Painting a M998

[tage]

Ah that explains that 30k rhino lined craigslist ad "makes the truck sound quieter"...

 

[springbok]

Whatever you do, DO NOT sand blast it. Working in Aviation for years I saw what it can do even if you are careful... I made sure to use a sander that was hooked up to a vacuum and major respirator is a must. Boing requires remote are when doing any work with CARC. Nast stuff...

 

[fnpurist]

I have a full face respirator but not one that has a fresh air hose hooked into it. I might look into different paint options beside CARC since it is apparently more dangerous than its worth

 

[leo4x4]

Harbor freight has a respirator for $30
Did the job for me

 

[leo4x4]

When your done toss it

 

[jake-cutter]

I have some bare spots with aluminum showing next to areas with multilple layers of green and tan CARC. What is the best way to prep and paint these areas? Also what primer is recommended and can the primer be sprayed on top of the CARC?

 

[KansasBobcat]

I have some bare spots with aluminum showing next to areas with multilple layers of green and tan CARC. What is the best way to prep and paint these areas? Also what primer is recommended and can the primer be sprayed on top of the CARC?

Carc is a good base for painting if it is clean and lightly wet sanded. I used Gillespie red and black in spray cans followed by the color. Do not expect a perfect match since the CARC will be faded. I degreased using Dawn soap and rinsed well. The texture will be rougher if it is hot and in the sun; smoother if in the shade and cooler. Try some test areas and see what matches the existing texture. Motor pool touch up can vary widely!

 

[jake-cutter]

Use a Nylon Wheel on a grinder. That helps keep the rivets from being flatened. We have done 4 now that way with excellent results!

Do you have a link to any of the nylon wheels for the grinder as I have not been able to find any locally?

 

[jake-cutter]

For primers on the bare aluminum, do you use alodine 1201 or a zinc chrome rattle can or both?

 

[tim292stro]

I have a full face respirator but not one that has a fresh air hose hooked into it. I might look into different paint options beside CARC since it is apparently more dangerous than its worth

The newer voc hap free stuff that's coming out now is safer than the stuff they used to spray these with. Yes, use a jump suit, use a full face resarator, use gloves and a vacuum attachment when removing the old CARC, a lot of that older stuff (and some of the older typse of the new stuff) has chromium, lead, etc... nasty stuff.

Type 5 and higher CARCs are moving to a water dispersion method rather than solvent, and to flatten the paint, DoD found that polymer beads survived abuse and age better than the older silica flakes (more nasty stuff).

Don't be affraid of doing actual CARC paint, much like a gun, it won't hurt anyone if handled respectfully and responsibly by the operator.

 

[jake-cutter]

Is soda blasting a good option to removing large areas of multiple layers of flaking paint?

 

[Lawdog734]

Just curious, but have you tried just hitting it hard with a pressure washer? It'll certainly knock loose paint off and should do so without affecting what's adhered good.

 

[jake-cutter]

Just curious, but have you tried just hitting it hard with a pressure washer? It'll certainly knock loose paint off and should do so without affecting what's adhered good.

Yes, pressure washing was the first thing I tried followed by nylon wheel, chemical stripping, and pad sanding. I am going to try a different aircraft stripper or try to find some Carc specific stripper next, but if that doesn't work I was wondering if soda blasting was a good option.

 

[Lawdog734]

I Google'd "soda blast carc" and it gave me a number of results-with several results pointing to here and on the G.

It appears the results say that it either works marginally well, or not very good at all.

 

[FSRD]

worst thing you can do...IMHO

A Rhino liner or a Line-X coating is definitely not the worst thing you can do actually it's one of the better things that you can do to these. This is a military Humvee it's probably going to be used off road in rough areas and this stuff will stand up to the rough environments it'll be exposed to. I personally use a specialized rubber coating it's similar to Line-X but we chemically engineer our own and it's one of the most flexible tough liners that you can use. It significantly reduces noise and vibrations that you'll get from these Humvee trust me it quiets then down a bunch. Using a regular car paint on these Humvee isn't something that will typically last too terribly long without cracking your flaking off and having issues simply because of how these things are built and riveted together. There's a lot of vibration because they're riveted together so when you use regular paint over time the vibration will chip paint off. I've assisted with many of these Humvee in disassembling them doing the body work repainting them and/or rubber coating them and I prefer the rubber coating any day over paint. You can still paint over the rubber coat and paint it whatever color you desire but it will not chip off as easy because there's a barrier between the hard metal and the paint the allows the paint to have a cushion so it resists cracking and flaking off.

 

[FSRD]

We sandblast ours and use a nylon cup attached to a grinder to remove most of the thicker paint. When the paint job is not too bad where the paint is chipped we typically blend those areas then when it comes to applying the primer will use a high build primer which fills in any depressions that you have from blending the paint into the bare aluminum where the chipping was. Do not sandblast the fiberglass hoods we use pneumatic Sanders on those. We've done over 30 of these Humvees and those are some of the methods we use. We never use chemicals to strip the paint.

Here is the process twe go through when doing a paint job and/or rubber coating

-1 We clean up all the crap that's in them and then vacuum them out really well with a Shop-Vac.

-2 We remove the insulation mats.

-3 We put them on a Lift and use a hot pressure washer with a rotary nozzle to clean them off and break away any of the paint that is chipping. We pressure washed the whole thing, the entire body, the underside and the engine than let it dry.

-4 Disassemble the Humvee including removing the wheels then we place the Humvee on a custom built dollys so we can push it around the shop to different stations. We have a paper with all the parts that can possibly come on a Humvee and we place a check in the box by each part that we remove so that we know exactly what came with that Humvee and this way we can then know what needs to be ordered and so we know exactly what goes back on it that it came with.

-5 Sand blast all the smaller parts that have been removed and hand sand them as well when necessary.

-6 Sandblast the entire body or nylon cup brush it with a grinder depending upon the condition of the paint. We will also sand them with pneumatic Sanders in the areas that need it.

-7 We sand the hood with a Pneumatic sander and do necessary fiberglass repairs when Needed. We also use flat hand sanders on these hoods in the areas where we have to fill in the low spots to make it so the hood is even and looks nice when a paint job is done to it. These hoods are never perfect and always have low spots so if you want it to look nice when you apply paint to it it's necessary to fill in all the low spots then send the whole thing down so it's even cuz if you don't the paint job will look crappy. It is a lot of work but it's worth it in the end.

-8 Mask the vehicle off and also mask off the small parts that require it such as the lights, blinkers and reflectors.

-9 Wipe everything down and wash it with a chemical that evaporates quickly so the parts don't collect dust prior to applying a primer coat.

-10 Apply a primer coating to all the small parts.

-11 Apply a high Build primer coat to the body and all the large Parts such as the hood.

-12 After the primer coat has dried if it's necessary to apply another coat we do. Once the primer is dry and ready for paint we wipe it down prior to painting with a chemical that evaporates quickly to ensure that there's no dust on the areas that are receiving paint.

-13 Paint all the small parts.

- 14 Paint the undercarriage and the engine bay.

-15 Remove the masked areas and mask off the undercarriage and engine bay in preparation for painting the body.

-16 Wipe down the body of the vehicle and everything that will be painted.

-17 Paint the body and the hood.

-18 We removed the areas that were masked off after the paint has dried and mask off the painted areas in preparation for lining the interior with a rubber coating.

-19 Wipe off and clean the areas that are going to be receiving the rubber coating.

-20 Rubber coat the interior and all other parts that will be receiving a rubber coating.

-21 remove the masking and ensure the rubber coat and paint job turned out the way it should and if we ever have to repaint it for whatever reason requires it we will resand and repaint when necessary.

- 22 We reassemble the Humvee putting all the parts that were taken off back on and put on the new wheels and tires. During reassembly we go through the checklist that we had done in the beginning to ensure that everything is put back on that was taken off and ensure that all the parts that were ordered have also been installed on the Humvee.

-23 After everything is reassembled we do a good walk around and ensure that everything is good to go.


Just so you are all aware we also do custom fiberglass work and we have the exclusive rights to armor these Humvee with a specialized carbon nanotubes armor technology. We can armor any area of the Humvee that you would like. We are also able to make our own custom molds out of the material that we use to armor the vehicles with. This armor is extremely lightweight and is even quite a bit lighter than Kevlar.

 

[Retiredwarhorses]

A Rhino liner or a Line-X coating is definitely not the worst thing you can do actually it's one of the better things that you can do to these. This is a military Humvee it's probably going to be used off road in rough areas and this stuff will stand up to the rough environments it'll be exposed to. I personally use a specialized rubber coating it's similar to Line-X but we chemically engineer our own and it's one of the most flexible tough liners that you can use. It significantly reduces noise and vibrations that you'll get from these Humvee trust me it quiets then down a bunch. Using a regular car paint on these Humvee isn't something that will typically last too terribly long without cracking your flaking off and having issues simply because of how these things are built and riveted together. There's a lot of vibration because they're riveted together so when you use regular paint over time the vibration will chip paint off. I've assisted with many of these Humvee in disassembling them doing the body work repainting them and/or rubber coating them and I prefer the rubber coating any day over paint. You can still paint over the rubber coat and paint it whatever color you desire but it will not chip off as easy because there's a barrier between the hard metal and the paint the allows the paint to have a cushion so it resists cracking and flaking off.

I only speak from experience, I've stripped so many bad coating jobs I've lost count, the damage underneath has been and can be quite extensive due to water intrusion, poor prep mainly. 99% of folks pay a company to this or do it themselves. Painting Hmmwv's is the same as painting an airplane, aluminum...I will NOT sand blast, we only chemical strip at RWH....this leaves the "factory" alodine process unharmed. The CARC process done RIGHT is incredibly strong, it's a system, not just paint. The key to any good paint job is prep of substrate.
At RWH we are committed to maintaining govt, LE and privately owned mil vehicles in there original state, we pride ourselves on doing OEM type work, that's also required for the insurance claims we do on customer vehicles.
This is just my .02 cents....FWIW.

 

[Action]

FSRD, what happens to the look of the rivets when you use high build primer? Why don't you retreat with alodine after you strip that off? How long will it be until one of your workers gets cancer? You apply a coat of primer, then another if needed. Don't you sand the primer? I don't see lots of 1990's H1s with flaking paint.
I like original

 

[Retiredwarhorses]

FSRD, what happens to the look of the rivets when you use high build primer? Why don't you retreat with alodine after you strip that off? How long will it be until one of your workers gets cancer? You apply a coat of primer, then another if needed. Don't you sand the primer? I don't see lots of 1990's H1s with flaking paint.
I like original

let me add, we only use epoxy primer "milspec" MIL-DTL-53022D, type 1

 

[FSRD]

I only speak from experience, I've stripped so many bad coating jobs I've lost count, the damage underneath has been and can be quite extensive due to water intrusion, poor prep mainly. 99% of folks pay a company to this or do it themselves. Painting Hmmwv's is the same as painting an airplane, aluminum...I will NOT sand blast, we only chemical strip at RWH....this leaves the "factory" alodine process unharmed. The CARC process done RIGHT is incredibly strong, it's a system, not just paint. The key to any good paint job is prep of substrate.
At RWH we are committed to maintaining govt, LE and privately owned mil vehicles in there original state, we pride ourselves on doing OEM type work, that's also required for the insurance claims we do on customer vehicles.
This is just my .02 cents....FWIW.

The material that we used to code it is not Line-X or a bed liner it's a specialized rubber coating that has an insane bond strength not only this but there's no way for a water barrier to get between the rubber coating and the body because of how it works. Good prep work is essential to have a good rubber coating or paint job. We also use respirators when we sand, primer and paint them. Not very many places use the type of coding that we have and not only that but we chemically reengineered ours so it's a tougher coating, we can change the hardness of it as well. It's specially formulated to bond to materials that are subjected to high vibration. These Humvee have an aluminium body anyway so you don't have to worry about then rusting out on you but when it comes to coating the areas that are not aluminum is essential to do a proper prep work so you don't have any areas where water can get between the metal and the coating that is applied.