Heavy metal!
Good job fixing the mess.

Heavy metal!
Good job fixing the mess.

Could have done without 150 billable hours. On the flip side would have taken me 3 times as long to it maybe a 1/3 as nice / solid as this. I'm just glad to be in the other bay and done bleeding rust money.

I straight up hate picking colors because ya know, I suck at it. If ya loop back a couple pages, I kinda decided to keep the brown because of scoring the uber rare buckets. The bit I skipped is how many of those exact seats in dark red / burgundy I've walked past. As in: already painted the doors and dash, no big deal painting them again. Meanwhile my body guy has really been balking at the idea of color change and I of course don't wanna put that kinda hole in my budget - again. In the process of working thru that I may have told him match it with something I like better or it's goin Inferno Red. Well, damn if he didn't pull that off.

Depending on your paint supplier, ya can still dig up formulas for 40 year old paint so that's where we started. The fender on pg 2 was supposed to be original color in single stage and the metallic wasn't even close. The center section on this spray out is supposed to be the same thing in base clear but it's an even worse match. One side of this is a base clear that got cooked up based on what the scanning camera picked up from the inside of the doors - ya know, where its not sun faded. It's just about dead on and how often does that happen. The other section is 2013-15 Ram and I really dig it - kinda. Has more red in it and that works for me, great metallic / pearl in the sun. Looks plain boring without bright light.

The other conversation has been how to tow-tone it and break up the big brown blob with some tan. I was leaning toward the factory style but I've gotten over it. Part of that is try finding the trim, never mind the clips. I kinda landed on paint the roof tan to match the interior but again my guy wasn't diggin it. While looking at the spray out I had a moment where hey, maybe paint the roof this center color that doesn't match at all.

Nice truck!

Primer stages should be about done by now and paint coming soon so I've been working on exterior finish details.

Have a new after market front bumper and the current rear is pretty good. Bought the repop prospector decals and door handles, need to pull the trigger on the mirror bases and hood emblem. Gotta grab the side spears and wipers to polish up and ya'd be surprised what a buffing wheel and some aluminum polish will do for old dull wiper arms / blades.

Recently looped back to the problem of cleaning up the grille. Been a thing I've been tinkering with for a while and think I've got something that will work (except for Kurt). Simple explanation: hit it with 80 grit to tear through the anodized layer and work the scratches / dings out, repeat until ya get to 5000 grit. Clear coat solution to follow but thinking about powder coating. Test spot came up pretty well. I think what looks swirls on the final polish is actually some scratches from around 120 grit because I was short a couple grits in the sequence.

Dunno exactly how the 77/78 grill became the test mule but it's all good - I've got one of those too. Was gonna keep going with the finer grits I have while waiting for the smaller disks to arrive. Decided not to risk getting overlap and just wait for the order and do the whole thing 1 grit at a time.

Decided to grab the best of the take off 79 grilles I have around and see what I could do about working the serious dents. Went a lot easier than I expected and I seriously think I spent more time trying to clamp the grill down then hammering on the dents. Used a couple simple hammers and a piece of flat stock for a dolly. Also fooled around with using sockets and other round things as a dolly when knocking the high points back down. Last pass here is 60 grit and still needs a little tuning.

Really nice work that must be long to do if you want a good result. Just a small question,
is that in time this is not likely to oxidize again? (sun, rain, snow temperature difference)
I’ve always been reluctant to go out and do more damage than improvement.
Also I love the metallic brown on your test panel, the one to the right.

I know that channel and resto. Also turns out I kinda know the guy. Back before FB existed I was running a group / mailing list / website for Cordobas and he was in it.

The on going saga of cleaning up the grille is now on you tube. Maybe a how-to article here later. The center sections are mind numbingly tedious and still not sure how to get to one part of them. R&D hours keep piling up but still have faith in the end product. I created a play list that I'll add to as things progress.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9md5C5XfCIa_jBHJUoQ5D0rGB5HnFMyE

Lots of work is paying off.
Real nice.

Lots of work is paying off.
Real nice.

Yes, thanx and loose ends pilling up. Been in the body shop jail a long time. While it was gone I put together a motor and interior, some other goodies. No trans yet but it's all good. Small block was running great when parked, will when fired. Pop the top, drive it for the summer.

Grabbed the side spears to run through my buffer, picked up one of the emblems, dug up this thread:

https://ramchargercentral.com/vehicle-help/removingrepainting-old-fendertailgate-emblems/msg1580007/#msg1580007

I know Testors from model building. When looking for where to buy. Found a couple things that said bought out by Rust Oleum and to be discontinued. Oddly, the stores I found had low inventory. Who says finding parts for old Dodges is hard?

The often had conversation around the shop is how to break up the brown. Been thinking of this in a tan maybe:

https://www.graphic-express.com/mopar/dodge/dodge-truck/ramcharger/1977-78-dodge-macho-ramcharger-4x4-truck-stripe-kit.html

Last trip the idea of ghost flames came up and ya know, maybe with a different build and I know exactly what color to use. I've had a couple of those ideas. That lead to ghost mud which oddly got some buy in. Instead of painting flames or other accents in a ghost color, paint mud splashes like it just bounced across a river.

Actually, I've got a great idea but I can't post it here.

Okay. Now you've piqued my curiosity. 

it may be or certainly me but I find that the price is high for for such a simple realization?
And a finish of the "top hand" or "Rod Hall" style with the metal brown it goes well.

Truth be told I've been saving this for when I get around to getting a shaggin wagon.

Ha. That might attract some attention.


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