Volvo P1800ES...kinda

Once again. progress often comes disguised as going backwards.

Remember how happy we all were when the car was one color?  ( I sure as E36 M3 was!)

Well, block sanding is a non-forgiving master. If it aint perfect, the long durablocks will toss your work under the bus and make you face realities you would rather not face.

.... there went another five hours of work over a week of project time and half a dozen beers. But now I am happy with the fit and the gaps. I am still going to lay on a layer of Rage Gold to take care of any minor blemishes, but,MAYBE, we can get back to spraying E36 M3 on this thing by the weekend if I can sneak away from family obligations. The next step is another coat of the featherfill and another round of blocksanding.

For those following along at home, the green E36 M3 around the door is fiberglass reinforced filler. I actually spread it over the door gaps to make a smooth transition from panel to door, then cut the door gap out before it hardens. Then sand with a board across the gap till it is smooth. The fiberglass is less likely to chip at the edges than bodyfill that is a lot softer. Ideally, you still need to fit the door so that the depth of the fiberglass is not over 1/16" .

On a positive note, the roof-panel has been declared as done. It is ready for urethane sealer.

Ah, the old Bondo-Camo pattern.  Gotta love it.

Truly amazing on the Fglass gap execution ......did you come up with that yourself?? What little I've seen on that is the mega $$$$ resto builds where additional steel is added to address gapage. So when the featherfill is applied there will  be NO visual areas of hi/lo.......all shall be smmmmeeeeeooooth.....verdad? 

In reply to 759NRNG :

Eso mismo!

muy bien vato......er kant wait

Hey look, Deja Vue!

Pretty happy with what I am starting to see. I know that to most people it looks just like it did three weeks ago,Trust me, it is subtly better in a lot of ways. Two hours to wipe the car clean to the point where no dust was detectable on the wiper and one hour to shoot two layers of featherfill on the car.  Went a lot smoother than before. 

Of course 90% of this is going to get sanded off using 120 and then 220 grit. Then on to the urethane high fill/sealer.

Going to go visit the painter  that I hope to work with  on the 22nd so we can schedule a time window for paint. 

Still a lot of work to do, but since this should be the last of the featherfill, I feel like I have turned a corner.

Pete 

Car booked for paint first week of October. Price of $2000 to paint car, jambs and engine compartment with PPG. One week turnaround.

Before that, finish sanding this coat of featherfill, lay on a coat of high fill urethane and sand to 330, lay on a coat of urethane sealer and sand to 500.

Oh, and figure out some bonnet issues. The hinges dont seem to work/fit even though it is all stock volvo geometry/mounting points. And need to figure out a bonnet latching system since the Volvo stuff went away.

Pete

Has to be a good feeling being this close to color going on.  This keeps on impressing me.

Be prepared for the bodyman to say it isn't ready to shoot. My friend bill, that does high end cars for a living, has NEVER had a car come in "ready to spray" that he deemed to be actually ready to spray.

Id also reccomend that you book a 3m clear bra appointment for the trailer ride home from the painters. Something i sorely wish I had done on the duster.....

In reply to NOHOME :

You have my sympathies on the hinges.  From what I have seen/experienced, ALL of the adjustment is done at the hinge-to-header panel.  No shims between the hinge and bonnet. Then you can easily remove the bonnet by unbolting it from the hinge through the grill opening and everything stays aligned when you reattach it. This is also something to keep in mind when placing/sizing the A/C condenser. The last time I did it on the ex's car, I did the alignment through the grill opening with the radiator removed.  It was a PITA.

And the answer to the dumb question is...your aversion to shooting color on this yourself is the lack of a proper spray booth......patience and ....the proper knowledge to execute?  

So, just a random musing... When these pro bodymen determine the car is/isn't ready for paint, they would have to determine that with sandpaper, right? 

I mean, I can sort of tell a 10mm from an 11mm bolt head from across the room, and I believe good bodymen get the same  (at least to the uninitiated) highly attuned senses. 

Also, I know from experience, concrete guys hate to work with customer molds. I don't blame them. Most people can't do stuff. 

I guess this is all to say, I hope the spray technician does you right. 

Love seeing this come together. Rock on , Pete.

759NRNG said:

And the answer to the dumb question is...your aversion to shooting color on this yourself is the lack of a proper spray booth......patience and ....the proper knowledge to execute?  

While I have everything that I would need to shoot this including a very nice spray-gun, I don't think I could get the shop clean enough to give me a clean environment. The air quality from my compressor is also suspect: it has been ingesting too many interesting fumes for the last 10 years and I have a feeling that the stuff would make itself known.

Lastly is my neighbors; For me, painting a car takes a full day and this stuff stinks up the hood half a block away. For 25 years I  have managed to maintain the peace vis-a-vis my neighbors and the car hobby. Don't care to attract any more attention than I have to. I have no idea what the city has to say about spraying in the shop and I don't want to find out.

From a quality standpoint, I have seen the finish that comes out of this shop. Their results out of the gun are good enough for me; not that much interested in spending a bazillion hours color sanding. 

I did play this game with the bugeye, and I was 85% happy with the results. Had I been willing to color sand it, I am sure it could have been 94%.

As to the car being paint ready when it arrives? Well see. I am pretty confident that it will be flat and smooth, but then again I do this every five years or so, not everyday.

Pete

In reply to wheelsmithy :

Eye and hand will tell the story. 

I use a guidecoat to make sure that the surface is flat, but your hand will tell you if something is not right.

Certainly don't wont the hood surrounding the enclave with burning torches and all......party on garth er Pete

I think you're being way more anal than a lot of us would be (and that's a good thing with how much work you've put in this far).  I've painted cars outside, in storage units, in garages, etc. and it's always more trouble than it's worth even if it comes out as good as you hope.   Did you say somewhere you used slick sand?  That stuff is a nightmare! 

In reply to 275nart :

Featherfill from Evercoat. I like the stuff. What were your issues with slicksand?

Pete

OK...last coat of featherfill is sanded to 220 using guide-coat method. The car LOOKS flat and smooth even at this stage. So, NO MORE Featherfill.

Next step is to move on to another high-build product from Glasurit. ( By the way, "Glasurit is German for "Hand over your wallet").

I don't know why they have a parrot on the label, but I'm telling ya, if I had a parrot, all it would be saying nowadays is "How much berkeleying longer am I going to be sanding this berkeleying car!!???" I say that a lot lately.

The E36 M3 is not half thick! This is after about half an hour of stirring with the self supported paint stir-stick.  So hang around boys and gurlz, cause I suspect I am about to have another adventure in paint-land.

For those wondering why I am about to spray on a layer of high-build on top of the polyester high-build, it is because this is also a sealer coat that can be wet sanded to 600 grit before paint. Feather fill should not be exposed to water and it becomes impractical to sand it even to 400 grit dry.

I will spray 2 wet coats of this on and do a quick once over with 220 grit to knock down the high spots. Then go to 330 with a guidecoat and them 500 and finish with 600. If I have done my work right, there should not be many sandthroughs to the featherfill layer.

One of the big benefits (in my opinion) is the amount of time you'll wait between getting it "ready" and putting on the paint.  Seems to me that there are always some small areas where the simple passage of time 'raises' stuff in the primer.  The wait will allow that type of thing to occur (seems you've minimized it) and be dealt with before the final paint goes on.

This has to be lottery ticket odds.

Unplanned and unrelated to each other, these two show up in the driveway today. The smurf-Miata has a 302 . Its like the Molvo underwent  mutant mytosis.

Tell the truth - did that ES try to "mount" the Miata while it was there?

In reply to MichaelYount :

Heck...I wanna mount that Miata! 

I have actually driven the Smurf Miata. Even with a stock rebuild EFI 302 it put a huge smile on my face. If the Molvo is anywhere near as nice to drive I will be happy. 

Is this thing wearing new paint yet?

In reply to OHSCrifle :

NO. And I am starting to fear that I will miss the Oct  deadline to get it in the paint shop..

I am burned out on sanding. Also, getting the bonnet to flip has gone from a hinge adjustment situation to a bonnet structure re-design where the hinge attaches to the bonnet. That I discovered that someone had already been in there and run brazing rod all over the place does not help.   Kinda took the wind out of my sails. On top of that, the expensive BASF paint plan that I was going to follow went south and I am pissed that I wasted a bunch of $$$ in that sideshow when I  could have stayed the original course. I would have to say that I am looking for reasons to stay out of the shop. 

But I have been having fun with the other things that I use to procrastinate. Did this yesterday with a friend who is assembling an Eleanor clone.

This thing needs to be running for like next week-end so it can go home and free up a $pot in the shop to do a 4 cam Mod Engine into a  84 Fox Body Mustang.

Pete

Here’s a good speech on procrastination to help you procrastinate more.

Teddy talk with the Fun Monkey