Long Travel BS Thread

Mine are gel coated haha

Thanks dude, I'm honestly just gunna wrap the whole truck. It can be done for like $800 if you have the ability to do it yourself, should hold up better than paint and is easier to touch up.

 

Like mine?

NO! im so glad I didn't go with a wrap, was such a pain to maintain. My paint now is pretty difficult but it is black, and is still easier to keep clean than the wrap I used to have. If you get a matte white wrap that may be the best option and wont show too much

 

What are the draw backs of the wrap? How was it difficult to maintain? My bedsides are already destroyed by rock chips so if I fix them it would probably be easier to replace the wrap every 6 months than body works and paint.

 

J-prich's truck has a gloss wrap on it and I wouldn't say it's any different then any vehicle with a paint job to maintain. It does get chipped fairly easy like on the front leading face of the bedsides from rocks off the front tires. I think if you did a wrap with clear bra on some of the more higher abuse areas of the wrap it would be a great combo. Maintenance wise though, I just wash it with a sponge and soapy water like any other vehicle then dry it with a towel and it always looks great when finished.

Personally though, if you're just going with a standard color or like a simple pattern, I'd go paint. If you're going with a complicated design then wrap for sure. Both methods have their purpose...


Me personally for a offroad dedicated ride, I'm a fan of plastidip. It's cheap, easy to repair, DIY, holds up decent, and did I mention cheap? LOL I'm not looking to win any car shows with my baller paint job on my truck that gets abused. In my eyes, dip is a practical cheap solution to white fenders. Once my truck is finished up I'll be dipping it. They've got a decent selection of colors now too. Just another option/route to consider. Is it the best all around? Up to you do decide but bang for your buck, it's hard to beat for something that looks good from 5 feet away. I'm not building a SEMA vehicle. (although, if you look at the dipping forums, there are dudes doing show quality jobs on their street rides!)

 

Well Ive worked with Vinyl for years and wrapping over the long run is much easier for me to maintain as I can rewrap pieces myself that get trashed much easier than having them painted to match, the paint guy I use now is far from inexpensive and blending a custom color to match the rest of the truck when I trash a bedside or whatever at BAP or RATR would get expensive. You have to use a special cleaning solution on matte vinyl if you really want it to continue to look uniform.

 

Ah gotcha man, I was assuming you had never dealt with it before. I just picked the wrong color to try and keep looking clean, and atleast with my paint I could buff things out to an extent while the vinyl just got scratched and there was nothing to do about it. My wrap was a matte black, and my paint is now satin black. A clear bra wrap would be ideal for either setup tho. I think I'll be looking into bedlining the bad areas on the bedsides since they are constantly taking abuse.

 

I worked at a vinyl shop for a little bit, did all the stickers at SDHQ for a couple years and still help out in a bind when we need stuff thrown on the TT before a race.

Personally I love solid color vinyl. Its cheap if you have the skills to install it yourself, non permanent, protects your actual paint and you can do some pretty cool stuff with it. For instance my truck will be going one solid color with some "bright" logos over the top in kind of an interesting color combo, but to make the logos stand out even more I will be laying a thick vinyl on the base in the logo outlines to give kind of a 3D look to the logos. Its hard to describe but i have the concept in my head and its gunna look legit.

 

Yeah! That looks pretty slick, maybe even a charcoal grey. How much did that run you if you dont mind me asking

 

Vinyl kicked my ass. I never done it before. So the lack of expirence shows. I give credit to those that can do it well. Both my front and rear glass is satin black vinyl. I will eventually have them painted but for now this will do.

 

Wrinkles or bubbles or both? A hair dryer takes out a lot of wrinkles, it shrinks the vinyl and makes them disappear

 

Wrinkles, I tried using a heat gun but I think I stretched to much. All the flat surfaces came out smooth but when I rolled the vinyl over the top everything wanted to come together and made a shit load of wrinkles. I just ended up cutting the vinyl from the top of the bedsides and sprayed raptor bed liner on the top of my bedsides. The front glass wasn't as bad.

 

Nice! Sounds like it'll be badass, and I get the 3D look Actually been looking into Tron style 3D designs to add to the bottom half of my truck

I'm not even embarrassed to say since my insurance covered 95% of it haha but this paint with all the prep and restoration cost 5500

 

Thats insane! Lucky situation with insurance though

 

Hey guys, just want to let you all know that this account is active again. Shoot me a PM for pricing if you need anything!

 

whats up chris

 

I have some original production TC upper arms, they are slightly too short, and i am unable to get my camber > -1.5.

Would your shop be willing, or is it even possible to throw the arms into a jig and weld some threaded bungs in so i can run heims on the upper to get my alignment in spec?

 

No doubt it is to some degree, I can notice some warpage on the front body mount. Unfortunately though with my firewall also caving in its the nature of the beast until I can cage this sucker.

But the kit is an older model, I picked it up from ttora from another member a few years ago and I recall reading that tc had geometry issues with the early production models. Specifically I remember sdhq building some trick billet uppers for a few people to fix the problem.

Bummer about the different angles of the upper to the upper control arm bolt, I hate to shell out the cash for tcs heimed uppers to have these arms sit in the garage.

 

And why can't you heim them ? Still a single bolt upper. I don't see why it wouldn't work.