Once all the interior work was finished, it was time to send this working masterpiece off to Jonathan Rivers at Phaze 3 Kustoms in Effingham, South Carolina, to have all the paintwork laid out. Jonathan was called upon not only to handle the exterior paint, but bring the exterior design into the interior on the smooth dash, door panels, and center console. Before any of the paint was purchased, Jonathan contacted Brandt Fuqua at Graphic Disorder to do a rendering and design a paint scheme. While Jonathan was waiting on the rendering to arrive, a steel cowl-induction hood, SS Sport mirrors, and a smoothie front bumper were added, and the rear end was smoothed out with a roll pan and a shaved tailgate handle. Once Jonathan had the rendering, he was off to the paint shop to buy House of Kolor's Candy Oriental Blue and some Pearl White for the bulk of the truck, and a little Orange and Green for the graphics that were scheduled for the bottom. Once all the paint was sprayed and dried, the graphics were striped with purple, yellow, and blue to make the paint scheme flow perfectly. As if that wasn't enough detail in the paint, skull graphics were airbrushed into the green.
With the paint finished and the bed bolted back on, a notch cover was welded in the bed and it was taken back into the paint booth, but this time to have a thick coat of blue Line-X sprayed in the bed then covered with an above-the-rail Gaylord's tonneau. Some third-generation euro taillights and a five-piece billet phantom grille from a '95 GMC rounded off the exterior mods.
As the debut show date was quickly approaching, the Mr. Scrape crew bolted on some chrome valvecovers, the stock alternator was swapped for a chrome 100-amp unit, and several plastic parts were painted blue. There were also several billet parts, steel braid, and a Cool Flex radiator hose added for a little more shine under the hood on the stock V-8. Even though a quick dress-up was done, the exhaust system went through a full day of surgery with the stock piping being swapped out for new larger tubes and the mufflers scrapped in favor of dual Flowmaster mufflers.
After the short six-month buildup to prepare for the debut show, there was one thing still missing: the set of 22-inch rollers Mike and Robert had planned on using. With only two days left until the show, a big brown truck pulled up to the shop with four overnight boxes from Bonspeed. The boxes carried a set of 22x10-inch Lagunas with blue inserts to match the truck. The wheels were unloaded right into one of the shop trucks and rushed to the local tire shop, where a set of 265/35-22 Pirelli Scorpion tires was squeezed around the big billet chunks, With the wheels finally bolted onto the now-finished truck, there was just enough time to wipe the truck down one time, load it in the trailer, and head off to the show.
Robert and Mike would like to thank both their wives, Kim and Kim, for allowing them to spend many late-night hours working on this truck to make its debut. Thanks also go out to Jonathan Rivers at Phaze 3 Kustoms for also spending the extra hours to finish the paint in time.