Sunday, April 03, 2005  -  I took Friday off work and spent the whole day sandblasting the inner fenderwells (Fig. 1). It literally took me all day long to do it...well, actually about 5 hours. It took about 4 tankfulls of silica sand on each side of each panel, so it's definitely a time-consuming process. These panels are on a list of parts to be send off for powdercoating. The R/S piece has a couple very small pinholes right under where the battery tray will sit, but once the tray is mounted these holes will be completely covered. Otherwise, both of these pieces are in excellent shape. There are some small drilled holes in the L/S piece too, for sheetmetal screws which a previous owner drilled to mount an external engine block heater. If I was going to be really anal about this project I'd have welded them up, but I decided to just let them go. They're down at the bottom of the panel and you'd have to look pretty hard to even see them.

Then I spent today getting the fuel tank finished up. It took the whole morning with the angle grinder with a wire wheel attachment and a 3M rust/paint stripper wheel to get it cleaned up. Once that phase was completed, I wiped the tank down with some acetone and then hung it from a ladder and an engine hoist (Fig. 3), so I'd have quick and easy access to all sides of it without having to touch it. I then applied the MetalReady, following the instructions by keeping the metal damp for about 20 minutes, and then rinsing it off.

Back on Page 36 when I was cleaning and sealing the interior of this tank I noticed that there were some pinholes along the bottom side. I'm hoping the POR-15 gas tank sealer did the trick, but for a little added insurance, I got a tube of Liquid Metal, which is basically a metal-based filler material...and then put a thin coating anywhere there was evidence of a pinhole on the bottom of the tank.

Then using some sponge brushes, I got started applying the POR-15. I found I was getting the typical brush marks, which normally wouldn't have really mattered, considering that the tank was going to be completely hidden from view up under the truck, concealed by the tank's skidplate, but I discovered that the sponge brush also gave me the chance to give the finish a slightly textured surface, by simply patting the wet POR-15 with the side of the brush (Fig. 4). Now that I know about this little trick, I wish I'd done this to the skidplate when it was coated...oh well.

I let each application get very tacky before applying another coat. In all, the top side of the tank got three coats and the bottom got five. After the final coat of POR-15, while it was still tacky, I gave the tank another 3 coats of Krylon semi-flat paint. In Fig. 5 you can see the tank ready to be installed. This was the last piece to be installed on the rolling chassis to have it (basically) completely done. Hopefully I'll be doing that this coming weekend. Stay tuned!

Fig. 2 - Getting started on cleaning the exterior of the fuel tank.

Fig. 3 - Once the exterior was cleaned, it was hung to coat with MetalReady and for a final rinse before applying the POR-15.

Fig. 4 - Here you can see the textured finish I was able to give the wet POR-15 by patting the surface with the sponge brush.

Fig. 5 - And here's the finished product. I thought it really turned out nice.