Lookin' good, Adam. You have really been busy and it is paying off now.

 

Thanks guys! I appreciate your support. Many a blood spot on the floor and lots of sore muscles... must be getting old huh

 

Oh yeah, forgot to mention - My wife and I went for our first ride together last night and as we came back down our street I hammered it pretty hard in first and grabbed second gear. Slowed down only to hear our neighbors car alarm going off from our exhaust noise LOL. Had to go apologize to him - he thought it was pretty funny.

 

That is awesome Adam...good work! Salute

 

Thanks 73!

 

YEAH!

 

LOL....did that to 3 cars in my parking garage the first time I drove mine home.....haha.

Good work!

 

That would make a great YouTube if you could've had a camera strategically located!! Fairly certain my neighbors would not dig this!!! Would've loved to se your smile....



Rogman

 

Well, took a little time off of the project to focus on taking care of my Mom while she's here. This weeked, I needed a break and decided that it was time to get more done on the car so I can get it shot in primer before the heat hits for the summer.

My wife and I decided that we wanted to remove the luggage rack. We debated on this for a few weeks and did a vote Sat. morning - off it comes. Have decided that we like the look of the car better without it because the lines look cleaner to us.

First shot - I removed the rubber grommets and ground down the area about 2" outside of the holes - making a small divot to lay the glass in. I then cut a bunch of 1" to 2" circles of matte out and glassed them in until I had a surface just slightly higher than the surrounding body.



Next I ground down the new glass until it was just "slightly" lower than the surrounding body.



I then used Marglass to fill the areas over the new fiberglass - thin layers really, just extra strength compared to regular filler. Once it setup I started hand blocking until I had them feathered out. We're now ready for a thin / skim coat of poly filler to finish it up before we shoot primer.




As you may have noticed, I have also been working to grind out the stress cracks in the body and glass / fill them back in. They certainly show up in odd places lol.

Overall, it was a productive weekend on the car.

Adam

 

I have also worked on the passenger fender where some very weak repairs have cracked out and come loose from the bonding strip.

I popped out all of the broken parts (photo below) and the ground out the damaged area about 8 to 10 inches back from where the damage was. Used my adhesive on the bonding strip, glassed it, ground the new glass down, used Marglass over that and then started working with a filler. It's not done yet, but it's starting to take shape and is now strong and without any flex at the nose.



Starting to shape up the fender lines again - and working to match them to the bumper cover with lots of on and off test fitting.



Adam

 

I received the hood alignment bumpers from Wilcox a couple of weeks ago and worked on trimming those and testing placement position to get the hood sitting correctly with the fenders. The hood to fender gaps and headlight gaps have now become pretty darn close. Little more work to do on the headlight fit. You may notice I fabricated a small L bracket to help me position the nose with the front of the hood while the bumper reinforcement is out of the car. Lowes comes in handy sometimes.



Thanks for looking!
Adam

 

Adam--

Those gaps look great... You're getting a lot done despite the break... You decide on the primer yet??

Rogman

 

Hi Rogman,

Thank you for the compliment. I'll be using PPG Omni 2k for the primer. Some don't like it, but I've had very good results with it in the past. Sands well and doesn't plug up my paper too quickly.

Adam

 

Having used something before means a lot... I'd say press if you'd used it before and are very comfortable with it... My problem is the last time I was in the game was 83-84... Everything has changed so much since then...

Looking good!!!

Rogman

 

There are better products and much, much worse out there. Paint materials are very much a preference item. Ask 10 people and you'll get 10 different answers.

I found the OMNI line to spray well and was very controllable for me. Ended up with great results during the blocking stage and not to bad of results overall on the last project - see below:



The paint on that was Dupont Chromabase and Chromaclear. Turned out fantastic and was pretty easy to spray.

Adam

 

Looks fantastic!!! Is that yours as well???

Rogman

 

Thanks Was mine... now owned by a gentleman in Australia. Sold it a few years back.

 

I managed to squeeze in a little sanding today. Worked on the t-tops and right side fender. I have fixed all of the major body "damage" like stress cracks except for the bonding at the right side fender and firewall so I have now started sanding down to the factory primer and / or fiberglass. I should be able to get the right fender bonded next weekend. Taking Easter Sunday off to spend time with family.

The PO sprayed the whole car in rattle car primer for some reason, which really did nothing more than add about 30 hours of sanding time to the project. I have to remove all of it before I can spray the car in real primer and start the prime / block / prime / block part of the job. Originally I was hoping to get it shot in primer before the heat hits this summer, but I have decided that I be would rushing other parts of this and I'm not willing to do that.

It already feels better to me just having this much of that crappy primer and old paint off. Not much progress, but a step forward for sure.





Thanks for checking out the project
Adam

 

I also started working on cleaning up the door gaps. Drivers side is starting to shape up. It's a learning process, so I'm not working very quickly, but I'm happy with how it's turning out so far. Combination of glass work and Marglass.



Adam

 

Looking good Adam... Love seeing the different layers during the rough-out process... Shows you how bad these things were right out of the factory...

Rogman