Cheers Bill :)
Much progress has been made.. I've been doing silly silly hours whilst still working my job in the hope it'll be done before Retrorides at Goodwood in 9 days. Perhaps I'm a bit mad, but I'm definitely motivated.
Guide coat and loads of sanding. Then I did a second coat of primer, then more sanding. Then you get to bare metal, so more primer, more sanding.. you get the idea..
I put on some stonechip on the sills using a sealey stone chip gun.. Granville stonechip. Afterwards I had to redo the sill you see as I'd used a soft block when sanding the filler, so the block just followed the heat distortion I put in when welding. Basically the sill wasn't straight so I ground it back and re did the filler with a hard block, and stone chipped it a second time.
Hey, the car is still grey but loads of things have been done to it! It's some sort of magic trick!? It must be!??
Hey, the car is still grey but minutely shinier! Much work later the shell was ready for paint.
I painted it (the first time, more later..)
For the first car I've ever painted, I did pretty well. I was so cautious of getting a run though, too cautious. I didn't put enough paint on for wet flatting, and my fan settings were too narrow so I had a couple of dry spots, so my friend advised me to get more paint on it. It only took 6 hours to get it back to a state for more paint..
Doing bodywork literally eats time out of your life, it's insane. Everything takes so long, and you don't always have anything to show for all the work put in. Not initially anyway. I really didn't want to paint it again and mess something up, and have to flat the whole car again, so I got a guy from the yard I work at to lay on a top coat. We got loads and loads of Mars on there! It was bittersweet as I'd love to say I did the whole respray myself, but I'd rather have a nice job than an ok one and say I did it.. To do it all except laying on the top coat is not too bad going though I guess. I'm still learning, all the time. Anyhoo I wet flatted the whole car with 1500 and he buffed it. That was long too, but the result was quite nice.
Did loads of work on a slightly crumpled wing that was the replacement for my very crumpled wing. Had to build up the line that runs along the wing by shaping with filler. It's straighter than that now too. Again took ages. Notice any theme here? haha
I replaced a door pin, this was the only way to get the old one out! I had to rebuild the parts of the hinge with weld and remove material in order to remove the sloppyness from wear and, ahem my angle grinder
Replacing rusty metal on the doors..
35 hours+ over last bank holiday weekend getting these panels reading for paint
One door ready for some paint..
Etch primer.
The first coat of high build 2k primer
So many little dents in this door. This is not the original door, it was a replacement that came with the car when I bought it. It came from a car that was beat around a little bit! So far I believe the only original panels to this car are one door, one wing and the tailgate! The others are illegal immigrants!
Finally got some mars red on some panels early this week. They are going hard in the sun here. A really nice finish one there, only light wet flatting needed I think. I can't bolt the wings down until the bonnet is on.
I was recommended a matt 2k paint to use for a satin finish on the black bits, but it came up too glossy so I dusted it with a light mist of paint to dull it a bit. They don't feel smooth, but they look just like I want them to.
Mirrors and wipers done too
Sealed in the rear lights using screenseal, which amazingly was still good in the tube from 4 years ago when I last did the lights! Oh and I polished the exhaust tip before I put it back on :) At least 5hp gained there! Note new headlining going in..
One of the doors got painted today and the paint reacted to whatever contaminant got on the door while it sat in my workshop for a couple of days, so tomorrow I'll need to strip the mars red off, prime it again, wet flat it and prep for paint. Got me a bit frustrated today for a short period but I've just got to get on with it. It can always be worse.
Going to pick up a new windscreen before work tomorrow (I broke the old one taking it out), and it has a boss so for the first time I can run my rear view mirror! A bit excited. Little things..
