MoJoe

iTrader: (5)

The paint looks good!

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Nice work man! Bet you are pumped to start hanging panels

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Thanks guys, I am looking forward to putting them back on but it might be a month before that happens. I need to have the engine bay and rear fenders and trunk lid done first. I'm also leaning towards wet sanding and polishing them before I put them back on. As long as they can be held steady they should be far easier to wetsand and polish. After I do the body I can work on the underside then interior then electrical than transplanting my suspension and drivetrain from my other Camaro.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Got the bumper sprayed today and since it's a piece you really won't see I used, everyone hold your nose, Rustoleum. I thinned it 4:1 with acetone and used the hardener for oil based enamels. Sprayed well and looks good. After I told a few guys I know that I was going to use single stage paint for the underbody and some pieces they thought I was crazy and strongly suggested this route. A lot of guys on line with the hot rod sites all say this method works well for underbody and suspension stuff and won't cost nearly as much. The acetone and hardener is also reported to increase the hardness.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Managed to get a panel over the last remaining part of the engine bay not covered. The before and after. Yes the welds look like bird poop for all but 6-8 inches in the bottom corner. Took me a while to get in a groove and there is so so much seam sealer there and even between the panels making it hard to get a good ground pathway.




I'll be grinding the welds down smooth anyway and throwing some body filler over the top and then primer so should be fine after another few hours work.

I put in plenty of hours on the engine bay sanding primer and doing a little skim coating. Ended up grinding a small amount from 2 areas on each of the strut tower caps to get it smoother. Also had a few high spots I had to hammer down and filler over. Gotta say though, it's going to look good.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

After all the grounding trouble with that piece I'm going to buy a nice brass clamp and also one of those magnetic grounds for flat pieces!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Well today I shot primer in the engine bay thinking I would sand with 400 grit and then spray color and clear. Wrong. I tried again to shoot the DuPont 2K primer with the 1.8 mm tip as the tech sheet says. I got the worst orange peel I have ever seen. No matter what I changed, adjusting air pressure, fan pattern or fluid it would only spray globs. It wouldn't atomize it at all, I'm having to sand it with 220 to were I've basically sanded it off before the orange peel is gone. The gun advertised against using any higher pressure than what it really needed for using a 1.8 tip. Maybe a 1.8 with a conventional gravity gun but now I know the gun can't atomize using bigger than a 1.4 tip. So upsetting that I will have wasted 2 days.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I've loved every second of this thread so far. Thanks for commenting on mine too. All of the paint/bodywork we're doing will be worth it.

You need a Tig welder! Craigslist man...I got my Lincoln 175 with a big bottle of argon for $750!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I'll be getting a TIG probably in the next year, I'm really set on the AHP AlphaTIG. It's a cheaper unit and Chinese for sure but should work out great for my uses-according to the reviews that I trust at least. TIGing the really thin metal like the cowl would have been much prettier. I finally brought the car in the garage too so I can MIG everything instead of having to use the Flux Core sporadically.

This week it will be my goal to paint the engine bay. I'm thinking spot spray epoxy and 2K before dinner, sand at night, prep everything in the morning and spray color and clear in the afternoon. Then I can focus on matching the top of the rear fenders with the trunk. I might be able to get all four fender wells cleaned, seam sealed and coated by the end of the week too.

I keep seeing your forced air space heater in the pictures and I think "I don't miss Illinois winters!" I also discovered that out here after I spray a panel I can wait until the dust free time has elapsed and put it outside in the sun and it's the same as force drying. I measured surface temps on panels outside and they measured 110*-130*. Tech sheet for my DuPont paints says force dry 120-140*, score!

RavingMadly

Your work looks awesome so far. Way more bodywork than I would ever willingly do, but your results look good. I'm looking forward to seeing some color on it. :-)

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I can work comfortably in the garage because of those heaters, but I'd much rather it be warm. I did a T56 swap with no heat in 20 degree temps. Never again.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Shot a coat of epoxy and a coat of 2K. Should be able to sand it down and prep it for paint in the afternoon tomorrow.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Hell you probably don't have to even sand in the engine bay!

Going white there too?

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

The engine bay will be white. White in an engine bay is a blessing and a curse. White easily hides small imperfections and waviness but shows any spec if oil, grease or dirt. I'm nervous about sanding it for fear of breaking through but I sprayed it well enough and I'll stick with 400 grit.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Buying good clear coat really paid off with his well it flowed and laid down. Unfortunately I got some dirt on the frame rail by the drivers front tray area, don't know how.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

This was the temperature of the metal, inside the garage.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I hate you.......

I want to be finished with this bodywork stuff more than anything! I like everything you've done so far. Couple questions:

No heat/AC? Yeah I know it's a convertible just curious.

Any thing like cruise control? I'm determined to have cruise on my car.

Where is the antenna going? I'm thinking about welding the antenna closed like you did and adding a smaller antenna like you see on cars today:

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

No heat or air conditioning on this car because Yup, it's a convertible. Unless it's early morning or night in the middle of winter your usually fine without heat on. I think one week this past winter the coldest it got was highs in the 40s. The air conditioning is needed but when when it's really hot the last thing you want to do is drive a car for fun- which is what this car is for.
My view on cruise control is one of those sports car purist stuck up views: cruise control on a sports car that has a manual transmission? Sacrilege! My other Camaro has no cruise and I've done plenty of three hour trips and been OK.
As far as radio as in AM/FM I said by to that a while ago. I do either Pandora or music from my tablet. I made a center console tablet two years ago and it's worked out well.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

I disagree with the cruise control. If I'm driving anything over an hour it's just nice to have.

No more manual trans for you?

When you painted the front bumper did you leave the fiberglass headlight part attached? It looks like you didn't. I'm considering doing the same just didn't want to have the paint split when I reassembled everything.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I'm using a T56 for this car. I removed the headlight bar, I'm not worried about the paint splitting. I had to really bend the chin spoiler before the paint split. I'm leaning towards spring the headlight bar in some black plastic paint.

EDIT: The paint did split in one place. I think it was because the front bumper cover became misshapen after sitting off for over a year.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Where's the hole for the clutch master? Just haven't mocked it up yet? I saw in a previous photo that you patched it closed.

I think spraying the headlight bar is a good idea. I'm pretty sure I will too.

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Looks really good man. I got my base coat on last weekend, and been chasing a solvent pop issue on my passenger filler panel. So yeah I'm jealous of you being in clear coat and all. props on the work man!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

This car was an automatic and the hole I patched was the hole for the emissions equipment, an abs sensor and washer pump. I'll be drilling the hole a bit later and using my other car which is a factory manual as a template.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Have you tried extending the flash time or not spraying so thick ? Maybe add more reducer if the tech sheet allows?

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Tell us what paint products you used please!

Looks like you got through a lot of the previous coats of paint on the front bumper? I'm thinking about using some chemical stripper on the back bumper, what do you think?

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I ended up removing nearly all of the paint because it was excessively thick from all of those repaints. The thicker the paint the more problems it will give. For the Urethane pieces they have to be stripped with sandpaper- the paint stripper will wreak havoc on urethane. I even tried it once (thats how I learn ) and it ate into the urethane as if it was metal and it had rusted.

I'm using DuPont everything for paint but if you put DuPont in one gun and PPG in the other I wouldn't know the difference. I'm just more familiar with DuPont and can usually find better prices on it. I Epoxy primer over the metal (1.4mm tip), 2K primer (1.4 or 1.5mm tip), Epoxy over any thin or sanded through spots of 2K primer (Use a 1.2mm tip and it sprays thin but like silk since all you need is coverage) then their Nason line of color/base coat (1.2mm tip) and their ChromaPremier Line of Clear coat (1.4mm tip). I would only use a 1.8mm tip for primer if I have to cover some major scratches or rough or slightly wavy surface. The ChromaPremier Clear really levels out well. Depending on what color your primer is and if the car will be garage kept it can be a toss up between Nason and Chroma for the basecoat. The Nason line costs less but has less solids/pigments in it so you need to spray, which raises your final cost. My thought is if you use a dark primer for dark colors and a light primer for light colors and it's a garage kept car you can save $50-200 on color alone by going Nason. The Clear though is not the place to skimp on. I'll probably have $800 in paints, $1000 if you included the undercoating, Rustoleum for the underside and body filler and glazes. I haven't used every type of fillers but I have now used enough to know that Evercoat Poly Flex and Rage Ultra are now the only filler products I'lll use. Everything else was either sanded like concrete or had curing issues.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Been thinking about it and I think I will wet sand the clear in the engine bay just to remove any orange peel and then do a respray of clear. No way could I wetsand and then buff that engine bay with all the smaller spots. I'll do it differently though to avoid the overspray going all over since it's so tight. Ie I spray the firewall and get overspray on the fenders, or I spray the fenders and get overspray on the firewall and core support area. I'll mask off three sides and spray one side, repeat four times till all sides are done, should be able to get it smooth as glass and remove the two major dirt spots, Arctic White easily shows dust.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

What kind of sander did you use when you stripped the front bumper? What grit?

The 80 grit on a DA that I've been using works pretty well but takes a little time depending on how much paint you have to remove.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

For the front and rear bumper I started with 120 on hand blocks but when I found a second layer of paint I switched to a DA Makita electric hand sander with 120. Then upon realizing how many layers of paint there were I went down to 80 grit to remove most of it then back to 120 grit then back to manual sanding with blocks up to 220 before primer. I found out that the best small hand sanding blocks are just the 3M sanding sponges with a piece of sandpaper around them. They're rigid enough to stay flat on their own and flexible enough to be bent to the shallow curves on these cars. And you can cut them into smaller pieces for smaller areas-That came in really handy for the engine bay. For the really curved area like the rear bumper and some of the ground effects I bought some foam paint rollers and wrapped sandpaper around them which also worked out extremely well! I finished everything by hand with a "block" of some sort.

robguitargod1

iTrader: (4)

Power or manual windows?

Mine are manual currently, but I'm really thinking about converting to power!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I have power windows in it but I found out that one of the motors was bad and i had to pull the motor and at the same time I pulled apart the entire window lift mechanism and cleaned it and attached the new window motor. Haven't reassembled it yet though.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

This should cure any dust problems. I put a filtered box fan in the transmission tunnel pulling air down and out. Floor is wet.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Well, there's no dust, but I still got some orange peel. At the end I tried opening the fan pattern really wide and hosing it on but it was just throwing down orange peel so I put it back where I had it set earlier. I guess I'll end up using some compound, skip the sanding and take it as it is.

Billgluckman

I can't see the orange peel on my phone, looks damn good. I like the fan in the trans tunnel idea.

Also, I know you're going for show quality, but if you walk across a dealership lot looking at brand new cars, you won't find one without orange peel. If it's not just crazy bad, I wouldn't worry.

J. Chris Davis

iTrader: (1)

Looking good!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Thanks for the moral support. I see it as I have the time and means to do it right or to the best of my abilities so I am really striving to do this as close to perfect as I can get. I am discovering that it is about 50/25/25 as to who's fault it is. I think 1/2 of the orange peel is my guns fault, 1/4 is my fault and 1/4 is because it is sooo hot. Even with 90*+ reducer the clear is spraying dry. Also, this gun simply was not built for the airflow required to hose anything on, not a high quantity gun and definitely not a gun for a production environment. So I'm definitely not sanding this and reshooting it as the clear is too expensive for a third attempt. I'll knock the worst areas down along with the few runs I have and then just hit it with the 3M rubbing compound.

At least the engine bay is nearly done and it has been by far the hardest most time consuming part!

cheesehomer

iTrader: (2)

I get the idea of the exhaust fan in the transmission tunnel, but don't you need to replace the air being exhausted ?, how did you do that ?
Can you post a picture.


Great job, love the build and pic's..

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

The way I've understood it is entering air comes from above and exiting leaves from below so I just have the enclosure's ceiling partly open and the garage mostly closed up with one door partly up. It worked out great, I didn't have any mist in the air. Last time I sprayed the engine bay I had a trace fog.

Billgluckman

Engine bays are hard, i've done one, and i only stripped and primed it.

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

I know we talked on my thread as the method I used, but you seriously should take the time to sand and repolish the main visual areas. The fenders, and front trays/rails. So much of it will get lot as engine and stuff gets put in, but those areas will always be front and center.

Later dude!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

OK OK. I did a test run on the top of the core support. I sanded up to 2000 grit and then used some wizards turbo cut compound. It looks good. Time for more wet sanding I guess.

J. Chris Davis

iTrader: (1)

Very shiny!

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Doing it one section at a time. It's turning out much better than I thought, so far...

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Drivers side complete. Firewall and the ENTIRE OTHER SIDE to do next..

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

Cowl done. I think for white paint the reflectiveness of it is pretty good. You can see the bottles in pictures.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I gotta say, on a cost vs results basis Wizards is probably the best. Their turbo cut alone on a pad can give good results with just that step. It really doesn't leave swirls. A 32 oz bottle (of turbo cut) is $22 and a pad is $15. So you can get the bottle and pad for the same price as a bottle of M105 or 3M rubbing compound--which is only the first step in their process. I own the Meguiar's and 3M stuff and to be fair the wizards isn't as aggressive and would probably need a second step (finish cut) on dark paint.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

It took half a day but the passenger side is done. Firewall is all that is left.

Tibo

iTrader: (15)

I was using the bay as a test, Meguiar's heavy cut and medium cut against wizards turbo cut. Hands down wizards turbo cut won. When I do the fenders I think I'll do one in Meguiar's 105 against the other in turbo cut. The wizards doesn't sling as much either! A big plus when you're polishing an engine bay.

EDIT: The Wizards Turbo cut isn't as aggressive as M105 but M205 isn't as aggressive as Wizards Finish cut. I do Meguiars M105 followed by Wizards Finish cut both with a regular rotary buffer and if needed I can use M205 on a DA

BADNBLK

iTrader: (11)

Cut and buff turned out great man. Can't wait to see it start going together!