Weekend of March 18 Update!Well, the snow is pretty much gone and I am super stoked with this weekend’s progress. I did have a few minor setbacks throughout the weekend –one that I still need to address- but the paint and body assembly is for all intents and purposes complete. Now I just need to get the drivetrain back in and do a full wet sand and polish to get rid of some grit and orange-peel on one quarter panel.
FridayFriday night it was slow going because I didn’t make it there until around 8. I don’t have any pictures to share of Friday night but I worked on the chassis until 11:30pm getting the previous layers of base coat scratched up to accept fresh coats on Saturday morning.
SaturdayAfter waking up late Saturday morning I managed to finish sand the spoiler for repainting since I had a problem with it before and finish sanded my headlights for restoration. Once I was done with that I tack ragged the whole car and set to completing the basecoat. I did run into an issue on the driver front fender not accepting base and it was blistering from a layer of zinc chromate primer from an aerosol can that I had put on in the earlier stages of bodywork to keep some bare metal from rusting. So I had to cut this whole panel down, mask off the car from it and sand/prime/paint it. A serious setback. Then I was on the move again on St. Patricks day. I finished painting and clearing the car with no troubles besides one insect flying into the middle of my hood after my 2nd coat of clear.
Prepped and ready for paint Saturday morning.
Sanding out a drip in the base from not using a proper gasket on the paint gun lid.
Mixing paint
First coat of clear ON!
All cleared up.
Headlight restoration completed!
Clear 100% done.
Even painted the battery tray
SundaySunday was pretty basic and a chill day. I changed my clutch release bearing out since my old one was making noises and then started on changing the waterpump. All was going really smoothly until - without noticing – I put one of the long bolts in a short hole when installing the new waterpump only to bottom it out and eventually break it off. I didn’t have a big enough easy-out tool so I have to fix that next time I go up. Once I was done breaking things I moved on to reassembly of the body parts of the car and garage cleanup.
Time to take down the paint booth
Starting reassembly
Starting to break bolts doing a water pump install.
Spoiler on
Rear end put back together.
Pushed outside to clean the garage
Back inside awaiting some engine again.
I will conclude with my favorite shot of the weekend: