Plasti-Dip First Generation Toyota Tacoma 4x4

Plasti-dipped my peeling 1995 Toyota Tacoma 4x4 from dark green & chrome to tan & black with a white roof. Total cost (with rust mitigation and paint-booth assembly under $200)

A little background. I bought this truck new off the lot in September 1994. Currently, the truck only has 175k on it but a LOT of that has been off road driving. I spent years as a biologist and this was my field vehicle so it saw more than it's share of back roads and dirt double-track. It had 33s on it at one point for a few years and it suffered some rock chips from that, I also had to cut the front bumper a bit to fit them in. Maintenance wise, I had to replace the fan speed switch (because of my mucking about with stereo amps), put one clutch in it and had to change the plugs/wires/cap/rotor about 4 times. Other than routine oil changes this truck has been bullet proof.

The clear coat has been peeling off the aftermarket camper shell for a few years but it has also started coming off the roof of the cab. I figured it was time to get it painted. I researched a good paint job and the quotes were between 2k and 6k. Looked into Rhino Lining and it would be between 4k and 6k to line the whole truck. Since I'd had good luck with the Plasti-Dip bra I'd put on about 6 months ago I looked around and found a good deal on some rattle-cans of Plasti-Dip. I was off to the races for well under 200 bones. A decent bit of the cost was due to having to purchase drop cloths to protect the garage from overspray. If you have a place you can disassemble the truck and keep it dry while you do this outside you'll get away even cheaper.

Shopping list:

Oven Cleaner (for brake dust - don't use on nice wheels!)
Naval Jelly (rust remover, paint destroyer)
Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer [rattle can] [bottle](paint the jellied spots)
12 cans of camo tan Plasti-Dip
6 cans of white Plasti-Dip
6 cans of black Plasti-Dip
Blue painter's tape
Plastic painter's sheeting (to protect the garage from overspray)
Paper drop cloth (to protect the floor from overspray)
Latex gloves
Spray Can Trigger (the Can Gun 1 is AWESOME - 4 finger trigger!)
Mask (necessary if indoors, good idea if outside)

Mask filters for spray paint

Plan of attack:

Wash truck (oven cleaner for wheels)
Mitigate rust with Naval Jelly / Rust Reformer
Repaint Aluminum on Camper shell
Masking for Black Plasti-Dip

Glass
Lights
Brake rotors with a garbage bag

Black Plasti-Dip

Grill, Wheels, Bumpers, handles, badges, mirrors

Mask black parts for white Plasti-Dip
White Plasti-Dip

Roof (for heat - like this classic!)

Mask white to do the tan
Tan Plasti-Dip

Body of truck

Peel off masking and fix what I ruin

If you've let sit for days the Plasti-Dip will want to peel off with the masking tape. If that's the case, just hit the mask line with a bit of plasti-dip. Out of the can, this stuff has a lot of thinner/solvent in it. There were times I was pulling off the masking and I had a big section starting to peel off, I just sprayed the dip and it literally melted back to where it should have been. I should have taken a video, it was actually pretty amazing.
If you do loose some dip (I had some stuck to the tape) just spray what is left, rub it gently with your fingertip for a bit (not too long or you'll roll it up cause it gets sticky), then respray it with a fresh coat or two. Voila' - all good. You can see the guys at Dip-Your-Car.com doing it with pure solvent, but it works just as well with straight Plasti-Dip.

To start I needed to clean my truck. It had been over 6 months (the last time I cleaned it was when I made the plasti-dip bra). The wheels have been neglected and they had extreme brake dust - it wouldn't come off with the normal wheel cleaners. I read somewhere that if you spray it on and rinse it off quickly, oven cleaner will do the trick. I can 100% verify that is the case - oven cleaner is magic. That said, it's probably not the best for the finish on your wheels. Since my finish was already coming off, I didn't really care.

Once the truck was clean I needed to deal with a few rust spots. I used Naval Jelly which is a super toxic gel that literally eats rust. It also eats paint so don't go into this thinking you'll just get the rust spot - you can do that (use a toothpick to apply the gel) but chances are you'll probably get a bit of paint around the spot. You can see in the picture that the paint chip is bare shiny metal - so it worked. After this I used some Rustoleum Rust Reformer on the spots (there were also several on the roof) and just dabbed it on with my fingers. It'll all be covered by Plasti-dip soon enough...

Here is a pretty good set of before pics. Please remember this truck is wet (but I gotta say those wheels haven't been that shiny in about 10 years). The images inside showing the dry truck are showcasing the worst of the clear coat fading. The entire top of the camper shell is gone and several large spots on the roof of the truck have also faded and lost the clear coat. When I cleaned the truck I used a scotch pad on the top to get the peeling clear coat off. I left the clear coat that was still sticking to the truck but I'm sure it'll be a problem in the future. If it's already coming off, it'll continue to peel under the plasti dip I assume. I'll be able to tell in a few years when I peel this coat off. I viewed Dip You Car's video about Plasti-Dip over a peeling clear coat.

In their video, you can see that, after 4 months the clear coat has remained the same and the dip even seemed to remove some of the oxidation. That was enough evidence for me to give it a shot on my truck.

Next I started taping off the truck. My plan was to do the black parts first, then the roof (white to keep out as much of the Texas sun as I can) and finally tan for the rest of the truck. I used Dip You Car's hint about a plastic garbage bag to do the wheels. You just cut a bag in half to maximize the coverage and work it behind your wheel carefully covering all the brake parts.

Black parts after masking off the lights and blocking the radiator and brakes/wheels.

As I was taping I realized that the camper shell was in pretty bad shape. It's fiberglass and aluminum so there was no rust to deal with but the paint on the aluminum had faded terribly and was in need of some attention. This meant that I needed to tape off the glass, tape off the painted parts of the shell, rattle can the aluminum in a semi-gloss and then tape that off and dip the rest of the truck.

Now the black is finished I let it dry and then masked it all off to do the white. Note that it turns out I didn't let it dry long enough because when I pulled the masks off after it was all one I several big chunks of black along the top of the grill, just below the edge of the hood.

Once I was finished with the white I wiped down all the remaining green with a microfiber towel to remove the white overspray in an effort to make the final product as smooth as possible. Then I masked off the roof in line with the door openings.

The old bra ended up looking very bad. Seems that when I washed and dried the truck I was unable to get all the fuzz from the towel off. I'd hoped that the dip would weigh it down and flatten it out but it actually made it much more visible. I just ran a razor across the hood above the bra and peeled it off.

Finished product:

Please note that the hood looks like crap - lots of 'texture' from spraying too far away. I'll be fixing that. I'm going to try to spray it with just more tan and rub it like in the Dip-Your-Car video. If that doesn't work - peel it off and start again :)

Quartering shot - awesome!