46 Power Wagon Restoration pt. 2

[Desoto61]

A little painting

Original plan was to have bed liner sprayed on both the bottom of the bed and fenders as well as the usual inside surfaces of the bed. The logistics of trying to get that done were proving to be a little tough. If I had taken the bed directly from the blaster to the liner place and had the bottom done then come back after painting the sides for the inside might have worked best, but at the time I wasn't sure who I was going to use to do the work. The place I did pick has some concerns about how to lift and handle the bed after it was painted without damage, and I didn't want to try and mask off to the bed liner, or worry about having to rework paint or primer.

So with the bed on the lift and half a bucket of spray-on sound deadener that technically was probably already past it's prime, I decided that I would go ahead and spray the underside of the bed floor with that, it's not as durable as bed liner, even the DIY stuff, but the underside of the bed will not see as much abuse as the wheel wells, and it will allow me to mount it to the trailer (better this time) and they can basically spray the inside of the bed and the underside of the fenders without having to remove the bed from the trailer at all.

The lift makes it much easier to do, with the bed in the air I could more comfortably scuff the primer and then clean all the surfaces really well before taping over all the openings and hanging some plastic and craft paper to keep the overspray from getting where I don't want it (I was mostly successful). The coating seemed fine other than having some chunks that clogged the gun once or twice, it's a messy process especially overhead, but it worked well, looks good, and used the last of the material so it didn't go to waste.

A little more sanding to do on the tailgate cover and then I can start preparing the rest of the bed and the garage to paint!

[Desoto61]

Paint!

Made a big push last week since the weather cooled off and things become busy here to finish painting the bed of the truck. Finished sanding out the filler and scuffed up the remaining surfaces to be painted. I also used some paintable seam sealer at the joints of the fenders to the bed and at the front angle brackets where there were gaps and smoothed everything out.

Painting the bed while on the lift wouldn't have worked well, the arms block clean access to the sides to spray, plus it will leave here afterward and need to go to get the bed liner installed, so I built a nice new sturdy frame to mount it to the trailer and bolted everything down with some nice big lag screws. Then I cleaned everything in/on/around the bed and masked off the inside of the bed and the wheel openings as well as around the bottom and trailer area. Finally I hung some plastic around the garage to cordon off all the dirty stuff from the paint area, then cleaned one last time and started preparing for paint.

[Desoto61]

The painting part was going to add a new wrinkle for me. For the front end all the sheet metal was painted apart and individual parts were either black or blue. So to paint it was a day painting black stuff and a day(s) painting blue stuff. Because the fenders are attached to the bed and I wanted the fenders black but the bed blue I was going to have to mask and spray the two shades together.

First was the black fenders, so I masked off the sides and sprayed the fenders, then let everything dry well and reversed the masking, which was the nervous part, I tested the tape on the paint in a hidden area first but still a bit nerve wracking when it was time to unmask it. Luckily everything went well unmasking the fenders afterward.

Then it was time for clear coat over everything. It went pretty well, I did a better job on the fenders strangely enough than the bed sides, the first coat was a little dry, but the other coats went much nicer, we'll see how it actually looks once it's had time to set up, definitely some orange peel, but should be good enough for truck duty.

It's a little tricky for me when spraying, I have a nice full-face mask to wear while spraying, but I can't wear my glasses while wearing it, my sight is good enough to get away with it, but I have to pause and inspect closely to check my progress while doing it.

Regardless, I let it flash off and unmasked everything and will let it sit for a few days before hauling the whole thing to get the liner sprayed in next week, then it can get installed on the truck!

If I had thought ahead I should have had a stencil made and done something similar on the tailgate to put the word DODGE on it.

[Alxj64]

Looks really good! Now I know who to bring my Carryall to when its done and ready for paint!

I'll be picking your brain on prep tips and tricks for sure though. Again, looks great!

[Desoto61]

Thanks! LOL, not if you want it any time soon, this has been two years coming, and I've learned a lot but the biggest one is that I don't like body work!

I will say I did a much better job of sanding the filler this time, it looked really straight wet, the fenders were pretty good too for being curved. I did get a little lazy and didn't do any primer-surfacer this time, but I'm also kind of OK with leaving it less than perfect since I've already got some scratches and dings on the front end, and I'm less hesitant about using it as a truck that way.

Next is to figure out how to fix the two areas of the cab I screwed up painting, that will mean repainting and blending, should suck, but short term I get to put stuff together which I like more.

I will need to get with you about a few odds and ends to get cut for the interior and probably for the running boards once I get to them.

[Desoto61]

After the bed had a chance to sit and cure for a bit I hooked the trailer up to the Power Wagon and it hauled its own bed to get a bed liner sprayed in at a local shop.

They can do lots of colors but black fits the truck well, they also added a UV top coat to help keep it from fading as fast. The company is not Line-X but the material is essentially the same and the guy came highly recommended from some pretty reliable sources.

A week later it's finished and I hauled it home yesterday. The coating covers all the interior surfaces including the interior bed box panels and both the tailgate (inside and out). I had them extend it down the back wall of the bed to cover the rear bumper and side steps as well. They also sprayed the undersides of both fenders.

They did a really good job coating everything. The back sides of the angle iron and underside of all lips and edges are coated, same with inside the stake pockets and even the D-rings on the back. He protected a lot of the holes in the bed but missed a few so I'll have to clean them out but that's a minor price for the protection. Now to get it in the garage and get it back on the truck!

[W_A_Watson_II]

WOW, Very NICE!

[CSCameron]

Looks awesome! Can't wait to see it on the truck. Good job!

Clark

[Dutch]

Should be a sweet looking truck when your done.

[Todd M]

Amazing job. Looks good and can not wait to see them together.

[Desoto61]

Time to make the bed

Putting the bed back together starts with mounting it on the truck. The lift comes to the rescue again. It's a cumbersome process though since you have to move the truck around under the bed till it's close, then I could set it on the frame and use a bar to try and align the holes and then get it bolted down. A thick piece of neoprene strip was used between the bed and the frame for some spacing over the fuel tank and allow some movement. I used carriage bolts but they liked to pop out of their holes as they were tightened down and a few were in some very finicky places on the frame underneath, but eventually it was all bolted down.

From there it's just been putting everything back. Some of the holes had been protected, others needed a quick pass through with a tap to clean out any stray bed liner.

[Desoto61]

Of course there are problems

Tom Petty once sang "most things I worry about never happen anyway" nd that seems to be the case with this truck. I worried about clearances once the the liner was sprayed on for the panels that will make up the tool box, and we discussed that. It's the places I didn't worry about. The tail lights were tight before being lined. So I basically had to remove all the liner around the opening before mounting the lights. There's a trick to them because of how tight and how thick the bumper is, but I managed to get them in OK, though I should probably pull them and apply some paint to protect any bare steel I may have exposed removing the liner.

The big problem was the tailgate. I had fitted it well originally but they sprayed the floor of the bed VERY thick, and I didn't account for that in my design. So the tailgate wouldn't even come close to closing. The options are to either cut and modify the tailgate or mounting points to create the clearance needed, or remove some of the liner that is interfering. As much as I hated to do it I chose the later, sanding off the liner above the hinge on the bed. That got it much closer, close enough it will latch but it's no longer flush with the sides. I took off enough I exposed metal in a few small places, I'll have to touch those up probably with some "roll on" liner in those small spots. It won't hold up like the real thing but better than nothing.

Turned to the wiring next. Mounting the battery and air compressor in the box and staring to pull wires and hoses to connect up all the pieces. Hard part is remembering exactly what the plan was two years later. I plan on running the compressor off a relay vice just switching the power using the supplied switches, so I'll have to modify the supplied harness. One downside is that I have some ground switches that aren't going to ground through the bed liner, so I'll have to run wires and ground the switches directly through the grounding lug I installed in the bed.

[Desoto61]

Mostly working on wiring. I welded bolts to the underside of the bed and inside the battery box and so had to cut and make up new ends for the ground cable which bolts from frame to bed and bed to battery. The positive cable goes through a collar and also got shortened and a new end crimped on.
The air compressor wiring was designed to switch the compressor directly, I re-purposed the wiring to drive a relay that feeds the compressor from the battery instead. Still have to shorten and re-connect those wires under the cab before I can test it.
Last little details is some light. I picked up some aluminum channel that I installed LED light strips into and those were mounted under both side rails. I thought far enough ahead and ran some wires from an extra console switch and back through the cab to trigger those lights. There are also lights inside the toolbox triggered by a door jamb switch and eventually some in the battery box too. All of that ties into the little fuse block in the battery box.

To prevent it getting damaged from sitting around I went ahead and worked on installing the tailgate skin yesterday as well. I started at the top but ended up have to reverse that and start from the bottom as it was easier to fit the panel around the hinges first, though it again was very tight with the bed liner installed and was very tough to pull in. I'm short a few screws, and still have one or two holes that don't want to line up just right, so that will have to be fiddled with. On the plus side the tailgate latch and trim worked out better than I thought it would.

[Desoto61]

Lots more wiring for the tail lights. Used a pair of "light bolts" for the license plate lights, they work really well, though the tiny little wire is tricky to connect up, same with power to the backup camera, tiny little wires.

Also added a light in the battery box, and ran a set of wires for a jumper-cable connection. This consisted of a pair of battery cables and a set of jumper cables with the ends swapped for a HD plug. This will hide in the tool box portion and make it easy to either jump start another vehicle (or mine if needed). In testing everything worked properly, and I even was thinking ahead and had the bed lights wired up so they trigger with the courtesy lights on the truck.

I had run a wire to the tail to I think allow me to trigger the backup lights as work lights if I wanted, but honestly those light bolts put out plenty of light at the rear of the truck when on, so for now I just capped off the wire.

Next was to install all the panels on the bed box. The main cover plate was a bit of a trick in that it had to be snaked under the stake pockets and then have the wires for the bed lights tucked into their notches (which had to be cut, I didn't think that through before, so I used some spray-on liner to protect the cut edges). The coating on the bed floor is thick enough it did cause a little interference, and required slightly longer screws to hold it in place.

The lid I riveted the hinge to the top and then it screws into the bed, I added some gasket material around the back and sides to help seal out water. I don't expect it to be water tight, but that should keep most of the moisture out. Then I re-installed the gas strut to help open and hold open the lid. The lock openings had to be cleaned out and the locks tweaked a little as the liner thickness prevented them from latching. Same went for the battery box cover. With those all installed I loaded all the accessories and re-installed the spare and called it done (for now)!

It's remarkable how it changes the truck, not just in looks, but the ride is softer with 1000 lbs of bed over the back axle, and it also helps dampen some of the diesel vibration at idle. The Cummins however doesn't seem to notice any of the extra weight.

We'll see what problems crop up in service, but for now the bed is done and I can start trying to figure out how I want to build the running boards. I also have the parts to rebuild the PTO unit so I can try and get the winch working. Finally the interior still doesn't really exist, and as always there are a ton of little things I need to tackle or improve.

[CSCameron]

Looks great! Good job!