Two tone is coming together in the paint shop! Can't wait to see it all buffed out in the sun!

 

That's gonna look nice.

 

I think it came out awesome! 2 coats of primer, 7 coats of moss green pearl, 2 coats of clear.

Going to start the body lift here tonight. Another 2" will look slick on this. Going to move the stock bumpers up by cutting and welding the brackets. Electric fans up front to clear the rad hose. Then I can do the flowmaster exhaust with dual chrome outlets. That'll be good enough for this truck for one summer, then I'm the fall I'll send it back to my paint buddy to do the silver stripes. I need to find the pin striping tape they used so I can cover the paint joints the same way they did from factory.

 

That is one sharp truck!! Congrats, on the paint job!

 

Thanks man! I'm pretty excited to dig into it a little more now.


Here's a comparison shot of my new headlight bulbs. Passenger side is the old bulb, driver is Sylvania SXE Gold. Much brighter and whiter. Still the old housings, so once I replace those it should be brighter yet. My paint guy said to leave these old ones on the truck and when he comes back to buff it, he'll polish the headlights to look new. I'll let him try and worst case move them to another truck if they're not as clear as the new ones sitting on my parts bench.

Edit: oh yeah, I installed a new aftermarket IAC and I'm happy to say that it immediately made it idle better and the stalling issues seem to be gone.

 

Get the heavy duty headlight relay harness as well. It does indeed make a difference.

Polishing will last for a year or so, then they will begin to yellow again. I just replace the housings, considering how cheap they are.

And now that you have that pretty paint job, ya gotta be more careful working around the truck.

 

I find if you wet sand with 1000 grit, then 1500, buff and they look alot better!!

 

@HeyYou thanks for the tip on the hd harness, hadn't heard of that mod before but I'll be giving it a try. This truck's primary purpose is to haul my boat and we do mostly night fishing, so good headlights will be helpful.




Body lift is underway tonight. Back half is pretty easy, now onto the front!

 

Leveled it out nicely. 4" is a good amount of lift for these trucks. The body mounts were pretty rusty, one of them completely gone. I ordered new bushings, but the metal hat piece is hard to come by other than buying a whole new OEM body mount for $45/ea. I stole one off my 2wd truck for now, but I'm going to have to find some at a junkyard. I'll also have to make some new fender gap guards. This truck actually has the stock ones intact, so I'll have a nice template to make some for the other trucks too.

Now onto bumpers!

 

Make good templates; or just as well, figure out how to make them for others. Mine are mostly gone; I'd love a new set to go in the 1988 2WD.

RwP