Well, as a few of you know, I found myself with a rather large chunk of my beautiful paint missing this week, and with the thought of the truck not going into the paint booth for another few months, I knew that I had to do something.


We start with this:


While I'm not sure what happened here, I knew that I had to get the hole covered up before rust became an issue.

Here is what I used, and I hope that some of you find this useable down the road at some point.

1. Clean the affected area off with a basic soap and water mixture so you can see what you are dealing with.

2. Take a knife and pry off the large chips that are loose.

3. Use some 80 grit sand paper to feather out the paint and metal. What you're trying to accomplish is removing all the little cracks and chips in the surrounding area so they wont be there to flake off later down the road. Once you have that done, finesse it with some 320, then 600, then 1000 grit to clean up the harsh 80 grit sanding.

Below is a pic of step three done:



4. (Optional) If you have the material laying around, you can use a metal prep solution to remove all the dirt and other nasty compounds. What I used is a combo adhesion promoter and metal prep in one. (follow the can directions here)

5. Mask the area off. Making sure that you have areas in which you do not want areas covered in spray covered off. I used a light weight recycled paper that we buy in rolls for things like this.

6: Follow the directions on the primer can. In my case, I had to mix up some K86 epoxy primer as I didn't trust the old can of high build from dupont I had laying around.

7. Begin to lightly spray the area. Doing light coats and waiting 5 minutes in between each is key to cut down on runs and orange peel finish.

Below is a pic of spray and masking:



8. Once you have a sufficient amounts of coats down, let the primer sit for fifteen (15) minutes before trying to remove the masking paper. This allows the spray to skin over so to speak so you wont gouge it while removing the paper.



9. Once that is done, enjoy that matching splotch on your paint job that stands out like a sore thumb:



If you want to spray color on, you can do that as well, but in my case, this was just to seal the hole up so that rust wouldn't be an issue. As I said, this isn't a permanent fix as I'm waiting for spring and the salt to get off of the roads before I send her in to the body shop for the real painters to work on.

DF and myself takes no responsibility for any misinformation, harm, or any other unwanted circumstance that may arise from doing this procedure.

 

FYI: This thread has been copied to the 2nd Gen Ram FAQ if someone can't find it in the main section later.

 

There are 2 things I'd do different (comes from over 3 years working in a body shop).

1) I wouldn't use 80 grit sandpaper for something as small as that. I'd go 180 and then 320. Primer can fill in 320 scratches and it will help it stick better than 1000 grit.

2) I'd mask off a wider area and roll the tape back to avoid getting a hard edged break line in the paint. You want the spot of primer to be feathered out... less likely to chip/flake off in the long run.

 

did you try to pop that out? i saw that pic on FB the other day

 

Tried 320, but it wasn't enough to really eat out the cracks as like I wanted.
Not to mention, this isn't supposed to be permanent. Just a simple "lets keep it from rusting" type deal.
Besides, I had my Dad working behind me with over 30 years experience in the paint booth.
Yea, but we didn't have all the tools out of storage. Could of have easily popped it if we had the spoons ready to go, but we didn't feel like spending four hours digging them out.

 

Wow... I was just offering advise based on personal experience for anyone who reads this and wants to fix a paint chip. I can see now why this section of the forum gets such a bad rep.

 

I'm sorry if you read it wrong. Wasn't trying to hateful.

 

My bad Laramie1997. That last line you posted about your dad working 30 years in a paintbooth sure made it sound like you were trying to discredit my post.

If you tried a lighter grit and it didn't work, then I stand corrected on the 80 grit comment. I'm just used to doing 85-90% of sanding with an air sander and 180 on one of them will bite better than 80 on a block.

I still stand by back-taping a larger area though. It just makes it look cleaner and won't put an edge on the paint spot.

 

Yea, I see how you could have seen that.

Like said, this wasn't supposed to be a professional job. If it lasts me a couple of months, which with this epoxy primer, I think it will last much much longer, I'll be happy. I just couldn't deal with having bare metal out in the weather. Specially since there is still a ton of salt down on the roads. I already have a spot in the rear quarter panel that chipped off some time ago that I didn't catch until the other day all ate up with rust. Need to go sand on that and at least pencil it in with clear nail polish or something.

A means to an end I guess. It's just been a long hard string of bad bad luck concerning me and this Ram here lately.