After I had all of that sorted out, I was back on the road headed to go paint. I figured it would be a lot of work, but it was even more than that. I don't know how it took so long, but it was an endless stream of sanding and prepping.
The idea was full treatment of Raptor liner. I liked the idea of rough finish that covers up all the bumps and imperfections. I knew it would be hard enough to just get it ready to paint without trying to do any real body work.
We painted the door frames with a rattle can, as I assume those will be beat up no matter what. I wanted something that was easy to touch up and could go on in small quantities. I knew it was a bit of a learning process so I wanted to do them one at a time(slow choice #1 ?).
Anyway, it worked well and looks great, but we will have to see how often I have to touch it up.
Next up was the all the shiny bits, and the "rocker panel" I bought some Alumiprep and Alodine to convert and prep all of the aluminum. It didn't work as well as I had hoped. Even after a wire wheel and a good soak in the Alumiprep, it was hard to get a nice even gold finish with the Alodine. Hopefully it was enough to stop the corrosion. I also used the U-POL Grip#4 very liberally before spraying the Raptor liner.
I think if I ever did this again, I would stop right there. It looked good, and it took away from the ambulance paint theme enough to not scare people when I drive into a neighborhood. I think what I ended up with is much nicer, but jeez prepping the full thing was a lot of work.
I cheated a bit on this whole process, as my dad used to paint houses. I got him to do the actual spraying, and he kept things nice and even. We came across a welder who had raptor lined his work truck, a few days before the actual spray. His lines were rough, and it scared me. So for the lines we bought automotive tape, and pulled them wet. Oh, and we sprayed them with the Grip#4. Everything came out clean. Even the Raptor on Raptor lines.
We ended up using 4L of black and 12L of Gray. I used PPG omni for the tint, and it was pretty reasonable and easy to work with. I think if we would have had more time and material, 16l of gray would have been perfect. There are a few imperfections and places I'm not quite 100% on, but I'm not going to point those out. Overall it's much better than I would have thought.
The only problem I have right now is it's no longer just a beater I bought at an auction. With the $$ for the transmission and the time for the paint, I'm committed.