Beginners First Time Vinyl Wrap Process

Hey all,

I thought it might be useful to post the process I went through in vinyl wrapping the failing paint on my 2nd gen. Hopefully anyone interested in this approach can find some use in the mistakes I made along the way.

I'm also interested in hearing others' input on my process. I'm sure there are a ton of things I could have done differently/better.

Below is the process I outlined in another comment as well as pictures of the truck at different points in the process.

Hopefully this helps anybody considering a vinyl wrap, I would definitely recommend it as a more affordable way to improve the look of your truck if your paint has gone the way of the dinosaurs.

Steps I took -

1) Sand down paint on hood and roof (I went 400, to 800) to smooth it out a bit and remove flakiness. This was my first mistake, if I had taken it down to bare metal everywhere the rest of the steps would have been easier. I don't think there was any reason for me to save any paint since the rest was failing so badly. If I could go back I would sand the fuck out of everything.

2) After the sand I had multiple large places where bare metal was visible. I covered and taped off the truck to avoid overspray and hit the hood, roof, and door frames with about 3 primer coats followed by 4 coats of glossy black spray paint. The spray paint was my second mistake, I did it outside since I don't have a garage and it was too windy. The paint ended up being alright but it looked like a complete DIY spray paint job (this was more user error than environment, I believe).

3) A week or two later, I used a random orbital to wet sand the hood from 1000 to 3000. This actually did a great job removing the orange peel from the spray paint and I believe if I had taken the truck down to bare metal this would have really improved the look of the spray paint. Since I had not taken it all the way down, it look splotchy, spray paint mixed with some original paint. I also sanded a bit too aggressively and the primer was peaking through in a few spots. I did not sand the roof, which ended up not being an issue at all with the vinyl. If I had left the hood with the orange peel it would have been fine as well.

4) I borrowed a family member's garage and the help of my uncle who has wrapped some car panels before and he and I used 3M 2080 vinyl to do the hood, roof, and door frames. It turned out WAY better than I expected.
We only had one problem when some stray vinyl pulled the old and fragile paint off of the grill. I wrapped the grill after that happened, but it turned out so poorly (I'm definitely not a professional) that I'm considering removing the grill and sending it down then hitting it with plasti-dip or spray paint to cover the mess.

All in all it was a super fun experience and I love how the truck looks now!
If I could go back I think I would just sand it down to bare metal and then primer and paint then lay the vinyl, no sanding the paint.
I didn't want to just wrap over the metal in case of rust, and I learned that it's easier for the vinyl to pull off the primer unless you have a coat or two of paint on top.

Before



After Dry Sanding


Before Paint


After Paint


After Wet Sand


After Wrap

 

Solid work That’s really impressive. Good write up too. Looks like it turned out well.

 

Yeah! I'm very pleased with it. The vinyl was very forgiving, for the most part. The curved portions were challenging. It really gave me a ton of respect for people who do it professionally.

 

WOW. That came out great!

 

Well done!