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Tag Archives: Painting
Getting Ready for Winter
As you might have noticed, I haven’t updated here for a little while. As tends to happen, other plans and projects mean that I just haven’t been able to get down to the car recently. As it’s now starting to get colder and the days are getting shorter, I’ve decided it’s time to pack up for the winter. So over the weekend we went down to the garage, I spent a bit of time welding the wheelarch on (It’s taken me a while to fit properly, the shape and fit of the pressing is awful and needed a lot of beating into shape). Done now though: The only thing remaining is to paint the arch and wing, then that’s it for the winter. I also (A couple of weeks ago) stripped and painted the o/s headlamp recess, that’s ready for final painting now: The car is slowly starting to turn … Read More
More Painting
I’ve spent a bit of time recently painting a few suspension parts and various brackets, as well as the bumper. First up, cleaning and prepping: Then the first coat, POR 15 again: As you can see, I had to get a bit creative with hanging this stuff up to dry. Even after a couple of hours it was still wet, so I had to put the roof beams to good use so I could lock the garage up and go home! Then I took it all home for sanding and cleaning (The joy of having an understanding girlfriend!): Before taking it all in to work for final painting. Finished result: All ready now to fit the bushes and put back on the car.
Light Clusters
I’ve been working on the rear lights – a nice little job to do at home. I started off rubbing down the metal part and spraying with silver paint: This has made a difference, although not a huge one: Just for the hell of it, I also painted the rears – I was never too keen on the unfinished aluminium look: As my original lenses were cracked and a little bit tatty (although serviceable), I had a few spare lenses sitting in a box (for the life of me I can’t remember where they came from!), so I picked the best pair out of them and gave them a bit of a clean. Even they were a little scratched, so I buffed them up a little with some rubbing compound to get the worst of it off. They came out alright in the end, although at some point I might … Read More
Painting the underside – part 5
After waiting a few days for the paint to dry, I went down and did a bit of patching on the bits that got missed the first time round – although the finish is a little rough, it looks OK. Final pictures: Apart from the small areas where the axle stands are at the moment, that’s the painting complete – now I can turn my attention to other bits! More to follow…
Painting the underside – part 4
After getting the last bit (POR-15) done, I took a break for a week or so to give myself a rest, and also to let the paint harden properly. But I soon got back to it, rubbing it all down – not the easiest job, that paint is tough stuff – and cleaning it all up. Today was the day to get the topcoat on though, so off we went. The chassis coat stuff used was interesting to work with – the first coat went on quite patchy in places: Although in others it went quite well. We let that dry for a bit then started on the second coat. Although the first coat was reasonably dry, the second coat seemed to soften it up and mix it all together. This made a sticky goo which was quite hard to get an even coat with – I think it came … Read More
Painting the underside – part 3
Saturday morning was time to get painting – and the weather obliged with a half decent day to do it in! So after a quick check over the car and a rub down to get some metal ready residue off, we were ready to start. The car had picked up a bit of flash rust over the two days since doing the metal ready: But no big deal, and most of it came off with a quick rub. So, down to the painting. I started on the underside of the floor panels, I figured it would be best if I got the difficult bits out of the way first. And it certainly was difficult – there’s about 1 foot of clearance under there, which makes dipping a paintbrush, moving it to the part of the car you’re painting, and getting the paint onto the metal, very fiddly and messy! And … Read More
Painting the underside – part 2
Today was ‘Metal Ready’ day – this is the acid etch/zinc coating stuff. This pretty much had to be done today, as I need to be painting the car at the weekend. If I don’t get that done, it’ll be nearly a month before I get the chance again. So, on a day when I had to be at the garage, whatever the weather, I wasn’t surprised when it started raining when I finished work. Never mind, I got down there (and only a little bit wet), pulled everything out and started applying the stuff. Compared to yesterday, it’s so much easier, you simply have to spray it on with the spray bottle supplied, and keep it wet. The instructions recommended 30 minutes minimum, so I gave it an hour, recoating it to keep it wet every ten minutes or so. Simple. Mindful of what happened yesterday, I made sure … Read More
Painting the underside – part 1
I’ve now got the underside finished – the last bit of welding (seatbelt mount) was done the other day, and I just had to fill in a couple of spots where my welds were a bit messy. With all that done, I set about giving the garage a good tidy up: Two full bags of rubbish, plus one box and a dead trolley jack to take to the skip! Today was phase one of the painting: Marine Clean. It’s a cleaner and degreaser, and a good one at that. There was no way of avoiding the mess: the only way to get the underside clean was to get underneath and start working, and accept that I’d end up wet and filthy. So I laid down a tarp to try and catch as much of the water as I could: And got to work. As predicted, I ended up grotty and … Read More
Boot and POR-15 prep
The boot area is now pretty much finished. I spent a couple of evenings over the last week prepping and painting the wheel well area, as per instructions. It came out pretty well: After cleaning and applying Metal Ready: (Greyish surface is from zinc treatment, part of the Metal Ready) And after painting: Ooh, shiny! I’m quite impressed with the whole thing, it leaves a good coating (although a little glossy for my taste), and, while a pain to actually use, I’d say it’s worth the effort. Although I might not be saying that once I’ve done the whole underside! The Marine Clean (degreaser) is a good product in itself, I used it to clean up the propshaft guard as an experiment, that was covered in old oil and gunk – two minutes with a bit of wire wool and it came up spotless! The nuts and bolts were just … Read More
Boot area
The rear wing is continuing, but it’s going to be slow work. I ground off the excess from Saturday’s work, tidied it up a bit and added in some more filler: That took me all of about 15 minutes. :-s So while I’m working on that and waiting for filler to dry, I’ve started prepping the boot area for painting. I got some high build primer and started on the top area – all ok in that bit, but there was a couple of spots of old paint that show up much more than I thought they would. Therefore, I’m going to need to do a lot more rubbing down of the old stuff before it’s going to be good enough for my liking. So I’ve started doing a small area at a time, I think this will mean I can concentrate on it a bit more and get a … Read More