What have you done to your 1st gen Tundra today?

Here's some cough medicine

 

That made me chuckle

 

Bought my Eastwood oem paint primer and clear today. Going to try and fix my faded upper doors, upper fenders and bumper. I’ll probably make a separate post chronicling my trials and failures. Going to go by this YouTube video. How hard can it be haha

https://youtu.be/dE31a5p9HKU?si=U2dmMu0B7rvKN-EN

 

He speaks very flippantly about "you need to get down to the base color coat" as if it's a walk in the park. It's not super easy to cleanly get there.

 

Yea that was more of me being sarcastic. Luckily or unluckily I think the sun brought it down through to the primer so shouldn’t be too much lol

 

The hard part is getting a clean, non-jagged edge from primer to clear.

 

I bought some good Eastwood paint hoping to get it looking better than it is. I am going to get some of that fade out spray that seemed to work pretty good. Luckily the spots I’m doing aren’t super visible besides the bumper but I’m doing the whole bumper so we’ll see how it goes.

 

Yeah @bmf4069

 

No I mean sanding.

In that video, you see what a razor sharp line he has between base color and clear? Thats pretty crucial, and very difficult. If you leave a jaggy edge, your eye will catch the line between clear and base color once you lay the new clear over it.

 

I just did an entire bed side with RustOleum products. One thing that I think really made a difference was how many times I blew and tacked clothed it off before the final finish coats. 3X, the third time seemed pointless, but in the end I think I only found one or two specs of debris in it.
I had never done the body work or painting on an area that was as large or as critical... just jumped in it, and it turned out pretty decent.

 

I'm not a paint guy. Although I can hold my own with painting parts. I always say the biggest key to success is PREP PREP PREP. Like 50% more of the work is being OCD anal retentive about keeping your panels clean and dust free. The rest is just shaking your paint adequately, laying light coats properly spaced, evenly, and adhering to the recoat window for that paint strictly.

There are some folks on here like @ToyotaDude, @whodatschrome, and @badass03taco who can speak better to it.

 

When I got my truck back in 2014, the clear coat had already gone entirely from the top and it had developed quite the... patina. The coastal Texas sun has continued being unkind to that early 00s clear coat, and honestly I've just sorta let it run its course. A bit more peels, I let it fade a bit and just put some patina preserver on every other month or so.

Embrace the fade!

 

Amazing that if someone had just used a UV-protectant wax, it probably would've saved that clearcoat.

It'll be interesting to see how well cars made in the last decade hold up, now that nearly every decent carwash has ceramic protection and UV protectant in it.

 

The previous owner kept it in Corpus Christi, so I'd imagine the salty air did it no favors either. Maybe one day I'll repaint it, but honestly its sort of developed a janky charm over time in my opinion. Will post pics of my hideous roof tomorrow when the suns out again, probably in the general discussion thread.

 

I'm talking armor.

 

You act like I haven't been talking with Jake about some armor!

 

I'm just trying to taunt you into buying the coastal rear that @wtrbrdm is selling. I'm excited about @JakeJake getting ready to make some armor. I wanna see y'all ready for next Merus. So if Sid flops again, I won't be the only other one out there.

Wait... Do you still have that sway bar in the truck?


Met @Supercharged03 and grabbed his bench seat for @Sirfive

 

I sat staring at the truck yesterday and got a wild hair up my ass about the alignment. Figured I had gone crazy seeing negative camber. Well, I went and checked this morning since I woke up a few hours early and lo and behold there was about half a degree of negative camber on both sides. So, rational adult that I am, my mind could not rest until I had messed with it for at least two hours.

Now that I finally have my beloved positive camber back and did something to my Tundra today to satisfy thread requirements, I will post my hideous roof for @shifty`. Don't let the shine fool you, I'd just wiped it down.

 

You really need to take some Naval Jelly to those smaller textured rust patches, load it up for 10mins, after 10min wipe the jelly away fully, then rinse, dry, and repeat the application 1x - 2x more. Once done, dry completely and hit it with any self-etching primer.

That's a beautiful Patina, and there's nothing wrong with patina. But when you start getting those little darker, textured spots showing through, you really need to act. And especially be careful with those so close to your windshield, you *DO NOT* want to get that into your windshield frame area, it's a death sentence.

 

Oh, and fun note here more than anything. That's full-on clearcoat fail at the roof, but what's really cool to see (to me, at least), is you can see multiple layers of paint in your picture to admire how Toyota's assembly line laid it out.

You've got the surface rust on the bare metal at the base layer, you've got the light whitish/grey primer Toyota laid down before topcoating with the base metallic color coat. Of course, it looks like the clear coat that should be over that is gone, but I was pretty geeked out being able to see the light color coat. If Toyota had used a darker color primer, your truck would be much deeper in color. Using a white primer under the base layer makes the color coat look brighter and more vibrant.

 

I'd gotten so desensitized to that rust patch over the last decade that I had honestly stopped thinking about it, but yeah I should probably address it. Will swing by ACE Hardware on lunch break, there's one fairly close. Don't typically keep primer or naval jelly on-hand, lol.

 

Any other tips/tricks for the naval jelly? Just brush it directly onto the dark rust spots and let it rip for a bit?

 

Yeah, Naval Jelly isn't a normal one to have. But it would clear up all of that rust pretty quickly.

Method I just mentioned is pretty much what's on the directions, and exactly how I hand rock chips. If you want to keep the primer localized, so you're not coating everything, spray it into a cap and brush it on, couple of light coats respecting whatever recoat window is directed on the can will do it.

 

Is naval jelly considered the best treatment for rust? Ive got some surface rust on my rear axle that I used Por 15 product on (their metal prep product and the paint) and its already peeling off after a couple years.

I wanna hit it again with something to kill the rust and paint with something else. Wasnt a fan of Por 15 and the effort it took to apply it.

 

Yeah, that's effectively it. Use a nylon brush, I like the metal tube-handled throwaway brushes, I keep one near the bottle of jelly and rinse after appliction, then re-use.

Pop off the cap of the bottle, dip the brush into it, and cover the affected area with a little overlap. Naval Jelly won't kill your paint, but it will eat the rust.

With a patch as bad as those little ones you've got, the first coat, after about 10 minutes, should dissolve 70-80% of what's there. The 2nd coat will get 90-100% of what's left. You may need a 3rd coat.

The bottle will tell you not to leave it on for more than 5-10 minutes. That's sound advice, you don't want to leave acid sitting on metal overnight, but this is pretty mild stuff. I do have friends who did entire panels of sheet metal (hood lid, trunk lid) by dumping it out of the bottle, painting it onto the panel, then laying cling wrap over it to keep it from drying up, and leave it overnight. I don't recomment this necessarily, but it does work.

I'd avoid getting it (directly, undiluted) on rubber, glass, or plastic. And obviously don't let it dry on the panel.

 

I've had good luck removing w/naval jelly and wire brush or wheel...

Then my go to for paint is now Steel It... Shit ain't cheap, but easy touch up and it's tough!!!

 

There are a lot of products out there for spot treatment, and for soaking.

If I need to soak and don't want to use acid, Evap-o-rust is king. I have a 2.5 gallon bucket of the stuff. I keep a couple mason jars of it on my work bench for soaking bits and pieces. Non-caustic, works like a goddamn champ, and is actually helps treat the metal to avoid future rust. I've salvaged countless tool bits (driver bits, drill bits) soaking in Evap-o-rust overnight. If you need to lay it on a panel or tube, you can soak a wad of paper towels with it, lay or wrap the paper towels on the panel, and wrap or cover in cling wrap to prevent drying out.

Naval Jelly and Krud Kutter are the other two which are acid-based. Obviously you can brush Naval Jelly on, I think Krud Kutter comes in a few different formats (spray bottle, liquid for soaking, jelly)

 

If you happen to see this stuff at the hardware store, it works pretty well too.

 

I use something like this on my pneumatic angle grinder for stripping larger amounts of paint and rust down to bare metal. I guess you could use an electric grinder, but I find better control with an air-powered unit. After I get the bulk of the material off, I'll hit it with a wire wheel attachment and/or sandpaper it. They also make smaller ones that can go on drills or die grinders to get tighter spots and welds.

$29 10 Pack Strip Disc Wheel for Angle Grinders Stripping Wheel, Paint Stripping Disc, Poly Abrasive Wheel for Metal Rust Welds, Oxidation, Paint Remover (4'' x 5/8''-Purple+Blue)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CH8GTCP8?th=1