Tuesday, June 29, 2010

We have paint!

Now that the car is up on a rotisserie, we can work on the underside.  For the past year or so the car sat on a donor frame from a sedan I parted out.  The underside and firewall were cleaned up and all the imperfections were addressed as this was the last time any major welding was going to happen on the floor.  Also at this point the seams were sealed up as well, making sure no water will ever get in again.

The first coat of primer went on and the car finally started to look like a car again. 



Now you can't just toss a big ol' boat of a car like this on a rotisserie w/o it destroying itself.  So what you have to do is support the car from the inside.  Before the car was removed from the frame, brackets were welded in to hold everything in place.  W/o the bracing, the car would just buckle at the doors.



Once the car is returned to the frame and the rest of the car is lined up, these will be cut back out.

The car sat for about 1-2 weeks so the primer can fully cure.  Then I had to make two very important decisions.

1.  What color to paint it.
2.  Shall I paint the underside body color.

First one was easy, I had pretty much decided a while back to return the car to its original color of Ascot Blue.  I had no idea when I bought the car it was this color.  But if I was doing all the work to return it to its original state, I had to put the original color back on.

The second took some convincing.  The original car was just painted chassis black on the firewall and underside.  However Pat convinced me to make it a little more flashy by painting the underside body color.  This will add a lot more contrast and look a lot better.  I just hope I don't get dinged at car shows for it.

So blue it is on the underside and I gave Pat the go ahead and make it so!




After seeing the paint actually applied, I am glad I did it even if I get dinged for it at the car shows.  It was at this point I really started to get excited to get this car back on the road. 

The car had to sit for another couple weeks for this coat of paint to cure.  After that it got a shot of clearcoat.