Major restoration time for the truck

Well it's about time for the truck to get a face lift. We have just about used up the paint job on the truck bed. A year on the Oregon coast took it's toll on the truck. We now have a good coat of rust from bumper to bumper on the truck. The Onan generator is due for major service as well. Here is what we ended up doing over the coarse of a month to get the truck back in shape.

In the same shop I originally built the truck I started by taking everything off the truck.

As you can see it's pretty rusty. Now the real fun begins, sandblasting.

Well the sandblaster came and went. Oh what fun that was. I hope I never have to use that tool again. The rental yard lost the hood for the sand pot so I had to make due with my motorcycle goggles and a new mask. I will say this, it took off the paint and body filler like it was mud. It really removed everything. I guess that should come as no surprise since I blew 1400 pounds of sand at the truck. It was hard work, and I had sand everywhere on me and around the truck, but the nasty part is now done.

Next step is the paint and undercoating. Since the truck rusted so bad under the bed last time I decided to undercoat as much of the truck as I can.

Well here is the truck back into the shop where it came from originally.

                                            A little Bondo and and a lot of primer and sanding.

Here is the truck after day two.

  The truck is now ready for the finish paint on the outside and the Line-X Bed liner. Next comes one of my favorite chores. Working on the Onan.

The Onan generator is about houred out. It's due for major service. It needs a new fan belt, have the valves set, engine oil and filter change, air filter change antifreeze replacement and a major snoop around to make sure that all the nuts and bolts are still in place. Here is what you will have to pay the Onan mechanic to do.

         It starts with this.                       After an hour it looks like this             This is the half way point.

As you can see Onan still has not figured out how to keep the fan from eating the shroud. This happened on my last Quiet diesel. Same old problem. After about 4 hours work and $100.00 dollars in parts it's all back together and ready for service again. I only found two bolts that had decided to disappear.

Next comes the final paint job. Have to wait for the brother-in-law to get back from vacation. Finish painting is not on my list of things I can do. But I can do dust control.

                                                                         Fresh Paint!

Well the finish paint job turned out better than I had hoped for. In fact the paint job looks better than the factory job on the truck. On Monday the line-x gets sprayed in the hitch well and then I can get going putting the truck back together.

Ready for the Line-X in the bed. I ended up with Line-X overspray all over both sides of the truck because the installer made a major mistake. I was sick over the mess, but we ended up getting most of it off.

The Onan is all back together and surprise it even runs after all I did to it. Can't wait to get the truck back together. We are looking forward to a trip to the Oregon coast in two weeks.