Spent the weekend with lots of manual labor. Started off by pressure washing the car, let it dry and put it back in the garage to start the stripping.

I started with the driver rear quarter just to see what the body was going to be like. I stripped it with Captain Lees, until I see the black primer, then used denatured alcohol (as the instructions said) and scotch pad with the stripper to get it to the factory primer. Then used laquer thinner with scotch pad to get the primer off.

today, I decided I was going to take it to the level of using the alcohol, then come back and and get rid of the prime coat off the entire car. I did the top and trunk of the car today.

during the stripping I came across some filler on top of the original white paint. In the pics it is on the back top of the bumper. it also showed in the curve over the wheel to the rear piller. This stuff just too some elbow grease as the stripper took very little of it off.

The other thing I found was red filler, which is real hard on the wheelwell.

The paint layers are comeing off easy. I was surprised by the filler and exactly how hard it is. The top of the "trunk" had some black filler on it, that seemed reasonably thick to me and over the entire surface, but it did come off with some elbow grease. The beige filler is the worse since it is in all the curves so far.

Anyway here are some pics. the quarter was taken down to almost finished, and the trunk just aboove the black primer. It is very light gray because I stopped right after the alcohol and did not wipe the residue off of the prmer.

 

Sounds pretty easy. I have read the pros and cons of stripping fiberglass with a paint stripper. I have also heard many positive things about captn Lees. I have a 72, the body is on a dolly while I do the chasis. Then it will get my full attention. Keep us updated on your progress.

 

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Conventional wisdom has always been that any repair areas with filler on it tends to be contaminated with stripper. The filler then needs to be taken out and replaced. It’s like insurance—worthless until you need it and then you don’t usually have enough! Rather be safe than sorry. Most fiberglass repair most likely has been done less than adequate anyway so re-doing is not a bad idea and really is necessary.
Tail panel looks as if it has been damaged before and you need to look it over real good top and bottom sides. Looks like it will make a nice car—keep up the good work and have fun!!

 

Yeah there is some damage on the back (most of it lower area), most was on the front. I plan on getting all the filler etc out, because within the 1st 30 mins, I could tell there was paint under it.

Of course until is is 100% stripped I wont know all the work that had been done or what was patched.

I am waiting on my differential to be rebuilt so I can put it back on the frame, so I started this so I can keep moving forward. Just like sunstroked, body on the dolly and frame seperate. So when I need a break from 1, can do the other especially when my shoulders get tired fromthe stripping.

eye on the goal, eye on the goal lol

 

Here are a couple more pics. These are from the front of the car. My concern now is the state of the left front fender. I cant tell if the seam was messed with or just bad sanding took it too far. I can see the factory seem in places since is darker red. I dont think all the bonding seal was removed from what I can tell from underneath. I dont know how I am going to fix that yet. The corner of the FE has a large section of red bondo toward the bottom.

fibers are showing in front of the steel bar in front of the headlights, and the driver side area, looks like it narrows to about 1/2 inch from left to right, as you look at the front of the car, which exposed the metal front bar.

The front has lots of sealer on it. Generally the front had 2 coats of paint, primer non factory, body filler (which is thick) and sealer (maybe) on top of it but what ever it is it is strong and hard to remove.

This front clip is showing lots more surprises that I excpected, but I really want to try to save it. Not real sure at what point do I say uncle and get one. I am hoping that the driver side is the worse on the car.

So far 2 gallons of stripper been used, but I have taken paint off most of the car. that filler sucks the stripper up and does not allow time to take the paint off above. in normal places the paint bubbles are large as it is working, but where there is filler it is real small and more flackey than bubbly. The paint under the filler takes time to get to.

 

Looks about normal to me. You will need to skim coat the entire body with body filler then block sand, block sand, and more block sand. Then primer sealer and then more block sanding. That is why a good paint job costs so much.

 

Hi EF,
Quite an INTERESTING set of pictures!!
It looks to me like filler was used to do repairs and create contours.
If you're up for it, I think ALL the filler needs to come off and new resin and fiberglass used to do what needs to be done, keeping the use of filler to an absolute minimum.
It's a tremendous amount of work, but if you care about this car, and want the 'experience', certainly worth it.
Good Luck as you progress!
Regards,
Alan

 

Alan has some very good points there. Filler does not really belong on a glas body. Resin would be the best way to go. You have gone this far and want to have a nice finish, with no regrets later.
BTW those pics brought back memories of when I stripped my 73. Keep up the good work.

 

The filler is slowly comint out. Lots of sanding. I plan on filling with ressin and glass where needed (non-mat). I like the west system, I used it on the 96 when I had to do some repairs when I re-did the interior.

I hope to get it to a good point so I can strip some more when my next batch of stipper arrives.

 

I'm not a body guy so if I'm wrong, somebody please chime in. When the OP mentioned the filler soaking up the stripper, thought ran through my mind as to whether this will present problems with painting in the future. If the filler is contaminated, seems it must come out.

Only issue I can think of when filling with resin is fine sanding. Sounds like it may be like sanding concrete? The factory must have used some filler on the seams. Maybe something formulated for use with fiberglass?

 

When manufactured, Chevrolet used body filler in the seams and other areas. Some of the body filler in the pics is "factory".Difficult to impossible to get a good finish without skim coating with body filler. Fiberglass has small holes. You guys obviously have never done any body work. Also, paint stripper does not "contaminate" body filler if properly neutralized. Absolutely do not remove it. It will make it hard to contour the body properly.

That rear area needs a fiberglass repair. That is all. The rest needs a skim coat and block sanding. Don't make the poor guy do a bunch of unnecessary work a PRO would never do.

Go look at Stinger's post. He is doing body work now. That is the way to do it.

 

When manufactured, Chevrolet used a bonding adhesive for the seams and other areas. It is not "body filler", but an elastomeric substance which glues the panels together. It should be ground out and replaced with successive laminations of fiberglass non-woven mat and resin, then shaped appropriately and primed. Any area requiring reshaping or divot filling should be treated in like fashion and "filler" application should consist only of thin skim coats to perfect the surface and fill small voids and waves. Bondo can fall out later, a fiberglass repair bonds both physically and chemically essentially making your body structure behave as if it were produced as a single, seamless part. To redo factory seams or to recontour badly damaged areas in any other fashion is to invite revisiting those repairs well before it might otherwise be required.

 

You experts (who never actually do the work) amaze me. Elastomeric substance? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. That is a body filler.

Below is a link to the modern (and much improved version):

http://www.autobodytoolmart.com/ever...r-p-15663.aspx

Holes and large cracks require fiberglass repair. Likewise poor prior repair using filler instead of fiberglass. Otherwise, leave the existing factory seams and body filler skim coats alone. Structural intergrity? The original bodies were not one part but bonded together. Chevrolet then used filler all over the body to smooth it out. Grinding out the original panel adhesive/filler is silly and will mess up the body conture,

 

Body filler is essentially polyester resin with talc. In fact, you can thin body filler with polyester resin to change its consistency.

If it were me, I would definitely remove all the old filler and fiberglass repairs, starting fresh. It takes thousands of hours to get a show quality finish, and it isn't worth the risk in my opinion.

 

Not if you know what you are doing. Unless you want your seams to show through the paint, you need to glass them. To each his own I guess...everyone has there own way of doing things. I glassed my seams and they turned out great without messing up the body contour. However, my god was it a lot of work.

The last step is always filler...it takes a long time to get to the point where you are actually ready to start mudding.

 

Nice to be able to work in our DFW garages again now that it's not 100+ outside!

Great progress pics, keep 'em coming, it's teaching me a lot!

 

Clubby... stop by my project thread under the General tab. Search for "Mark's Georgia project". Unfortunately some of the "as found" pics have gone missing, but you'll get an idea of what I started with. I sprayed the last coat of primer on the body yesterday afternoon, and the next photo set will be "in paint". There were 11 cracks just in the front clip... there's more than a quart of epoxy resin with mat to match in this repair, no VPA at all, and less than a quart of filler. The first Corvette I got paid to work on was a 1960... total body off... I think the year was 1974.

 

I have spent most of the weekend taking out the filler that some PO did when it was damaged. Pretty easy to tell the filler is not standard since the original white paint is under almost all of it.

Its find of interesting that the Front is not going to be near as bad as I thought it was going to be. I am not saying it is going to be easy, but the right reat corner is where the work is going to be. It had been hit there, and the glass work that was done was crazy uneven and then filled with the filler.

I can see most of the factory seems, except for the front left quarter. Now that most of the filler is out, I am going to take the rest of the paint off, then get the factory primer off. Still alot of stipping related work, but it is comeing along.

All the white paint was under the sealer and filler.

Here are pics of the rear with the filler out (at least the stuff I can sand out, the rest is harder to get to)
Underside of the right rear




right rear corner



rear






Front right




Nose & wheel well areas







Underside, you can see the seem of filler



Right quarter



As you can see in the front, there still lots of filler removal to do, and will have to rebond the lower part of the clip, sand the steel nose piece will be replaced looks like it was cut and welded back in. The whole rear corner will need to be done after getting the rest out.

Will post more pics when I get that stuff stripped down etc.

 

You really have work ahead. Get it all cleaned up, then I recommend concentrating on one area at a time as you clean up the "history" of the body. If you jump from panel to panel and see minimal/slow progress it is easy to get discouraged and feel overwhelmed by the scope of the job. Breaking the repairs down into smaller sections allows some real progress to be seen/felt and can help avoid feeling like this phase of the resto will never end. Perhaps you could start with less damaged components like the doors or hood???

 

Oh yeah, I am planning on working on panel at a time, I am just trying to get to the primer this go round, then focus. Ultimately I am tryint to get to the point of fixing the widow frame where it is rusted at the bottom. Then come back to the body after re-attaching the clip. I did not want any surprises of weak areas of the front when I try to get the clip off.