Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Yes sir! You know it!

That might be a cheaper deal provided you only pay mileage one way otherwise that could get pricey at $0.35/mi. :lol: ;)

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

That trans hump patch turned out amazing! Actually kind of jealous LOL

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Amazing build

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Thanks guys!

I've been a bit disconnected lately. I spent 4 days cleaning up my shop from an unfortunate mess made by some help. It bordered on disaster. I have a clean area and the help forgot to make sure the dust shield was closed, so my clean area was full of debris. That's where I mix filler and paint. Grrr. So looking to build a bit better dust shield this weekend.

I've been doing bits of bodywork as well. I may try to get some primer sprayed this weekend, but the temps here in CO took a plunge and I prefer to paint with the metal at least 70-75 F. So right now the cab is sitting around 76 F but the lows are in the low 50s and it was 46 this morning. Fortunately my shop is insulated so the temps don't drop too much. I do have a heater, but it's a kerosene heater so it's put away and I won't use it when I'm painting since the crap from the heater increases your chances for fish eyes or other defects. Hopefully some more pics soon.

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

So it begins ... the path to painting that is.

I finally got to a point to lay down some paint. Started with the bottom of the cab. I went simple flat black from a spray can. Sounds cheap, but it's this VHT Epoxy Primer/Paint that seems to work pretty well so far. I'll see how it holds up under there as the bottom of the cab takes a beating. So this will be a good test for the paint. I just didn't feel like dropping some $500 on lizard skin at the moment knowing I'll probably repaint the truck in a few year.

Here's a before shot. Wasn't cleaned to bare metal, but good enough to paint.
Attachment 1668021

The final product after 2 generous coats.
Attachment 1668022

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

And then it was on to the firewall. After nit picking with the glaze, I said screw it, just shoot it and let the primer tell me where to fix. So I did. Primed the firewall tonight. Also primed the area for the driveshaft notch and a cab corner that needed some serious rework from a previous owner botch job I was supposed to fix some 18 years ago and never did, until now (long story).

Before shot of the firewall
Attachment 1668023

After shot of the firewall. Yep. My plan worked. I know where to focus on with some more glaze during the blocking phase. Then probably another round of primer.
Attachment 1668024

The two spots on the back of the cab before
Attachment 1668025

and after
Attachment 1668026

Oh ... and that's roofing felt on the floor. It's like $16 per roll at Home Depot. I used 2 rolls and covered my entire floor where I was painting (essentially a 2 car garage in size). I even wetted the felt down to help catch the overspray. It seemed to work pretty well. I rolled half of it and my floor underneath looked untouched from the nasty catalyzed high build surfacer/primer. Not sure where I got this tip but figure I'd pass it along.

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Hey guys, after chatting with one of the other board members tonight (via that old school telephone thingy) and discussing raised bed floors on step sides, I realized I had some shots simulating a raised floor I did from way back when, so I figure I'd post them to give some insight what a raised floor might look like.

Here is the floor at the stock level. I hadn't taken all the floor bolts out yet so the strips are still there.
Attachment 1669399

Here is the floor raised about 6". It was a simple raise. I just set some 2x4s on the angle strips and then took the 2 "loose" cross members and used those to support the floor. Also note, that since I pulled the edge pieces from the floor, I put a small section of 3/4" wood I had in both front corners where the edge board would normally provide support between the angle strip and the cross member that ties in with the steps. This small piece of wood (or something similar) with need to go there even when the floor is permanently raised to provide proper support for the front cross member that mounts the bed to the frame. Sorry for the not so quite same camera angle and yes, I should have placed the bed strips in there in hind sight.
Attachment 1669400

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Made some more progress on the paintwork in the last couple days.

I got through the 1st round of blocking and glazing. So here you guys can see all my "dirty" work.
Attachment 1669401

Here's the firewall after getting shot with 2 more coats of primer.
Attachment 1669402

A little selfie on safety. I am not a professional painter, but I take personal safety seriously. I work for an OSHA VPP approved company, so I try to continue that thought into my amateur work. For paint work, I've got a 3M 7502 mask (exhaust vents down, perfect for under the welding hood) with swappable filters shown here with organic volatile filters with a P100 pre-filter, some safety glasses, a $10 body suit (with elastic cuffs - it matters!) from Home Depot and nitrile gloves. I can't say enough about protecting yourself from these nasty chemicals. I wear the respirator and nitrile gloves when mixing paints as well. And when not painting, I have just a P100 filter on the mask (since the organics are life limited based on time exposed to air) which serves as a dust filter and mild vapor filter (i.e. body fillers, welding fumes, etc.). Oh and the nitrile gloves protect the fresh metal/paint from my finger tip oils, so the gloves work both ways.
Attachment 1669403

In case you are wondering about if I will be testing color match, the answer is yes. I chose one of the front inner fenders as the test subject.
Attachment 1669404

Here it's been wet sanded and will sit for at least 24 hours before I apply any color. I'm not a body shop looking to make a buck so I can afford the extra time to be sure everything is dry. Plus I don't have a heated paint booth to help dry things out.
Attachment 1669405

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Nice work. Wish I'd been as careful with painting/welding when I was younger as I am now...

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Thanks man! I'm not so young myself, I just look young ;) I've had plenty of young and dumb learning to go off. :metal::metal:

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

According to this guy, Due to this I'm thinking I want to move my battery to the driver side rear... probably right behind the tire. I'm not sure if the same considerations are important for pro-touring, have you looked into this yet?

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Hey man, I generally agree with what they guy wrote that you referenced. For those that want the synopsis, the guy is talking about the axle split, not to be confused with the weight split even though he refers to it as 52% weight on the front left. He really means 52% of the front axle's weight on the left side and 52% of the rear axle's weight on the left side.

His main point is that you want the cross weights to be the same. So FL/RR to FR/RL should be equal. Most scales these days will give you cross weights in addition to corner weights. This helps to keep the car balanced in both turning directions, so applicable for any handling situation, be it auto-cross, road coarse, mountain fun, etc. The left turn only boys bias this to help the car turn left only, in addition to some other tricks like wheel base (e.g. sprint cars, modifieds).

For the battery, it all depends. The battery is a fraction of your weight, well at least my weight. I'm a tad over 200 lbs. So if you treat the battery like ballast, then you could do some iterations on the scales to find the best place. Essentially, have a helper set the battery in various locations with you in the truck and see how things change. You may find the driver side rear is best, you may find right behind the driver best. Without scales to optimize, it's probably more personal preference. I'm not sure we'd see the benefit of the optimized location just because our trucks are over 3000 lb, some well over.

I have thought about behind the tire, either side. The catch there is you would want a pretty stout box to put the battery inside. That area will get beat to crap with pebbles from street driving. Maybe if it's a low milage/year truck you wouldn't need as much armor. But my goal is to make the truck so fun to drive I put more than the usually 2000 miles on it per year.

With a raised floor, you actually get quite a bit of room up near the front bed mounts between the floor and the top of the frame rail before it turns up for the axle notch. It's around 4 inches lower than the rear frame rail section behind the notch. With the simulated raised floor I did, there was around 11" vertical space in there. Enough to almost mount the battery "normal" versus on it's side. That's the custom cross-member with an integrated battery box I'm talking about. Tied in with the 2nd cross member from the front of the bed. That cross member is no longer much use to the bed mount since the floor is up 6", so there is opportunity there to optimize. My neighbor even joked about putting a live well box in that space if I did a full tilt floor.

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Oh the ups and downs ...

This is definitely an up and a down. I got color on the firewall last night. I hadn't sprayed automotive paint in close to 20 years, let alone a metallic. But that's not the down. The paint came out gorgeous. The problem, some scratches are showing through (the down). I saw 3 scratched when I was spraying the color. I thought, I can live with those. They aren't too bad. I didn't notice all the other scratches until I'm into the clearcoat. So I just sprayed 2 coats of clear and wrapped up. Serves as a good preview of what it will look like at least. The scratches are only on the vertical surfaces too, and only in one direction even though I cross hatched 400 wet then 600 wet. These scratches almost look like 320 scratches. They are very hard to see in a photo, so not even going to try, but because of the metallic, they show right up in the sun.

So re-work it is. Bummer for sure, but it happens. Hopefully I can just stick to the vertical surfaces (sand down to the color, then wet sand the color with 600 until the scratches go away, spray more color then re-clear).

Here's some photos for fun though:

This is where it all started. To clean up this mess:
Attachment 1671636

The after
Attachment 1671637

Passenger side angle shot
Attachment 1671638

Driver side angle shot
Attachment 1671639

You can really see how wrinkly the firewall is from the factory and why many custom shops just chop the whole firewall off and start fresh. I wasn't about to go there. ;)

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Looks good from here!

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Agreed. Maybe it's not a Ridler contender.... but it doesn't need to be when the smiles per gallon accumulate.

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

I like the color, but now that you mention the wrinkles I might plan on doing a matte or satin black on the firewall to conceal some of those imperfections.

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Cool build! #gottalovesteppers

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Thanks guys! I hear ya SCOTI ... I know it looks good in the photos and it does look good in person until you get close enough. So I tend to judge paint by distance. Essentially the distance where the paint job turns from looks good to uh oh. So not when I see the first defect but the overall appearance. You guys have probably done/heard the same ... "looks good from 10 ft away" - That's what I call a 10' paint job. A Ridler would be a <1" paint job (which if I can convince one of my buddies on an idea I've got for a Ridler car ...). My firewall was a 2'-4' on the spots with the scratches. The rest of my truck is about a 1' paint job, maybe a little better on the bulk of the exterior body, so I want to at least get close to that. I thinking mainly about the guys that lean in to get a closer look at stuff. Well, actually, more about myself. I just couldn't see myself not fixing it at some point, so planning to fix it now.

Crakarjax - on the wrinkles, I actually never noticed them until I did the paint work. On a fully assembled truck, I'm not sure you'll really see them since the hood will shade that area of the firewall. Guess I'll be able to tell for sure in a few weeks. I hope to get the paint work wrapped up by this weekend and get the cab back on. And also, the metallic does not help that situation. A solid color probably wouldn't show as much even in a gloss.

For the firewall re-work, I probably made it sound worse than it really is. I just took the DA and only touched areas I could hit with the DA and some 320. I avoided too much hand sanding since that is time consuming. Here's some shots with the scuffed clear, pretty much down to the color. I don't need to go any farther as the clear I did spray filled the scratches, so it's really just making a new surface for the new color. Don't need new primer/sealer since I didn't expose any body putty/glaze and it's the same color underneath so it won't bleed. I then plan to hit the scuffed areas with 400 on the DA then do another 600 wet on the whole firewall. This will get rid of the tiny amount of orange peel (that I would have cut and buffed anyway) and put a new surface for the new shot of base color. Then I'll re-clear. So not too bad. I also plan to paint the 2 spots on the back of the cab when I redo the firewall paint so that will finish up this round of bodywork/paint. Left over on the cab is the fuel neck hole. But I've got 2 pinstripes right next to that hole so that will be a separate project maybe this winter after I've played around with pinstripe colors. Just need to temporarily plug the hole. More on that later.

So hopefully color again Friday night. Cut and buff Sat night. Install cab Sunday night. That's the goal. I've got some bodywork to finish up on the cab notch I did and so I plan to get that done tomorrow and shot with primer. The cab corner just needs a round of 400 / 600 wet sanding and it's ready for paint.

Attachment 1672082

Attachment 1672083

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Thanks boss! and you know it!

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

ok, a little behind my plan, but not much. Still have a shot at getting the cab on tonight. I didn't get paint done Friday night due to weather and me not being where I wanted to be due to well, work. Work pays the bills so getting keep those priorities straight! Anyhow, I'm calling the cab paint work DONE!

The scratches are gone! My only thing to fight is orange peel because I went ahead and sprayed a 3rd coat of clear and that 3rd coat was with a faster activator (that's all the paint shop had in stock, doh! It's summer!) and it was toasty, so I figured I'd get some orange peel. And I did. No big deal. I'll color sand that out. Hopefully the clear is hard enough by dinner tonight so I can at least color sand and polish the concave section of the firewall. The rest I ran do after it's on the chassis.

Firewall baking in the sun. Some left over clear in the PPS liner sitting on the dolly as a hardness check.
Attachment 1673144

Side shot with the door. The color is very close. In this pic, I'd say it's hard to see a difference, but I know a handful will.
Attachment 1673145

The back where this was more of a repair on the cab corner and the addition of the notch.
Attachment 1673146

Close up of the heater area. Some orange peel to contend with, but nothing major.
Attachment 1673147

And for those wondering, how did I handle the clear on the back? The problem with a C10 cab, is with a catalyzed clear, you aren't supposed to break in the middle of a panel and always break on an edge, so with our C10 cabs there are no panel breaks that are continuous to another break. So in following the break on an edge guide, you'd have to re-clear the whole cab. Uh, I'm not doing that. No way. So I chose to put a break in 2 spots that weren't along an edge. Just to the right of the notch and right on the corner where that bottom edge that comes from the door disappears over to the other edge below the panel insets. I may pay for that down the road. Oh well. To be clear, I DID NOT paint the entire area show in this pic. I only painted the cab corner and the bottom area over to the cab notch. All that was sanded with 600 wet. The rest of the area was scuffed with ultra fine scrotchbrite. Of course it was all cleaned, then cleaned again, and again.
Attachment 1673150

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Looking good!

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Thanks man!

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

BIG day for the C10 today ... the cab is ON!

There was some re-work I had to do, nothing too major. I then decided to cut and buff the front and the entire rear before I put it on the truck.

I must say, it does look good. Now time to get things put back together. I didn't do much to the interior so most of that will go back the way it was. That was by design, and by that I really mean budget. No budget for anything major in the interior.

IT'S ABOUT TIME!
Attachment 1675570

Attachment 1675571

Attachment 1675572

Attachment 1675573

Gotta love when you can see your suspension in the shine. I still remembered how to cut and buff (haven't done it in many years).
Attachment 1675574

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

The firewall looks really good! Heck, it all looks good! Nice work on everything so far.

Re: C10CJ: A Pro-touring '71 Stepside on a No Limit Pro-C10 Chassis
 

Very nice!