I decided I was tired of welding, so I worked on something else for a change. I decided to paint the now exposed parts of the frame & firewall. Normally the firewall should be matched to the body color on these trucks, but since I am not sure what shade of dark green I ‘ll be using I decided to paint the firewall to match the rest of the sheetmetal in the engine compartment so I didn’t have to worry about it matching the outside.

I ground down the surface rust on the bits of the frame I could easily reach now that the sheetmetal was off the nose. And also ground down the rust on the firewall, scuffed & degreased everything in preparation for some paint.

There is still rot to be dealt with on the firewall edges, but I figured if I paint everything but that area I’ll have the option to do some re-assembly before I get to fixing the rot.

I also sanded down & rattle-canned the heater box semi-gloss black. This is just to make it presentable until I get around to tearing it down and rebuilding it with new gaskets, motor, & core.

And here is the frame & firewall freshly painted gloss black. I used tractor paint as it is supposed to have good durability. The frame came out great. However despite looking good in pictures, the firewall has a lot of runs & brush marks. I let it dry for a few days anyway, and decided to cover it in textured truck bedliner to hide the flaws.