The old plastic chrome headlight surrounds were a bit rough. Since this is going to be a trail rig, the expectation is to have to replace these due to damage in the future. So rather than replacements, we used a charcoal gray plasti-dip spray.
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Once the headlight surrounds were painted, Kurt installed the new lenses. The old ones were cracked and faded.
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The rims were tarnished and pitted.
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Kurt found wheel paint in a matching charcoal gray for the rims.
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Kurt wanted a visor to help protect from sunglare on the trails.
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The grill was also painted with the charcoal gray plasti-dip.
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The first area painted was the hood. It was an experiment to see if he would like the paint scheme that he had come up with. A friend of our son stopped by to help.
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First the hood was sprayed with gray primer. The area covered by the paper and the yellow tape will stay gray. The areas in the blue tape and the shield and cross will become black. The rest of the hood will be sprayed white.
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Now Kurt is taping off the black to spray the white.
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The both the gray and black were masked off and the hood was ready to be sprayed with white.
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Pulling the tape and paper off to reveal the design was fun, right up to when the paint peeled away at that "base layer".
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Those dark specks are where the painted peeled back.
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A little touch up paint and the hood is ready for clear. The shield is a tribute to another of our hobbies.
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Kurt named the Bronco "Knight Mare". Little did he know at the time just how appropriate the name would be.
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Pepe got the onerous task of hauling the old tires and rims up to the shop along with the new rubber to get the tires swapped. That's a hefty load for this little ranger.
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Only the new tires and rims came back, so the return trip wasn't as bad.
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One new tire on the charcoal gray rim. Looks good - for a trail rig.
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Finally the rest of the rims were painted.
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The tire carrier was stripped of rust and old paint, then painted gloss black.
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The inside of the front bumper was painted with POR15 for protection from further rust.
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The rear bumper was also painted with POR15 on the inside.
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The truck was taped off for the first gray primer layer of paint.
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The best picture I had of the full passenger side. The Bronco is a tad large for our garage, so it was always kept tight on the passenger side. But we had to have room to maneuver for taping off.
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Outside for spraying. It is still early spring and the bugs haven't arrived yet.
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Unfortunately, we had very little time in the evening hours to work in before we lost daylight.
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The Bronco in primer gray.
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Not the best look for the truck.
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Since we are headed to the trails soon, Kurt took time out to aim the headlights.
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One Bronco ready for the first trail.
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Overall the Brono doesn't look bad.
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We wanted some trail time before we finished off the paint job to see if this was something we wanted to continue or just finish and sell.
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The white tailgate will look better once the rest of the truck is painted.
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The antannae was mounted on the spring to help avoid breakage due to tree branches.
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We still haven't located another rim, so the spare was painted to match in color at least.
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We started on this at Christmas 2015 and now it is Memorial Day weekend 2016. This is the first opportunity that we have had to go to the trails. This time will just be a couple of rigs on an easy trail. We have been off-roading once before when the kids were little and that trip didn't go so well. We're hoping for better luck this time. We had been through the engine, transmission, rear diff, brakes, and a few minor systems. It should be good to go.
Boy were we wrong.
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