What kind of truck do you drive for someone to make that stupid of a mistake?
The busiest and most successful paint and body man I know drives an old Toyota you could sling a cat through.
His wife drives a Lexus GX.
People in the automotive industry should know better than to equate customer's purchasing power with the vehicle they drive up in.
Hey, don't turn those nipples down any further - you want to leave a wide flange at the base where you're going to make the weld. Attempting to weld a tiny nipple on is way more of a pain than welding a 1" pad to the tank.
You totally bummed me out when you said LDI closed - my experience with paint shops was identical to yours (literally, I went to the same shops), and LDI is the best.
Flight service: The truck is pretty beat. It's an'87 Toyota that's been rattle canned flat black with no straight panels. But I think you hit it, he's probably not a car guy 
Balcony: Maaaan, I went back and forth a bunch on that. I get the feeling I should have left the base a bit "fatter". I promise not to touch them anymore, and hopefully we can get them melted on without too much issue. If not, I have a little material left we can use to make more.
Happy friday! (P-19 days)
Today is a "dust day" (meaning I can do things that kick up dust because I'm not slathering anything sticky on the car). I decided that I'd really like to make some headway with those edge areas, so I got out some tools that I thought would help:
I started out with the heat gun since I figured it'd do the least amount of collateral damage AND because it seemed to work pretty well on the quarter panel bondo.
It works! 
After that I gave that triangle sander a try, but it was pretty "meh". I ended up just using some 180-grit on my block sander and put some muscle into it.
All said and done (driver's and passenger's side) I think the whole deal took me 30-minutes from setup to cleanup.
I still need to do around the windshield and the hatch areas:
but I figured for a "dust day" I really wasn't making a whole lot of dust with this sort of work so I moved on to the kitty hair. I always get a chuckle about how the kitty hair looks "intentional" after I sand it (like I knew what I was doing)
The passenger side is finished, but the driver's side needs sanded still.
And how in the WORLD did I miss that hole in the door?!? (no really, I didn't see it until I looked at the picture just now).
Ah well. Keeping with the idea of "dust days", I'm going to try my best to do as much dusty work as possible while everything on the car is dry, and keep the dusty work as low as possible while I'm laying on wet stuff (kitty hair, bondo, primer, etc).
Also, on the dust days, I'm going to try to do as much cleaning as possible with my air sprayer. I have to convince myself that cleaning is "progress" since I cant possibly paint in this dusty garage. Still though, stopping the sanding early to blow dust off of things takes a lot of effort. Especially when I start thinking things like "man, I probably could have finished the driver's side instead"... 
Tomorrow I think I'll fill some more holes and see what else I can mess with. Maybe I'll chisel at that hatch area a bit.
Good times
Find a cheap leaf blower, works way better than compressed air for dusting
java230 wrote: Find a cheap leaf blower, works way better than compressed air for dusting
Genius!
java230 wrote: Find a cheap leaf blower, works way better than compressed air for dusting
I agree. I use my electric leaf blow to clean the garage more than I use it to blow leaves in the yard. It's also great for drying off cars when they've been washed.
I have an eye out for a leaf blower I can borrow, but in the mean time I realized if I do that then I'll be blowing a lot of crap I dont want to blow out into the street. So I started cleaning:
So on Saturday P-minus 18 days I slept in all the way until 4am and then started picking stuff up
by 6am I was making some headway. The eldest Hungarling woke himself up and decided to join me
Really though there wasn't much he wanted to do. He had a small scratch on his hand from the day before so he didn't want to get it dirty, and he didn't want to cover it by wearing gloves.
In the end we just bolted the ECU to its happy little home (still electrically disconnected in case I decide to weld that patch panel up), and then we put oil in the engine (really just to be rid of the containers)
That was kind of a big moment for me though. I mean, the engine has OIL! Like I expect it to move and need the stuff to keep it cooled and lubricated! 
I was kind of beat from all the early mornings, so Saturday night I decided it was time to take the edge off
Which means absolutely nothing got done on Sunday (P-minus 17 days).
I figured not busting my hump on Sunday wouldn't be the worst because I got moved to second shift this week. This'll mean I'll have the house to myself from about 8:30 to noon all week. NOW, it'd be super irresponsible of me to completely ignore "move stuff" and focus on the car during this time, but I figure the house probably wouldnt mind if I snuck out to the garage just for an hour or two just to keep things moving
buuuuuuuut then Sunday afternoon this happened
Poor guy.
His aunt took him to the park to play and when he got back he was stuffed up, coughing, and oozing green stuff out of his eyes and nose. This morning he didn't look any better 
We ended up keeping him home, and we spent the day (P-minus 16 days) watching the season of Grand Tour and trying to get him to eat something.
Maybe tonight when I get home I can sneak half an hour with the car while the house is asleep or something You know... just to keep the momentum rolling
Good times.
Hope the little guy gets better.
Ugh. I'm so tired I dont even really know what day it is. My head hits the pillow around midnight, and the eldest wakes me up at 5am. I am officially a zombie...
On Monday night (P-16 days) I did make it out to the garage, but was really too tired to be productive on the car. Instead I just hauled a few more things in the house and called it "cleaning".
Tuesday morning (P-15 days), the poor guy was still sick so I stayed with him since he stayed home from daycare. That night I felt I had to do something or risk a stall, so after work I picked up the DA sander and rubbed the driver's door for about 20 minutes.
It turns out that was just enough to get momentum started again.
This morning (Wednesday, P-14 days) I was out there for a solid 2-hours (Yay!) and good thing too. If I'm going to be shooting primer at this in 6 days, I have a LOT to get done.
Out come the tools of the day (Kitty hair, bondo, and all the associated accessories)
It may be cold out (low 40's) but this stuff still sets up fast. Either way I'm going to town. Because I'm dealing with fatigue, I walk around the car talking to myself. I point at all the spots I want to hit, clean 'em, and slather some crap on before I forget what I'm doing
Some spots are shallow and easy, like the roof:
Some spots are dog-ugly, like the driver's door and drivers quarter panel...
I keep reminding myself I'm not trying to get it perfect in one pass, but I find myself unable to stop messing with it. Eventually I pry myself away and play with other parts so I can sand and slather the ugly areas again
Eventually I kill my leftover pint of bondo(from the 4-runner project) and have to move up to the industrial sized option.
(glad I bought that, it'd have been a killer to kill today's momentum due to lack of planning)
The day's damage
Good times
So here's where the car's at after the day's dash. (Still Wednesday. 14 days till I said I'd paint or get off the pot)
Kitty hair is 100%
Bondo maybe 50%
I left for work a bit early to hit the paint supply and picked up a block sander and some long strips of sand paper (something I didn't really have to do on the 4-runner). At $109, I remembered why I was putting that purchase off 
Lots of sanding and blending still to do.
Thursday (P-13 days)
I looked at the extended forcast. It's warming up, and should continue to warm up for the next week or so. Friday the 24th is supposed to be "Mostly Sunny and 49deg", so I think that's going to be my primer day. Thursday might be another option (mostly cloudy and 49) but the weather here is always subject to change.
For instance, it's been POURING rain all week, and here's what today looked like:
Look at that! Warm, dry, and sunny So here goes. And if all goes well, priming on friday should give me 6-days to scuff and apply paint.
First, bondo over bondo. This area was still a bit recessed, so I thought I'd build it up a bit.
Spots like that one (above) and the one below are why I ended up buying that block sander. Today I was able to use it on the doors with a bit of success, so here's hoping it works as well as I hope on these big areas
For the record, I sanded the beans out of that spot (above). But I didn't have enough time to finish the whole area. I DID, however, have a slathering of bondo left on my pallet so I figured I'd clean what I had finished and slap it on there. I promise it doesn't look anything like the area you can see (to be continued next time)
That's what block sanding the door yielded. It works pretty well, but it does go through sand paper pretty quick
My jaw-breaker layers of paint on this beast. This is just me blending out sharp areas where I didn't take paint off. It feels smooth to the touch, so I'm hoping no one'll know I skipped this part when I spray paint at it.
Good times
But while I was doing all that, I should have been keeping an eye on dinner.
Extra crispy chicken thighs anyone?
Ah well, Alfa > food I guess.
Good times
Hungary Bill wrote:
That is oddly beautiful.
Saturday(P-11 days)
By friday, I'd had enough. I was dog tired so I cracked a beer and headed to bed. I figured I could do that since this was the start of a three day weekend for me. The plan would be to head out to the garage after the kids go to sleep. Since I'm on night shift, and the kids go to sleep around 8-8:30, I should be able to sneak in about 2 or so hours of alfa time before retiring for the evening.
Day 1. Saturday (P-11 days) Here goes!
I'm off to a flying start. I have a plan, I have everything I need, and I have plenty of time to do what I need to do.
And then I was reminded I also have a teething toddler...
30 minutes in to my garage session and the little one needed me back inside.
The night ended up like this:
So it wasn't a complete loss
Good times
Sunday (P-10 days) Started a bit differently. We didn't get our "Saturdate" with the eldest, so I took both kiddos out for a "Sundate"
Here's the team engineer going over some shifter problems with the team's driver:
And here we are again with the team's driver explaining some engine management issues to the team's engineer who is checking the data log on the laptop
Sunday evening I finally got my first big night in the garage.
Again, I brought everything I needed, had a plan, and spent a good 3 hours getting everything sanded down. The idea is to sand everything smooth, clean up, and go over all the repaired areas to see what needs a second "touching up" (to be completed monday night)
^that's the smoothed out portion of the bondo bank on the passenger quarter panel
Done and done.
Really only a few areas needed touching up: both sides where the a-pillar meets the fenders, the entire rear, driver's side rear wheel arch, passenger side bondo bank, and passenger side lower quarter panel.
Good times
Monday night (P-9 days) is a bit shorter, maybe an hour and a half before I head in. Also, if I'm not mistaken I wanted to start shooting primer today. I'm not far off, so I'm not TOO worried but I don't like being behind schedule (even if the schedule is just a made up one by me)
I forgot to mention yesterday that I still had to scrape and sand around the edges of the windows etc (not HUGE visual progress, but a big thing to finally get done)
I also blended out the spots where the a-pillars transition from paint to metal. Nice and smooth now
^ I get kind of sloppy when the bondo starts to set. It's still thin enough to spread but it gets a bit "gummy" when I try to do too much in one go.
I was hoping the spreading of the bondo would take long enough I could sand (and that's also why I ended up scraping paint a bit. I was trying to stall) but even after an hour and a half I didn't feel it was quite "set" enough to sand. So I went in and called it a night.
Here's the weekend's aftermath:
Good times
So a quick recap before I head out to the garage tonight. It's Tuesday P-8 days, and I've decided I have to put the paint on hold. I'm not sure how I'm going to balance it as I really don't want to let the metal sit TOO long unprotected, but I checked the forecast again and we're barely in the 40's on Thursday (and it gets much colder at night). In fact, mixed snow is now predicted in our near future (remember what I said about not liking the weather here and waiting?)
My original reasoning for pushing the paint before going forward with making the car run was twofold
1) A lot of the crap-tastic stuff I see in the car is overspray from its last paint job. I put a lot of work into a lot of areas and the last thing I want is to have everything turn pink. I figured the less I had in, the less danger there was.
2) A better looking car is taken care of better than an ugly one. I know M4ff3w will take good care of it regardless, but it's a lot less stress on him if his wife sees a pretty red Alfa in the garage and not a half finished rattle can primer job. It also makes it a much more enjoyable experience to drive a pretty car than it does an ugly one (I know GRM and all, but lets face it. We like shiny stuff too)
3) honestly I'm a bit scared. There are a lot of "what ifs" that come in to play when I've had this much removed/replaced/repaired and I haven't had the time to test the systems individually. There's a good chance I'm in for a rather large fire when I hook the battery up and that'd be a big show stopper. One the project isn't likely to recover from at this point.
All that said, I think it's best if I find a way to move forward with the progress of the car that does not involve painting it right now. I think March might give me better weather luck, and if it doesn't, well it certainly cant be any worse. Either way, I'll stop at P-minus-8 days on our count down and maybe I'll finish up the last bit of bondo sanding before I start plugging things back in.
cheers guys
Bill,
You need to get it in the etching primer to protect all your hard work. The primer will rustproof the meatal and act to seal the bondo. Looking good so far. Good luck with the mechanicals!
Wifey can think whatever she thinks...
Ugly Alfa > *
Im with Don, get some good primer on there or you will be scraping all the bondo off again.....
In reply to Hungary Bill:
I believe there's a supercharger just lying on the bench somewhere in your garage.....
Etching primer followed by epoxy primer. Paint in whatever year you find the time. As long as its indoors, that stuff will protect all your hard work for decades.
ah you guys and your arm twisting
I have some Martin Senour etching primer, I'll hit this beast with. As much as I worry about spraying in the cold, I REALLY do NOT want to re-bondo this beast. I'll get on it lickity split
So with that in mind, I did work on finishing up the last bit of sanding and got three areas done before stopping mid-way through that wheel arch:
Since I'm moving this fast I sometimes get worried about how the car is going to turn out when all is said and sprayed. I mean I'm not exactly doing concourse quality work here and there are some spots in that bondo where I could have done a better job but I'm betting no one will notice.
and then I see E36 M3 like this and know it CANT be that much worse than it was before I started
I mean, for one, I used sand paper after I applied the bondo!
ok, so tonight I'll mask an area and shoot a little primer. For giggles I'll keep the count to see if I can keep to my goal of having it paint ready. Here goes: P-minus-7 days.
If it doesn't make it, there's always Maaco
thanks guys!
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