Posted by Marty [50.68.51.62] on Monday, March 31, 2014 at 13:57:43 :
...that aren't stubborn & block headed still living in 1970 :)
If you have panels that are basically straight & damage free...why paint them...powder coat! :)
This W300 I'm working on started as a D300. It was a low mileage original white truck but the owner had it painted blue in Mexico years ago. The bed had been Duraline'd or some such crap & they'd sprayed the wood even but there was an axillary fuel tank in the bed & a big rack bolted to the bed rails & they never removed them before lining or even painting with the horrible baby blue paint.
Originally I was going to just leave the truck as is but bolt it to a W300 chassis I had here. The passenger fender had been smashed & hammered out but was a right off so I installed a good one I had around but had it powder coated off white since that's what was under the blue. Then I realized the front valance was also bent & so I did the same to it. Then I realized that the running boards under that checker plate were ruined & so I had them done....hmmmmm...I can't live with that horrific bed liner etc in the bed & so why not pull it apart & powder coat the whole bed? :)
So to give you an idea of cost & effort, I had already bolted the bed onto the W300 chassis but it took all day last Sunday to completely disassemble the whole bed, fenders, tailgate, front bed panel, running boards & brackets, wood, etc.
Monday I blasted everything, Tuesday I had everything at the Powder coater, Friday I picked everything up finished including bed supports & Assembled everything to this stage on Saturday...so 1 week total.
I had white oak already & cut my own & painted it black while the bed was being coated & so 90 carriage bolts later...it's looking better! :)
Powder Coating total bill you ask? $300 + another $100 for the RH front fender, valance & 2 front running boards.
You can't beat it. It has it's limitations & obviously they can't match colors like we can with paint but it's a great option in lots of situations.
I'll post a before pic below
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