'90 Sierra project

Show off your work! Anything from final results to full start-to-finish project journals.



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 12:43 am
If it is permissable, I would like to start a thread here in the "projects" section detailing my current ongoings with a 1990 GMC. I intend for this thread to be almost like a journal (complete with photos) of my progress...or my mistakes. I guess I will start with an into. Pics will be added soon.

Hello, yall! I'm Jake, an almost 30 year old manager at an Autozone in the great wilds of Northern Alabama. I have a prefessional background in aircraft maintenance and have almost always been a great admirer of internal combustion. My daily beater is an 03 s10. As some of you know, the S series trucks are good little trucks, if somewhat limited in capacity and towing. I had been hounding my uncle for a year or two about trying to buy one of his trucks off of him and the stars finally aligned just right and I got his 1990 Sierra for a whopping $800.

Now, this Sierra is oddly equipped. It has a TH400 tranny mated to a 3 dog 5 TBI V8 with 2.73 gears in the rear. It is a regular cab, bench seat, longbed, 2 wheel dig model. The truck smokes a bit, but that is to be expected of a truck with 250,000 miles on the clock. The body was mostly straight with a little bit of surface rust on the top of the cab. If it had been gray or green or blue or any other color than red, I would just be driving it as it sat. However, my s truck is red. My 1999 Blazer is red. My sisters car is red. It was just a bit too much red for me.
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So in March of this year, I focused on the immediate issues at hand. I put on new rear shocks, a power steering hose, a fuel filter, and ran some seafoam through it. Then I started joking about painting the truck. Response to my joking was not as anticipated. Most of my family members and friends simply said that I couldn't do it. So, like any other red blooded American male, I took that as an attack on my manliness and decided that I would paint the thing after all. You know, just to prove everybody wrong. It had nothing to do with the fact that I had always wanted to take on a project such as doing a color change on a vehicle....

A few nights online led me to this site. I signed up and started reading and researching. I had a basic Kobalt spray gun and a compressor that might be up to the task, and now I had a little bit of information flowing through my brain about what I should do.
So, I started tearing into the truck. I took off all of the trim, took out the bedliner, and sanded those surface rust areas down to bare metal and sprayed a rattle can primer on them. This is it in the middle of "test sanding"
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My first foray into spraying was with the primer. I am lucky to have a pretty decent jobber nearby and the paint guy takes the time to talk to me about the products and which ones I need. I got a quart of Marhyde 2K in buff, and attacked the tailgate.

This is where I started to realize that everything isn't as it seems. Sanded the snot out of the tailgate and shot on my first coat of primer. Adhesion is great, but there are now several small dents easily visible. Back to the forum to learn up on body work.
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I quickly realize that I need more room for this project and take the Sierra to my grandfather's house where there is more room. It has been there for a few months now, all kinds of taken apart, getting the kinks and dents worked out and getting primed and blocked. About 90% of it is in primer and most of it has been blocked. So far I am feeling pretty good about the whole thing, but I recently had a few issues which made me take a few steps back.

to be continued....
Last edited by wingsnhammers on Sun Aug 17, 2014 1:22 am, edited 1 time in total.



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PostPosted: Sun Aug 17, 2014 1:21 am
I had decided that I needed to try to spray some paint. I went to O'Reilleys and got them to make me a 1/2 pint of Nason, color Audi Aviator Gray. I also got the necessary clear and activator. For some awful reason, my test panel turned out great. It gave me the confidence to try the tailgate. Sooooo, I sprayed the tailgate. The base coats laid down pretty well, I thought. When I put the first coat of clear on it, I noticed that something was definitely "not right".
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I can't blame it on pearl or metal flake. This is a solid color.

Those stripes only showed up after the clear went on and no amount of sanding or buffing would get rid of them. To make matters worse, I just knew that it was a gun adjustment issue. So, I sprayed a few more test samples and went after the hood. I am to embarrassed to show pics of the hood. They are just awful. The hood also has stripes and the clear went on all kinds of wrong. It would be charitable to call it orange peel and I would expect more comments about "booger clear".

This experience stopped me cold in my tracks and led me to do even more reading and research. I have been spending the last few weeks gearing up. I purchased a new Warwick 904 HE and have researched to death how to clean it and set it up. I also went back to my jobber and told him of my unspectacular results and he told me to get rid of the Nason. He will be selling me Matrix products for a tad bit more than I would have paid for Nason. I have been doing more priming and blocking to bide the time. I should be able to buy all of my paint supplies in the next 3 to 4 weeks. Fool pump for my S10 set me back quite a bit.

I WILL NOT attempt to spray anything else until I can control every variable that I possibly can. I will be making a "redneck paint booth" of sorts and will be sure to include pictures of that. I have already started buying some of the important, but smaller parts to do the job better. I am not having any luck finding high flow fittings for my new air hose. It's a 3/8" line with 1/4" male ends. The new Warwick came with a decent pressure regulator that goes on the bottom of the gun, so no more setting the pressure at the compressor and guessing what is at the gun.

Anyway, if anyone has any questions or comments, please feel free to chime in. I am by all means a newb to this stuff and can use all the help I can get.

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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:50 pm
I got my Milton V High Flow couplings from amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Milton-S-217-Styl ... +high+flow

Cool project. Keep practicing on test panels and ask questions here you will get it all figured out. This stuff is not easy but with practice and knowledge you will get it right.



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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 7:04 pm
Not sure if you mean you haven't found good info on setting up your gun but if that's the case here is a link from PPG about setting up the gun for there products and is a good starting point for most others too.



http://warwick-sprayguns.com/PDF/PPG/PP ... 01.xls.pdf
PS I would think your issue with tiger strips MIGHT be not enough overlap with your pattern. Maybe anyhow, good luck

PSS Good post about stripes





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PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 3:49 pm

Sounds like Tiger stripes to me.
You cannot bury them in clear so you will have to spray some more base to get rid of them.
Generally they appear on the larger horizontal areas because the painter is stretching to reach over the panel and in so doing "tips" the gun off the perpendicular plane. This makes the paint spray heavy on one side of the pattern and dry on the other.
You will have to read the tech sheet for your paint and see how long the recoat window is before sanding is necessary.
When you spray the next coat of base, pay close attention to how you are holding your gun and the distance from the panel while keeping a consistent overlap



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PostPosted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 11:50 pm
Thanks for the replies! I greatly appreciate the help! I am sure that the stripes are either a result of not enough overlap or tipping the gun. However, my Kobalt gun would never put out a decent fan pattern. It was more of an amoeba shape with more paint being applied on the top of the pattern. I am pretty sure after reading around here that the problem there is most likely improper cleaning of the gun. I may get a few nylon bottle brushes and some cheap toothbrushes and see if that makes any difference. I've got the Warwick now, though, so the Kobalt will be relegated to priming duty.

I do have a question about spraying technique. I sprayed the tailgate with it resting flat on a pair of stands. The hood was sprayed in a vertical position. Which would be easiest? Laying flat or hanging? Also, would a bright light help detect any future stripes before the clear?

On a side note, I have the next few days off, so I should be able to get the body work finished and hopefully get everything block sanded. I wish I could take the windshield out. It would make priming and painting the cab a little easier if I could pop it out. It needs a new windshield anyway. lol. I'm even starting to think that taking the doors off would make everything a little easier, too. I was planning on putting in new hinge pins, so I might as well take them off . Sure would make doing the jams easy.



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PostPosted: Tue Aug 19, 2014 6:26 am
ok, get on youtube and spend a few hrs watching clips, I have been watching "the gunman" lately, he explains really well about how to paint and the settings he uses on his guns,
I always like to paint the panels as they would sit on the car, I had someproblems a while ago with a door, had it laying flat and it came out a total different color to the rest of the car, safe insurance, especially with metallic and pearls!!
document each time you mix up the paint, the air pressure and the gun setup and how many coats, so you can try to get each panel the same if your gonna paint them separately,
try spraying your primer nice and even, use this as practice for your colors and clears,
krem

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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 3:44 pm
If panels are horizontal make sure you have enough paint in the cup because if you dont when you tip the gun the paint may not come out consistently as the paint splashes around inside the cup.

Also, get a can of Laquer Thinner from the hardware store or Walmart (automotive section). Take gun apart and use Laquer Thinner and brushes to the clean the gun (wear eye protection). If the guns are not kept completely clean they wont spray consistently which adds another variable that you dont need.



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PostPosted: Sat Sep 20, 2014 10:48 pm
Alright guy, I haven't forgotten about this thread. As usual, other things come up that are a little more important than playing with my project. My s10 doesn't seem to be trying to self-destruct on me anymore, so I felt it was safe to get back on the Sierra project.

I now have almost everything I need to start laying paint. I went to my local jobber and consulted with them and they gave me 3 pints of different color metallic paints to practice with. I have a friend that is going to loan me a few extra panels to practice on. I also picked up a gallon of reducer, a gallon of clear with the activator, a gallon of wax and grease remover, and a few other little odds and ends. My respirator, accessories, and extra parts are making a one way trip to my house on the big brown truck and should be here by middle of next week.

I plan on shooting several of the test panels at the same time to get a feel for spraying the metallics and see how they come out. If I can lay the base down evenly, without mottling or striping, I will more than likely end up using a metallic paint after all. I'm going to do my best, because I kinda flung a craving on a burnt bronze metallic color.

I also have a plan of attack if all goes well with the test panels. I intend to remove the doors and jam the truck and doors. At the same time, I will have the bed removed so that I can paint in between the cab and bed. If that part goes well, I will put the bed and doors back on, prep the entire truck, and try to paint the truck as a whole.

I am starting to get really excited about this again. I have no more current pics. Still doing a little bit of body work and sanding here and there and I still have a bit more primer to lay down. I will take pictures of the test panels when I get them in paint.

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