Hi from Denver

[tablakhoe]

Hi all! Been a member for > a year, just realized I've been lurking for 14 months and have never posted (that's gotta be a record of some kind, right?)

Any way, I'm in Denver, I have a lifelong history with cars and trucks including early days air suspension fabrication ('96 S-10 with full bags and laid frame on 17's back in 1997) and paint/body since I was ~13.

I have an '07 Tahoe LT completely blacked out (not for much longer) with 22" DeCorsa Polaris 6's powdercoated gloss black (for sale!) and OEM 20's also powdercoated gloss black, Yukon tails painted/smoked, completely de-badged (that's worthy of putting in a sig? I de-badged my wife's car when we started dating 5 years ago because emblems are a nuissance), ummm, Flowmaster (50?) annnnnd... I think that's about all. My 3-4" rear kit should be here this week (thanks Tony!) and I've got a set of McGaughy's 2" spindles sitting here (for the past 6 months) so it will be going down this weekend.

Oh, and I cut and buffed the whole thing (twice) because the P.O. (prev. owner) like many others had ZERO clue how to care for a vehicle.

Some miscellaneous pics here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117241177984402604798/Tahoe?authuser=0&feat=directlink since I don't have a photobucket account anymore

 

[felixgun]

Welcome! I'm in Denver myself. Let's see some pics of the hoe!

 

[tablakhoe]

Alright, I reset my photobucket password, haven't logged in to it for ~5 years... Here are a couple I snagged from my picasa link...

 

[felixgun]

Man that boat is clean! How come you seed it's blacked out for not much longer? What are your plans for it?

 

[Ben]

What kind of brakes are those

 

[tablakhoe]

Thanks Felix! I'm a perfectionist like none you've ever met since I was raised restoring cars by an unbelievably unforgiving dad when it comes to seeing flaws.

On the blacked out/murdered out for not much longer, I bought the truck a few years ago from a guy in Highlands Ranch and he had done all of the blackout stuff plus gave me both sets of wheels, along with all of the other crap he had bolted on to it (window guards, bug deflector, some reallllly crappy HID's that worked about 50% of the time) and so I removed all of the extra crap, wet sanded it with 1500/2000, buffed it out, cleaned it up and had the intent to sell the 22's right away, replace the highly chipped grill assembly, repaint the front bumper, etc. and got engaged then married instead - that consumed all of my time and resources for a year and a half.

So, I'm on the fence, I ordered an esky roof rack and esky body trim, and since I'm from the suuuper old school... I want polished and/or billet wheels. I've been looking at Vellano's and Modular Society 3pc wheels but $6-8k for wheels and tires is a bit rich for my blood. Maybe once I unload the 22's the price won't hurt as much? I've tried selling them multiple times and had zero takers...

w33m4an - those are just cross-drilled and vented rotors, I forget what brand I bought, the 22's eat through rotors and pads once/year.

Forgot to mention, I've also got the BullyDog tune on there, the guy I bought it from way back in the day threw that in too. It was a steal at the time, got everything for just under $26k in 2009 and it's 4WD.

Felix - you "might" not be old enough, or have been in the scene long enough, but here's a pic of my S-10 that I built back in 1995/96 - first truck around with full bags - keep in mind, they didn't make *any* kits at all for these back when I did it. This is a later pic, I delivered pizzas in it so it prolly had ~100k miles in this pic.

 

[1Agerry]

welcome,nice truck,and the boat is sick!

 

[felixgun]

Ah I see. Why did you have to wet sand it? Were there scratches or swirl marks? The paint looks flawless on your truck so whatever you did definitely WORKS. I have got a LOT of swirl marks on mine and I'm trying to figure out how I can get them out. You think they will buff out?

 

[tablakhoe]

Felix - if they are just swirl marks and light scratches from normal washing/drying and wind then yeah, you can buff them out, probably by hand. Heck, I buffed purse scratches out of my wife's car by hand in under 5 minutes - but it isn't black.......

I HIGHLY recommend spending a day (and the cash) doing the Zaino treatment http://www.zainostore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=Z&Category_Code=YOUCHOOSE

I wetsanded it to get rid of the orange peel on the large flat panels (told ya, I'm a perfectionist) it's a ballsy thing to do and *not* for the faint of heart (or those who can't risk getting panels repainted). After you do it, you absolutely have to keep the paint protected with quality sealants and UV protection.

So, I hit the whole thing with clay bar and Dawn, then I cut it with 1500 in the bad spots, 2000 on all of it, then I hit it with a wool pad on a standard 7" buffer, then I used my PC polisher with a series of different pads and speeds - progressing toward finer polishes, THEN I applied the Zaino. That took me the 4 day weekend of Thanksgiving the week after I bought it. For maintenance I usually take a day off work in the spring and again in the fall just to clean it up and go through the whole Zaino process (stress relief from work and family ). I can't recommend it enough, I almost never have to dry the truck after I wash it because nothing sticks to it. It's worth every penny and every hour of time. The front end of mine is horribly pitted from mountain driving though, and to this day I slooooowly work on getting rid of all the scratches/swirls.

If you don't want to drop the loot on the Zaino, order their towels/cloths at the very least and follow their care instructions for those, then use cherry wet wax and meguiar's (#5?) swirl remover - mixed... then apply a good wax. Swirl marks are almost always from the washing/drying method used so don't 1) use pressure against the sponge, 2) wash in a circular motion, 3) use anything available at a local car store to dry it.

[/long-winded-rant]

 

[felixgun]

Wow that is a lot of stuff lol. You don't happen to do any of that as side work do ya?