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Finally Getting Started!!!!!

Damn, looks great! What route did you end up taking for paint/body work. I hope mine turns out half that nice.:bow::bow:

Thanks, I am extremely happy with how the truck turned out.

Most of the shops I talked to wanted to take the truck on a time and material basis, which left things way too open ended for me. I shopped around to find a shop that would give me one price to finish the body work and paint. The shop that took it gave me a quote for the whole job, I counter offered, they agreed, and they finished it in just under 10 months.

Great guys, easy to work with, and they were very meticulous.
 
Do you care to elaborate on what the paintwork involved? Did they do rust repair, or did you take care of that before dropping it off? Did you strip all the trim, electrical, glass, etc.?

There are a number of Bay Area guys on this forum that would probably appreciate knowing who the shop was, and if you're willing to talk $$$ even in general terms I'm sure that would be useful too.....

Based on my own personal experiences with how tedious body repair is, and what I've heard the costs of painting materials are nowdays, I'm going to guess $5K is probably a minimum number for a good quality paintjob these days? :dunno:


:usaflag:
 
Do you care to elaborate on what the paintwork involved? Did they do rust repair, or did you take care of that before dropping it off? Did you strip all the trim, electrical, glass, etc.?
:usaflag:

Where to begin??????

Because my chassis was powder coated and I was still working on it, I bought a rolling chassis from a wrecked Blazer off of craigslist for $200.00. I carefully bolted my tub to it using shims as needed trying to avoid twisting or cold working it. I took the tub to the body shop completely stripped, and mounted to the donor chassis.



P1010700.JPG
 
The body work on the tub included welding/filling all holes for the original trim, spare tire mount holes, and big old CB antenna hole. Both rockers were replaced, minor rust repair was done at the kick panels, and all the dents were fixed. Once the body work on the Tub was done they lifted the tub off the chassis and repaired the original undercoating. Then they mounted the tub to my finished chassis with new poly body mounts.
Keep in mind this tub was virtually rust free!!


Copy of P1010825.JPG
 
Next were the body panels. They mounted a top on the truck from another customers Blazer, mounted and aligned the doors, fenders, tailgate, and hood.

Copy of P1 (1).JPG
 
Once all the alignments where done, everything was marked, and all the panels were removed: doors, fenders, hood, tailgate, and top. The jams, firewall, and dash were painted and the truck was reassembled for final paint.
 
Well the order went something like that????
What’s important is that it rolled out looking like this!!

Copy of P1010870.JPG

Copy of P1010871.JPG
 
Do you care to elaborate on what the paintwork involved? Did they do rust repair, or did you take care of that before dropping it off? Did you strip all the trim, electrical, glass, etc.?

There are a number of Bay Area guys on this forum that would probably appreciate knowing who the shop was, and if you're willing to talk $$$ even in general terms I'm sure that would be useful too.....

Based on my own personal experiences with how tedious body repair is, and what I've heard the costs of painting materials are nowdays, I'm going to guess $5K is probably a minimum number for a good quality paintjob these days? :dunno:


:usaflag:
I think 5k would probably be a good guess for a quality paint job in the Bay Area considering the high cost of real estate/commercial rent, high cost of labor, EPA, etc.

I considered taking the truck out of CA, but it just never worked out.

So long story short I have spent way way too much money on this project.

I think I may be about $100.00 dollars away from having to sleep in the garage with it.:crazy:

For a little over 10k the body shop did a lot of work including the following (and probably some stuff I forgot).

· Replaced both rockers.
· Repaired minimal rust at the kick panels.
· Welded/filled all unwanted holes on the tub.
· Repaired all the dents on the tub.
· Assembled the tub to the chassis.
· Mounted and aligned all the body panels.
· Undercoated the tub.
· Painted the underside of the hood and the inside of the fenders flat black.
· Painted all visible areas of the interior to match the exterior.
· Painted all of the areas of the interior that will be covered with carpet and panels flat black.
· Blocked and did final prep to the doors, hood, fenders, and tailgate (all the metal work was already done on these parts).
· And of course the final paint.
 
Yep....it's just hours and hours and hours of work to get to that point where someone can finally shoot color on it.

Funny thing is that everyone gives all the credit to the painter when in fact it's the prep that makes the paint look so good. $10K is a bit breathtaking, but it sounds like they took complete control of everything start to finish...and the results look beautiful.

How recent are those photos? Is the paint still soft and curing?...How long before you can reassemble things, do you plan to have them "cut and buff" the paint once it hardens up a bit?


That green color around my username is from jealousy BTW. :D


:usaflag:
 
How recent are those photos? Is the paint still soft and curing?...How long before you can reassemble things, do you plan to have them "cut and buff" the paint once it hardens up a bit?:usaflag:

The truck was painted about six weeks ago (I think), they called me about a week before the 4th of July to let me know it was painted. The pictures where taken about two weeks ago when I picked the truck up. I really don't know much about paint, they told me they use water base PPG products, first color, then a clear coat. I think if I'm understanding correctly California only allows water base paints, the material is pricey, and dificult to work with?? I was told as I was shopping around for a body shop that the material alone for the Blazer would cost 3-4K, I'm not sure how accurate that is, but I got similar numbers from a couple different shops??

The pictures really don't do it justice, but it's already been buffed.

As far as assembly I'm going to start as soon as I have some free time.

The chassis looked like this just before I pulled the engine and trans to take it to the body shop.

Copy of IMG_2770.jpg

Copy of IMG_2779.jpg
 
Mmmmmm.......502.

Brand /Part# of headers please!! Still shopping for a set of 2"ers for mine



:usaflag:
 
I think if I'm understanding correctly California only allows water base paints, the material is pricey, and dificult to work with?? I was told as I was shopping around for a body shop that the material alone for the Blazer...

California allows more than water base. They can spray urethane. Water base automotive paint is very difficult to spray though and is expensive here. 4-5k is probably too high, ppg could run 1k pretty easily for the material to paint a truck that size. Looks very nice though.
 
Mmmmmm.......502.

Brand /Part# of headers please!! Still shopping for a set of 2"ers for mine
:usaflag:

I used a “set” of big block headers from Sanderson’s in So. San Francisco,(www.sandersonheaders.com) due to some clearance issues you can see in the photos I ended up with their 55-up Chevy pickup C6 header for the driver side, and their 68-up Chevy full size car C7 header on the passenger side.
http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269349

The engine is a 454 I have owned for almost 20 years, and this will be its third truck since I've owned it. I had it "freshened up" for the Blazer; anyway I couldn't resist the 502 emblems. For the rest of the drive train I'm running a 700r/205 combo, 3.73 gears, Dana 44 front axle, and a 14 bolt rear.
 
$3-4K in materials could be pretty close. We don't know how many times the rig was block sanded and re-primered. The material bill most likely also includes the welding wire and shielding gas, the body filler used, the replacement rocker sections, and glue used to install them, as well as the many tubes of seam sealer and etch primer, sealer, then base and slear coat materials. I am pretty sure california only allows Latex materials (water born) for the base coat but the only clear coat materials availabel are still urethane. Its kinda funney, the latex materials are safer for the environment but much more toxic when exposed to the human body, but the urethane clear coat is even more toxic to everything but is the only thing available.

I have grown up with my dad who has owned a body shop for 30 years, and I don't know how it works but every damn paint job comes out to $15-25K. WTF THere really is no reason why any average Joe can't take a crack a doing their own body work. Just ask questions when at the paint store and take note of what your told. It always takes way longer than it should to get this work done.
 
Maybe 3-4k isn't too far off for material. I can go down to earl sheibs and get a urethane single stage paint job tomorrow. Urethane is still legal in CA and be purchased in auto body paint stores. The epoxy paints just had new restrictions put in place so they are harder to find.

I sprayed a lot of water based ppg years ago and it sucked back then. I've seen pretty good results when done professionally though. It just takes a lot more thinner coats than solvent or catalyzed paint.
 
$3-4K in materials could be pretty close. We don't know how many times the rig was block sanded and re-primered. The material bill most likely also includes the welding wire and shielding gas, the body filler used, the replacement rocker sections, and glue used to install them, as well as the many tubes of seam sealer and etch primer, sealer, then base and slear coat materials.


I can't contribute much to the paint debate, but when I mentioned the cost of material it included all the items you noted except for the rockers which I provided.

All in all, I think I got a fair deal on the body work and paint, it took me a long time to find a shop interested in restoration work. It seems like most shops are more interested in insurance work, which makes sense because the turn around times are quicker and they get a premium price.
 

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