[VB] Sandblasting

[Kevin Guarnotta]

Well I have my singlecab scheduled to go to the body shop next week. I just remembered the truck has a bad undercoating job. That sort of black stuff, it is coming off in large flakes.

I thought I might get the underside sandblasted - so I brought it to a sandblasting shop. He quoted my $1,000 to put on a lift and blast it. For another $1,000 he will do the body - except for the interior truck bed and inside of gates as they have a rhino liner on it. He said that needs to be heated up and scraped off (same advice I got from a number of you guys). He doesn't do that.

So the body has a lot of bubbling paint - and I hate to repaint it, and have it bubble up in a few years because I didn't get all the rust out. I know this is more than I want to spend, but I'm weighing it against the paint failing. For a little more background -the truck has the original paint, then a coat of red, then the blue white job done by the PO. So it is relatively thick with paint these days. I don't plan on selling the thing - so it is a long term investment.

So I know the blasting is probably the "Right" way to do it, but my shop guy is saying it might uncover a lot of issues that I didn't know about, and may not want to know about. Also - when it gets blasted, it will need a quick primer to protect it from flash rusting.

I'm leaning towards going for it - but wanted to hear from anyone else who has gone through a sandblasting of their vehicle, and the pros and cons of going that way.

Thanks


-Kevin Guarnotta
Jamaica Plain, MA

'78 Westy
'69 Singlecab
'65 Ez-camper