Hi guys, my buddy Mike & I did the body work. Mike is a craftsman and wicked anal about his work... He is a past winner of the Ridler Award so that should tell you something... I had to keep reminding him that we were building a daily driver that wasn't going to Detroit for an award show! So there are places on the truck that aren't perfect - but I'm fine with that. I'm a couple years older than Bella and I have blemishes too.
Early on, I had gone to Maaco to ask about primers - they gave me the "we can't guarantee what we paint over yadda, yadda, yadda" So I went to their nearby paint supplier and asked them which primer would be compatible with Maacos paint. I didn't have access to a paint both so I sprayed the body with rattlecan primers. I used a self-etching primer on bare metal and sandable on the rest. Using cans was A) Expensive B) Didn't provide the build-up that would have made it easier... C) Time consuming
I painted the beige panels myself with rattle can... I also painted all of the little nooks and crannies - inside door and hood edges, etc. I had wanted a Hunter Green so that's what I used in rattle can. My goal was to make it easy for Maaco so they wouldn't have to do inside doors, etc. The Page 3 pics on our website show Bella with her primer ready.
When I scheduled the job with Maaco I brought the truck to them so they could see it. I also told them that we'd have all trim, bumpers, etc removed to minimize their taping work.
We couldn't find a color match to the Hunter Green so chose a metallic green... it took two hours to go through their piles of books.
Bottom line? Maaco = $710 which I thought was a great price. Doing it around the holidays probably helped - I got the sense they were slow.
Am I satisfied? Yup. Would I use them if I were building a show queen? Mmmmm.... that's a subjective one. Besides, with all of the store graphics on the truck - the warts are less visible.
Hope this helps.
