I wish I would have done a before and after picture with the only difference being the paint to see how much brighter it makes it. The brighter bulbs definitely help too.
CK5
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Got the wheels in primer. 
I have to say I like the color of just the self etching primer. Almost an olive drab. But I’ll be doing the silver rally wheel paint on them. Here’s a very obvious tip that I ignored: after sandblasting, primer your metal as soon as possible. I spent a few hours today just cleaning off some surface rust on these which would have been avoided if I had just primered them months ago. Oh well.
I have to say I like the color of just the self etching primer. Almost an olive drab. But I’ll be doing the silver rally wheel paint on them. Here’s a very obvious tip that I ignored: after sandblasting, primer your metal as soon as possible. I spent a few hours today just cleaning off some surface rust on these which would have been avoided if I had just primered them months ago. Oh well.
It’s really coming along! Sheet metal work is the worst. Good work!
Thank you. Man you said it. That’s been one of my least favorite parts of this build. Very little left though.
I felt bad for the neighbors while I was getting it on the trailer this morning. Kind of a frustrating start to the day, got it all the way to the exhaust shop and the guy said he wouldn’t be able to get to it until 11 at the earliest which is fine except it was forecasted to rain again around noon (it was “0% chance of rain” as of last night). I wasn’t going to risk it getting wet if it decided to rain early. All I can do is laugh about it and try again tomorrow morning. 
have you thought about just spraying it down with a quick coat of epoxy primer? that's what i did to keep surface rust down
Yeah I actually already bought a few cans, should have done it a long time ago. I’ll do the epoxy primer then body filler then then filler primer then paint. After the exhaust the epoxy primer is my next thing to do
I went ahead and got the brackets for the mirrors figured out and installed so I’m not drilling after it’s been primered. I went off a reference picture to get them in the right spot and I think I nailed it. They came right off afterwards but they looked awesome for a second.
fordmas
Partially sentient meat based robot
What bulbs did you go with? Have a link?
@fordmas These right here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JNFB5CA?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
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It's good practice to never leave metal unpainted. Rust sets in super quick, especially in humid places. Every one of those panels is probably rusting already.
Yeah I should have just done it right away, can’t remember my reasoning for not doing it at the time. Oh well lesson learned. Most of them are still pretty clean considering it sat outside under a tarp for a few months. I’ll get them clean again before I prime soon.
Finally! 
I’m super happy with it, it’s tucked up nice and close and it sounds awesome. Much quieter than I expected which is good I don’t want a ton of noise in the cab. I also got a couple wheels clear coated and I’m really happy with how they turned out too.
The clear coat makes a mediocre paint job look really nice.
I’m super happy with it, it’s tucked up nice and close and it sounds awesome. Much quieter than I expected which is good I don’t want a ton of noise in the cab. I also got a couple wheels clear coated and I’m really happy with how they turned out too. The clear coat makes a mediocre paint job look really nice.I was waiting on more clear coat to come in so I could finish up the wheels. Didn’t want to get into anything too dusty in the meantime so I went ahead and got all the seat hardware cleaned up and painted and working properly. 
The tracks slide nice and easy now. Obviously the seats have to come back out but I had to take a picture. it’s nice knowing I can drop them right in when I put it back together. I’m going to finish getting clear coat on the rest of the wheels then start on getting everything in epoxy primer.
The tracks slide nice and easy now. Obviously the seats have to come back out but I had to take a picture. it’s nice knowing I can drop them right in when I put it back together. I’m going to finish getting clear coat on the rest of the wheels then start on getting everything in epoxy primer.So this is my system for cleaning the metal for epoxy primer. 3-1 mixture of water and vinegar sprayed over the panel, then scrub it down with steel wool. When it dries it looks like crap. 
Then take the steel wool and clean water over the whole panel till it’s nice and clean.
The vinegar is supposed to kill the rust and it leaves the metal nice and white. There are still black spots where the rust was but it’s not active. Then I’m spraying rust converter on the areas that had heavier surface rust.
It does seem to react differently to rusted metal vs clean metal so that’s encouraging. And then on top of that epoxy primer.
This is how far one can got me, it looks like for big panels like this it needs about 2 cans. I ordered a bunch more. I’m going to do each panel like this one at a time.
Then take the steel wool and clean water over the whole panel till it’s nice and clean.
The vinegar is supposed to kill the rust and it leaves the metal nice and white. There are still black spots where the rust was but it’s not active. Then I’m spraying rust converter on the areas that had heavier surface rust.
It does seem to react differently to rusted metal vs clean metal so that’s encouraging. And then on top of that epoxy primer.
This is how far one can got me, it looks like for big panels like this it needs about 2 cans. I ordered a bunch more. I’m going to do each panel like this one at a time.
Ok it’s all in epoxy primer now, it’s very weird seeing this thing in one solid color.
I had about a month where I was working on my daily driver van and a friends car so I didn’t get to the blazer as much in that month. I also had metal to replace on the hood, tailgate, and doors before I could primer it. Finally I needed to get the little supports in the doors for the cap that covers the part that got cut for the top conversion as well as make some brackets to hold the window track in place since I didn’t have the window tracks from the factory 73-75 doors.
anyway all those excuses are to say that it took awhile to get it done but all the metal is sealed up so I can start on body filler now. My original plan was to take care of the ac system and basically everything related to the air after i got the blazer painted because I thought I’d paint the firewall but I don’t really see a need to and I wouldn’t be able to get paint back behind the motor. Besides that I already painted the firewall in por-15 so I figured I’d go ahead and tackle all that now. I ended up replacing every part in the ac system and the last parts should be coming in today. So I should be able to knock it out in the next week or so and finally dive into the body filler.
I had about a month where I was working on my daily driver van and a friends car so I didn’t get to the blazer as much in that month. I also had metal to replace on the hood, tailgate, and doors before I could primer it. Finally I needed to get the little supports in the doors for the cap that covers the part that got cut for the top conversion as well as make some brackets to hold the window track in place since I didn’t have the window tracks from the factory 73-75 doors.
anyway all those excuses are to say that it took awhile to get it done but all the metal is sealed up so I can start on body filler now. My original plan was to take care of the ac system and basically everything related to the air after i got the blazer painted because I thought I’d paint the firewall but I don’t really see a need to and I wouldn’t be able to get paint back behind the motor. Besides that I already painted the firewall in por-15 so I figured I’d go ahead and tackle all that now. I ended up replacing every part in the ac system and the last parts should be coming in today. So I should be able to knock it out in the next week or so and finally dive into the body filler.
A/C system is coming along pretty well so far. I had a special delivery arrive today. 
I did order five of them but for some reason one is arriving tomorrow. I researched other tires but in the end I went back to the bfg ko2s. I’ve had 3 sets and always liked them so good enough for me. Size is 31x10.5. I’ll probably get them mounted and balanced before the weekend.
I did order five of them but for some reason one is arriving tomorrow. I researched other tires but in the end I went back to the bfg ko2s. I’ve had 3 sets and always liked them so good enough for me. Size is 31x10.5. I’ll probably get them mounted and balanced before the weekend.
I have the same, 285/75/16 on one suburban and 37x12.5x17 on the other.
