Paul's 69 2 Door project

[Trophy24]

Double post fail, so I will just edit this one posting some progress.

 

Body panel alignment challenge...  At some point in its life, the car was hit on the LH side.  The fender/door alignment was off by 4mm.  Ouch!  I could not tell if it was the fender or the door, or the body of the vehicle.  After considering a new Futofab fender, Carter came to the rescue with one of his spare fenders to check alignment.  It turned out to be the same amount of gap.

 

Loaner fender

 

 

My fender

 

 

It looks like the A pillar was pushed in where the upper door hinge is mounted.   

 

 

Since I dont have a frame rack at home, I used a pnumatic hammer to push it out at the upper hinge mount about 2mm before I decided more would be pushing the limit of the metal for fatigue reasons.  The rest was taken up by slotting the mounting holes on the upper hinge at the door.  Problem solved!

[Ryan Family 510]

Alternative Blasters in Marysville. It ran about 650 plus tax for mine. I had some of it stripped already, so that may have helped some. They did a good job with plastic media for most of it, and sand for the rusty spots. This included the hood, fenders, valence and trunk lid. I would use them again for sure.

Media blasting is the way to go.  Would recommend it to anyone.  You got a great price though, we paid 1200.  I too have a 69 that I bought for my twin 15 year olds.  Love that you are doing that.  

[Trophy24]

I am sure all the stripping I did before taking it into the blaster saved me some on the price. I just don't have the time to do it all, so it made sense

 

I am still getting blasting media coming out from all the cracks no matter how much I blow and vacuum it out. At least the amount is deminishing.

[Trophy24]

Seat O Rama at my place!

Just finished the mounts for these grey leather seats I scored while teaching a vehicle rescue class. The car was totaled before we started, but the seats were perfect. Heated and cooled goodness for me! I have the rears as well, but will have to modify to fit

 

 

And a pic of the rail set up I came up with. Had to get them really low.

 

[jeph]

looks great man keep up the good work. nice to see another great local build.

[Trophy24]

Primer Time!!!

 

It is hard to believe this day has finally come.  All the body work put into this car will finally show some results.  Being able to see it all the same color will be a huge deal to me. 

 

I spent the last few days cleaning the garage and the car, and cleaning some more.  Then I cleaned again.  I don't think the garage has been this clean since the house was new.  I set up a fan system and hung a plastic barrier to divert the flow of air as best as possible.

 

Getting ready to spray some of this:

 

 

Garage getting set up

 

 

 

My painter laying it down finally!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Trophy24]

And some more...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next step is to block sand and buy the color base coat and clear.  The paint code is 570 light blue.  I have someone working on a formula for the color.  We will see how Wesco does with this. My first answer was "the only formula we have is for laquer".  Not an option for me for a number of reasons including cost.

[Trophy24]

So first round of block sanding was today.  Good news is the car is really straight at this point.  Had to do some more work on the body line where the rear quarter was replaced, but not too much.  Some other minor areas that needed some attention, but I am really pleased with it. 

 

Apparently primer sanding dust is way finer than body filler sanding dust.  It gets everywhere and is a total pain to clean up.

 

 

Folded the front fender lips over today as well.  Better to do it before paint for sure.  The rears were done before I got the car by the PO.  Hopefully I can fit some tire this way. 

 

 

Next step is primer coat #2 on the body and coat #1 the inside of doors, hood and trunk lid.

[carterb]

You must be getting so excited!

 

Can I come paint my cars in your garage so I don't have to clean up the mess any more?  You do a great job!

[Trophy24]

I think another paint job here at home might push Jackie over the edge. She has been great about all the chemical smells and dust everywhere. Don't want to push my luck LOL

[mbunzel]

Thanks for the encouragement guys.

My son has helped me with the car, but is not into it like I am. More paint stripping in my future. I will see what I can get done this weekend.

 

We replaced this at work today on a Subaru.

 

 

 

Must resist the turbo!

These vf40s are crap I replace them at work all the time and they always look like that unfortunately they most always take the engine out with them.

[Trophy24]

Turns out this one did too.  It lasted another 2 weeks before it blew.  Unfortunate.

 

Good thing they bought a warranty with the car.

[Trophy24]

So I was listing things to do on the project and trying to put them in order of importance.  I realized that I will be installing the suspension soon as the car will be towed to a spray booth for the exterior color application. 

 

Broken sway bar bushing bolt in the frame.  Guess I was lucky only one of the 4 broke. I don't like drilling out broken bolts.  It is a time consuming process that can go wrong if you don't center the drill bit properly.

 

Bottom view of drivers' side frame rail:

 

 

 

I missed the center with the "center punch" and had to crater the end of the broken bolt with a Dremel bit.  It worked pretty well as I centered the hole.

 

 

Drilled the hole as close as possible to the right size using standard drill bits.  I knew I had it centered when the tap started popping the old bolt threads out of the original hole.  You can see the chunks of old bolt on the tap.

 

 

Fixed!

 

[carterb]

After sand-blasting, you are going to want to chase ALL your threaded holes with a tap. 

Nothing locks a bolt in a hole better than sand-blast grit.

--carter

[Trophy24]

I will be tapping all holes for sure.  I don't want to play the broken bolt game unless I have to.

 

More work done today.  After block sanding last weekend, it was time to apply more epoxy primer to the body and to the inside of fenders, doors, trunk and hood.

This picture looks like last time, only the other side of the panels. 

 

 

Exterior of the shell primed again.  Hopefully it wont take too many more applications to get it sorted out.  This stuff is expensive!

 

 

 

[thisismatt]

Sometimes it's better to just break the head off by over tightening it, then run the bolt in, instead of out, since it's the threads sticking out on the inside that are all rusted and goobered up.

[Trophy24]

That worked great for me on the fender bolts that snapped. When they are inside the frame you have to drill.

[thisismatt]

You can do it anywhere there is room enough inside for the bolt to go through.

[Trophy24]

Saturday was spent block sanding again.  Another day of dust in the garage.  I must be finally learning a bit, as I set up the garage the same way I do when paint is being sprayed.  Much better dust control that helped with the clean up.  I don't know why I didn't do this all along.  No pics of the sanding day sorry.

 

Sunday was spent building up some thickness on the primer.  The good news is it will be allowed to gas out and shrink into the scratches before being sanded again later this week. Pretty interesting to see a perfectly smooth panel right after painting and look again a few days later and see sanding scratches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have come to the realization that just dropping the car off at a body shop would have some advantages.  It must be some paranoia on my part that makes me want to ensure all the steps are followed by doing this myself.  I think it is a result of my first project car paint job that I had done at a shop.  They cut some corners that came back to haunt me later.

[uberkevin]

I just read this whole thread..

 

 

Wow dude!! Your putting some real work into this car. Things are looking great!

Amazing work man.

[Ryan Family 510]

looking good!!

[jeph]

looks great man nice to see a local doin work!

[Trophy24]

So another weekend of sanding and priming here.  Since I have posted enough pictures of that lets move onto something else...

 

My original plan was to re-paint the side window frames black.  It seemed a good idea at the time.  My plans have evolved over time and I am looking at this car deciding what makes it look old school as compared to all the drift cars out there (not that there's anything wrong with that).  I have changed the plan to include color matched window frames as the car was originally built.  Time to drag out the quarter windows from the attic and see what kind of shape they are in.  I knew they had been painted black previously and the weather strips were a little rough.

 

 

Looks like the weather strips have been painted several times in different colors.  Guess I will have to replace them.

 

Here are some of the screws that hold the frame together.  Time to pull weather strip and dis-assemble the window.

 

A little rust bubbling through the paint here

 

Oh not good at all

 

Well the frame is coming apart on the RH side.  I guess the rear corner is where the water sits and does the rust thing...

 

Maybe the LH side will be ok? 

 

Hmm, I guess not.

 

Time to see about some replacement windows.

[jeph]

im in tacoma and i believe i have a few sets of extra rear 2 door windows ill check what shape they are in and ill message you tomarrow.

[Trophy24]

Wanted to say thanks for the offer jeph, I found some locally that were able to be saved.

 

Here is one of the replacements being dis-assembled.  This one had been painted as well, but since I was having the frames blasted, they would fit the need quite well. 

 

Remove the screws and slide the window frame apart.  It took some effort to break it loose, but went well over all.

 

 

Another view from the outside.

 

Looks like I have a few windows to choose from.  

 

So I discovered a difference in the 1/4 window construction here.  The bracket for the window latch is welded on 2 of them, and screwed together on the other 2.  I have not read about this difference anywhere, so I thought I would note it here if it helps anyone.  The two window frames I will be using will match, so I don't really care about this difference.

 

 

 

 

Some more pictures of the rusty carnage...

 

 

 

I was fortunate to find replacement windows that were for the most part rust free.  Blasting them made them ready for primer and paint without any repair necessary.

 

Thanks again Wolfman for the killer deal on the windows!