Here's what happens when you rush through the prepping process before you paint something.
The paint don't stick!
I just got through scraping, stripping, wire wheeling, cleaning and painting my pan with Duplicolor Truck Bed Liner. I would have to say, there's nothing wrong with the product. I brushed it on, so the surface texture was kinda rough. But once it was cured (2 coats, 3 days cured) the stuff was tuff and rubbery. It would have been great if I'd prepped the surface better.
I was running around the edge of the pan with a razor blade to carve off the excess before I painted the heater channels and wheel wells when I noticed it wanting to lift right off the metal from the lip of the body. I gave it another day to finish curing (can says safe to re-enter truck bed in 1-2 hours for second coat, safe to use in 2-3 days), it still wanted to just peel right up. So I took a flat balde to the pan in a few areas to see just how screwed I was, and the stuff comes off in sheets like it ain't nothin'. Right down to ( apparently) dirty bare metal.
I skipped a few critical steps in the prep process. First, you're supposed to start by washing off whatever your painting with soapy water really good, and follow that up with a good session of cleaning with some kind of wax and grease remover. That way you don't rub all the crap that's on the surface, like paint stripper residue, wax, grease, etc. into the metal when you sand it. I though I could get by with waiting till the end and trying to use Acetone to clean every nook and cranny. Well think again! Cause it didn't work so good!
I suppose it might have worked better if I'd really cleaned the holy livin' hell out of it with acetone before I painted it, but I figured after half a pint of and 20-30 1/2 sheets of papertowel I was done cleaning.
I also never actually sanded the pan, for the most part. I went through a couple wire wheels on it, which seemed to polish it more than rough it up. The whole thing was layed out on the under side of the paint as I peeled it off. Every little swipe of the wire wheel was visible, as well as this brownish color in some places. If you look at the pan surface in some of these pics it looks a little brownish, like surface rust already forming between the paint and the metal. The humidity was pretty high the last couple weeks, and the temps havn't been high enough to cure paint worth a darn. I had a space heater in the garage from time to time between coats, but I'm sure it was in the 50s and 60s instead of 70 plus.
My point is: Don't Cut Corners like I did! And don't rush into stuff without a plan and some knowledge of what the hell your doing. I just wasted a weeks worth of painting and ~$100 in materials. It's not the end of the world, but it could have been avoided.
So............I made a trip to Wesco autobody and got schooled up a little on the procedure. I also got some new stuff to try on the pan. It's going to get cleaned and sanded right this time, then epoxy primed, and then sprayed with this Raptor bed liner. I picked up a quality charcoal mask and some other supplies for the job.
Round #2 coming up
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. I'm kinda glad that my first bit of painting with this build has taught me to take my time and do it right. Hopefully I can learn from my own mistakes this time.
. It ended up taking almost 2 weeks of spare time to pick/scrape it cleaner than before I painted it to begin with. Then I gave it a good de-greasing and found out just how dirty that thing actually was