Saga of the Truck - Chapter 8

 Big Gulp, the 2006 F-550 needs a little love to get it ready to sell.


The big red truck is done, we’re scheduled to go get it in a few days.  And when we do, our stable of vehicles will be one more than we have drivers.  If we lived in a sticks and bricks it wouldn't be a big deal but as fulltimers it's a problem.  Something has to go and there is no way Cyndee is giving up her little SUV.

It's time to put some lipstick on a pig.  Sixteen years of being outside 24/7 and 193,000 miles has taken its toll.  Now don't think I didn't do any care in all those years, just the opposite.  I kept it washed and coated with a high tech polymer coating.  But the intense UV rays at high elevations and acid rain of the southeast did take off the like-new look.

First order is to pressure wash the bed of the truck.  This was the area of greatest depreciation in looks.

It took three days and five washes to get all the road grime blasted off.  I would wash, let it dry, find streaks that I missed, and repeat.  But even after all that washing the bedliner looked dull and tired.  I found a bedliner rejuvenator and spent about five hours applying that stuff.  It was worth the effort, the bedliner looked new.

Next was the exterior paint.  I got help from a hand-wash detailing outfit in the next town over.  There was a thick coating of sticky tree pollen that the pressure washer wasn't touching.  It took some aggressive detergent and three guys hand rubbing to get it out of all the nooks, inside curves and sheet metal mating points.  Once that was done it was all me -
Father's day weekend was "wax on, wax off" for me.  Luckily the shop in The Village has a garage door just tall enough that I can get the truck in and do everything out of sun. I took my Bluetooth speaker with me, fired up Pandora and pretty much burned up all my data in one weekend. 

If you don't look too closely you can't tell the 2006 picture (left) from the 2022 picture.

       

I hope my efforts will be rewarded.

I've got three potentials standing by.  Time to let them know the truck is available now.

My son and I will be on the way to Indiana in a few days to pick up the new truck and get it to its new home.

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