Rust repair requires repaint, please give opinions/suggestions

[greatwhite]

Hi all.

My 98 has progressed far enough that is needs some touching up to keep it from turning into a rust bucket in a couple years.

No holes or such, but rusties are taking hold and it's time to tackle them before it gets worse. Mostly stone chip damage at this point. Biggest offender can be seen here on the doors:



Through the paint, just through the e-coat and starting in on the parent metal.

The bumpers are also breaking out on the chrome where I altered the front and rear bumper.

Thing is, I can't swing a full paint job and the stock color is hard to get a hold of here and super expensive. I ordered two small cans to touch up the roof where a snow goose hit it (don't ask...) and it cost me 14 bucks a can...

Essentially, they want your first born son and the RH "dangler" that produced him for a couple 500g cans......it would be cheaper to paint the whole truck than use rattle cans to touch up the bottom (the bedsides need some attention also)

So I'm tossing around ideas on how to fix up the rusties and give it a nice protective coat that doesn't look too cheap.

Here's one that is just a quick and dirty photochop:





Basically, a darker grey on the the bottom (automotive style paint) and color match the bumpers. MOre of a metalic type paint than the simple photoshop rendering. Then the chrome strip in the rub strip get's a splash of red to tie it together better. That red is kinda bright, it will be closer to the red you can see in the bedside "4X4" decal.

I plan to keep the rub strip, it sees heavy "combat engagements" daily around here. People just don't care about others property anymore.

Thoughts, opinions or better ideas anyone?