UofAZCats Victory Red Rally Silverado

[UofAZCats]

I had always liked the look of colored brake calipers.  One of my boys got me the Duplicolor Brake Caliper painting kit for Christmas last year.  Given you can’t drive the truck for at least 24 hours after painting I just had not found the time to tackle this project until this week.  One of my boys is out of town and we were able to use his truck for the week.  This gave me the opportunity to finally get this done.

 

Getting all the prep work done took some time.  All the research I did before getting starting emphasized prep as the biggest factor in getting a good result.  I cleaned the calipers at least three times each starting with Brakeleen and Adams Wheel Cleaner before sanding with 80 grit and then 400 grit sandpaper before finishing up with the t Duplicolor cleaner that comes with the kit.  The kit is brush paint kit so I didn’t have to mask much though.  One garbage bag each wheel was all I did for masking.

 

As recommended in my research I did not use the provided paint brush and got a better one from Lowe’s.  The paint is very thick.  I probably put on too heavy a coat on for the initial coat.  Part of that is that as I tried to avoid brush strokes I kept putting on more paint to try to smooth out the paint.  Overall it did not come out very smooth but unless you are up close you don’t see the imperfections.  If it bothers me, I have read that it can be sanded down.  I’m going to give it a couple of weeks to see what I think.

Edited September 11, 2021 by UofAZCats

[UofAZCats]

Decided to make a change and took off the chrome bug deflector.  It really changes the look and I really like it.  Just worried about chips so I ordered the form fitting bug deflector from AVS that tapes to the front face of the hood.  Before I put it on I am going to get it painted red to match the truck.

 

Before:

After:

[UofAZCats]

Picture of the painted caliper once the truck was put back together (note this taken was before I removed the bug deflector).  I was not entirely sure how they would look but I am really happy with them.

[shakenfake]

Thank god it looks so much better lol

 

What drop is on that? 4/5?

[UofAZCats]

Been a while since I did more than wash and drive her around.  Not that I drive her much now that I daily drive my 05 Suburban.  Last weekend I took her to the Battle in Bama in Mobile.  Just short of a 1000 miles on the trip and she drove great.  That said I got tired of the rubbing of my front tires.  My truck is lowered 2/4 on 22" stock wheels and has rubbed on tighter turns no matter the adjustments I had made, short of getting smaller tires.  I didn't want to get smaller tires because she rides smooth now and I didn't want to impact that.  Since I did just get new tires I figured it was time to do something about it.

 

So today I was able to take the day off from work and perform surgery.  Inspired by the Nor Cal mod that the big wheel boys have to do to avoid rubbing, I performed a Cen Fla mod (just made that name up).  Basically I pulled the inner liner out and then usign a grinder I trimmed the metal seam down where it was rubbing.  Not as involved as the a Nor Cal sicne I didn't actually cut any of the metal parts out.  Took about 3 hours total.  Now the rubbing is gone and I am immensely happy.

[UofAZCats]

On 10/3/2021 at 1:51 PM, shakenfake said:

Thank god it looks so much better lol

 

What drop is on that? 4/5?

Sorry I missed your question.  My drop is 2.5/4.5 basically though I typically just say it is 2/4 to keep it simple.

[UofAZCats]

The exterior trim on the truck always kind of annoyed me.  Not sure why GM chose to ship these trucks with dark gray colored exterior trim. On my red/black truck it always struck me as wrong.  I really like what they are doing now on the premium versions, particularly the red line edition GM vehicles where the trim is a smooth, gloss black.  I had been researching had to either buy new black trim or to re-color it.  I couldn’t find any good replacement trim for sale so re-coloring was the way to go. 

 

I tried using Solution Finish to darken the trim.  I really love Solution Finish because it did a great job, when combined with Cerakote, on the trim of my 2005 Suburban.  In this case though, Solution Finish did not darken the trim color.  So I moved on to painting the trim.

 

After looking at a bunch of YouTube videos ranging from useful to low quality, I found a guy, Monty Crisp, on Lowered GM Fullsize Facebook group that does this type of work in Georgia.  Not having the time or energy to drive to Georgia to have him perform the work, he was good enough to give a quick explanation of how to paint the trim.  He has his own shop and the pictures of his truck and its trim look phenomenal.  Armed with his advice and the YouTube input I decided to give painting a try.

 

Having a shop Monty has access to better painting tools than I do.  I don’t have an air compressor, paint booth or any other fancy tools so I had to do it with rattle cans.  For the most part I used paint and supplies from local auto parts places.  I did order a couple of items from Amazon, including a can of SEM Trim Gloss Black paint.  The items I used changed as I went along as I found different options at different stores.  The following ware the items I used:

 

Sand paper 180, 600, 800, 1000, 1500 and 2000

3M 7447 Scuff Pad

Blue Hawk Painters Tape

Tape and Drape 6’

Disposable gloves

Adam’s Polishes All-Purpose Cleaner mixed with water

Tack Cloth

Dupli-Color Plastic Adhesion Promoter

Dupli-Color Primer Sealer

SEM Trim Gloss Black Paint

Raptor 1K Gloss Black

 

Steps:

1 – Removed the trim around the wheels from the truck, which required removing the wheels.  I did them one at a time because I didn’t want to put the truck up on jack stands for the length of the project.  I took this trim off because I didn’t want to mask and paint all of that on the truck.  It took a while but it made the process easier with those smaller trim pieces.  I did not take the bumper trim off.  I wasn’t interested in taking the bumpers off.

2 – Sanded the front bumper trim with 180 grit sandpaper.  I followed up with 800 grit and then 1500 grit.  The 800 and 1500 were probably not needed but I wanted to get the front bumper trim as smooth as possible.  The back bumper has more pronounced texture and that I did not want to remove since it is a safety feature (and it would have taken a lot of work).  All sanding was done by hand.  As with the rear bumper trim, I was not interested in removing the texture from the wheel trim so I used the scuff pad as part of the next step.

3 – Cleaned everything down with All-Purpose mixed with water. Once clean the plastic has a dull gray color due to the sanding.

4 – Masked up the front and rear bumper.  This always takes longer than I want.

5 – Applied adhesion promoter to the plastic.  I followed the directions but Duplicolor uses the same basic directions regarding coats – 2 light coats and 3^rd medium cost.  With the adhesion promoter I am not sure that isn’t too much or maybe I just put it on too heavy.

6 – Applied sealer within 10 minutes of applying the adhesion promoter.  Same coating directions as the adhesion promoter.  After putting it on I noticed that the surfaces that were sanded smooth on the bumper trim had a gritty look along the surface.  I did not have the issue with the wheel trim.  I attribute the grit to too much adhesion promoter though it may well have been something else. 

7 – On the front and rear bumper trim I wet sanded the gritty sections with 800 grit sandpaper and smoothed them back out.  Since I sanded I washed them again with All-Purpose mixed with water to get the residue off.

8 – Painted the wheel trim with the SEM trim paint in 3 coats and left to dry for a couple of days.

9 – Painted the front and rear bumper with the 1k Raptor paint in three coats.  After the second coat I ended up sanding down some more gritty sections that were missed with earlier sanding and are now more obvious with the paint on.  Used 800 grit to wet sand then cleaned again with All-Purpose mixed with water.  Waiting for it to completely dry in humid Florida was a chore given at this point in the process I am ready to be done with this thing and have my truck back.

10 – Pull masking and re-attached wheel trim.

 

I did buy some SprayMax 2K Clear Gloss but decided not to use it.  The pain that goes with applying 2K gloss is more than I ultimately wanted to deal with on this project.  Also the trim is already more glossy than I really wanted let alone adding more gloss.  I am concerned about durability without the clear gloss but that is part of the reason I chose the 1K Raptor which is supposed to be harder that typical paint.  I am really concerned about the SEM Trim paint.  I don’t think it was intended to be placed over sealer and won’t soak in as intended.  I noticed that it scuffed pretty easy before it putting on the truck.  I may have to pull it off, sand it and paint it with the 1K Raptor it doesn’t last.  Time will tell on both of these decisions.

 

This process took me about two weekends plus fitting these steps in between my work schedule.  It took most of the last two Saturdays, a few hours on each of the past two Sundays and a few hours on Friday.  This doesn’t include all of the research time which I did a lot of before undertaking a project like this.

 

Original color: (I didn't paint the sidesteps but I didn't get a before picture of the pieces I did paint).

 

Compare/Contrast:

 

Final product: (I will get more pictures).

[UofAZCats]

Changed out my original struts for Viking adjustable coilovers.  Didn't take any pictures but after some trial and error got them adjusted to the right height and feel.  The original struts were ok but when pulling into driveways with steep slopes from normal sloped roadways the wheel would scrape the wheel wells if I wasn't going really, really slow.  No springs are stiffer and prevent that from happening.  Love them so far.