I just acquired a new project vehicle

Boy, it has been an interesting few days so far.



Here are the parts to be painted in my wood shop.



A close up of the damage to the passenger side fender. The rust has to go and there are small dents where the rust is.



The rust is gone and the metal is exposed where the dents are.



Here is the "perfect" bumper again. I have repaired the crack in the lower section and sanded the surface. It has lots of stone chips and scuffs that will have to be filled.



Here are the filled dents in the fender.



And here is were I filled the repaired section on the bumper.



And here is the entire bumper.



There was a small defect in the new hood that I filled also.



Here is the passenger side fender all sanded.



And the bumper. I has to do another coat of filler on the bumper.



Here is a close up of the repair.



The repaired area on the passenger fender has been primed.



I primed the areas were I sanded through to the metal on the drivers side fender. I also added a little extra primer front and back on the lower area for rust protection.



Same with the hood. I primed the repair area and the areas that I sanded through the black to the metal.



I primed the entire bumper just because it was in such rough shape.



Here is the passenger side fender in with the blue base coat. It took a lot more base coat to cover the primer than I expected.



And here is the passenger side.



Here is the hood. I ended up with a few defect in the base coat. You can see where I have made an attempt to repair them. I will have to wait until tomorrow to see if it worked or not.



And here is the bumper. This is were I ran out of base coat. I will have to wait until Monday to get more base coat.



Here is the air scrubber that I'm using during the painting progress.



And this is what an air scrubber does. I had to change the pre-filter twice while I was doing the base coat.

If the hood turns out OK I can clear the fenders and the hood tomorrow. If not I will clear just the fenders. Also using my wood shop (which is a room in my house) does not seem to have been the greatest idea. I was able to get a decent paint job in the room but even sectioning it off with plastic and covering the door with plastic there were still very heavy vapors through the entire house. I will be doing the clear in the garage...

 

No, it's not carpet. It Congoleum tile, the industrial stuff that they use in schools and what not. It is a real workshop, just one that happens to have a door into a hallway.....and is on the 2nd floor. It's also over the garage so I installed a trap door with a set of pull down attic stairs to the garage so I don't have to haul materials through the house. Also, dust form the shop does not stand a chance. The air scrubber can filter the air in a 20x20x8 ft tall room 11 times a minuet so nothing gets out of the room. I also have a full sized dust collector for saw dust with a 4" collector. It can suck up 2"x2" chunks of wood with ease.

 

I though about drilling holes but I figured that I would just end up making them crooked. I will just install the passenger side one, measure it's location, and then pop of the locating pins on the drivers side one and stick it on. My respirator is a 2 stage 3M respirator made for organic solvents. The prefilters on it are just about as blue as the prefilters on the air scrubber.

 

Many, many pieces... The table saw was in 6 pieces or so and was still very heavy. I had a friend of mine help me hoist my 2 stage air compressor through the trap door. The air scrubber really works well. I made a wallet and electronics valet and finished it in glossy black with perfect results.

 

Here is a little painting update. The painting has moved to the garage.



Here are the fenders after clear coat.



Another shot with the sun shining on them.



And a shot with the drivers side installed.



And the passenger side. The color is very close but under the right light you can see a bit of a difference.



Here is the hood with another coat of base coat.



And the front bumper with another coat.



Here is the hood with a coat of clear.



And the front bumper with 2 coats of clear.

 

I put several coats of clear on front edge of the hood and front face of the bumper. The clear I used has a catalyst hardener so baking is not required. I was able to handle them lightly after 2 hours. They can be put in service after 24 hours. I'm going to put protector film on the hood and the bumper to help with chips. The factory paint is totally different than what I used. Most factory paint these days is water based and applied with an electrostatic gun. These paints must be baked to get them to cure in a reasonable time. Is it more durable? Hard to say one way or another. Nine times out of ten durability problems is more a factor of surface prep and technique than the paint itself.

 

Here is a minor update. Actually more of a rant. The new aftermarket hood that came with the car is an utter piece of garbage.

I swear the thing is about 2mm too narrow at the top edges were the hood meets the fenders. No matter how much I adjust the gap between the fenders and the hood it's still off on one side or another. I'll measure the company car at work tomorrow to verify. The next problem the hood latch striker is welded to the hood. Now, I'm not sure if it's like this on the factory hood but there are 4 bolts with over sized holes that are obviously made to have some adjustment for the hood latch striker. They do no good if the striker reinforcement plate is welded to the hood itself. And the last thing that pushed me over the edge with this thing was the fact that it's missing half the holes for the front seal. Not just one hole but 4 of them are just not there. At least I did not pay for the POS. I'll use it for the time being until I can get my hands on a factory hood.

 

Thanks for the pics. Could you measure across the middle corners of the hood? These would be the corners that would meet the fenders and the top edge of the headlights.