Now once you get a nice primer on that and seal the seams you will have a clean canvas to do the rest!
Cost of Stripping & Painting a GMC
- Thread starter PeteSr
- Start date
The 200 hrs (plus materials) is the number of hours in the job estimate that I was quoted by a shop. Materials were guesstimated at $3,500.
JR Williams, did you use the Aqua-Strip on the lower SMC part of the body? If so, no material compatibility issues? BTW - I am impressed with your thoroughness. Good job. That’s beyond my ability and what I am looking for a shop to do.
JR Williams, did you use the Aqua-Strip on the lower SMC part of the body? If so, no material compatibility issues? BTW - I am impressed with your thoroughness. Good job. That’s beyond my ability and what I am looking for a shop to do.
Thanks Pete.
I asked around before starting and was told by bodyshop guys that it would be fine. Figured the people that did this for a living was the source for best results.
I'm about to spray an epoxy primer to seal the Aluminum and SMC in the next couple days. Then I'll seal seams and repair body work issues. Honestly stripping the paint was the easy part. It's all the details that has the hours.
Well, we got the GMC back from the paint shop last week. The paint job was a complete strip, corrosion repair, primer, and 4 color paint job. The base paint was kept the same as the factory original cream. I specified Imron for that, but used Jet-Glo for the 3 accent colors. Jet-Glo is similar to Imron - it's aircraft paint. After getting prices from about a hundred auto/truck/RV shops, including some GMC specialists, I decided to have a General Aviation Aircraft paint shop do the work. The price was significantly less than what I was quoted by the other shops, but was not cheap. There is no such thing as a free lunch. So, as I said the work was done by an aircraft paint shop. They know how to strip and paint large aluminum & SMC/FRP surfaces like our GMC's (and airplanes). I suspect that's why even though this was their first GMC, they were much less expensive than the RV shops. Also, the RV shops wanted to sand the old paint off. My paint shop couldn't believe that when I told them. Their comment was "Wow that would take forever". So, my recommendation to any owner looking at doing this right - go talk to an aircraft paint shop.
It still needs some exterior work done such as - riveting the custom fabricated refrigerator access door (that is the subject of a separate post), installing the newly rechromed bumpers (still awaiting a set of front bumper shocks), installing the new OEM style ladder (using my design of attachment plates), and ordering and installing a new awning. Then it goes back to the shop for final touch-up.
Here are some progress pictures:
It still needs some exterior work done such as - riveting the custom fabricated refrigerator access door (that is the subject of a separate post), installing the newly rechromed bumpers (still awaiting a set of front bumper shocks), installing the new OEM style ladder (using my design of attachment plates), and ordering and installing a new awning. Then it goes back to the shop for final touch-up.
Here are some progress pictures:
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Shop owner estimated it exactly what someone said in this or another post on painting - 200 shop hours. He admits maybe going over that but says it was due to a lot of standing around and thinking. Says his next one would be easier.
Price quoted as $17,500. Ended up being about $18,000 due to me having holes filled and stuff like that. As I said it wasn't cheap. But was a lot less than the $30,000 or even the $25,000 I was quoted by the RV shops, including one of our well known GMC specialty shops here in Florida.
P.S. As you can see from the last picture of the rear, I need to address the rear panel fasteners. Since we intend to remove the rear panel when we do the interior refurbishment later this year (after Sun-N-Fun if they have it), I am considering using threaded inserts instead of some type of Hi-Lo screw. If anyone has either found a source of the large size Hi-Lo (or that type - there are several thread systems now for soft material) or used a threaded insert, let me know. There is another post on this forum about this subject.
Your body/paint looks great! This is something I need to address on my ‘74 in the next few years.
