2007 Ram 1500. Making an SLT look like an SRT 10

[Kern Dog]

I caught a cold so progress has slowed a bit.

It is always amazing how much filler gets sanded away in the process....

 

[Kern Dog]

The cladding is all on.

I love the look of the truck with the panels in place. I do still need to do the final paint and clear.
I'm a bit disappointed with the panel fitment....The 2 sided tape didn't hold as well as I hoped.
Right door:

Left door:

I put a screw in from the back side to pull it in a bit. No picture yet.

The ones on the bed forward of the wheel openings pulled away slightly.

From a profile view, it all looks fine. All in all, I'm happy but wished the panels laid down a little tighter. I could pull them and try again with new tape.

I have a couple of grilles and options with them. Both frames will be the Inferno Red color but the inserts could be Inferno Red, satin black or the brushed chrome like here:

I like the way the truck above looks.

 

[mike cook]

I like the brushed chrome look myself.

 

[Kern Dog]

The gaps just kept nagging at me. I knew that I could do better.
On the left side, I pulled the door panel to see if there was anything that I could do from the inside.
I first peeked in there and saw that the plastic push clip you see here:

... that is attached to the top flange of the cladding...

...wasn't in all the way. The blue circled area in the top picture shows the black plastic peg that needs to come through a hole in the body and then spread to secure the panel and lay in tight. I pounded on the outside a few times and then saw that the black peg finally came through enough and spread open enough to get the panel to sit much closer to the body. It isn't flush but it is within 1 /16". This was at the rear of the door. For the middle and front edges, I wondered if I could maybe add screws from the door skin to the flange of the cladding piece. I thought I was careful, I could draw the top flange in tight. Well, the front edge is tight now....

I put a screw (from the inside) about 1 5/8" in from the front edge, near the hinge.

It pulled the panel in quite well, but....The screw was about 1/4" too long and it punched through the outer skin.

I dressed it with a grinder to below the surrounding area. I'll use some bumper repair epoxy to fill and hide the hole.
The panel lays much closer now though.

It is not perfect but it is close enough for me. I don't clearly remember how tight the panels fit on actual SRT-10 trucks. These pictures are the closest thing I have to them.

Looks pretty good. Nice and tight.

Here the right door shows a bit of a gap below the RAM and SRT badges.

I'll still do my best to get them all to sit as tight as possible.

 

[Kern Dog]

The right side just was not hood enough for me. I considered running screws to the top flange from the inside but that isn’t easy to do. It is hard to determine the exact height to drill and as I have shown, punching through the cladding is a risk.
I got the right door cladding off and cleaned the tape from both the door and the cladding.

There was some tape stuck to the door and some stuck to the cladding. The top flange is where any gap would be most visible and that was the area easiest to pull away. I got the panel off and cleaned the door.

 

[Kern Dog]

I think the top flange may not have adhered as well as the other areas partly because the flange had a rough edge that made it hard for the tape to stick.

I used a wire wheel on a drill to clean off the old tape and that left grooves in the plastic.

Since the tape stuck to the door and not the flange here, I figured to have better results I’d need to smooth out the rough surface.

I sanded and evened it out, wiped it down with solvent and applied new tape. To make sure the tape got a good grip, I used a roller and….

Pressed it into place with firm pressure using my hands.

It fits like stock now.

 

[Kern Dog]

Fixing this left side….
You know how sometimes a small mistake “snowballs” into a repair that takes 10 times the amount of effort that you would have spent if you did it right?
That is where I am here. I had trouble determining the proper length of screw to use and this simple mistake…

….led to grinding, a trip to the auto body supply for this:

Then this..

I sanded too much and had to fill it to make it all blend.
I used “Bumper repair” on the hole because I needed something that could flex a little if the screw behind it ever moved. From there I could get away with body filler.

 

[Kern Dog]

It was a simple mistake that required the repair. In the end it will hide and be fine. To aid adhesion, I used this.

Then this:

For a small job like this, it didn’t make sense to spray with a traditional spray gun.

 

[Kern Dog]

I had planned on repainting the whole right side of the bed since there were three dents to fix.

The left side was going to only get paint on the cladding since the rest looked pretty good. There was a small ding near the taillight that I thought maybe I’d just accept.
I couldn’t do that.

It was such a small spot but I couldn’t leave it. If it were just a little ding with no paint damage or crap he’s, I could have just paid a “paintless dent repair” guy to press it out. It was scratched to primer though.

I filled in some dents on the top of both sides. I had planned on getting a spray in bedliner going up and over the top but now that I’ll be painting the whole bed, I am not sure if I’ll get that bedliner.

 

[Kern Dog]

I have a plan.
I’m going to mask the truck and paint the cladding, tailgate and rear bumper and front bumper in place. I have two grilles to paint and the hood scoop. Those will be painted in another room.

Why two grilles?
I want to see which look that I like best. One is this grille in all Inferno Red.

The next is the outer shell in Inferno red….

…..using the slats from my original grille….

I also have a set of unpainted black slats for a red and black look.
This hood scoop has a LOT of chips on the paint.

Look close at all of the pink-ish spots. That is spot putty used to fill in the chipped out paint.

Getting close to paint day

 

[Kern Dog]

Today was a baby step back into painting. It has been a few years since I painted a whole car. Some habits you develop by feel where you just find your own way, a way that works for you. I’ve said for years that one difference between a newbie and a professional is that the pro knows how to make corrections along the way to keep moving forward. The newbie often makes mistakes and cannot overcome them while a pro knows ways to adjust to a changing condition. I had some mistakes today but all in all, it worked out pretty good.
I have 3 1/2 quarts of paint. It mixes 1 to 1 with reducer so that 3 1/2 quarts equates to 7 quarts of sprayable color. Sometimes when you have a spotted panel like this:

You have to expect to lay down several coats to make those spots hide and get an equal color across the whole panel. I don’t know if it is common to just spray the spotted areas several times then go over the whole panel with 2 or 3 coats. What really matters is that once it is done, the color is even and no primer spots can be seen.
For clear, I had 2 quarts. Those mix 4 to 1 to 1/2.
Clear.
Catalyst.
Reducer.
This means each quart when mixed is 32 ounces + 8 ounces + 4 ounces for a total of 44 ounces, about 1 1/3 quarts sprayable. I needed more clear.

A quickie body and fender shop will have a clean, dust free and bug free spray booth and experienced workers that can lay down paint with minimal flaws.
That isn’t me. I’m out in a semi rural area with some dust, some bugs and add to that sweat and eyelashes. Stuff falls into the freshly sprayed panels sometimes.
Body shops may spray and then send the car down the road with no sanding and buffing. Most production cars and trucks have some degree of orange peel anyway. My truck had some repairs to the body years ago and those areas had orange peel.
The hood scoop came out nice enough to install as is.

The grille too.

The tail gate looks okay in pictures but has some flaws to correct.

 

[Kern Dog]

The tailgate color went on fine. It looks even with no Tiger stripes.
That is a condition that sometimes happens with the metallic particles where they don’t all blend together. The finish looks uneven in color. There are many causes for that, one is when the painter doesn’t have adequate overlap when spraying. I’ve been used to a 50% overlap with the gun about 8-10 inches from the surface when painting. I’m a bonehead at a lot of things so maybe my technique could use some adjustments. It did come out pretty even in color though.

That is with 3 coats of clear.
After the first coat, I got a few drops of water on the wet surface. I dabbed a paper towel corner at the drops and got them out. The second coat went on fine but the 3rd got a few gnats in it. They can be brushed off once the clear dries. I can sand and lay down another coat or two and later sand out any flaws.

I had decent results today. I have had days that were a lot worse.
The grilles: one is almost perfect and the other is not. Not at all.

After the second coat of paint, done flying bug landed on the top bar and fluttered around until it flew off. That left a valley in the paint so I had to get some spot putty to fill it in.

I wasn’t going to clear coat it but I had some left in the gun and I didn’t know how soon I’d get back to finishing this grille. This paint has to be covered within 24 hours or it has to be scuffed and repainted before clear can be sprayed on. I figured just to lock the color in for now. That all red grill just looks too good to me.

 

[Kern Dog]

There is a truth to be known about many projects.
The prep is where the time is spent.
This is true in this case. It isn’t the spraying of the paint and the clear that takes the most time. It is the disassembly, the cleaning, bodywork, more bodywork, masking and then the paint. All of that eats time.

All the cladding has been scuffed for more coats of paint. The bed was scuffed but since I’m looking closer, I’m finding some tiny chips in the paint to fill and sand down. Every small setback adds time.

 

[mopar56]

Hey, that is coming along nicely and looking good, it's easy to loose your motivation on a project like that but you stuck with it. I have two questions.....1, on one of your first post you said you were preparing to move out of CA, but I see you listed address is still there, did you change your mind? 2, ....what about the engine did you ever put those donor heads on?

 

[Kern Dog]

Hello and thank you,
Yeah, we are still in California. We looked at properties in northern Arizona but it didn't pan out. Most properties in our price range that had 6 or more acres were on dirt roads. I don't want to drive my shiny cars on dirt roads. If all I had were old vehicles with dull paint, it would be okay.
Regarding the heads, that is the next project for this truck. I had heads gone through for another 5.7 engine. I wanted the valve seats staked in place to prevent the dreaded valve seat failure. The original engine is still running great so I've felt no urgency to make the swap.

 

[mopar56]

Well i guess that makes sense however you stated you mostly wanted to do the heads to keep the truck reliable with the head gasket issue you were having now that it's not needed for the move I think if I were you I would put in the donor engine you have or rebuild yours, my experience with fresh heads on a worn lower end is that the bottom end goes out soon after, just my two cents, that being said it's amazing you have gone 400k with no real issues my 2011 ate a cam at 125 kms then again 12k later but at least the second one was covered under warranty as I had the dealer do it. My 19 only has 40k so hopefully it'll be good, I'm not a fan of the MDS, that and excessive idling during warm up on remote start is what I believe ate the cam and honestly i don't think the MDS dose anything for my fuel mileage as it is horrible, BUT I didn't buy the truck for economy.

 

[Kern Dog]

The MDS may help if you’re on level ground at a steady speed. How much help, I don’t know.
I agree that the concept of fresh heads on a worn out short block was traditionally a bad move. The bores in the engine had almost zero taper so chances are, the short block is fine.
I’m in no hurry to swap engines though. The truck still runs great. I’m not driving it 30,000 to 40,000 miles a year anymore. I retired November 2022 so the miles are racking up a lot slower now.

 

[Kern Dog]

Finally.

The cladding needed 2-3 more coats since they already had 2-3 coats on them there were some sanded through spots that needed more to cover.

The bed sides had repairs with primer that took 5 coats to hide.

I do enjoy this stuff but I still get nervous when painting. The stress of avoiding mistakes is a factor.

 

[Kern Dog]

The clear really makes the metallic pop.

Here is a comparison. BEFORE:

AFTER:

 

[Kern Dog]

The paint laid down and spread out fine. There are no Tiger Stripes or inconsistencies.
The bed had slight orange peel last night that got a little worse overnight as it dried. I’m guessing that as the solvents in the clear evaporated, the solids remained and allowed shrinkage?

It isn’t horrible. You may not even be able to see it on a small screen.

I love the new look though.

The color is off at least a shade.

I like both colors! It is close but different enough that I can tell. I’ll see if it bugs me enough to spray the rest of the truck. I have enough leftover paint but would need more clear.