I enlisted the help of my brother to paint he exterior of the bus.  I did my research and we worked hard for about two weeks to make it happen, but soon after the roof was painted, I realized something was wrong.  I had made a whole video about painting, but opted not to publish it because we obviously had not done it right and I didn’t want to show people the wrong way to do things.  Still, we put in a lot of work, so here are some photos of the prep and progress.

My brother was a trooper, helping with the removal of the reflective stickers that I had just primed over.  He took on this most tedious job.

He also helped me with the bondo repairs to the front fender, which I just could not get right.

Once everything was sanded and cleaned, we prepped for paint.  I think we covered the roof with plastic because we thought it might rain  and didn’t want yellow streaks of sanded paint all over everything.

The next day we put the first coat of roof paint on.  The windows are covered with cardboard.

Third Coat.

Two days later I went out to inspect the bus and saw the first signs of something being wrong.  Rust was forming on some spots and coming through the paint.  What the hell?  I treated it with rust reformer, which are the black spots you see here.  Then, I painted three more coats over the rust reformer spots.  It stopped the spread of any rust, but I had a bad feeling.

I started removing the plastic masking after a couple days.

Uh-oh…

No…..

Dammit!

Fuuuuuucccckkkk!

Shit.

God Dammit.

Sigh.  The paint didn’t adhere very well in many places. Paint came off with the masking at a lot of spots, so the edges were not looking good.  If this is how easily it came off in these spots, I wonder how well it adhered to the rest of the body.  At the time of this writing, it’s been this way for several months, so the roof seems to be holding up okay.  Still, I think I will need to hire a professional to take it form here.  I just don’t know enough about paint, I guess.

More problems were found during a period of heavy rain.  Leaks are coming in at the studs.   It took a lot of silicon and patience to find the source of these leaks and stop them, but some of the damage was already done.  I had to bleach the areas where the floor was turning black, but some stains were permanently set.  Good thing these spots will be hidden under furniture later.  Again, I’ve been watching these spots for several months now.  They never grew any bigger or darker after I dealt with them.  Hopefully some professional paint will also help with sealing.