The Box is painted

  I spent much of Friday morning wet sanding the box with 400 grit. It probably needed to be block sanded one more time,It was as straight as it was going to get. I spent much of the afternoon cleaning the garage. Having a clean shop is always an added bonus to painting a vehicle.I now have the entire weekend to work on the doors which are kinda rotten.The goal is to paint the cab next weekend and be done. I can't wait.

How to apply factory decals

I wanted to add a custom touch to the powerwagon rebuild. I always liked the mopar musclecars with the blacked out hoods like the A12 roadrunners and superbees. I had some leftover Dupont Chroma base black from a previous project,So I used it to paint a spare truck hood I had laying around and bought some 440 decals from Phoenix Graphics. These were originally used on a 1970 Charger.

The first step of course is clean the hood.Even though the hood was painted two days ago it was already covered in sanding dust. I used PPG DX330 wax and grease remover to clean the area of application.

Application gel is used to temporarily deaden the adhesive so the decal can be moved.

The low-tech alternative is soapy water,It'll do the same thing

After glopping on some application gel I pulled the wax backing from the decal exposing the adhesive.After some careful measuring I laid down the decal.....no turning back now.

Using the supplied squeegee I started to work  the gel toward the edges and trying to get out all the air bubbles.

After working out the bubbles I waited an hour to remove the premask decal.It's best to pull gently at an angle.There was still some air bubbles that I worked out with the squeegee.

There ya go! '70 charger decals on a '76 dodge powerwagon.



Progress?

With the fender jambs painted I tore off the front clip in record time.I have a new bumper so the one in this photo is on its way to the scrap yard

I fought the aftermarket (made in china) fender getting it to fit right,I ended up taking out all the shims and giving it a few "love taps" with the rubber mallet.I also installed the hood with some help from Tucker.

The Box is close to being ready for paint. After spraying several coats of primer/surfacer and block sanding with 220 grit sandpaper on a longboard It's actually straight (sorta).

Finally! Paint begins to flow and parts show up

I painted the jambs on the front fenders the factory Silver Cloud metallic.

Yes,this is the color the truck is supposed to be.

I'm trying something different with the hood. I'm painting it black like the blacked out hoods of the 60's musclecars.Later I'm adding 440 decals from a 70 charger. It might look hokey or it might not.I've had this idea marinating in my brain for some time and I'm glad to finally see it come to fruition

Friday afternoon I got my new windshield gaskets and door fuzzies from the Dodgeconnection.com

I pulled the windshield today and was pleasantly surprised to find no rust....shocking.

I love Ebay

I scored this NOS (new old stock) three-speed wiper switch for the Fury on Ebay. Ebay and the internet is pretty much my only outlet to procure parts these days. As most auto parts chains phase out experienced ASE certified parts guys and replace them with semi-literate high school dropouts,I've given up on most of the local parts stores. I can only imagine the befuddled look the guy behind the counter would give me when I try to explain what I need. I'm really groovin on the old-school chrysler parts box,It might make good garage art.

Well that didn't work out as planned

Ummmm yeah,Maybe my 30 day body rehab plan on the powerwagon was a little ambitious. It seemed like everything was working against me,weather,work,late parts,more rust than I thought,I even ended up with a chunk of metal in my eye that delayed things even more. As of now all the front sheetmetal is in primer. both rocker panels are installed and only need some finish filler. So it's not like I didn't accomplish anything.
 I now have a four-day weekend coming up and hopefully I can spend most of it in the garage working on the truck. I kinda have to finish it at this point because I'm way past the point of no return.