the rest

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I kept spraying cans of primer over my first truck. Next thing I knew ten or fifteen years go by and half the truck is primer. Finally I just went crazy and sprayed the rest

I had most of both bedsides in primer and the front fenders not matching anything on my F-150 for awhile until a contractor I was helping started bugging me about how my truck looked and winter was about starting anyway so I spray bombed the whole thing in Ford tractor blue, lol. It’s been like that for about 10 years now…

 

[Lefty]

I had most of both bedsides in primer and the front fenders not matching anything on my F-150 for awhile until a contractor I was helping started bugging me about how my truck looked and winter was about starting anyway so I spray bombed the whole thing in Ford tractor blue, lol. It’s been like that for about 10 years now…

i liike it

 

[ForgedCrank]

Update of the rear frame restoration and body work. Just to re-cap...
- body panel rust repairs covered above. New cab corners, FL fender lower panel and bracket, radiator support repairs cut out rust and patched up, bed lowers behind wheel well replaced.
- de-scaled the frame with an air needle scaler, then light cleanup with wire wheel followed by lacquer thinner wipe-down to degrease everything til nice and dry. This was a LOT of hours of hard work getting it right. Replaced rear spring mounts as they were rusted pretty good with a couple of holes in the tops. Still structurally sound, but they weren't long for this world.
- First coat was Eastwood rust converter applied with a mini-paint roller and a brush in the tighter spots, cured for 6 days
- Scuffed surface with red scotch-brite followed by another soap and water wash and dry, then applied the Eastwood Rust encapsulator "platinum", applied with a mini paint roller and brush in the tight spots. Allowed to cure for 6 days
- Another light scuff with red- scotch-brite (encapsulator is hard as nails so it didn't do much to it), alcohol wipe-down then rattle can spray with black chassis paint. I used the hi-temp VHT "Roll Bar and Chassis" black satin finish.

Overall I can't claim that it looks "good", but it looks a lot better than when I started, and I know it is a solid application, won't flake or peel, and the frame is now preserved. I am wondering if I should have just replaced the front spring mount brackets while I was in there, but they were rock solid, just surface pitting so I couldn't really justify the hours doing it.
I'm going to guess total hours were somewhere around 60 hours and around $600 in materials including the body panels and all the Eastwood crap which I bought WAY too much of and gave the remaining 3/4 away to my buddy who is gonna use for something. In reality, I needed 4 rattle cans, 2 quarts of rust encapsulator, and a quart of rust converter. All the color was about a pint with some left.

EHEM: My 1994 Ranger is now truly RUST FREE and I can say it without qualifiers.

 

[ekrampitzjr]

Eastwood has good stuff. POR 15 is another brand with similar chemicals for treating and coating rusty metal.