P. O. (Previous Owner)

This is a quick rant about the person that owned the J2000 before me.

In the world of car forums, the previous owners of a vehicle is known by the abbreviation "PO". Usually the PO is an individual that is relatively unknown by the current owner, and thus becomes the recipient of a large amount of trash talk and ill will (a typical post on a forum will look something like this - "That stupid PO installed a set of 100 watt driving lights by wiring directly to the fuse panel instead of using a relay" - or something to that effect).

Well, the PO of my current project truck models the image of a previous owner as the completely lazy, idiotic dolt. You've seen my previous post about the door handle that was crudely carved from 2"x4" and then screwed into the door panel with three inch long lag screws. The same level of care was employed to complete the task of painting the dash. The J2000 came from the factory with a coat of a rather ugly shade of metallic green. Apparently the PO didn't like this green on the interior of his truck and decided to change the hue. From the looks of things when I got the truck it appears the only prep that the PO did before painting the dash was to shake the spray can.

The entire dash was rattle canned a red/burgandy color. The ENTIRE dash, including the chrome knobs, the white steering column, the silver surrounds, and the windshield weather strip. No masking was involved. Just a couple waves of the arm while the can was spraying.

Today I decided I was tired of looking at the peeling flakes of red on the top of the dashboard. I sanded off the loose stuff and masked the dash and windshield. I tried a can of semi-gloss white spray paint but it wouldn't spray. I rooted around the 'shop' for another can of paint and all I could find was flat black. Hmmm... that might be cool.

After painting the top of the dash I was looking at the rest of the interior and figured that while I was at it, I should go ahead and do the rest of the dash. So I did.

Here's a before photo of the flaky red paint. It looked much worse in person, trust me!

Here are two after shots. Still not a beautiful paint job, but at least it is uniform and much cleaner looking!