"Just shot a coat of primer then he looked inside"

Since the next two lines have to do with the car's engine...
"Well him and my uncle tore that engine down
I still remember that rumblin' sound"
...it seems perfectly obvious that "he looked inside" means "he opened the hood of the car and examined the engine with the intention of rebuilding it".

By the way, I take the rest of the verse to mean that the character's father died in the wreck of the whiskey-filled car (possibly after a police chase); anything less, such as his arrest, would not have caused the character's mother such grief. Am I correct in this assumption?