Wheel well painting?
 

Was working on wells and thought came to me....Like to see any pics of trucks with wells painted same color as rest of truck. I've always done the black with undercoating because it was easy to maintain. Wondering if you guys that have painted wells have a hard time keeping it nice. I won't be driving this truck daily, but plan is to drive it a bunch, maybe a Power Tour or such. Thoughts? Kel

Re: Wheel painting?
 

it would be hard to keep paint under fenderwells looking decent...rocks would beat it to death
heres a pic of some paint in the wheel wells....inside the red boxes

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Yeah, kinda what I thought, looks really nice, but I guess that's more suited for the BJ types...just one of those passing thoughts as I was grinding away...

Re: Wheel painting?
 

im going with lizardskin or raptorliner on my wheelwells when I get it back together
your taking the underside to bare metal, be sure you use epoxy primer on it

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Epoxy prime it first. Undercoating over that is a recipe for failure.


Brian

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Is there a way to edit the thread title....wheel thread...duh.

Re: Wheel painting?
 

This is how I've done my painting on inside of fenders for years and it always worked.

1. Prime with epoxy primer
2. Put on bed liner
3. Prime with sandable primer
4. Paint with single stage paint.

Here's 3 pics showing my left front inner fender etc.

Pic 1 This is after several years since last cleaning, truck was painted in 2003. And has over 26,000 miles since painted.
Pic 2 Another view
Pic 3 After clean up with soap and water.

Jim

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Looks pretty damn good, Jim!

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Thanks Dan...Jim

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Well now, I may re-think this. Very nice, thanks for posting, Kel

Re: Wheel painting?
 

No problem, glad to help...Jim

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Moderators:

Can you edit the title to say “Wheel Well Painting” so others can find Jim’s method when they search on the subject later?

Re: Wheel painting?
 

I used to have a friend who was a painter who had his 32 Ford painted candy apple red and had painted the undersides of the fenders the same candy red. He told me one day that he redid the undersides about once a year. He passed away several years ago and someone bought the car but I have never looked to see if the undersides of the fenders have been maintained like he did.

I'd do it on a show only truck just for the points it might get and for the attention to detail but it might be a real challenge to keep nice if you drive it a lot.

Re: Wheel painting?
 

inner fenders, under fenders, bottom of cab and firewall are all covered with commercial lineX bedliner
before sandblasting i asked the lineX shop what type of primer, they asked for bare metal with their primer
first stop for all my metal after the sandblaster was the lineX shop

funny thing was this lineX shop was building a full race/custom 55.5 truck
pretty much the whole truck was sprayed in bedliner, not pretty imo :D

Re: Wheel painting?
 

funny you say that ogre...I talkedto the linex shop here and they also told me they had a special lrimer for unknown paints....I was gonna take my bed to them to spray....they told me to paint it just like the rest of the truck....I was gonna try to save some painting but they said they'd rather have paint on it than bare metal or primer.....
and they had a brand new jeep with 12 miles on it in the shop torn completely apart....they were spraying the entire body in linex....not for me.....

Re: Wheel painting?
 

I tried, but only lets me change on my post...

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Using epoxy primer, single stage black and black SEM Rock-It bed liner. It has a nice texture and should offer some protection against small rocks and sand.

Re: Wheel painting?
 

looks good sheep....did you spray it on?.....wondering how it would compare to lizardskin or raptor...I'm gonna do my wheel wells, just can't decide which to use

Re: Wheel painting?
 

Have any of you pulled an original fender to find the original coatings intact inside the wheel well? I have... so I ask, why would you need anything better considering the roads in the 50's... so many of them unpaved combined with the fact that these trucks were work trucks on the farm, driving gravel roads... so again, why would we need any better? Sure, some trucks were driven into the ground, no doubt, but the coatings of today are so much better. They didn't use epoxy primer in the 50's and it's the most effective corrosion resistant coating you can buy.

I'm not a fan of bed liner anywhere but in the bed of a modern truck... at best. All those sprayable bed liners... all of them... are only thick urethane, with the exception of Dominion Sure Seal Gator Guard which is an epoxy (that fades in UV). They will claim to add Kevlar or other modern "micro beads" and such, but they all start as urethane. Bed liners are NOT rust prevention... they are only "thick paint" that provides an abrasive resistant coating, nothing more.

From the factory, the inside of the fenders were painted black. Good black urethane paint over an epoxy primer is a solid performer. Easy to maintain if a bit of road rash is experienced. Custom color urethane almost as easy.

In short, epoxy primer and urethane top coat (Single stage urethane is ideal) will give years of service. Leave the bedliner for truck beds.

Re: Wheel painting?
 

my reasoning for spraying fenderwells is to try and slow down the rocks that are gonna be flying up and hitting the inside fender causing "pimples" on the outside.....where my new paint is

Re: Wheel painting?
 

I used a 3” paint roller to keep the mess down. The kit comes with an applicator gun but the instructions suggested a roller as an alternative.

Re: Wheel painting?
 

I too, used a small roller to coat my cab underside with Hippo Liner - worked great.

Cheer, Jim

Re: Wheel painting?
 

How many "pimples" did you have to repair on the fenders? My point being that there likely wasn't any because the steel is so very heavy. When I see other fenders that I've salvaged, they too are also pimple free.

If you want to apply bedliner on the inside of a fender, there's no negative affects that I would be concerned about except it's a waste of money and may in fact be a little harder to keep clean because a smooth surface doesn't hold grime like a rough surface.

Epoxy primer is required under any coating. Bedliner is NOT a rust corrosion coating as many seem to believe.

Re: Wheel Well painting?
 

Good points !
Thanks

Re: Wheel painting?
 

I used Monstaliner roll on bed liner under the cab and inner fender areas