I am getting ready to start doing some body work on my 90 D-150 and have a question I am hoping someone has dealt with before. One door has a dent and I am considering a new door skin for it but the lower body trim is missing and there are little pins that look like they are welded to the body to clip the trim on to.

That particular piece of trim is missing so I will need a new one and I frankly prefer the body with no trim but before I start grinding off the pins from all around the truck (I will be painting the whole thing) I am looking for advice. If you did this yourself did you just grind off the pins and if you did was it hard to get it smooth or am I looking at a lot of Bondo work? My other lower body trim is all in great shape around the truck so my other option is to just pull the dent and Bondo the door but its a tricky dent right at the edge of the door.

 

Are you talking about the side moldings?
If so, they're held on by screws, and you can see what I did about mine here: https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...a-91-w150.html
If not, pictures of what you're talking about would help.

 

No, no screws. Mine are actually pins welded onto the body itself. Here is a picture:



and here is the door.

 

You have the same trim I did. The trim only is held on by screws if it happens to have fallen off in a hardware store parking lot . . . unless that was one of the early 90s changes

When I took mine off, I was dealing with a lot of rust on the doors, and very little rust elsewhere. I haven't really found a way to avoid tearing them while getting them flush. When I used a grinder, they flew off and made a dimple. When I knocked them off with a chisel, they flew off and left a dimple.From the close up you posted, it looks like you have a little rust behind the pins anyway, so it wouldn't hurt to take care of that while you are removing the trim.

It really wasn't that much work. I just laid down a quarter sized patch of tiger hair on each dimple, sanded flush, then glazed it. Since its such a flat area, you can just go to town with a power sander.

 

That confirms what I suspected and is exactly the information I was looking for. I bought this 90 D-150 as a parts truck but its now taken shop priority over my 86 and its just snow balling (in a good way). Tomorrow is upper and lower ball joints and front brakes then over the weekend a new stock exhaust then next week new tires and finally I start on the body work.

I will be doing a Rustoleum roll paint job in Royal blue which should be interesting. I did a motorcycle and a tractor with that method and it came out great so we shall see.

Thanks again for the help.

 

My truck is in rustoleum royal blue with a roller too! Twins! Are you in some sort of warm area like Florida or something? I've never managed to get paint or filler to even be remotely nice in sub 55F degree weather. (I had to patch a rocker panel on my girlfriends old truck in november a few years ago)

 

South Central Missouri, it was 72 here today but I will wait for a bit warmer weather before I get too carried away on any filler or paint. Lots of dings and dents I can get out with hammer and dolly. I like the color of your truck and I think it will go good with my blue interior.