Sanded and buffed the firewall, came out good but in a few spots I didn't buff or sand with a higher grit long enough and you can see some sanding scratches. The good part of that is you need your head and the light at a steep angle and within a few feet to see them. I also sanded through 3-4 small spots so I'll have to spray some color and clear with a touch up gun. But they are smaller than a dime.

 

So now I can continue with the rear fender and deck lid issue.

 

Looking really good!

 

That's just crazy wet looking. Nice work.

 

I went back this past week to work on the trunk to fender area. The above pictures were taken WITHOUT the weatherstripping in place, once I installed the weatherstripping the height difference was nearly doubled. It still could be corrected and look good but you would have to a 91-92 Z/28 high rise spoiler or make a 100% custom three piece spoiler because the metal from above the tailight to the top pf the fender would be substantially taller. I'm now heavily leaning towards using the factory wrap around side pieces and the high rise spoiler on the trunk lid as a few members have already done.

 

Pics? Never saw that set up.

 

The member who did a great thread on it is here.
https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/conv...ml#post4929885

 

That engine bay looks amazing. Excellent work, man!

 

I decided to fix that horrible lack of craftsmanship from asc, I knew I would kick myself if I didn't do this. The width of a paint stirring stick looks perfect for panel gap doesn't it??!

 

The tops and rear of the fenders are done and next will be the sides of them. I also played off where the brake light was and will plate off the rear as well.

 

I was having a difficult time making a template for the sides because the top kept moving, so I just used expanding foam underneath it to hold it in place. Now it can be held in place while I make the template and weld it in.

 

I used a wire wheel on an angle grinder and cleaned up a wheel well and sprayed it in SEM undercoating. Looks good, I just hope it isn't duplicolor with a different label.

 

Looks good. I actually used the duplicolor coating on a trans tunnel several years ago and the last time I looked it was still there, so maybe it has a chance of surviving.

 

I used some duplicolor undercoating on a panel and it seemed to come off far to easily.

 

Looks like I have the old brake light area done. You can see I must have had some warping after welding.


Hoping to have the both sides of the top fenders in and the front passenger wheel well undercoated.

 

I'll admit, the car i did this on hasn't been driven once since I used the undercoating. I applied it in 2011/2012, I do know it was still there a year ago.

 

Got the rear half of both fenders welded on and round one of body work done.

 

Looks like the fenders are ready for primer.

 

Although the spoiler isn't ready for paint I have it in place. The way I mounted it was to find the exact distance between the mounting studs on the spoiler and divide by two. Next I found the exact midline of the trunk and just measured our exactly perpendicular from that line. Then I moved it forward enough to not hang off and drilled the holes. You can see in the pics that I'll have to either shorten the middle posts or lengthen the side posts. There is a gap between the spoiler and fenders.

 

Looking good man! Are you set on the 91-92 high rise spoiler?

 

Yeah, I'm set on the high rise spoiler. Because I increased the height of the rear fenders a stock duckbill three piece spoiler would need to be heavily modified or I'd have to make a fully from scratch three piece. This high rise spoiler will be enough work.

 

Decided to elongate the ends of the spoiler so they almost touch the tops of the fenders. I think the deck lid for the regular f body is nearly flat and the convertible has a small rise in the middle so the ends have a gap.

The way I fixed it was to first tape a few pieces of cut poster board to the top of the fenders only. This way the spoiler will sit slightly above the fenders so if the weather stripping starts to compress, the spoiler won't contact the fenders. Then I just covered the area with aluminum foil.


I made a template of the bottom of the ends of the spoiler and then used it to cut out a few layers of fiberglass mat.

Then I just brushed on the fiberglass and put them underneath the spoiler ends.


Once the fiberglass had hardened I squirted a bunch of expanding foam in and let it cure.

Once it was dry I cut off the sides and was left with this





So next I'll coat on a layer of fiberglass and then filler.

 

I also sprayed the epoxy primer and 2K primer. It looks pretty good and the first batch of sanding revealed a few low spots easily fixed. So I should be able to spray color and clear next week.

 

Started painting. Staying with the classic Camaro Heritage stripes. From what I looked up it the stripes' color is called Carousel Red and of course I'm using the Arctic White also. These pictures are before the clear coat was sprayed. I'm using regular 3/8" pinstripe tape to set the space between the thick stripe and the side thin stripes. I found the center of the decklid and toneau cover and then just measured out from that. In doing so I found that my stripes are perfectly centered, its that post hole on the lid that is not centered, it's off 1/4-3/8". I triple measured it.

 

I'm not perfect so I don't mind showing mistakes.
I rushed and tried to just use the green tape as an edge instead of the 3M pinstripe tape. I got bleeding and tape lifting so now I'll be color sanding and respraying that part. Sad face.



But I went ahead and shot clear coat.

 

Not sure what happened here. I'm dumbfounded. It's only over a portion of the Orange. It looks like the paint is lifting. But if if so why only that area? Maybe it was too hot to spray but then why didn't that happen to every thing....

 

I did some sanding today and found the paint wasn't lifting and was fine, the problem was only in the clear coat. I think what was happening was in some places the panel was so hot that as soon as the clear coat touched the panel the solvent started to evaporate. The clear coat was then drying too fast to let the solvent escape. The reducer was 90-100* but surface temp was 104-109 by the time I was spraying clear coat. Next week we should see early morning lows of low 80s so I'll wait till Monday or Tuesday morning to respray clear and redo the inner tape line. Maybe I can work on the spoiler in the meantime. Gotta admit though, the fenders look great! Possibly the only convertible without the chinsy wrap around spoiler, a much better look.

 

If you're worried about bed liner durability, I'd recommend Herculiner. My shop has used it to paint battery trays and cab floors of military vehicles for years now. It resists being walked on and battery acid extremely well. I'm using it in my own build, because if the Army can't destroy it, I don't think I need to worry too much.

 

I had considered using it and had even bought a gallon of it when I was thinking of just undercoating the underbody but I decided on paint and returned it. In my area a gallon is all that's available so I just went with spray on undercoating for the wheel wells. The product I'm using has a slight soft ness to it so I'm not thrilled, I wanted something that dried hard.

 

I sanded with 600 grit again to remove any orange peel that I created in that clear coat. I'll do some super light sanding with 800 grit Monday and then do a good wipe down and remask. I'll then be waking up at 4am on Tuesday to redo the stripes and spray two more coats of clear. Might be able to sand and polish it Wednesday. I'll also work on finishing the rear spoiler which surprisingly doesn't need much more work- just some sanding on the ends I am redoing and a little skim coat of filler and then primer. I never painted the front spoiler so I plan on just painting it the same time as the rear spoiler.

 

Incredible build so far. Can't wait to see it done.

 

Thanks, I'll be relived when it's done.

 

 

Did I mention that this was my first experience with painting stripes?

 

I'm not painting customers cars where I'm under a time crunch to when I spray clear coat I would much rather spray heavy and get a run than light and buff through.

 

Checked fitment of the spoiler, looks good. When I add the gasket under the columns it will raise the sides just enough.

 

And another tree ring style shot to show how many times this spoiler has been repainted, looks like 5 to me. So again, who does that?!

 

Man this car is lookin good. Starting to come together.

I bought a used high rise when I switched mine too. It had been painted at least 8 times and a few of them must have been like 5 coats of acrylic enamel. It wasn't fun to strip, but eventually I got it done.

 

I ended up using a sanding cone on a die grinder for the curves on the underside of the spoiler. Ridiculous how lazy some people are.

 

Sanded and polished






It's not a museum quality clear coat job. But if we are judging paint jobs with the distance your head is from the surface (like a 20 footer for instance) than this is a 2 footer. Closer than that and you can see some higher grit sanding marks in the clear that I didn't sand out, probably 800 grit. I also had some solvent pop in the neighborhood of 3-6 spots per square foot. For now I will live with it but sometime in the next year I'll probably sand the clear and respray it.

 

When I was compounding the hood I did a Vs. I used Meguiar's 105 vs Wizard's turbo cut and then Meguiar's 205 vs wizard's finish cut. All four of the compounds finish down wonderfully. Meguiar's 105 has slightly more cutting power than Turbo cut and then Finish cut had slightly more cut than Meguiar's 205. Both of the Meguiar's however have the draw back that are only workable for a short period after which they would harden and cake up. The Wizard's remained workable a bit longer and never hardened, it just disappeared.

I would be interested in trying Wizard's Mystic cut.

I refuse to buy the 3M brand of automotive compounds solely because of price. It is twice as much as the wizards or the Meguiar's. I'll be painting the hood in a month or two in a friend's real paint booth mainly because he's going to do the curved tape line for the stripes. His shop uses 3M polishes so I will do the same vs on the hood, M105 and finish cut vs 3M compounds. I'm looking forward to the results but I really think it will come out the same results (so 3M loses by default because of price) or 3M not being as good.

 

What kinda pads/backing plate/buffer did you use on the engine bay? I still need to do mine and planning on getting some new pads and such. I've used just a 3" 3m pad on an adjustable die grinder in the past for smaller areas, but not real excited about polishing with pneumatic stuff.

 

I have three polishers but I keep going back to the same one- my rusty old super heavy duty Sioux single speed (2000rpm) polisher. This thing is a tank. Heavy and the body is almost 100% aluminum. You don't have to press down with this beast. I also have a dual action polisher and another variable speed polisher but I really like the Sioux.

I used the regular sized Sioux polisher and a 3" polisher that's on a drill adapter. That was all I needed for my bay, I think it's mostly because I have a white engine bay. Badnblack has a black bay and had to hand polish some. If you polish to 2000 it shouldn't be a big issue.

 

It's hard to show in a picture but the fender has a slight wave to it that I couldn't see until I polished it. Most likely distortion from welding the extension in top of the old fender. But otherwise it looks good. Starting the other side now. O yeah, I broke through two spots I'll need to spot fix, I'll save all the spots for the end after all painting is done.

 

In for this too, please take some pictures.. I have a couple spots I burned through on mine I need to go back and fix better.

 

Take pictures of the process of correcting it? Sure, it's pretty straight forward though. I'm going to scuff it up with 600 grit and then spray the color in two coats and then the clear in three coats. Wet sand again and polish. In all I will probably have a dozen dime size spots between the engine bay and the back half. Easy to fix just takes time.

 

This whole build is just next level.

 

If you have the time, space and enough tools any car guy that has patience and a willingness to learn, make mistakes and then correct mistakes can do this. I'm showing my errors, (its a community board so I hope others learn from them) I'm not coming here trying to claim I'm some uber talented, super experienced car God.

 

Ahh gotcha, I thought you were just doing some small touch ups. I have a tiny spot on my quarter I need to do better. It is a hard top car though so that is a big fix the way you are doing it.

 

I am just doing small spots, nothing wider than a dime. But that's the way it needs to be done when you spend this much time and money on the paint as I have.