Spent all day sandblasting

[FORDification]

Well, not ALL day. I actually didn't get started until about noon....but I did go for eight straight hours. Man, I'm tired.....and dirty! Gonna hit the showers as soon as I post this.

Anyway, I got the backside of the fenders completely sandblasted and ready to be coated with POR-15. Here's a shot with the shop supervisor:



In case you didn't notice, I spent about an hour with a cut-off tool cutting a portion of each fender brace out, to give me access to the backside. These fender braces are notorius for catching and holding dirt, which then gets wet and rusts the fender out. The reason most fenders are rusted down low right behind the wheelwell is because dirt gets in-between the brace and fender, and settles down to the bottom. It's right there that these tend to rust out....in addition to all the way up to the top, depending on how much dirt gets caught.



Since I didn't cut away any of the bends of the brace, it's structural integrity isn't compromised at all, but it WILL give me complete access to the entire backside of the fender, so once these are coated with POR-15, they'll will never rust out. In the second pic, the left side of the pic is the bottom of the fender. After cutting away part of the brace and sandblasting, you can still see some rust pitting in there. There was dirt packed in there in the bottom 4-5" of the brace....and if I hadn't cleaned this out, within a year or two it would've been rusting through.

I also sandblasted the battery tray, the front swaybar and all brackets/hardware, the door-jamb switch brackets for the dome light, and the rear hood supports. The switch brackets and the rear hood supports I also got primed and painted. One evening after work this week I'll be getting everything else blown off with the air hose, coated with MetalReady and then rinsed and dryed. I'll let that stuff set until next weekend, and either Saturday or Sunday I'll finally be getting started getting all these pieces plus the cab floorpans coated with POR-15.

[dotcentral]

Looks good. Its great seeing all that shiny metal.

Does the supervisor get a grease pencil to mark the work that passes the grade?

[flyboy2610]

Looks good. You're going to be driving that truck in no time!
I don't know if I'd like to work for that supervisor. He looks like he could be a real taskmaster!

[FORDification]

Well, he's a typical boss-man. He just wants to sit and watch, and the only things that come out of his mouth are:

1) Why?
2) What's this?
3) Can I drive your big truck?

(He'll inherit this some day I'm sure.)

[jzjames]

Would you say there is a way to access that dirt trap part of the fender while it's on the truck? Like to flush it with the hose and a knife or something to dislodge the dirt?

[FORDification]

No, not while the fender is installed. There's a very slight gap between the brace and the fender along the middle, which is where the dirt gets in (and why those rubber fender seals are there) but it's not going to be enough to get the dirt out. You could flush some water in there, but if the dirt has clodded up, I doubt a little water is going to break it up.

There IS one small hole down at the bottom of the brace, presumably a water drain hole, about 3/8" diameter. If you were to squirt a high-pressure stream up into that hole, it might be possible to clean that area out, but at the very least you'd have to remove the lower fender-to-cab bolt and pull the bottom of the fender back a little bit to gain access to that hole.

[heep70]

Nice work.

I am sure I missed this answer in previous posts, but what does the metal ready do exactly. I can guess a generic answer from just the name.

[FORDification]

It's a metal prep. Basically it just etches the metal a bit so the POR-15 gets a better bite. Ideally you need to use their Marine Clean first, then the MetalReady, then apply the POR-15.

[heep70]

Ah thanks

[69F110]

that is good-looking! I'm jealous.

[dablack00]

Hey Keith,

You often speak of the time it takes to sand blast, clean up, and waiting of the compressor to catch up. Have you tried other medias besides sand? I have NO experience so I don't know if it would help or not. I have read that some medias are better than others at removing different materials, so maybe something other than sand would help. I know for a fact that you have an eastwood catalog so maybe you could order some stuff and tell us how it works out. let me know what you think.

thanks
austin

[crazyace99million]

i'm a huge fan of sandblasting, and as long as you dont have 20 coats of paint, it's very good and cleaning up all sorts of parts. but i'm always open to new ideas as well

[thebttmline]

Crazy, what do you use as your media? sand or something else?
Also, what kind of sandblaster do you guys prefer?

Steve

[thebttmline]

Hey Keith, I've got another question for ya.

When you did the back of your fenders, did you blast the whole thing or did you use a sander on the flatter sections. If you blasted the whole thing, is there an advantage to blasting vs just sanding down to bare metal (for those areas you can get to for sanding)?

Did you blast the front of the fenders also? I've read that it is easy to ding up the metal when you sandblast panels and that a sander is safer.

I'm just starting to think about doing some body work and I don't know what I'm doing at all, but I was thinking I would blast only those areas I could not get to with a sander.

Finally, have you tried the 3M Bristle Disc? It hooks to an angle grinder. I'm planning to try one.
Here is a pic from Eastwood:
http://www.eastwood.com/shopping/produc ... istle+disc

Here is a video of it in action. Click on the first picture, under the heading Yellow Wheel, and there is a video of a guy using the bristle disc.
http://www.drjing.com/Mini/BLOG/BareShell.htm
(Dial-up users probably don't want to try this!)

Steve

[FORDification]

I've found that sandblasting will go MUCH faster if you prep the piece first, which means using some attachments in an angle grinder to strip as much as you can first. Then what little bit's left will come right off with the sandblaster. The blaster WILL take care of everything without any prior stripping, but it's much slower. I'll bet I'd have had to use at least 5-6 tankfuls of sand to blast the rear side of each fender without doing a little pre-stripping. Since I did, I was able to do it with one, which also saves wear and tear on the blaster unit and the compressor too. I probably spent 20-30 minutes with each fender prior to sandblasting, and then another 30 minutes blasting it.....but if I'd tried ONLY sandblasting, it would have probably taken at least a couple hours to do the same job. (It's the factory primer that really slows things down....man, that stuff is on there good!)

With a smaller portable sandblaster like the Harbor Freight units that us backyard tinkerers would use with a 120 PSI air compressor, you don't have to worry about warping any sheetmetal. There's not enough pressure to do that. It's when you start using the larger 175 PSI dual-stage compressors that you'll run into problems with warped sheetmetal.

I haven't touched the outer part of my fenders yet, but when I'm ready....yes, I'll probably be sandblasting them, after a few quick trips over them with the composite stripper wheel in the angle grinder. I just find that sandblasting sheetmetal does a really good job of stripping/cleaning, plus giving it a nice texture for the primer to ahere to.