Project Isuzu VehiCross: Part 5 – Bodywork Round 1

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Next, with some 180 grit sandpaper, we sanded off all of the peeling paint and the worst of the rust.  We followed this up with passes of the 400 grit paper over the whole cowl to give a nice key to the new paint.  After cleaning, we used some Rustoleum rust stopper to neutralize any remaining corrosion and give us a good, paintable surface.
The wiper arms were given the same treatment.  180 grit to get the worst damage off, 400 to key, and some rust neutralizer over the corroded parts.
Time for paint!  Our first coat used some Rustoleum Zinc primer.  This primer will not only bond well to bare metal, but the Zinc will help prevent new rust from forming in any of the areas where all the paint was sanded off.
We could have used some body filler at this point to fill in the low spots where all the original paint flaked off, but after a light sand with 400 grit paper, the cowl looked just fine, so we skipped that.  The primer looks good, but it’s not going to go well with the white and black on the truck.  
So satin black it is!  If you look really really closely, you can see the dips from not using any filler, but this part lives under the hood, so most people will never see it.  I can live with that.
The wiper arms look brand new after their coats of primer and black.  Not bad for a bit of elbow grease and two cans of paint.
Before reinstalling the cowl, we needed to refit the weather stripping.  This piece goes against the windshield to protect the glass from the metal cowl.  It had some old adhesive to hold it down.  I used some molding tape to secure the weather stripping.  A second rubber gasket seals the back of the hood and goes on the forward edge of the cowl cover.  More double sided moldng tape was used here as well.

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