Month: October 2008

It snowed (a little) and rained (a lot) yesterday. I think I’ve run out of time to get primer on those doors I stripped. It’s just too cold and wet. Plus, I’ve been too busy.

At least the baking soda finally got washed away from the driveway…

I can probably finish the filler on the roof panels before winter sets in, but it’s time to start looking for non-paint-related things to do. But I’ve already done just about all of the mechanical restoration. Maybe I can start doing something to the front seat or other interior parts. I also need to eventually do some repairs on the door lock and window mechanisms.

No time to work on the Ford- too many other projects around the house.
Plus, it rained about 5 drops since my soda blasting, and the leftover soda is still all over the driveway, making it look like a dry lake bed.

Yesterday I stripped the other rear door with chemical stripper.

Today I re-welded a broken spot weld on the window track inside one of the front doors.

Then I took out my soda blaster and blasted the rest of the paint off the two rear doors. I had done the flat outside portions with chemical stripper, and with the blaster I took care of the edges and around the window frames, places where there are too many nooks and crannies to do effectively use chemical stripper. The blasting took maybe 20 minutes per door. Soda blasting is SO much nicer than sand blasting! You don’t need a full head covering- you just take a shower afterward, and you are clean and fresh-smelling! And tomorrow it is supposed to rain, so all the leftover soda on the driveway will disappear!

Yeah, I did some more filling and sanding.

But then I decided to do something different. I stripped the paint from one of the rear doors, with chemical stripper. Compared to stripping the body, this was a joy. The body surfaces were vertical, which meant that the gooey nasty stripper kept dripping on the ground (and my feet). But I could simply put the door flat on a couple of sawhorses, pour some stripper on it, and spread it around with a brush. I stripped the entire outer surface, and once all four doors are done, I’ll use my soda blaster to strip the edges and anyplace I didn’t get with the chemical stripper.

After I cleaned the door up, I took my stud welder and used it to pull out a dent in the window frame area.

Dealing with the door was so easy, I will hopefully find the time to do all four in the next week or so.

BTW, last spring I removed the glass, regulator mechanisms, and lock mechanisms from all the doors. Fortunately it all came out clean and easy. Some of the mechanisms will need worn spots repaired, but that will give me something to do over the winter, when it’s too cold to paint.

Still working on applying and sanding body filler, for maybe 15-30 minutes a day.

A distraction: I changed the oil in my Triumph Spitfire- I realized that it not been changed in over two years (and about 5000 miles). I need to do the antifreeze, too- it’s almost 4 years old.

Skipped Hershey this year. Just no way I could disappear for a whole day in the middle of the week.

I was away all last week, so not much progress. I put more filler on some spots that needed more and kept sanding.