Sunday, February 21, 2010

Do Overs!

Well, I sealed the seams but the seams seem unseemly.  The seams that will be hidden under body panels are okay but a few seams will be seen so I chose to redo those seams.   And, since the weather was 60 degrees and sunny, I decided also to revisit my old friend, media blast issue #4.

However, I opted to start with the do over of the seam sealer.  I was particularly unhappy with how the door jambs turned out as you can see here:


I started out by scraping away the new sealer:

Then I ground the remnants away with my drill and wire brush. I didn't use the angle grinder wire wheel on this because it would have been a little too aggressive with the new primer:

Then lacquer thinner to clean the area and then a new coat of primer:

Now that the door jamb is fresh as a daisy, it was time to lay down a new bead of sealer.  This time I chose NAPA brand firm gray sealer:

The tools of the trade for me this time were an acid brush and a 3/4" strip of a previously 3" wide rubber body filler spreader:

I dipped the spreader in lacquer thinner and squeegied the bead of sealer while following along the seam at a slight angle like a snow plow:

I did the other side the same way.  The rubber spreader worked so well, I did away with the acid brush altogether.  It works best if you keep it soaked in lacquer thinner:

I then followed a similar procedure along the seam between the rocker panel and the rear quarter:



Again, between quarter and deck lid filler panel:

Before:

After:

And at the rear trunk corner seams:
Before:

After:


Finished with the seam sealer, I moved on to the repaint of the damaged section of the engine compartment where the media blaster had burned through some of the paint:


I disassembled the area, masked it off, and sanded damaged areas down until I couldn't feel bumps and then sanded some more with a 300 grit.  I scuffed all of the areas where I would apply new paint and cleaned the area with lacquer thinner:

I then repainted the area with PPG Deltron DBC9295.

The result looks okay to my noob-vision:

I'm not 100% sure if I should have reprimed the area first.   I didn't do my usual research on this task before doing it.  I hope it doesn't come back and bite me in the ass but it probably will.  It's hidden quite well behind the steering box, brake M/C, and distribution block but that could be a bad thing as well because if the paint does go bad, I'll have hell to pay to touch it up again.

4 comments:

  1. Looking good! Keep it up and post some more blogs while the weather is nice. I should have an update by this weekend on my 66. I've had a few re-do's so as long as you are happy with it and think original as much as possible you cannot go wrong.

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  2. Thanks for the insightful comment James. I'm looking forward to your next blog entry.

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  3. Looking good- I finally read the preface to your journey and I could have written an identical piece! I've just moved onto the priming/sanding phase of my 68' stang convertible and have a couple of tips:

    1) Buy Larry Lyles Project Mustang book

    2) Buy some AFS sanders

    I could have saved many hours of filling and sanding had I had the right information and tools at the start. Oh- I now know why a show quality paint job can cost upwards of $20K...

    Keep up the good work!

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  4. Thanks JAPR! I just put in an order for the Larry Lyles book and I just watched the intro video on http://www.adjustflexsand.com/newafsvideo.html. I bought some DuroBlocks but the AFS blocks look like a much more dynamic sanding system. I'll buy some if I decide to do my own body finish/paint. I still haven't made up my mind on that aspect of the restoration yet. Thanks for the tips!

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