I Took My $5000 Duramax Project To The Local Body Shop!

So here it is my $ 5,000 Duramax project. Well, I guess maybe more than $ 5,000 since I took the truck home, took the truck completely off the frame. I redid the frame we threw a bunch of parts at it. Like PPE cast iron heads, we head studed it we threw a 64mm RDS, 9 blade turbo and no joke. The list goes on.

We have put a ton of performance parts on this truck since I finally got this truck running. I guess the next piece of the puzzle after putting the wheels and tires on the truck, is to go ahead and just start making the truck look a lot better and when it comes comes to the looks, there’s one thing that really irks me. I just cannot unsee it. Is that front passenger side fender. It’S really not that bad, but there’s just a ton of little dings and dents on that Fender and I think it’s going to cost less money to go ahead and just purchase a clean, Fender and get it painted and put on than it would be.
For me to go ahead and just repair it and there’s just one small other little detail here that I didn’t talk about is the fact that when I purchased this truck, I didn’t talk about that. The truck was previously painted and I’m not 100 % sure. If this is the correct GM color, that’s why I’m not going to shoot this in my garage several months ago, I picked up this junky Silverado Rusty. We called it the rust Max – and I brought it to this body shop and let’s just say that the guys weren’t too excited about the project. But we did a full restoration on this body.

I’M talking Corners rockers and not to mention the guys that knocked it out of the park with this sweet custom orange paint, but this new to me, Duramax, 2006 Chevy Silverado, is really growing on me. I absolutely love it as a matter of fact. I want to. Finally, put plates on it and start daily driving the truck. I love this thing.

I’M going to go ahead and get Shannon best back on the channel, he’s the one that originally painted the the orange truck. I mean this man knows his stuff, so I’m not only going to get him back on the channel, but he’s going to go ahead and explain to us the process in the body shop how they match color, so you’re going to get the exclusive behind the scenes. Take on what they do when you drop your vehicle off at a body shop and if you watch till the end we’re going to go ahead and throw some other goodies on the truck so stay tuned for that. But with all of that, out of the way sit back, relax enjoy, let’s go ahead and get started. So what is up everybody early morning?

A & D repair, hasset Michigan, and I’m taking my truck off my trailer right now. I just got here and we’re going to go ahead. I’M going to show you guys the damage on this Fender um. Some of you guys will think that it’s not a big deal, but it looks like somebody got upset at their vehicle one day and just started punching their Fender. So it’s probably in my best interest to go ahead and not PDR.

This thing and just replace it, get it shot and put it back, put a new Fender on this truck. That’S kind of what the idea here is today. So I’ll show you guys the damage we’ll go ahead and pull it off. The trailer got to pressure wash this thing and we’ll go ahead and get in the bay. So this is the damage that we’re talking about guys.
So it looks like somebody got mad at their girlfriend, went outside and started punching it um. You can see it on camera yeah. Then we got the body guys that can actually see the things that I can’t like. I didn’t notice that but um really, the biggest concern is that I’m guessing this dude had 14 wides on this truck and he just leaned her too hard and just let her eat on that corner there. But um.

I decided to go ahead and just buy a brand new OE Fender. What are your thoughts? Shannon we Fender is the way to go you’re going to have a lot of PDR work, trying to get the crowns out of here and being that it’s hit right through the body line and it crowned the body line. That’S work hard in metal. It’S going to be kind of tough, I mean it’s not that it’s impossible, but for cost effective.

If you can get a fender for less money than it would cost you to, you know, do all the extra repairs it it just you got to got to weigh it out, find out. What’S the most cost effective way to go yeah somebody could probably bump this. You know without PDR, just do traditional body work if they had to and uh get it probably knocked out in 6 hours. You know what I mean, and then you just got to figure whatever the body shop, labor rate is, and they vary, I’ve seen ones up as high as 120 bucks an hour 160 an hour depends, you know and then replacement. Normally you, you know to do an accurate job at any shop, they’re going to want to drim this door and blend it for color accuracy and uh.
You know that’s more of a proper way to go um, but if you nobody cares, you know this is so close to the edge. If, if you were to repair it you’d still be getting color all the way back here, thinking, let’s just blend it, let’s just you know, do it right can, but I mean, like you said, for this vehicle being 20 years old. We can this. This color is pretty common for back in the day. You know I mean this was like probably the most popular color I shot 20 years ago, um there’s a lot of variations of the color, which makes it good cuz.

We got a lot of color ch choices. You know so we can uh see what we get for a match and just paint the fender to get it on the road quickly without spending a grip load of money. Taking everything else apart and I promise you guys – we are not going some crazy, like soda, caned color. Okay, this. This is not going nuts we’re not going nuts this time this is 382e pwer he’s, probably on it.

Oh, this interior is trash by the way, but don’t worry man, it’s that’s normal, that’s normal! How do you open it? That’S how you roll! Oh, you just take a screwdriver and just jiggle with a hammer and it opens. I got to replace that like a f bro, you hit the stuff and it flies open.
Yeah. Can you imagine if I would have came up here with this truck instead of the rust Max? Oh man, that would have made life so easy. Bro, like oh dude, we’d, have been done with that like back in March. Well, it would have it would have only taken about a month and a half instead of four you I mean, I think a little longer than that.

But well you know I mean I’m. I’M just guessing I I remember we worked on it for a minute, but this would have been a lot EAS. The body is pretty straight on it yeah you could tell it’s been painted and like worked on, but it just looks like maintenance, like people like tried to take care of it. You know the frame looks good too man yeah. I looks solid.

I cleaned it up. The best way that I could and epoxied it a little bit and yeah it looks nice, you know just I just painted it over. You know the rims are nice. The tires are awesome. What do you think about the uh?
I wanted to keep them, but I don’t know dude they’re, like paint mat, someone like took the lenses off and like paint matched them to the body NE they look good enough. I mean, I think they look cool yeah, this one right here, actually uh they’re fairly new. I got to figure out. I I tried to reseal it with some Co yeah, it’s fogging out in there little fogging out. I don’t know I might.

I might keep them. I might not they’re kind of cool, though yeah, I’m sure, they’ll dry out as the weather warms up. You know what I mean, but somebody probably just heated it off the lens and then yeah. It’S still pretty neat cuz. You can tell they’re newer they’ve got that wide beam LED light inside which is more of a modern style.

Pretty cool the top bed rails are a little beat up, but that’s okay, I’m probably going I’m just going to throw some uh bed rails over the top. See, if you look in the bed, they used it, they got a. They got the fifth wheel hook up, so they they used it to all stuff around and they used it as a truck. I’M going to definitely uh hook up my goose neck. To this thing, sick this is but yeah, that’s pretty much it I mean you know it is what it is.

I mean it’s got some dings and oh this Fender right here. This right here definitely need to get repainted that went all the way down. Oh yeah, it’s cut through, but you, if you’re, going to mod that for your tires anyway, eventually you might as well just Cocker it up yeah, I’m not worried about like if you’re going to chop the bottoms like the other style you you know, I may not. I might actually just leave the 33s and the the 12 and 12s. They don’t bump it.

They don’t touch dude, nothing. They don’t touch full clearance, full clearance, nice, because it’s it’s like a 4-in lift kit. You know it’s not they’re. 33S, they’re not 35s, like the last one that we had so yeah man. Well, if it clears, I mean, is that from your tire rub out, or is that from the last?

No that’s from the last guys. I think I can clean that up. You know I can really, I think again, this isn’t a perfect build all right, so we’re going to go ahead and get to work, we’re going to go ahead and start pulling this Fender off right now, um we’re going to inspect the new panel. That came in because last time that we were pulling panels out of boxes – I mean it was just like nope send it back, no send it back cuz we kept finding dings and stuff like that, so we’re hoping that this one checks out. But in the meantime, I’m going to start doing some uh tear down, all right so uh.
It’S been about 5 minutes minutes, 3 minutes we’ll say: 5 minutes; okay, let’s round it up been about 5 minutes. Since you saw that time lapse and we’re already ready to pull that Fender so wow that went really quick, but it is nice to have you already had a lot of the the free stuff done, all the little stuff done y. So everything was uh ready to go so there’s the fender. We can take a look at that in second, but here it is, I think, it’s time to look at the fender right, the new OE one just to make sure that there’s no dings and dents. We already did we checked it already, so it’s all W checked it.

Yep yep, that’s cardboard rash, so that’s kind of like you know, when they’re sitting in the cardboard boxes getting shipped around, they get a little bit of Mark marking into the Eco. That’S all Eco Kaka that you know from from the Eco process. We still need a prep, the fender, yet right now we’re just going to are we test fitting it yeah we’re going to we’re going to stick it on there make sure it fits okay and then uh. If everything looks okay, then we will put it up into the paint shop, nice. Let the sun go up there and uh are.

Are you going to paint it dude? I think Gabe’s going to paint it. Other thing we have to do is uh. You can see that in here there’s a little bit of a gap between the fender and that mm. So when we put the J clips on, there should draw it back nice and neat.

You know what I mean yep, so the rest of it is just not leaving a big fat Gap like that, the level of it, the level of it good. The lines are good. All the Contours are where they need to be. So what we’re doing is we’re just getting color right now we’re trying to match it the best way. We can that’s a sweet, little machine.

I wonder what that thing costs they’re, not cou Grand yeah back in the um late’90s early 2000s. These cameras were like 25 Grand really yep, wow they’ve come down and they’ve gotten Advanced, so they’re really quick and way more advanced. So this gave a festar reading. You know what I mean, so that means that it matched really really well yeah to what’s in the system, so yeah, that’s that so we saved our five-star grated picture under truck master. We’Re going to click this right now and we’re going to put the color code cuz.

We know what it is. The whole nine is going to um. Oh, it’s giving a bad rating. We have to go back there and do it again. No, no!
Our picture was good. It’S just saying that the formulas that it’s matching to are really bad. So do you think it wasn’t the legit GM color? No, I think yeah somebody painted it, but they could have just used. They could have done a add por.

You know what I mean, so what you see here now is this is this is the actual photograph of your truck right here and then that’s a picture of the formula. That’S saying that’s the closest match, but I don’t really agree. We can take away that little line and then you can kind of like look at it. How it would look. This is way coarser darker.

This is lighter, so we can change that we can put a little like a light gun and then we can move it around. So you can see we can change it to going outside daylight. So right now, if we painted that Fender and we bolted it up to your door, that’s what it would look like your Fender would look like this and your door would look like that. So you’d see a huge difference on it, which we don’t want. Whatever was put on, there was definitely not mixed within the parameters, so we can do this.

Instead, we can go back and then, instead of Us loading in the paint code color, we can just kind of let it search and see if it matches anything else. I would say we’ll start by making a prime spray out, compare it to your vehicle, and then we can kind of Base it off of there, where we need to go and um see what happens all right. So what are we up to Shannon um installation of a fender, yeah yeah, but like no just take? We put the fender on and just like back in the day, these sometimes have to be slightly adjusted. You know what I mean, so this is going to kind of get slightly push this way, and this way to help close that Gap up a little tiny bit.

You know what I mean that before it uh, we can also loosen these bolts here and draw that in. I thought. The Gap that was between the fender was fairly wide like it needs to get drawn in, so it could be. These need to come back too. Kick up your lit there cuz we’re just drawing that Fender in because that Gap in that body line is just wide.

So we got to sort of Bend some of those tabs back just to be able to get everything to sit up correctly. Sorry, let inside think, I think, grab the front of it all right, so I just got the truck home, put it in the garage, we’re going to go ahead and put the Boost Auto Parts to mirors on there. While I was at the shop, I went ahead and had the guys go and just paint match the mirror caps while we’re at it not these, but the Boost, Auto Parts ones also we’re going to go ahead and throw the paint match front bumper back on there. For now, I’m not going to roll with this, just because this actually needs to get painted, see how it’s all chipped up and everything not really too concerned about this bumper. I want to order some off-road bumpers, that’s kind of the idea, and I’m not just talking about off-road bumpers.
I’M talking about a ranchhand front bumper. I want to put a winch in there. Some nice LED lights on there. The look I’m trying to go with this one is aggressive where I live here in Michigan there’s not a day. That goes by that I don’t see deer crossing the street, so I definitely need to put a big bumper on that thing, so these are going to be our paint match, mirror caps, I’m so glad I was able to get these done, but you guys already know My style, every one of my trucks get a set of boost, Auto Parts Tow Mirrors by far some of the best on the market, but these mirrors are absolutely loaded.

I’M talking Bluetooth power, folding mirrors, I you don’t find those on the classic body styles. It has the stripped LED lights. Switchbacks, look at that. That is nice. These mirrors are really going to complement the build and then, on the other side, of course, you’re going to have your high output reverse light here.

This style would actually be for a 2015 plus. If I’m not mistaken, boost Auto Parts retrofitted this in order for this to fit the older style models, let me know in the comments: what is your favorite style tow mirror? Let me know, I know it’s not the 2020 plus. I know that I’m actually kind of a fan of the new Ford toir as well, so now that we have them assembled. Let’S go ahead and pull off these old mirrors.

Hopefully, I’m not boring you guys to death on disassembly, but one thing I love about these trucks is how simple it is to work on them. I mean things come apart, so easily the new trucks, man it takes forever. That’S it all right. We got the Boost, Auto Parts Tow Mirrors installed. Another big perk to this is the fact that you don’t have to level these towr they’re already leveled from the factory.

So if you decide to buy an Amazon or Ebay special towr you’re going to have to space those out, I made a YouTube video on how to level these, but you don’t have to with these, but I do have the blinkers working. Unfortunately, it’s going to take me too much time in this video. We got a lot done today. Anyways I’m going to wire those once I rip this entire interior out, I’m actually going to install brand new carpeting. I already got the new seat cushions and skins for it.

I have a lot of buttoning up to do in there, but again that’ll be a different video. I never do. Interior builds – and I’m really considering doing one with this truck right here now that I have those installed. I wonder if this is thought out yet yeah. I think we’re good.

I think we’re good, but I’m going to throw that on just so. I can see the truck sort of complete just to get an idea, but again that’s not going to be the bumper that’s going to be on this truck we’re going to be throwing a ranch hand front bumper on there,, but man. She is coming together, it looks so good, as you guys can tell the upper and lower balance of this bumper definitely needs to be replaced. It’S all cracked and broken chipped if I do decide to go with a paint match front bumper in the future. I’Ll, probably just reuse this cuz.

This is still in really good shape and just buy these two plastic pieces and just paint these and reassemble it. But yeah the boys there at a andd repair did an awesome job paint matching this to the body color. I know that was very difficult, but they able to make it work, but the build is not done, but that is it for today. Thank you guys so much for watching the videos. I do appreciate it on your way out.

If you want to support the channel, if you want to pick up some Cool Diesel Truck Parts, maybe a t-shirt, I had a key tag. I left a link in the description, truckmaster diesel.com, but this journey is just getting started. Thank you so much for watching the videos. I thank God every single day that I can make YouTube videos and share the experience with you guys, but with all of that being said, we’ll see you on the next one: stay tuned.