I decided to go ahead and remove all of the exterior badges so I filled in the recess in the rear bumper where the Z/28 badge was using the same process as before.

 

Got the rear bumper sanded down and everything flush again.

 

I also removed the front license plate mounting area to open up the "mouth" entirely. I'll build a bracket to connect the middle of the mouth to the upper portion, probably just made out or some 18 gauge for the top and bottom and then thin rod for the vertical portion.





I am interested in removing the air dam to see if it would need it anymore. The path to the radiator is really unobstructed now.

 

How many times has this front bumper been painted? I'm thinking thre maybe four. Who does that!

 

Man, I thought you were showing us a piece of wood trim you were working on for the interior or something, until I read your comment.

 

Parts of the front and rear bumper also had horrible prep work done. I could chip the paint off in places because it was peeling. It was paint in good shape too. On the back of the peeled off chips you could see obvious dust or dirt that was just painted over.

Multiple scuff and squirts with horrible prep work.

EDIT: The rear bumper also has been painted at least four times, the rear fenders, doors and trunk lid have only been repainted twice. This is strange.

 

I've done minimal work this past week. It took me two hours with power sanders to remove all of the previous paint from the rear bumper! Next I need to work on removing the paint from inside the headlight and parking light buckets on the front bumper. The rear fenders and trunk lid are pretty much ready to go, just need to block them with 220 and 320 and fill in the weird indents on the top of the rear fender where the spot welds were made? I'll be happy just having the whole thing in primer by the start of April. The plus side is I don't think I'll have to do much sanding work with the primer.

 

I pulled the windshield because I'm sure it would crack when I welded the new cowl cover in place.

 

Got the sides welded in and started on the front seam.

 

Also laid down some seam sealer

 

Dude we must be seperated at birth or something. You're doing all the stuff I'm planning. I'm working with my buddy to be able to make a vent that can be closed for racing, but on yours you have cut it to a new shape... Billet vents from 69 camaro or some other model going in?

 

I burned the plastic cover while welding on the firewall and without thinking it through thought I would just cap the cowl vent off with a plate. Well it would never pass a safety inspection without wipers so I was stuck making a new cowl cover. You have to make the openings big enough to get your hand in to toy with the wiper linkage and motor too. I'm just going to spot weld in some perforated steel for vent material. Why would you want it to be open or closed for racing?

 

You don't want any air to have a place to go and create drag. Not that I think there is a ton finding its way in there, but GM designers put it there to catch fresh air while driving. I don't want mine sealed off/shaved completely as I have plans in my head to re-add HVAC at some point.

 

Also If you cap it off you or a new owner may not be able to pass a saftey inspection by the state. That was my big reasoning for keeping a vent there. I haven't had a regular hood for over a decade, did the stock hood cover the cowl vent? I was also worried about driving it in the rain and having rain pour down onto the back of the engine, ie the distributor. It wouldn't be hard to make a block off plate to cover the vents.

 

Managed to get the new cowl pretty well finished. Decided that all three of the holes in the cowl will be covered in perforated steel. The upper welds will be painted and covered by the windshield and it's silicone.

 

I welded in the holes for the hood latch, wiper fluid tube and some random grommet the previous owner had installed. Ground them down and slapped on some filler.

 

Welded up and covered up that old antenna hole.

 

Unless you've removed the spoiler from a convertible you probably don't know why I complain so much in this and other threads about how ill fitting the trunk lid is. Here are some pictures

 

Things are still looking great man! I'm starting this week the process of building panels and such, cutting and welding... All I can say is I'm glad I will have to grind the welds all down lol.

Hey the power distribution block. Did you find where you are mounting that? I'm obviously relocating my battery as well, and I'm looking for inspiration.

As for harness pass through... the HVAC control harness hole to the passenger side of the tunnel under the heater hose holes looks like a great spot for me as it turns out to be much larger than would appear before the grommet was removed.

 

Now that you brought it up, I'm not sure where in the garage I put that distribution block... anyway, I'll be mounting it in the space where the heater core was. It will mount on an abs board with some relays and other wiring. I'm also going to plastic dip that block as well as making a cover. Look for fueled soul's build thread and you can see how he did it is similar to how I want mine. The wiring harness will exit out the vicinity of the heater core hoses yeah. The main power wires will leave the cabin through a hole in the floor that goes into the frame rail and will exit out the hole that the idler arm covers. The headlights wires will go inside the wheel well between the splash guard and actual metal.

I'm hoping to spray primer tomorrow on the ground effects, front and rear bumpers, front fenders and mirrors. Just so so aggravated that the previous owner had the original paint plus two repaints! That 9 layers of paint! Nine layers I have to sand off because I'm not some lazy half assed owner happy with the mediocrity of cracked paint or a 20 foot paint job.

I may get to the doors, body, engine bay and trunk lid in two weeks if the trunk gaps don't take forever. If so I'll at least spray the engine bay in a week or two so I know where I'm at on it. Smoothness wise.

 

Well I'll keep watching here as I'm not to that point yet either. I think I will run a battery terminal pass through near the harness hole to bring power out to the starter, and then the rest of the body harness is tucked away in the fender as you stated.

I found a really cool battery terminal jumper port/box while googling. rectangular box that would recess into a panel, with a sealed and locking cover... I was gonna buy it then somehow lost it in google and have yet to find it. Are you planning anything for external battery power access?

 

Absolutely doing a source for external power. I am putting the battery in the trunk and I have shaved door handles and as of yet have no manual way to open the doors externally. My plan is to have no hood latch and use lock pins for the hood but I use locks instead of pins. I'll have a positive jumper post up front in the engine bay. I'll also ground the heck out of the car so anything should work as a ground. This way I'll never get locked out because of a dead battery. Eventually I will install a rip cord coming out between the drivers window and the felt so I can run it at the track.

 

Ready to prime some pieces tomorrow

 

 

The old front emblem area looks perfect, lower rocker panel emblem area needs a small amount of work and the rear bumper emblem area needs work.

 

All that's left to prime are doors, engine bay, rear quarters and deck lid. Think I'll do the engine bay next week if not the week after. Correcting the gaps around the trunk lid will take a little bit...

 

Not much to update on. I was able to finally blend the lines around where the vents on the dash were and remove all of the PlastiDip. It should be ready for paint this week. I also have all of the primered body pieces sanded down. I was really hoping I did well enough with my work before primer to only require one coat but I had to sand through the primer in a few spots so nearly every piece will require a spot primer treatment. The old emblem spots on the front and rear bumper and side skirts is now perfectly covered and blended. The rear bumper's strip needed a glaze coating of Poly flex in a few spots. Hoping to spray the spot primer mid week and (fingers crossed) spray the engine bay in epoxy and 2K primer at the same time.

 

Managed to finish my Heater vent(s) deleted dash. All of the vents have been deleted- Center and the outsides. If you look in the pictures one of them has the light in the position to show that the top center vent left a faint outline on the main portion of the dash but with the dashpad overhanging the actual dash and putting a shadow over it and eye level being at least a foot above the dash pad it's really not going to be visible unless someone took a light and put their head there to look. This took a lot of time to do but like with everything else I could do it faster the second time around.












I believe that I could have gotten rid of that line 100% had I made the joint's V groove on both sides (as I did) but only epoxy-ing it from the back side and then glued a backing plate to the back of the joint. Then on the front side I should have only used Poly Flex and NOT Epoxy.

 

Got the bumpers perfect. No visible evidence of the old strip and emblem. Nailed it.

 

Very smooth!

 

Just sprayed the epoxy primer on the engine bay.

 

I knew some areas still needed work but without spraying the epoxy primer and then 2K primer I couldn't tell. It looks like a minimal amount of work with glaze coats is all.

 

Fenders have an amount of waviness to them still...

 

DooooD!!! Looks really good. Like really good! I'm excited to be to that point

 

Thanks. Next week I should really be able to make some progress. I should be able to spray color and clear on all of the plastic urethane pieces like ground effects and bumpers and mirrors. I'm leaning towards waiting to polish and wetsand until the underbody and interior are done. That way if it incurs any scratches I have to sand and buff it still anyway.

I should have both doors in primer to. Doors took longer because the door jambs needed RE sprayed and they had two coats of pai t already so I had to strip the door jamb area to metal. Then the engine bay I'll sand off the orange peel and but on some glaze. If I'm lucky I might be able to spot primer the engine bay next Thursday. The rear of the car is ready for primer but I'll have to weld the top of the rear fenders to match the trunk.

 

Sprayed epoxy primer and 2K primer on the doors and the jam area of the doors. Visually it looks great and like I only need to take off the orange peel, we'll see if a long board agrees. I also ended up buying another quart of 2K, a gallon of clear, 3 quarts white, a quart orange and a pint black. Everything but the clear is DuPont nason series, I went with ChromaPremier for the clear and man is that stuff expensive! The premiere is about twice as much as nason.

 

Above is after base coat and below is after one coat of clear. Passenger side fender, note the absence of a radio antenna hole. :-)


I decided to thin the clear slightly along with spraying every panel in as flat a position as can be.

 

Three coats clear done. Only a minimal amount of orange peel.

 

Ever think about spaying the engine bay with tintable Raptor Liner? I saw a guy on Youtube do white tint Raptor Liner all over the outside of his truck. Then he cleared it. Looks real good and should stand up to punishment.
I wonder if doing the engine bay this way would be a nice addition. Plus it would save some time on bodywork.

Just a thought.

Oh yeah, Great job on the build.

 

I've thought about doing the engine bay a lot of different ways but I decided on base coat clear coat system. I want a car I can take to most any car show and do well at and I have the time and (I believe) the abilities to do the body work and paint. I believe that in the end all the work I'm doing will pay off and look really good.

 

I am a shiny paint man myself. Should look real nice.
Just thought I would throw the Raptor Liner idea out there.
Cant wait to see it done.

 

Here is a lesson I learned: I always thought that the reason paint booths were ventilated is because of OSHA reasons, ya know health and safety of employees against lung and CNS diseases. So I made my booth and sealed it off from the outside, I wore a respirator with an oxygen line into it at 6 L/min of medical Oxygen which is supposedly how much you breath. I sprayed the fenders and they look great, I came back the next day and they appear to have more orange peel or haze however you'd like to phrase it. I thought it might be dieback because the clearcoat feels remarkably smooth but I'm no professional painter so I talked to a friend that teaches autobody at the college. He said even though I followed the tech sheet for flash times I may have some dieback because without ventilation you will the cause recommended flash time to extend because there may be too much solvent in the air. Darn. O well. Its just the front fenders, it's a white car (much harder to see detail in reflections), polishing will clean it up and you have to be looking for it and know what it is to see it. Lesson learned! Ventilate your booth!

 

I'm thinking this week I may plate off the area under the engine bay that is on the driver's side between the wheel arch and firewall. You can see in Post #132 I covered it in brushable seam sealer as the factory did, but it just doesn't look that good. I drag my feet on doing it because it would be a few hours of extra work. Make a template, transfer template to metal and cut out. Paint backside of new panel, weld in new panel, paint new panel.

 

It will look better covered in that area. Pretty easy area to work in. Afterthoughts... I'm sure I'll have mine

 

Yeah, I looked at it with the primer on again, that's the only area not flat. More work.

 

Forgot to take a picture of the doors under the florescent lights, I took one after I put them outside. They have a little more orange peel than the fenders but nothing substantial.


I couldn't find any flaws with the body work, they look straight, can't find the old handle and lock area.

 

I began painting the bumpers this morning. I think the best way to tape these is backwards, spray the buckets first and then the rest. Since the tape edge is on an angle I don't have a problem with taping both ways. I'm using nason basecoat and chroma premier clear. I called the Mason techline about wait time to mask because there is sooooo much different info online. Per Nason tech line wait an hour and test a small area if it doesn't peel up you're golden. My painting condition is 80 some degrees and almost no humidity. Two medium coats.

 

 

I didn't have good lighting with the angle the nose was at and I received two sags because I couldn't instantly see what I was laying down. But better too much than too little.