No, I haven’t given up on the project! Many other things going on in life and business have left me with very little time to put into the restoration of this car. But, yes I HAVE been working on it. A little here and a little there. The bodywork is getting much closer. Filler work is finished on everything but the trunk lid. I’m cleaning up the bottom of the hood and the door jams (on the doors) before I put on some high-build primer. My goal is still to get SOME paint on this car before the summer is out. Maybe it’ll only be on a door or a hood or whatever, but there WILL be some paint on it, damnit!

The latest work I’ve done, involves prepping the underside of the hood for semi-gloss black paint (as per factory). A while back I stripped most of the undercoating off with the use of a propane torch to lightly heat it, then scrape with a putty knife. This did a pretty good job, but still left traces of it that needed to be removed with a rag and some lacquer thinner. Once I had it clean, I used the DA sander and some 80 grit paper to strip it down to bare metal. Some hand sanding in areas where the DA wouldn’t reach was required.

The underside of the hood before I cleaned and stripped it.

Under the hood lip on the drivers side, the flat area with the holes in it was creased from the light collision damage that the hood recieved at some point in its past. I was easily able to repair the outer surface of the hood, but the inner was still creased. I could have left it, who would notice? I would! So I used the Unispotter and a body hammer to get the crease as flat and normal as I could, then skimmed it with some body filler (as seen in the photo). I’ve got the body filler blocked out and the whole underside of the hood is now ready for some primer (not shown). I’ve ordered up some Eastwood 2k Ceramic Underhood Black that I’ll use to paint the bottom of the hood, inner fenderwells, core suppoort and associated bits. As I understand it, this is supposed to be a very close match to the gloss level that the factory would have used. I’m undecided yet, if I want to paint the bottom of the hood now, or wait until I have all my primer/blocking work done, so that I don’t have to worry about masking it off.

The underside of the hood after it was stripped and some body filler applied to a problem area.

Tonight I finished applying some high-build primer to problem areas on the bottom of the hood, and on the drivers front door jamb. Yes, real progress! Last night I finished scuffing everything and wiping it down with some wax and grease remover, then I shot it all with some PPG DPLF epoxy primer. I want to leave the bottom of the hood in primer until the top is finished and in paint, that way as the hood is handled stored, any finished black paint on the bottom won’t get scuffed. The idea is, just prior to installing the hood on the car for the final time, I’ll scuff and shoot the bottom of it, so it’s next stop will be actually on the car.

Hood and Door in the paint-booth

Bottom of hood and front door shell (jamb) in epoxy

Problem areas of the hood bottom in high-build primer

Jamb area of door shell in high-build primer

As for my planned sequence of priming, blocking, and painting parts such as the doors, hood, fenders, etc… I’ve decided that I’m going to focus on the body of the car so that I can have it in finished paint first, THEN work on the doors, hood, etc. That way, when they are finally painted, they can be installed on the car. This will elminate any un-necessary handling and storage of painted parts, which would be an invitation for disaster… chips, scratches, etc. I have to give my dad credit for this idea. I mentioned to him my dilemma of where to store the painted parts… he said “paint the body first, so you can just install them as they are done”. I thought to myself, DUH! A fathers wisdom!  Also, It’s July and the weather is great… I don’t have a full size paint-booth so I’ll be doing something “make-shift” to paint the body. (possibly even painting it outside! Egads!) I can do the smaller parts in my booth anytime, even in the dead of winter. So by focusing on the body now, I’ll get it done while the weather is nice. Sound good? I thought so.  SO, this means, I’m going to get this body painted SOON! Reality is, its already pretty close. All the filler work is done for sure. It needs more high build, blocking, etc, which will consume quite a few hours… but, I’m getting there, slowly but surely! Sometime in the upcoming week, I’ll do a thorough cleaning of the car, blow all the dust out, etc. First thing… prep the roof and paint it! Why? because its a nice flat, horizontal surface and will be easiest for me to paint in one session, rather than trying to tackle the whole body at once. Up to this point, I’ve painted lots of smaller objects… classic bicycles mainly, but my experience shooting color on LARGE things like a car? Honestly, never done it! Another reason is that the roof skin will be very easy to mask off while I work on the rest of the body and paint it. I think I’ll follow that with doing the inside of the trunk, followed by the firewall/jambs/rockers/quarters. I am not going to paint the dash yet, because I haven’t decided for sure what color the interior will be. It’s going to be either black (like was when new), or red. If I go with red, I need to find a match for the correct shade. Was it Roman red like the exterior color? I would assume so, but???