99’ Ford Lightning metal and fiberglass

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PostPosted: Tue May 23, 2023 12:25 pm
Hi, I’m restoring my truck and have a few questions. I’m probably over thinking it and this has delayed me for months..so..

The front bumper and ground effects are plastic, the cab of the truck is metal and the bed is fiberglass. I replaced a front fender from a junk yard and sanded it down with 180grit.

I removed the windshield because there was some rust from where the glass installer didn’t seal correctly so I sanded the area down to metal and feathered it out about half way back to good paint that didn’t have clear coat peeling.

On the doors ( I’m still in progress with sanding) I’m sanding down the clear coat peel with 180 grit but I think I need to go more aggressive but not sure. There are several small (quarter size) dents from hail storms it sat through in Texas while my son had it.

The fiberglass has has one small spot that has a crack in it and haven’t done very much research on how to fix it mostly because I need to figure out how and what to sand the bed with. It has sun damage and some clear coat peel.

I think I’m going to just replace the front bumper cover because I paid a guy a year ago to spray it for me and that was a disaster. It peeled and bubbled and when I tried to sand it down, the sand paper would gum up. I don’t know what the hell is going on with that.

With all that said I have a little anxiety trying to move forward. I was looking at doing epoxy primer first, then using Bondo on the hail damage and then using a 2k primer over top of that. Is that the correct way to proceed? I wasn’t sure if the dtm epoxy can be sprayed over the entire vehicle first even though all the paint hasn’t been stripped to metal. Should I do all bodywork first (not much really, just some small dings) and then spray an epoxy or will a 2k primer work?

Can you guys start me in the right direction? Appreciate it
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2023 7:29 am
You may try wiping that front bumper with lacquer thinner. Depending on what they used for paint, it may wipe right off.

If the rest of the paint is original, it is 24 years old and should be stripped in my opinion.

We have a Fiberglass and Plastic forum which should answer your questions for repair and painting.
1968 Coronet R/T


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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2023 10:39 am
Hi, thanks for responding. I have been reading through those forums also. I’m will try to wipe the bumper as you said. At this point I don’t have much to loose

So, should I take the whole thing down to metal (the cab) with 36 or 80 grit?

After that would you fill the dings with Bondo and then spray the cab with and epoxy primer to seal it or spray epoxy and do the Bondo on top of epoxy?

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