I guess I could have spent a little more time with my first post, especially since I've gathered so much incredible information from this fantastic site. Thanks everyone. The project started about 5 years ago when I finally found a 2003 7.3 RB on e-bay with 70k on the clock. Never loved the "Electric School Bus Yellow", but engine and miles were right. Can't be too picky right? The van had a tough first 70k both on the engine and the body. Bought it for 6k and immediately put 4K into engine repairs. After 20k miles and a trip from Colo to Cabo and I was more comfortable it wasn't a lemon, I sprung for the Ujoint 4" conversion - for two years... then up to 6". Though Chris tried to tell me the first time, the 6" drives the highway sooo much better, not to mention the benefits of clearance off road.
It had Lots of small dents. Then I made the mistake of putting a used BFG, that I had picked up as a spare, into my tire rotation when the tread was about the same as the others. Blew the rear tire going 80 down I15, pretty scary but no problemo except the blown tire beat the sh$ out of the wheel well and body. Finally got around to having that fixed ont the cheap, just to primer. I found a front drivers side front panel at a junkyard to replace my dented one, pulled out a couple other dents, and got ready for paint. Anyhow....
Thanks for the feedback! Sounds like a gallon for the rocker's will be fine. Here's some pics of the finished job. I suppose I might have gone to thick on the first coat, leaving too little for the second coat. I should have noted that I do have a RB. Preparation is well documented in the Monstaliner instructions. I taped everything off first. Since I'm getting ready to paint the walls anyway, I hand sanded the whole roof with 220 wet/dry sandpaper. Hit my rust spots with a grinder to remove all rust, coated with por 15. Light sand with 400grit on the Por 15. I used the course brillo pad that came with the monstaliner kit to sand the whole roof down again. I was worried I might have gone too fine with my first sanding, the brillo pad leaves a very course sand job. Dusted, then wiped clean with Mek. Rolling went pretty easy, though I did leave a few small chunks of the roller sleeve in the paint. I think most of these were coming off the roller when I was applying the second coat a little thin and trying to stretch the paint. I painted over the rain gutter's and whatever substance Ford uses in the gutter. Only time will tell how well the Monsta adheres to it, but seems good now. I went with white for heat reduction purposes.
I used thin cardboard strips between the windshield weather stripping and the roof. Applied 2'' tape to the cardboard first, then wedged pieces in - so I could pull the weather striping away from the roof in order to get the monsta underneath.
Here you can see the texture of this product when rolled. If you look closely you can see the thin spots.
I left my tape job on the sunroof on until dry, because I was concerned about smudging the drying monstaliner leaning over the roof to get the tape off. I'm vertically challenged... I ended up pulling off some of the butyl window sealant when I removed the tape. Even though I used a razorblade while pulling the tape it was a little messy. I considered removing the sun roof before painting but decided it was too much of a PITA. I'll need to come back with a bead of Butyl around the edges. Monstaliner says there product is flexible. I accidently put a little too much weight on the roof, when pulling the tape, and the surface did not crack at all when the roof flexed down and popped back up.
Here's the front door jamb getting ready for spraying on a NCS brand industrial enamel paint that is mixed with a catalyst. Kinda stuff they use on heavy equipment and Semi trucks. Pricey stuff, like $90 bucks a gallon but I'm hoping it's tough and semi scratch resistant as advertised. You can see the Por 15 where I again grinded off the the majority of the rust before applying. I'm crossing my fingers that my cheap Harbor Freight spray gun with 6gallon cheap Porter Cable air compressor will handle the job. I've done some test spraying with NCS primer I'm using and it came out pretty good. Not the smoothest finish by any means, but it won't take long to get all scratched up again anyway. Vans just don't fit the jeep roads quite so easily. When I talk to Chris at Ujoint, I'm like "hey it's Caleb with the yellow van".....Now it's gonna be Grey, but she'll always be Old Yella.
