Added factory style body molding

[tater dog]

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Lining the tape up straight took a good chunk of the time to do this . Scary cutting the pieces but made sure I measured 26 times and cut once . You get only one chance with this stuff because once it’s on it ain’t coming off . Really pleased with how it turned out and think it really makes the truck pop .
Best advice I have is take your time and make sure it’s a really warm day .

 

[Shorty81]

That looks really NICE!!

 

[Keith Seymore]

Agree; well done, you.

Warm day AND make sure the body side is clean (like with alcohol or some kind of adhesive prep) AND press really hard.

In the assembly plant the rollers would press hard enough to oil can the door, just to give you an idea.

I used a rolling pin from my wife's kitchen when I did mine.

K

 

[SirRobyn0]

It does look really good. That's a nice looking rig in general.

When I bought my truck it was suppose to be a farm work truck only. It was missing hub caps and some of the trim. After I started really getting into fixing her up and trying to make her look nice the missing bits were bothersome, so I picked up some used caps from someone on the forum and bought some trim that was similar. It's pretty close. Here's a good example, (I'm trying to show off the running boards not the trim when I took the picture so bear with me). Anyhow the trim on the fender is factory, the trim on the door is the aftermarket stuff that is close. I doubt the casual observer notices that the chrome on the factory stuff is wider.

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I did not buy enough to do the entire truck, and at this point I'm glad I didn't because the new trim is starting to loose it's chrome. Lesson learned I should have at least bought a brand name like 3M, it still looks good but down the road I'll have to redo it. And yes it's hard to get it straight. I did ok, again I doubt the casual observer notices my mistakes.

 

[Zelph]

1- how did you cut the trim?
2 - how did you determine where to lay the tape down? Looks like you did it in one solid stripe? did you measure from the body line down?
thanks.

 

[WP29P4A]

The body line under the tail light look like the determining factor for height.

 

[tater dog]

Agree; well done, you.

Warm day AND make sure the body side is clean (like with alcohol or some kind of adhesive prep) AND press really hard.

In the assembly plant the rollers would press hard enough to oil can the door, just to give you an idea.

I used a rolling pin from my wife's kitchen when I did mine.

K

Yes a clean surface is a must

 

[tater dog]

1- how did you cut the trim?
2 - how did you determine where to lay the tape down? Looks like you did it in one solid stripe? did you measure from the body line down?
thanks.

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Just a pair of cutters like these . Make sure you keep it in a straight line along the side of the blade , tried to show what I mean . One piece of tape along side of vehicle starting from just under the tail light and to top of fender marker light . This is the factory position for 81-87 burns . On 88-91 it’s lower going from the top of the front bumper. Yes I made several checks from the body line down to the tape .

 

[tater dog]

The body line under the tail light look like the determining factor for height.

Yes correct just like I described to Zelph

 

[SirRobyn0]

1- how did you cut the trim?
2 - how did you determine where to lay the tape down? Looks like you did it in one solid stripe? did you measure from the body line down?
thanks.

I know Tater already answered your questions, but I wanted to as well because I used a different technique.

#1. I cut mine with a sharp razor, and the door hinges ends with a band saw so I could cut a 45 degree angle so if for some reason the trim piece got close to each other they would not catch and come off.

#2. So my truck already had trim. I figured I could follow the old stain line until I wiped the area down with lacquer thinner, after doing that I had no reference stain left! The ends were easy since I had some trim remaining. IIRC I measured up from the bottom of the panel and made marks with a dry erase pen so I could get them straight.

As others have said it needs to be perfectly clean, anything that does not leave a residue can be used for cleaning, lacquer thinner is one of those things and dries quickly. And it needs to be pushed on hard. I did not use any tools to push my trim on I just used my hands and those rubber faced gardening gloves, so I could push hard and run my hand along it.

FYI the factory corners in the back, on each side of the tailgate were metal and bolted to the body. Only one of mine is that factory piece. It was a little tricky for me to do the one corner, because the body both curves and slopes.

 

[tater dog]

I know Tater already answered your questions, but I wanted to as well because I used a different technique.

#1. I cut mine with a sharp razor, and the door hinges ends with a band saw so I could cut a 45 degree angle so if for some reason the trim piece got close to each other they would not catch and come off.

#2. So my truck already had trim. I figured I could follow the old stain line until I wiped the area down with lacquer thinner, after doing that I had no reference stain left! The ends were easy since I had some trim remaining. IIRC I measured up from the bottom of the panel and made marks with a dry erase pen so I could get them straight.

As others have said it needs to be perfectly clean, anything that does not leave a residue can be used for cleaning, lacquer thinner is one of those things and dries quickly. And it needs to be pushed on hard. I did not use any tools to push my trim on I just used my hands and those rubber faced gardening gloves, so I could push hard and run my hand along it.

FYI the factory corners in the back, on each side of the tailgate were metal and bolted to the body. Only one of mine is that factory piece. It was a little tricky for me to do the one corner, because the body both curves and slopes.

nothing wrong with cutting with what ever you have but obviously do a small test piece first before you commit to cutting a piece to the exact size you need .

yes just used my hands to and a clean rag to slide my hand along the trim pressing hard

yes the corners are tricky as they are not completely flat . 88-91 square trim is even lower and have that corner piece that goes between the bumper and body . i decided to put mine higher like the 81-87 models (mines a 90) the molding is the correct year just not in the factory position but thats ok with me . you can see in the pic i cut the corner molding and taped it in a curved position over night . it went on just fine still curved . its very slightly off because of the sloping corner you mentioned . its not a show truck though and again im ok with that . molding had 3 lines of 3M tape on them and at least the top 2 pieces are stuck on the corners good .

 

[Jeff Lewis]

Will rust out in short order.

 

[TooFrank]

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Lining the tape up straight took a good chunk of the time to do this . Scary cutting the pieces but made sure I measured 26 times and cut once . You get only one chance with this stuff because once it’s on it ain’t coming off . Really pleased with how it turned out and think it really makes the truck pop .
Best advice I have is take your time and make sure it’s a really warm day .

I’ve cut this thing three times and it’s still too short!!‍

 

[BadBowtie]

That's correct. The 1989-91 SUVs had those molded, rear corners. These helped move the molding down lower. Below the fuel door even. The tailgates & barn doors only used that top chrome "piping" on their bottom edge....

 

[jpinnc]

Where did you get the molding from?