1931 Ford Restoration Diary

Last weekend I painted the gas tank. First I had to spend some time building a tent-like structure in the garage out of plastic sheeting.  It pretty much fills one half of the garage, and is big enough to hold the entire car.

The actual painting didn’t come out so great. There wasn’t enough bright light to see the dark paint well, and I got some runs on the bottom of the gas tank. I also ran out of paint after putting only 2 of 3 coats on the top.

Once it dried, it was insanely glossy, like the entire tank had been dipped in liquid plastic. It also had (despite the plastic) lots of little bits of dust and a significant amount of orange peel. After it dried for a day and a half, the paint was quite hard, and I sanded off the orange peel and most of the runs, and buffed the paint. It looked pretty good then, but the paint on the top was a bit too thin and the underlying primer was starting to show on one spot, so the top of the tank will need another paint application.

By the way, good acrylic-urethane paint (I am using PPG Concept) dries insanely hard in a short amount of time, much better than any single-component paint you could buy in a hardware store.   It would probably be good for lots of things besides cars.  Unfortunately, it’s really expensive, and a pain in the ass to apply.

I installed the roof fabric.  The entire center area of the roof is covered with a black vinyl material, which is attached to the wood frame that surrounds the roof opening.  Several months ago I stapled the base layer of chicken wire over the wooden ribs.  Today I put a layer of padding over the wire, followed by the vinyl material.  The vinyl had to be carefully stretched and tacked in place.  It needed about 120 tacks.  It was a warm and sunny day, so I moved the car out into the center of the back yard so the vinyl would be warm and easier to stretch.

It looks gorgeous! The vinyl is smooth and even, and there is no trace of the ribs.

Later in the fall (or winter) I will attach the metal moldings that cover the edge of the fabric.  The molding material has to be carefully bent into the correct shape and nailed in place.

I got back from vacation, and I managed to get the floor and the rear of the firewall painted. First, I needed to finish filling some rust pits. The storage area under the front seat and the rear footwell were rather pitted, and about two years ago I sandblasting and primed the floor and filled most of the pitting. This week I finally finished the job.

After finishing the filler work, I applied the finish coat, which is the same that I used to paint the underside of the body and the front of the firewall: A semi-gloss maroon color.

I also noticed a a place on the roof where the contour wasn’t quite right.  It became noticeable because the roof (and the entire car) had a smooth-uniform layer of light-colored primer-surfacer.  So I had to sand off the primer, apply some more body filler, smooth it to the correct contour, and re-apply the filler-surfacer.

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.

Last weekend the weather was finally good, so I took the front doors outside, washed them off, and let them soak on metal treatment solution to get rid of the last bits of rust. Then I hung them up in the garage to dry, and it immediately started raining again. But they were all dried out after a couple of days, and the weather got better again, so I was able to spray a couple of coats of epoxy primer on them. Once that dried, I started putting some body filler on the dents I hadn’t been able to remove earlier. And of course when you put a nice smooth coat of paint on something, you are able to see a bunch of small dings that were invisible when the door was dull bare metal…

I did some more dent-fixing on the front doors, and welded back in place a small bracket inside the driver’s door that the outside handle screws into.  I also continued touching up some of the filler in various places of the body.  It has been threatening rain almost every day, and it simply hasn’t been hot and dry enough for me to wash off the front doors and have them dry reasonably quickly.  My ambition is still to get the entire body and doors in a coat of PPG K36 primer by the end of the month.

I also fixed up the gasoline shutoff valve by lapping the moving part into the body with very fine abrasive powder and toothpaste.  Now it opens and closes very smoothly and shows no signs of leakage.

This week I used my stud welder again to fix a couple of dents in the fron passenger door. Then the weather was nice this evening, so I soda-blasted the remaining paint on both front doors. I had a whole new bag of soda, but I needed only about a third of it. I’ll have to figure out something else to blast…
I also started to do some final touch-up work on the various body filler patches around the car, and I bead-blasted one section of the hood.
Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be sunny, so I should be able to wash off both front doors, and in a couple of days give them a coat of epoxy primer.