Hi Guys,

My father had an old '89 chevy 1500. Unfortunately he passed away a year ago in May. The truck sat in the garage and was rarely driven and when it was driven it seemed to always have a problem that developed. The mechanic said letting it set was just killing it and it should be driven so my Mom gave the truck to my family (we are the only ones that live in town with her). I already had a truck so it was our spare vehicle but we did drive it frequently and it did seem much happier as it rarely broke down after we started driving it more. Unfortunately I made an error in judgement . . . 10 days after my youngest son turned 16 I let him drive Grandpa's truck . . . you got it, he crashed it! He works at McDonalds and he brought a pop home with him -> the pop spilt, he swerved when he grabbed for it, and bad things happened!

OK, it's an old truck with a couple hundred thousand on it and just liability insurance, but it was Grandpa's truck!

We pulled the front clip and have repaired a slightly bent radiator support mounting bracket.

We had to hunt a bit to find a front clip around here and unfortunately we couldn't find a complete one - they all had rust at the bottom of the fender, or dents or something wrong with them - there just wasn't a perfect clip waiting for us to just drop on (darn it anyway! ). We did find a clip that was in pretty good shape except for the passenger fender and they gave us a different fender to replace it with. We also got a very nice hood, unfortunately it's the wrong color! The paint on the fenders is a bit beat up too, so it looks like it's time to paint the front clip. This isn't really a restoration project, nor is it a show project - it's just a "get Grandpa's truck back on the road without it looking too ugly" project . . . it doesn't have to be perfect, which makes it a great father and son project!

My son is paying for the repairs so we're trying to keep the costs down. Doing a little searching on the net I see some decent buys on materials but I'm a little leary of ordering chemical supplies through the net and besides it's expensive with the hazmat shipping so it's not really feasible any way. Dry goods - sand paper, masking tape, etc. ships pretty reasonably though. However, like everything else I'm sure there's good quality supplies and low quality supplies even with it comes to sand paper so I figured who better to ask than the guys here at hotrooders.com! The advice over in the engine forums has always been spot on so I'm betting that it's the same here in the body/exterior forum!

Is there a good source for mail order dry goods?

Also, years ago my father used to restore cars and I helped a bit but it's been a lllooonnnggg time ago so I'm pretty rusty and I don't know where most of the tools are at these days so I'll probably end up buying most of what we need - is there a good quality spray gun available reasonably?

Paint - Dad always used DuPont, are they still good quality paint or has another brand surprassed them? Our paint is white so hopefully it'll be pretty easy to match (again, the goal is get it back rolling without being too ugly but it doesn't have to be perfect).

One last question . . . there's a new place in town now that acid strips parts. I don't know much about it, a friend of mine had his hood for his '70 Charger done there and so far he's been happy. It wasn't too bad, I think around $40 to strip the hood. I was thinking I may have our fenders and hood dipped - it seems these fenders like to rust so I was thinking dipping them may kill any hidden rust and I thought maybe swirling some cheaper paint or using some sort of rust proofer on the inside/backside of the fenders may help them last a little longer, and that stripping the old paint off may save us a little prep time . . . any thoughts or opinions on acid dipping? (I've heard rinsing and protecting the metal after it comes out is very important. From what my friend with the hood said they dip it in another solution to rinse it and that solution leaves a coating that protects the metal (phosphate I think he said?) so it doesn't flash rust on ya. I'm working overtime right now so I haven't had time to stop down and visit with them yet)

Any tips, words of encouragement, etc. would be most welcome!

Thanks Guys!

Steve

I like to use autobodytoolmart.com for a lot of my stuff.And also eastwood.com. I have had great results from both of them