Let's see your first gen - photo thread

Finally snapped off some pics today, but missed full sunshine by 30 seconds.

First couple are as-it-was on the dealership back lot, as flat white as it gets, the pics the sales guy sent to me before I made the 2hr trek to get it. Stealership detail crew was a bit of a joke, just got it in and out.

Photos following that that are after about 20-25 hours random exterior work starting around December-January timeframe, peeling off crap, cleaning, buffing, etc. Yes, I need to do the foglight lenses. Maybe this month. Novus is waiting.

More details on the process I used are here (short version) and here (long version) for the large panels and the smaller panels A/B/C pillars and tight areas used the hex-logic pads described here.



But wait, wait! Here's a bonus late-game edit to show you just how bad it was, with a mid-way before/after shot:




BEFORE:



AFTER:

 

Man that looks really clean

 

Been doing a lot of camping and fishing this last month. stayed at my buddy's cabin. I'm in love with my new minn kota ulterra. If you in to boating and you don't know what this thing does check it out. https://youtu.be/y5ejwRj9t1Q

 

@Brown Bear that's so cool. At what elevation do you still have that much snow?
Also, that cabin is awesome. Did he build it out of stone in hopes that it will survive a fire?

 

The snow was about June 8th up at 7800 ft.
Most just snow drifts in shady spots. He made the cabin out of stone with stand fire and the snow load. Here in California we have very wet heavy snow. The winter befor last he had 42 ft of snow at his cabin.

 

I gotta tag along on one of your fishing trips!

 

Most definitely. I will make an extra seat on the boat for you.

 

The Lonely Tundra
Hotel lot in Arkansas
Not much going on around here Today!?

 

is that cap for the truck or from something else?

 

where can i get a truck cap like this one ?

 

Check Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. You may have to drive a ways to find one.

 

Lookin pretty at the property

 

You just have to hunt one down

 

They grow up so fast

 

Washed since we're "supposed" to get 4 whole days without rain....also had the tint on the front 2 windows, that was peeling, replaced and added tint to the rear windows. it's now 5% in the back and 18% up front. love it! truck is so much cooler now that the rear windows are tinted.

 

lucky you! just got a 5 figure quote to repaint my DC

 

I personally like the darker photo. the contrast of the bright greens to the darker greens in the trees and brush is very nice. as well as your truck leads the eye towards the back of the photo to see the bright sun light shining at an angle leading you back to your truck. the movement of the photo is very nice as well as your truck. nice picture!
(art major...sorry)

 

art....so subjective! haha

 

Walked by a Red 1st Gen today and everywhere they had a rock chip on the front hood/grille area their clear coat was flaking about a 1/4” around the chip.

 

Last night just after clock out.

 

I couldn’t resist offering a different opinion! Best thing about art!

 

I actually really liked hearing an analytical review. Hoping for more to come in the future

 

Yea that sounds familiar. Still trying to figure out what to do, might start with the hood. The whole paint job option is still being discussed.

I envy some of your guys trucks paint looking so new!

 

I’ve always washed mine many times throughout the year and put at least 1-2 coats of wax each year, as well. Sometimes more when Sensei had me practicing WaxOn WaxOff Technique.

I do have those rock chip areas from highway driving stone impacts. I never touched them up until recently when I found a touch up bottle from when I bought the truck new. I guess waxings have done the clear coat good?

 

I would say that definitely helped. I’m paying for my learning in the difference between waxing and car wash with wax in it. My hood had chips on it when I bought it That have only gotten worse. To the point where it’s bothering me now. My plan is touch up everything I can, re clear coat my roof, and probably have my hood painted by a pro.

 

It's weird, the red metallics, like the salsa red pearl or the darker maroon metallic, they seem to have the biggest problem with clearcoat fail and I wonder why. Seems like GM had big problems with this on their dark green metallic, so it's not isolated to Toyota. I was just flipping thru trucks for sale today, 75% of red metallics had some clear fails.

Toyota's solid red, solid black, solid white were all single stage so no chance for clearcoat failure, I wonder what it is about their red metallics that seemed to lead to double or triple (or more?) the amount of clearcoat failures? In a way, I'm really happy my paint is single-stage, it's so damn easy to correct and get shiny-shiny.

Just sucks you need to put more effort into keeping it shiny without having that clear over it. But anyway, to my point: There must be something to red and green metallics, I'm sure there's science or something behind it.. Would love to understand what it was.

Good news: Unless you bought the truck new, it could've very well been what the original owner failed to do. I was always told you never wax until 12-18 months after a new multi-stage paint job, and even then you don't wax it, you use a sealer first. Re-seal every other year, wax in between.

The good news for you: With all the hybrid spray waxes out there now, It's super easy to at least do a half-ass job of waxing easily with minimal effort. Something about getting tennis/golfer's elbow applying and removing paste wax has never been my favorite. Glad to have spray options now.

If I understand correctly, I'm supposed to seal my single-stage every year and-or every other year since there's no clearcoat to protect the paint. Clearly the first long-term owner and the second 6-month owner of my truck did none of the above. Washed it and put it away.

I'm going to need to figure out a convenient way to seal, though. First I need to hit all the slightly-hazy body creases, though. My paint is almost there!

 

I’m jealous of the single stage paints on here. I was looking at the pictures of your truck earlier wishing I could do the same. Not trying to pass the buck but I think 80% of my problem came from the previous owner. He was meticulous about maintenance, which is what drew me to the older truck, but it sat outside all the time and I don’t think he did much to help the paint though. He drove her hard and put it up wet. I’m doing a lot of research and plan on doing what I can to repaint or reclear coat my roof and fenders. Other than that mostly chips and scratches. We’ll see how it goes. I just keep saying no one can see the roof so let’s give it the college try!

 

I would think that being a darker color it would retain more heat and thus be a contributing factor.

 

I got lucky with the body on my truck. Other than one ding in the tailgate that wasn't even visible until I buffed out the paint and a couple small dings on the rear driver corner, there isn't a single meaningful dent or scratch on the truck.

If you clean the paint by wetsanding and cutting it with a hard compound before prepping and painting, you could get away with clearcoating over the existing paint, then wetsand again and polish it out. It won't be perfectly smooth, but 10ft visibly better no doubt, and you'll be out about 10-20 hours work and maybe $150-200 total. What's the worst that could happen, you need to have it repainted? This is why you shouldn't sweat giving it a try. 90% of paint is prep, prep, prep.

Any highly reputable paint shop should be able to fully sand off the failure and "Feather in" new paint, this is something shops do all the time with accident claims on newer vehicles, they must feather in new paint all the time on the damaged panel and make it blend with the old, especially on rear quarters. A lot of shops are hesitant to do it on vehicles with clearcoat fail because if the clear is failing where it is now, chances are it's eventually going to fail everywhere they don't fix now.

I would say: 5-digit quote is BS unless you need show-quality and they're removing the bed etc. - paying as much for repaint as you'd pay on a new truck is absurd. $2-3k buys a solid basic MAACO job w/1 coat of clear (last I checked, they're charging $500/coat on clears). A good shop should do a better-than-MAACO repaint for $5-8k, maybe towards the higher end because it's a DC.

 

Thanks for the tips! I’ve been experimenting with wet sanding and having great results. I’m ready to move up to trying some clear coat re do. I wet sanded the fenders down so I might as well hit it was some clear coat.

The shop said $8-$10k ball Park and that was because he offered a lifetime warranty. He said in order to offer that, they never paint a truck in one piece and take it part by part.
I don’t know enough about paint jobs to know if that sounds right. This is the first truck I’ve considered getting painted.

At this point I’m going to take a swing at it. Take my time and prep like crazy!