At the Panel Shop – UPDATE 27th August 2012

UPDATE – 27th August 2012

A fair of time has passed since the last update.  I was away for 3 weeks plus a few other distractions got in the way.  Car is back and I have just finished the assembly.  Just needs the engine.  Here’s the pics.

UPDATE – 29th May 2012

Here’s some pics fresh out of the oven.  The original plan was to rub back to ‘glass’ but the job is so nice off the gun we are going to leave it.  It actually looks a bit more natural with a slight bit of the peel.  More pics when I start to get it assembled.

I’m really liking the fresh paint….

Another nice angle

UPDATE – 25th May 2012

Rubbed back. Note the primed area where it was taken back to metal.

It’s coming along now with top coat due any day.  The following pics show some of the prep.  At this stage car has been rubbed back with some areas taken back to metal – as there was way too much product from previous ‘touch ups’.  There was so much on there that the paint was cracking in spots, especially under the rain gutters.  It’s all been sorted now and the car is virtually ready for primer filler.  These guys are working fast now!

Good news is that nothing nasty has been uncovered, just the excess product which has been rectified.

Close up of rain gutter area that is now fixed

Other side

There was a fair bit of rubbing back on the door posts.

UPDATE – 17th May 2012

First update in about a month but there has been plenty going on in the interim – I’ve just been lazy updating the blog.  There’s changes with the bodywork, engine, transmission and interior but I’ll post updates separately.  For now it’s the body work.

The car currently sits awaiting a final coat of primer-filler and then the whole car will be rubbed back and then colour coated.  Colour is probably about 2 weeks away.  Here’s some pics but I’ve added a bit more text after the images.

Rain gutter area stripped back to metal and initial priming done

It used to be so clean!!!

Interior disassembled as much as it’s going to be.

Door inners re-blacked. It’s the details that count..

To date the guards have been prepped.  I ended up replacing the RHD front guard as the origianl had some rust and rather then attempt a repair it was easier and more cost effective to replace it.  I also replaced the rear bumper for the same reason.

The cracking in paintwork around the rain gutters was a result of too much pain on previous repairs.  This area was brought back to metal and it was discovered that the car had more than one previous paint job.  It appears that each owner had a go at making the car look as good as new.  The end result was too much paint and so the rub down will sort this out – this has partly caused a delay longer than expected.  I’m confident with Frank who is doing the job, he knows I want a top job and he is working accordingly.  We’ve discussed how he will paint the panels and the end result is that the jambs will be done and then the entire car painted with panels attached – this came from consultation with his sprayman and the fact the car is silver metallic.

Other minor points are that the areas that scared me the most were the sills – but they are OK.  I had some polished sill guards and I suspected they were covering up some nasty surprise.  This wasn’t the case which was a huge relief.  When the car goes back together I’m putting the factory black rubber ones on – less bling and more class in my opinion.

UPDATE – 12th April 2012

Dropped in the collect the window trim which will be powder coated, along with the door handles and other external trim work. I was a little worried what it would look like with the windows out, in particular potential rust around the front windscreen. The was also a spot at the top of the driver side rear window but this is fine. A bit of cleaning back and it will be good. Not really worth pics but I thought I’d add these.

The car is now in the hands of Frank, who is going to fix up all the small blemishes and give the car a full respray. The pics make the car look good already butplenty are small issues I want fixed. Door jambs are rough (previous respray), rear quarters need to be reblocked, couple of small runs, some chips, a couple of small parking dents, and refinished lower panels all add up to the full respray.

Some before pics -after spending a couple of hours removing doors and mirrors.

Exterior Paint – The Unplanned Project….

Stripped and a coat of Wurth Rust Converter - to be sure!

 

Rear fender extension - needs acetone to clean off excess Wurth Rust Converter

Etch primed - just the bumpers and rear hinges to strip and etch

With so many ‘while you’re in there’ projects going on I have finally surrendered to getting the exterior redone.  It’s not that it’s bad or actually really ‘needs’ doing but it was always on the car and it seems like a more efficient time to do it.  I had stripped back all the lower panels as they were a bit worse for wear so they needed painting anyway.  The dilema I had was with colour matching, especially for a metallic silver.

The colour of the car as it is does not match the formula colour provided by the local Glasurit supplier.  This is what I had purchased for the wheel wells, engine bay and front boot.  I knew it was off but as the exterior was to be painted at some point I wasn’t concerned.  I then had some paint colour matched for the lower panels (fender extension, valance’s, bumpers).

When I thought about it it didn’t seem to make sense to paint it, only to strip it back and repaint again sometime in the next year or 2.  With this I contacted a local paint guy who I’ve done some other work for and he came over for a look.  A couple of days later he’d prepared a quote based on rub back and paint but also included gapping the panels.  I would be responsible for dressing up the bumpers with trim and putting back all the lower panels.  No problem..

The quote was very agreeable and so it’s booked in.  The car will be in mid March and hopefully ready mid April.  I  contacted the mechanic and he said the motor and trans will be done about then so the timing is good.

When it’s all done, it should be pretty much a full resto – with a paint job I can love!  Here’s pics of the stripped and etch primed panels.  They’ve since had Wurth SKS on the right parts so nothing more for me to do – just get them to the painter.  I’ll be stripping the bumpers and rear lid hinges but that’s about it.