Hey guys, I could use some advice on the paint and body on my 54 f100. The truck is almost done, just needs paint and interior. My question is should I take it all the way to bare metal or just respray it? the body is really straight and was painted 8 years ago, but has a ton of scratches and some cracking bondo. I'm on a limited budget but don't want to cut corners. let me know what you think!
It sounds to me you got some bondo thats too thick if its cracking. Did you do the bodywork and paint that's on it now? I have a suburban thats "straight" but it has a shitload of bondo on it so I will take that down to bare metal to see what its hiding, but if you know that everythings good on the body just sand the existing paint down good, prime, block and paint.
No the paint and body was done when I got the truck, they did however have a receipt for it for 4k from a restoration shop for it.
8 years is a good time frame to see if anything is growing under the paint.If not I would just fix the bad spots and paint.
take it down and get it done right, if theres bondo cracking something is happing with the metal and wont get any better with a quickpaint job. you could offset some of the cost buy selling those wheels and tires
Yea If I was you I'd just take it down and be done with it. That way you know everythings good and have no worries in the end. I'll have to say that my favorite thing to use is those paint remover discs you get from home depot that go on a 4 and a half inch grinder. They take all the paint off and don't do any damage to the metal. Way faster than sanding with 80 grit or using aircraft stripper.
That's a real nice looking truck. If you are drivin it like that and not shown it patch it up and enjoy it. If you want to show it and look at it in mags only then pay to make it perfect and keep it in a box somewhere
If it went down to bare metal last time you shouldn't have to worry about taking it to bare metal this time unless it looks like something is going on under the paint such as the cracking bondo. If you think the rest of the work may be suspect and have thick filler in places you should probably take it down to bare metal. On thought, most of that truck is setup where you can reach the back side of the panels pretty easy to see if they are smooth on the inside or if there was a lot of filler put on it. That might be the first step. I hope getting rid of those cartoon wheels is part of the plan if they aren't already gone off the truck.
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