HOME – PAINT – INTERIOR – ENGINE - FINISHED CAR

PAINT PREP – August, 2001 thru August 2002
The majority of the year restoration was spent getting the body ready to paint. This, of course, required me to take the entire car apart at which point I realized this project was much bigger than I intended it to be. There is a certain path you start down where you realize that you’re going to have to do it right.

 

Based on estimates I was getting to have the car painted, I figured that the cost of an air compressor, a DA sander, and my time would be a lot more economical. I could then get a better paint job since much of the labor was done already. Here you see about 3 months of work in these pictures.

  

   
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POR 15
Once the car was stripped down I found some minor rust inside the car. Luckily, many years were spent in California so rust wasn’t much of an issue (at least not compared to some cars I’ve seen!) POR15 is a treatment that works with any rust to neutralize, then coats the metal to prevent further rusting. This I think was a good preventative step. Messy, but well worth it.

  

OFF FOR PAINT – August 17th, 2002
Here is the car completely disassembled and off to the painters. The car was (obviously) not running at this point so it was towed to the location. As you can see, all the front and rear valences were off, the windows were all out, and the trunk and hood were off the car. All parts were painted individually off the car to get the best quality. This really shows what a mess I was going to have to deal with!

  

  

 
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FRESH PAINT – September 5th, 2002
Two weeks later guess what showed up at my door! Beautiful, isn’t she! The painter did a great job, using all PPG products with a base/clearcoat. He even painted inside the car to cover the black POR 15 coating. All in all I was VERY pleased and even though it’s not a “show car” paint job, for what I paid it’s pretty damn good!
 

   

  

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