Well the year is almost over and things are moving along
well in the paint category.
Two major things happened:
1) The paint started to flow and is coming out way beyond what I thought in
terms of result
2) I had to move the whole project to a new location early in the month from
the airplane hangar (*pain*)
The doors are getting their paint inside and out. This was taken about 4
hours after the paint had been applied. It's again difficult to photograph
paint with pearl in it as the color can change drastically depending on what
kind of light is on it. (This is a desired effect, in my opinion!) My
original doors had holes for speakers in them so I bead blasted them, etch
primered them and sold them. This rust-free door came from a California car,
with the original inka paint still on it. Still it and another suitable
donor I had from my parts car were media blasted and glass beaded like the
rest of the car. (see June for more details) |
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The doors looked very good. I thought even without door
panels they would look awesome... |
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View of the top side of the driver door. |
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Here's a view of the bottom side with paint. If you have not
looked under your door, this is a good view. There are drain holes for water
to run out on both ends. The trick here is to preserve the bottom area with
plenty of rust treatment like POR-15, good epoxy primer (it's glue
technology folks) and paint. If you're totally scared, use a wax type
treatment down there to stop anything else, like WaxOyl. |
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Ok, the gorgeous front sides are now in view. I decided that
I like the lower trim holes removed so on the doors and tub we took them
out. You can tell here that the color looks different than the 3 other pics
above because the light is flat and florescent, which body shops love to
view and find defects with. This door has already been rubbed out. |
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A view of the front edge of the door. Still has some masking
tape on it under the door lock mount. |
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Another view of the passenger door back side. This is the
front edge which has the two elongated holes for the door hinges and the
mounting of the door brakes. The hole to the right of the door brakes mounts
holds the plunger for the interior light switch. |
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Meanwhile, back on the tub we got ready to modify the
transmission tunnel for the 5 speed conversion. I meant to take better
measurement instructions down before we did this so you know how far, but
you can see the horizontal line from the bend in the firewall, down 4.5"
then another line, then the X was made for the area to receive the "hump".
This is necessary for the clutch slave master cylinder to clear. |
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Close up view of "before. |
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A few bangs later and we have the clearance we think we need.
I'm betting it's still a few bongs when the time comes, but at least I won't
have all of the paint and undercoating falling off before I do it. It's hard
to tell from the camera angle I'm using but the hump is deeper than it
looks. |
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The front of the car is all done and ready to go. I adopted
the factory look of the seam at the top closed and the bottom fender joint
left sealed but open. The snorkel is all gone now and looks original. This
turned out exactly as planned and is ready to paint. |
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We had our undercoating party with the Wurth SKS later in the
day. This is how it looked after the first coat in the left rear wheel well.
The factory stuff that was impossible to get off still remains and is hard,
so this helps smooth things visually, and ensures that nothing but nothing
is getting back onto the steel again. |
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THE SAGA CONTINUES... MORE ON
PAGE 2... |
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