The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Painting the cab off the truck

I am finishing up the sanding prep work for painting the cab of the truck with epoxy primer. PPG. I was wondering about the sequence on painting the truck. Do most people paint the interior of exterior first? First time painting a truck, I have only done houses and a tractor.

On painting the exterior, was looking for ways to paint without using a rotisserie and saw this idea on line. http://67-72chevytrucks.com/vboard/showthread.php?t=422759

I have been working on the truck for a long, long, long time and really need to get it done!!!! This step makes it look like I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I hope it isn't a train.

I forgot to mention, I already have it sitting firewall side down on a rolling cart, and would just need to extend it.

My plan is to paint the interior of mine first, then the exterior. I think that's the way they were done at the factory (as if that makes any difference ) as I found some exterior overspray on the seat frame skirt. Either way it will need to be masked, but I don't plan on doing an extensive masking job for interior paint (after all, I'll need to get inside it. )

That link you posted is a good idea, but my firewall is going to be the same color as the exterior (factory did that.) So I'm not going to put it on it's nose.

My cab is sitting on a pallet with casters, but it really needs to be a bit higher so I can get the lower parts of the cab without laying on the ground. I'm too old to do a lot of that. Getting back up gets harder every day.

Klhansen, I'm only to put it on the nose when it's time to paint the bottom. The firewall will get the exterior colour.

Are the inner fenders black on all trucks regardless of color?

Gotcha. I finished the bottom with undercoating over the epoxy primer before I took the cab off the rotisserie.

Otto, Yes inner fenders were always black.

Inside first. Otherwise, you will be reaching over that nice exterior paint job with mixed chemicals and scratchy belt buckles, etc.

We painted the inside first. Started by painting the back side of the dash and underside of the cowl with white paint - just brushed it on. Painting it white helped when installing gauges, wiring fuse panel etc. as the white paint makes it easier to see while you are on your back with a trouble light. While the cab was on the firewall, we painted the inside (epoxy primer and colour coat) and the underside (epoxy primer, endura and undercoat).

What is endura? Was it a colour coat or another type of primer?

Endura is a paint manufacturer based in Edmonton. They have over 40,000 colours. Very tough paint. We used it on our drilling rig projects. I used their products on my ‘51 GMC and ‘70 c10. I recommend looking them up.

https://www.endurapaint.com/

Here’s my 70 with its LV Energy green from Endura. I sprayed the interior first. I masked the door jambs, roof lip, and rockers for this step. Let it dry. Then I masked the interior off and shot the exterior. It went really well. I used a little trailer and put a wheel on the screw jack. I put dollies under the tires, and was able to spin that cab 180° in the blast/paint booth. It worked like a charm if you have something like that available. Painting upside down was solved by using a siphon feed gun. Worked for me.

We used the Endura for the frame, underside of cab, drive line components. As Fox says, it's tough; works on boat trailers that are regularly dipped in salt water. Undercoat was probably overkill.

Hey Gord, you're in BC, where did purchase your Endura? I have some Zero Rust, that I might use on the bottom. Wonder if that would be better than epoxy. That would just be for the bottom, I was going to paint the rest of the cab with PPG epoxy. Also, did you paint the underside the body colour or did you paint it black since you put undercoat on. I think what I am going to do is since I have the cab sitting on cowl with the bottom right in front of me for painting, is prime and paint the bottom first, then flip it up on the bottom, and paint the interior, and then the outside of the cab. Does that make sense? That way I don't have to rebuild my rolling cart. Although I may make it taller, it's only a foot off the ground now.

We bought the Endura at Industrial Plastics and Paint in Victoria. That's probably no help to you but apparently Bumper to Bumper has it. According to the Endura web site, there is a store in Surrey.

We bought black Endura paint and used it for all the underside stuff including the insides of the fenders. I think it will resist chips from stones thrown up by the tires better than the Nason.

Your plan sounds good. We built a rolling cart too. I think we rolled it on it's back to paint the roof.