Well, I had been sanding and prepping the interior of the truck for paint and started on the door jams today. I was going to paint the interior myself and have the exterior done professionally to try and save myself some money. The interior prep came out pretty nice as I got everything smoothed out and shot the primer on.
I started working on sanding the door jams today so I could get the color laid down on the interior soon, and thats when I uncovered my truck's dirty little secret. I had never noticed it before, nor had I really looked down in the corners when I pulled the gas tank out. But as I was sanding the rear driver's side door jam and a little on the exterior, I began to notice cracks in the paint in the lower rear corner of the cab. As I sanded on these cracks a little, then they began to get bigger until a LARGE, THICK chunk of bondo fell off of the truck. As I kept sanding, I could see that the cracks began to form around the entire bottom corner of the cab. I looked inside the cab down in the corner by where the gas tank would normally cover, and I could see that the entire corner of the cab had been crunched in and not really pulled out much. Someone just filled the entire dent with bondo... Lots and lots of bondo.
Anyway, it was more that I wanted to deal with as I am a complete amateur when it comes to bodywork. So at that point, I decided that I was just going to send the whole truck off to get painted professionally (my quote included all bodywork as well). And since this damage also went in to the inside of the cab as well, there was no point in me painting the interior when they were going to have to fix this corner of the truck. So I made some phone calls, packed up the bed of the truck with the body panels not on the truck, and off it went!!
I told them to take their time and do it right (which they do anyway). They are going to take the entire truck apart and paint each part separately after all body work repairs are done and they make sure it is perfectly straight. Their estimate is about 2 months. They are going to repaint the engine compartment as well and prep the interior of the bed for me so I can have it shot with bedliner (they have a connection and I may get that done there as well). Either way, I am hoping to have the truck back around my birthday.. So it will be a birthday present for me having it delivered back into the driveway so I can start putting it all back together.
The wife is happy as she can start parking in the driveway again (for now). The neighbors and evil homeowners association will be happy because the "eyesore" will not be in my driveway. CNM67 is happy because that means he can bring his truck over and we can pull his old motor, clean and paint his engine bay, and drop the newly built 390 in his truck, which will take a few days time. This will effectively take the wife's driveway spot away again which will piss her off, and put another "eyesore" in front of my house which will piss off the neighbors and the evil homeowners association! Then, all will be right with the world once again!
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