Jack's Journey, another Poverty Pack

Jack is a one owner since new (me!) SG MY04 Forester X.
He's served us well over the years, mostly as a daily driver for SWMBO with a few camping trips towing a 7'x4' light off road camper trailer as well as board carrier and shuttle bus for the kids.
The last 18 months He's been reduced to Camper Trailer puller & Mal/Nipper (surf lifesaving) board carrier.
About 8 months back, SWMBO started raising discussions about trading Jack in on "Something Else" to the value of about $15 - 20ksecond hand, hiluxy sort of thing as she felt Jack was getting a little worn out.
This was to be used predominantly as a shuttlebus, camper trailer tower & board carrier mind you, but with a view to more adventurous touring..

With a little bit of effort, I managed to convince her that Jack was not in fact terribly worn out (backed up by the mechanic thankfully) but just needed a bit of a spruce up.

And thus the journey begins..

 

[Ben Up North]

Im always late because of the roo's/rabbits/Wombats/koala's around here lol

1WD

Hitting a wombat is something I never want to do. Only seen a copule on the roads over the years, they're another beautiful creature, friends had a baby one some years back (to go with their wallabies and other natives - they were licensed of course)

Very solid critters.

 

[Ben Up North]

Just purchased some new front window gussets as mine are cactus.
Will post some happy snaps when they arrive and I fit them.

Almost worked up the courage to do the snorkel too. there's an excellent video on youtube: [ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOJkA9LFm0g&t=0s"]Offroad Forester Project Ep5. Snorkel Install - YouTube[/ame] that's made me a bit mroe confident.
Still working on the light mount too.

 

[1WD Foz]

Nice man
Cant wait to see it all fitted

Yes that Mitre A guy on Youtube has some awesome vids
Ive watched them all lol

I wonder if he’s on here?

1WD

 

[Ben Up North]

Guards painted with truck bed liner

As a way of avoiding cutting holes in the car (snorkel) I thought I'd give the bed liner aint a go..

Even masked it up!

Gave up on doing just a bit..
First coat

 

[NachaLuva]

Looks good.

Yeah the snorkel is a little scary to do but not too hard & you'll be glad you did

 

[scalman]

cool what kind of bed liner you was using ? spray can ? how well its feels after it dried ? like could you take screw driver and try to scratch it , because if its good one it should hold up .

 

[Ben Up North]

cool what kind of bed liner you was using ? spray can ? how well its feels after it dried ? like could you take screw driver and try to scratch it , because if its good one it should hold up .

Spray can. Definitely wouldn't recommend using a spray can as it tends to throw globby bits despite shaking the crap out of the can for about 5 minutes (they recommend shaking for a minute after the ball moves freely, as with most.. )
I've tried other rubberised solutions in a spray can without this problem.

It's only a test, so I didn't bother sanding the bumper. Only two coats. Peels right off.
so.. next test will be to actually sand it a bit with some 180 grit and apply again. Should make it stick better but not sure how well.

Looks good but!

I'm going to try and find a smallish can of the stuff for next test too and roll it on. Might also try some stuff that's marketed as chip resistant paint for bumpers, see how that goes.

 

[Ben Up North]

What it looks like in the morning:

What surprised me is that it shows the phone number I used to have on the back of the tailgate (you can just make it out still) reflected in the bumper. couldn't see that at all before I painted. The number was done with black stickers, I'm guessing the added reflection from the numbers has affected the plastic, or being with the numbers being black there's beein less reflection, therefore more oils remaining in the plastic? Whatever's the reason, it's pretty weird!

edit: maybe it's just the reflection off the tailgate.. will open it up and have a look.. Ahh. it's just the reflection off the tailgaite. Interesting that it shows up lighter.

 

[scalman]

Ok try scratch it now. How it holds up? And im not sure you need to sand it before you spray bed liner more like clean all dust and greas and wash it with soapy water. As other people show it should stick pretty good . or they using diff product or its just some lies to sell product. But in all if you spray it good it should just make like its own shell so even if its not stuck everywhere it should just hold itself pretty good by its own. It should be hard not soft .
And cant believe you just covered everything so little with that tape. Or you removed rest allready i mean you should cover like half car when you spraying that no?
I thought you should look like that when doing it

Jk haha
I guess thats why those serious bed liner stuff or line x layers are put not from spray can and then they hold as rock vs spray can stuff. But there should be stuff that are done with brush as well

 

[Ben Up North]

Ok try scratch it now. How it holds up?

Much better now. still peels where I've started to peel it, but the rest is pretty good. I'm going to give the bit I've done a couple more coats, I think it will be OK.

I guess thats why those serious bed liner stuff or line x layers are put not from spray can and then they hold as rock vs spray can stuff. But there should be stuff that are done with brush as well

I went to a paint specialist today, they have a two-pack liner that they sell, $60 a litre and would need primer. Solid as a rock when dry though, he thought it would be more likely to crack if on a bumper, almost no flex at all.
Picked up a spray can of chip resistant paint specifically for bumpers/sills and will have a little test of that, but at the moment I'm feeling a lot better about the stuff I've already used, it seems to have become quite solid (yet still has flex)
It was pretty humid when I sprayed last night - it always is around here so that must have slowed drying time down significantly.

it's still a bugger of a stuff to spray - not very even.

 

[1WD Foz]

Nice work
i think it came up a treat
looks good in the pictures
im definitely looking into this for my wheels
but also wonder if it would work on a galvanised steel trailer?

1WD

 

[Ben Up North]

Nice work
but also wonder if it would work on a galvanised steel trailer?
1WD

Noooo!

I've got a custom built fully galv trailer. I don't plan on ever painting it, detracts from the authenticity and makes it harder to see where rust might start.

Plus, there's a heap of cheapo campers coming out of China that are painted steel. do you want your trailer to resemble one of those?

 

[Ben Up North]

Hit the rfont bumper with a different product tonight. Some sort of textured bumper paint. Looks ok, but not as good as the truck bed paint. Goes on a hell of a lot better, no globs of stuff (which look pretty crappy up close).
I'll throw another can of the truck bed coating at the rear bumper and door trims (got carried away and did those too yesterday) tomorrow, see if it hides the globby bits a bit better.

 

[Ben Up North]

I've been censored! Are we still in the 1900's?!! Cheese & Whiskers! :lol:

 

[Ben Up North]

Picked up three steelies from the wreckers today as well

Paid too much, but that's the downside of being zillions of miles away from large populations.

Gonna stick them on the trailer so I'll effectively end up with 4 spares. That should keep me out of too much trouble. Got two almost brand new tyres to go on them and I'll pick up another cheap D697 for the spare so I can do a 6 wheel rotation on the car.

Bit of rust on the inner of the rim, I'll give them a bit of a sand on the inside of the rim and then paint with similar colour to stock.

Unless I decide to go for flouro orange. That is tempting.

I figure that's gotta be better than doing a five wheel rotation as it will keep the tread even on each pair.

Now I've just got to convert the trailer axles to fit the Subie wheels.

 

[Ben Up North]

oops double post.
Cheese & Whiskers!

 

[scalman]

And dont forget make pics of what you do. Pics tells more then 1k words haha.

 

[Ben Up North]

I'll do picks tomorrow. It's hard enough spraypainting in the dark lol!

 

[1WD Foz]

dont spray your phone !!
lol

1WD

 

[Ben Up North]

Already managed to get truck bed liner on my specs. Didn't even notice until today, D'oh!