Month: July 2009

I finally got the body sprayed with filler-surfacer. It took two days because I was interrupted by a thunderstorm. I was surprised how long it took to spray the entire body and doors- there are so many nooks and crannies to worry about. When I finally do the finish coat, I’ll paint the doors separately since doing everything at once is such a big job (you have to stop and refill the gun), and it is hard to do a good job on the door edges and jambs when they are attached to the body.

With the car a uniform light gray color, it’s pretty much impossible to see any trace of the filler work. That is quite a relief! But I can see a bunch of little pinholes and scratches that will need to be touched up before sanding.

I also started sanding the filler-surfacer on the gas tank, which I had sprayed last fall. Since the gas tank is fairly small and in perfect condition, prepping it for the finish coat will be pretty easy.

The next step is to clean off the floor (which I haven’t done anything to for a year and a half) and finish filling in some rust pits, to prepare it for its finish coat. But that will probably have to wait until I get back from vacation at the end of August…

During the last week I made progress on getting the body ready for the filler-surfacer.  First, I went to the PPG dealer and got another quart of epoxy primer.  That stuff has gotten expensive!  Then I started cleaning off the body, only to find a few little dings that I had never noticed before.  So those needed touching up with filler.  After that was taken care of, I resumed cleaning and scuffing.  The sedan body has lots of nooks and crannies, so the scuffing is rather tedious work, and I’ll need two or three more hours to complete it.  Then I can mask off the interior floor and the window openings, clean everything one more time, and it will be ready for painting.

One other thing I did was to tighten up all the screws that hold the door hinges to the body, since they will get painted over.

Last week I had a lot of other distractions, so not as much progress as the week before. I got the filler work on the doors 100% done.  I fixed up a couple of spots in other places that I did a year ago, since my skills (and standards) have gotten better since then. I also finished sanding some filler that I applied along time ago in some pitted areas of the rear wheel wells.
The next step is to clean the entire body and scuff the existing epoxy primer in preparation for another coat. I also have to do a lot of masking. But that will have to wait until I get back from a business trip.

In the last week or so I got the filler work on the front doors 99% finished. It took a bit longer than it should have because I mixed up what ws supposed to be the last batch of filler without enough hardener, and it hardened only to the consistency of old bubble gum. I had to scrape it off and sand away some of the previous coat of filler to get a clean surface.

I also did some messing with the body shims to get all four doors hanging perfectly evenly. It was good to see that everything lined up well, and there was no overlooked body damage or misalignment.

The next step is to go over all the filler work carefully, and fix up any imperfections. Then I can thoroughly clean and lightly sand the body, and it will be ready for another coat of epoxy primer and several coats if primer-surfacer. That will be an easier paint job than the ones I have done up to now, because I can do the entire car in one shoot.