Blue85 gets restored in 2009: Painted!

[Blue85]

I have been working and making progress, just not a lot worth snapping pictures of. Here is the DS in primer. Since then I built it up with primer/surfacer and it is now getting blocked down to a paintable surface. The PS is almost ready for the primer/surfacer, too.

 

[Blue85]

Last night I got the fuel door to work with the flares. I'm not very happy that the fuel door has to be modified. I don't think there is any way to make it look good. I thought about making a recessed portion in the flare, but I figured that fiberglass would eventually fall off and heating it could cause some really weird results.

So I cut the fuel door and welded a little material onto the hinge so that it can't quite open all the way. I wanted to "fill" the corner in the fender to match the fuel door, but there is that pesky mounting screw there.

You can see that I still have to finish that edge.

 

[Blue85]

Here's why light-weight shirts and angle grinders don't mix:

I almost had to pull a flaming shirt over my head, but found a rag to smother it with just in time.

 

[Blue85]

Primed the topper today

Look - no seams

I bought a siphon gun just for primer and I think I got what I paid for because it oversprays pretty bad. Painting up to where I left off before makes for a pretty rough coat. I will block it down and see how it looks.

 

[Blue85]

I laid a lot of primer on the top and am in the process of sanding it down. Bodywork on the P.S. is still being buttoned up. I wanted to take the kids to see the fireworks in it. I don't know if I will make it. I have most of next week off to paint - if I'm ready.

 

[Blue85]

Passenger's side lower is in primer. Hard top is blocked down to 120 grit.

 

[chevyridinhigh79]

looks good, its nice to see somebody fixing the body of theirs up instead of beating it up. if you don't mind me asking, what did the flares run ya? oh and i love the burnt shirt, i had a black dickies t-shirt on when i was welding without a jacket and a spark got me and that was pretty much it for that shirt. i didn't know until my neighbor yelled up the street that i was on fire hahaha

 

[Blue85]

I think I took advantage of an error on Amazon.com. I got the rear flares for $78. The fronts were about $160, IIRC.


Update from yesterday - there was a peeling section on the cab roof, which I sanded to bare, etched and primed. I sanded the whole section to get rid of the stick scrapes. Here is a shot before I hit the whole roof with primer:

 

[RudyO]

Pfft- that T-shirt? Mere scratch. An insulated flannel blazes better than that! Especially when you realize it is no longer saveable! BTW, good work! If I finally get time to do my top I'll be searching for this post!

PS-What about a curved recess into the filler door to match the flare? Shouldn't be too hard with a lil bit of rod and a bit of patch panel? Work around the mounting screw (whats it hold?)? Possibly weld a nut from the back to attach the screw from behind?

 

[Blue85]

That screw holds the filler door on. It might be possible to reverse that connection and weld a nut where that screw is. Then that corner of the recess could be filled and to attach the fuel filler door, one screw would have to be inserted from the behind the fender. I will look and see if there is any access there, but honestly I probably won't go back and this point and make changes. I need to get this project finished!



With the bodywork done, I am now blocking the truck section by section to flatten out the existing clear coat. Then I am spraying with primer/sealer. Once that's done, I will block the primer/sealer (320 then 5-600) and it will be ready for color. The two things that slow this down are finish blending of the primer on the lower parts of the body and fixing all the little chips and things.

One bedside and the tailgate are done:

 

[Blue85]

Pfft- that T-shirt? Mere scratch. An insulated flannel blazes better than that! Especially when you realize it is no longer saveable! BTW, good work! If I finally get time to do my top I'll be searching for this post!

I learned long ago that polyester (i.e. fleece) does not work at all for grinding. Usually cotton is pretty resistant. Now welding is another story...

 

[Blue85]

The other rear quarter is in primer now.

I spent a lot of the day yesterday getting the hood/fender/door clearances right. I had figured out years ago that the hood was too far forward because otherwise the lip on the back of the hood would hit the cowl when opening. To move it back I had to slowly bend that whole lip forward along its length. I also cleared up some points of interference with the body and now for the first time I can close the hood without slamming it. I think in the long run I'll be happy I took the time to do this stuff.

I won't be able to work on this project at all for the next week.

 

[Blue85]

I finished the sealer/primer on everything about a week ago. Now I am blocking everything down to 500, which I am about 1/4 of the way done with. I'm still trying to decide which color to paint first.

I'm pretty much blowing through convertible season.

 

[76zimmer]

Hey Blue, I can appreciate the time it takes to do the blocking, it will show in the end result.....wears on the arms doesn't it.

 

[Blue85]

There have been a lot of things competing for my attention, but slowly I progress!

All of the major panels are sanded and ready. I just have a few odds and ends to sand like the cowl piece and the tops of the doors.

This plastic sheeting is a disaster, so I will be replacing it or covering it with paper. The weather forecast looks good for this weekend.

 

[Blue85]

So the paint will be blue on top and bottom (primary color) with a silver section down the middle (secondary color). FWIW, the silver has a light metallic. Which is better:

1) Paint the secondary color first, then after it dries, mask it to paint the primary color. In theory, I could shoot clear right after this, just giving a light scuffing to the secondary section. It seems to me that I am lining up my second tape line against the first tape line and it could be hard to get all of that lined up.

2) Paint the primary color first, without completely covering the secondary section. This would make the edge between the colors easier (1 tape line).

Is it true that you shouldn't sand the color coat? What if a couple of days pass between shooting the color and the clear? If I have to do any work to the color, I have to spray more color after I'm done?

 

[76zimmer]

I sprayed my first coat, waited a couple days to spray the 2nd coat. Had to do some 400 wet sanding on the first coat, as it was orange peeled more than I liked, and to get rid of some of the tape line. I sprayed the 2nd color, then hit the tape line again, just to knock it down a little, and then sprayed clear a day later. I just scuffed the color coats with some 3M pads before the clear coat.

 

[Blue85]

Yeah, I keep trying to remind myself that this is not a commercial body shop and it's more important to go slow and make sure everything turns out OK than to race through and hit all of the recoat window times.

I'm scrubbing the walls and floor this morning and setting up the A/C unit I borrowed. The forecast is for mid-60's today and 30% chance of rain in the afternoon, so we'll see how it goes. Tomorrow looks better and Monday better than that, so maybe I'll be taking a vacation day.

 

[Blue85]

I shot some color on the hardtop last night. Other than the peel and the runs it looks great . I could see it was bad when I started shooting, but I kept going to see how it would turn out. It wouldn't atomize right, so I ended up spraying too thick. You can see the peel in the reflections here.

It turns out the extra water filter I added was too restrictive. When I went back and checked, there was like 18PSI at the gun! So I got a big wall-mount filter/drier today and swapped to just a single seperator at the gun inlet, also eliminating the swivel hose, which steals a few more PSI. Now I can get more than the 43PSI the gun is rated for and I'm just hoping that the dual-stage drying will be good enough without the dessicant. I think those silica bead inserts are a waste of money anyway, since it looks like I would go through 2 a day @ $8/each.

Time to sand out the problems and try again!

 

[76zimmer]

I use a dryer on the wall before my hose to the gun, and then another filter :

at the gun, with a small inline regulator before air goes in the gun. I like it pretty well, keep tabs on gun pressure at all times.