Getting a vintage truck ready for paint

Older trucks are the most common thing through our shop after farm equipment. They also tend to be owner-driven projects with a long timeline, which changes the sequencing.

Before it comes to us

• Degrease everything. Decades of oil and undercoat on a frame will otherwise be driven into the profile.
• Pull the glass, seals and trim. Media will find any gap and it does not come back out.
• Decide about the interior. Blasting an assembled cab means media inside it permanently.
• Bag or remove anything with a bearing or machined surface.

A workable order

Frame and running gear first, dry, coated straight away. Cab and panels second, wet, timed to your primer. Small parts batched. That way nothing sits bare waiting for the next stage.

Handing it to the painter

Talk to whoever is painting it before we start. Some want bare metal to prime themselves. Some want it in epoxy already. Getting that wrong means sanding off work you paid for.

A lot of the trucks stored on farms around Irvine, Walsh and Seven Persons have sound sheet metal under bad paint, precisely because the air out there is dry. Blasting is how you find out which you have.