The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Where to start?? (and how?)

So my 1950 1/2 ton runs, drives, and stops
Now I want to start with some bodywork. I'm looking for a practical driver job, not for shows and I want to do the work myself or at least as much as I can afford timewise as I want do be able to keep driving it in the process. What do you all recomend I start? The paint/rust job is needing some work but I don't know whether to buy a sander (and what kind) or some type of chemical to strip it down. I was thinking of starting with the hood, and front end and working back. The cab is going to need some major sheetmetal so I wanted to wait on that. Thanks

Go,

I feel your pain... I have almost completed my amateur restoration(Almost all but frame off) The first thing I did was to get the old paint off. I bought a double action sander from Lowes and used 80 grit paper disks. I sanded and the used chem stripper then sanded again. If you are not going to have this professionally done, then it is alot of work. Lots of stripper and sand paper and sweat. When taking bolts off make sure you tag them in a zip lock, even if you plan to replace the bolts it makes things alot easier when it comes time to assemble. I did the interior first then started from front to back. The rear fenders come off pretty easy and the bolts can be just ground off because you can buy new ones. Just be careful with the grinder near the inside of the bed walls. The fron is a little more difficult. My opinion is that the fenders and hood are the most important to make sure they are done right as they are rounded and really jump out at you when you look at them after final assembly. Thats provided the doors are not too bad. They would be next important. I have lots of photos that I can e-mail you that may give you an idea for the right colors of interior paint and so on. I found that it was difficult to find these types of photos that I thought were the way they were when new. Many have customized type paint and modifications which are nice too, just not the way they were originally. Good luck and this is just my opinion. There are many more folks on this site that have forgotten more than I know about these old jewels.

Coug, at some point in the near future you're going to want to pull that front end apart and see what's happening at the cab corners. Unfortunately, this means you're not going to be driving during that time. You can pull the grille, emblems, doorhandles and (depending on local law enforcement) the bed; the exposed panels can be cleaned in situ if you're very careful about the glass and gaskets (or remove the glass and wear a set of aviator goggles to drive ).

I had excellent results stripping paint with Citristrip and treating rust with Rust-Mort; neither of these do you want to get on rubber parts. I used a braided-wire cup brush on an angle-grinder and a rattlecan of ZeroRust on some ugly spots, but to avoid warping I would use something like a DA sander on flat panels (not really a concern on my rig; it came pre-wrinkled). Try to find ZR in spraycans so you can strip and shoot in small sections as time permits.

Great ideas and thanks for the hints on the bolt organization. Another buddy gave the idea of taking the hood, fenders etc. to a place that can media blast them? Anybody have thoughts as this sounds a lot easier but is it spendy?