On Sunday, Aug. 15, after a week of devoting most of my energies to packing and getting stuff ready to go in the apartment, the time had come to start seriously finishing the exterior of the truck. I didn't want the rather ratty exterior to draw unwanted attention from the towns' constabularies I'd be driving through on the trip back home, so drove over to Barry's and began surface prep on the truck.
(Barry has kindly allowed me to use an open space next to his house to work on the truck, and borrow some power from his place via an extension cord. There is an open lot beside his house, with a huge concrete pad where I guess a house or something used to be, and is an ideal place to work on cars. Barry himself uses it when he needs some open space to work on friends' vehicles.)
Earlier in the day I'd driven out to the local registry office and bought another In-Transit Sticker to allow me to drive the otherwise plateless truck (see earlier "Getting the Truck - - -" in this series for explanation) around town. I was pleasantly surprised when the girl made it out for SIX days instead of the customary three... I mentioned I would be needing it for several sessions of repair and upgrade work, so she must've adjusted things to suit. Nice.
The first thing was to use the grinder on the worst of the rust, then prep dents for filling. The right front fender, which had been seriously bent inwards by some previous owner, was the worst-looking offender. (Hmmm... a fender offender...??)
I was there from about noon until after 7 PM. Got half the work done I'd hoped because of running into new quirks, problems and unforeseen stuff, but what was done got done completely.
Monday Aug. 16, I got to Barry's about 10 AM. More grinding, more filling, and then got down to seeing if I could pull the crumpled right front fender out to match the other side more closely. Not having much in the way of auto-body repair hardware, I ended up using a come-along on the fender. I drove the truck forward until I was within range of a handy crack in the concrete pad the vehicle was parked on, and tapped one of the heavy hooks of the come-along into the crack. Then, I drilled a hole just large enough for the other hook into a part of the fender. Shoved the hook into that, and began cranking the come-along. The truck rolled forward an inch or so at first as the tension built, then held in place and the fender started coming forward, outward, ever so slowly.
By rotating the hook to different angles in the hole, I was able to pull a large section of the crumple out.
When I was done, I'd gotten the fender back to about 85% of where it should be... any more pulling would start tearing the metal. Foam filler would have to take up the extra space.
And, speaking of foam filler, that happened to be the stuff of choice when I went for filling the larger cavities, rusted areas along the bottom edge of the body, and deeper holes in the exterior... I'd bought a can of Great Stuff (expanding foam from an aerosol) down at Home Depot, and was ready to try The Great Experiment.
I went around the vehicle shooting the stuff into holes along the bottom, being careful to not fill any void "more than 50%". Except for a few where I deliberately filled about 75%, just in case.
However, as it turned out, the stuff indeed did expand adequately for the most part. Especially dramatic was the mess of strands of it I'd "woven" into the hollows and wrinkles of the right front fender. I discovered that, as the foam starts to set up, in about 15 minutes, its incredibly sticky nature lets you "pull" on a section of it with the nozzle tube and pull the webby, stringy mass across and over to other high points or anchor points of the wrinkled metal. Because it's so incredibly sticky, it lets you create these "webs" of foam that then settle into place and dry there... and expand a little bit more.
So, by late afternoon, the stuff had dried to the point I could go at the swollen-out parts with a grinder. It sands down VERY quickly, and does not clog the sander. So all I had to do was sand it just below the level I needed, then could fill the small, thin void left over with putty. They warn that Great Stuff discolours in a short while when exposed to sunlight (something I witnessed several years ago; it's true) and can weaken. However, since it's being covered over by Bondo and paint (and fiberglass and resin), the Bondo will lend it additional strength, and the paint offers an extra layer of protection from the sun.
At 4 PM my phone rang; someone who was coming to my apartment to pick up a chair I'd advertised on Kijiji was going to meet me there at 5 PM. I finished the last few grinds and took off. End of a good day.
Tuesday, Aug. 17, woke up with my upcoming moving deadline wreaking havoc on my nerves again. Looking at all the stuff yet to move, and the 6 days left to do it all in, is starting to really work on my stomach. There is this reflexive, burning anxiety I've been waking up with the last few mornings, and have to spend a few moments using a little NLP-based visualization to put the worst of the gut-gnawing burning feeling aside so I can get going on my day. Onward... ever onward...
I really, honestly thought I was going to be able to paint the truck today, but fine-detail work kept slowing me down. Final sanding, filling and body prep took way longer than expected.
I'd arrived at Barry's place about 11 AM, and worked until about 6:30 PM. Would've stayed longer, but had other errands to run at home. Left Barry's at 4:22 PM and scooted home.
Today was definitely the worst, though, in terms of sheer dirt and grit. Power-grinding Bondo and old paint and the first layer of scaly surface on the rear wooden doors and rust all took their toll... I had layers of Bondo powder and dirt and fibreglass grit all over me. Gritty, gritty, gritty.....
As soon as I got home I took a hot bath and soaked it all out. Then I took Jasper down to Rundle Park so he could get a little bird-time in the trees. He loves to sit on a branch and just watch the world go by. However, it was definitely chillier than usual, and after half an hour, I'd finished the crossword puzzle I was working on and called to Jasper... he looked kinda chilly too, so I got him out of the tree and took him back home. Usually, he gets an hour or two in the trees, but today even he was glad to leave the park early.
Wednesday, Aug. 18, is the big day. Body prep (at least, as much as I'm going to do) is finished. Today... the paint goes on. Got out to Barry's about noon... had planned to be out much earlier, but a lot of small stuff at home kept me there looking after details and some cleaning up, etc., longer than planned.
Once there, I spent almost an hour masking off all the small stuff that should not get painted: marker lights, door handles, trim, chrome logos, etc. Then, since this paint job was going to involve direct application by roller and brush (NOT spray!), I went around to all the finicky spaces and curves and painted over them with the brush first. THAT took twice as long as expected... it was about 4 PM when I finished that part of it. The rear view mirrors, on extender arms on either side of the cab, were the worst... trying to paint five tubes on each one holding the mirror out was a definite pain in the butt... many tiny spaces and details and hollows to push paint into.
Anyway, finally, just after 4 PM I was able to pour paint into the roller tray and go at the big expanse of the box sides and really quickly go along and finish the big, flat sections. So, by about 5:30 PM the worst of it was over. However, over the next few hours I found areas where the paint had gone on a little thin and needed a second coat, or spots I'd missed, or spots that needed brush retouching, and so on.
The back (wooden) doors of the truck were so dry it was a good thing I'd started with them when I first used the roller. The wood sucked up all the first layer of paint very quickly. By the time I'd finished the rest of the truck, they were ready for a second, heavier coat. Later, a very light third.
Finally, some time after 8 PM, everything was done that I was gonna get done that day... everything was in place and the truck looked a helluva lot better than it had for the last few days! Barry and his daughter had returned with some KFC and invited me in for a quick snack. After I finished cleanup of rollers, brush and stuff, I went in for a piece of chicken, and watched part of a movie they had rented. But, after a half hour, I had to get back out... the truck needed the masking tape peeled off of all the lights and trim. By the time I finished THAT, it was 9:45 PM. I put everything back into the truck and was driving home at 10:04 PM.
Pulled into my parking spot at the apartment with a nice-looking truck for a change.
The evening before, I'd gone out to get something from the truck, and one of the neighbours sitting near his patio door near where I park jokingly asked "Does that thing run?", referring to its somewhat decrepit looking condition. I assured him that it runs a LOT more reliably than it did a couple weeks ago, and that by tomorrow, it was going to be looking a lot nicer.
And now, it does. Almost new, as a matter of fact.
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