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Removable rear window is probably not in your budget at this time, so if you want my old window you are welcome to it for the cost of shipping. No defroster.
That's classy of you, Richard. Good on you for helping a fellow out!
I figured around here it would be well over a grand to pay someone to sand it down. So far I've spent about $40 for the sander and $60 for sandpaper. I probably could have knocked about $15 off of what I spent in sandpaper if I had gone to a different store this morning. They only had bulk packs of 320 grit and I didn't feel like going to a different store.
Just for the hell of it, I put some 320 grit on the sander today to see if it would take care of the 80 grit scratches, and it seems to do a better job than the 180 and 220 that I tried yesterday. I just have to have the sander on a low speed and use light pressure and move slowly. That helped my motivation a little bit. I feel like I might make a good amount of progress over the next few days.
Just for the hell of it, I put some 320 grit on the sander today to see if it would take care of the 80 grit scratches, and it seems to do a better job than the 180 and 220 that I tried yesterday. I just have to have the sander on a low speed and use light pressure and move slowly. That helped my motivation a little bit. I feel like I might make a good amount of progress over the next few days.
Good on you. I have a friend who owns a paint shop and he told me that a real good paint job was 90% prep work and 10% spray.
I believe you will be "in zone"
Last edited by billschroeder5842; 07-22-2016 at 03:53 PM.
Good on you. I have a friend who owns a paint shop and he told me that a real good paint job was 90% prep work and 10% spray.
I believe you will be "in zone"
Yeah, with most other things I've painted, I didn't spent much time on prep and it looked okay without paint but once the paint was on it, it looked terrible. I'm sure I'll still have some imperfections when I'm done, but I'm not aiming for the show car look. I don't want my car to be so nice that I'm afraid to drive it.
Today I sanded the front fenders, hood surround, and the passenger side door and rear fender with 320 grit, and then I took the tops apart and stripped those with 100.
Anyone want to come over and shoot birds down while I'm sanding?
I keep pulling the hood off with the intention of finishing the areas that still need attention with the 100 grit, but never get around to it.
Tomorrow, I need to give the front fenders, hood, and rear deck more attention with the 100 grit before I go back to 320. I'm planning to go around the car with 320 grit 2 or 3 times just to make sure all the deep scratches are taken care of. Not sure yet if I'm gonna bother going any finer than 320.
I told myself I wasn't going to bother posting more photos of my sanding progress until I was done, but I'm doing it anyway... Maybe this will be useful to me someday when I start thinking about doing a paint job again.
This morning I got pretty much the whole rear deck down to the factory blue paint
Then I moved onto the hood. I figured it would go pretty quick because there really wasn't that many areas where the paint was still thick, but I ended up spending around 3 hours on the hood. For some reason, even with new sandpaper, that stuff was really hard to sand. I ended up getting impatient and got out some 60 grit and cranked up the speed on the sander and ripped that stuff off. I was pretty pissed off by the time I was done, so I went inside for an hour to calm down, and then forced myself to get back out there and do something.
It doesn't look much different but it's much closer to being finished than it was this morning
I kept forgetting about the bumpers because they were in the house in an area where I don't really look much, so I got those out and tried chipping some paint off with the razor blade. I got most of the clear coat scraped off the top half of the bumper, which will help a lot because the clear coat takes a long time to sand through. I should be able to sand down most of the bumper pretty quickly now. For some reason, on the passenger side of the bumper, the paint only wanted to come off if I scraped all the layers off at once.
I looked through the paperwork I got from the previous owner recently, and found an invoice for a hood repaint because it was cracking. I guess that paint shop's solution for that was to slap some bondo on the paint cracks and shoot more paint over the other layers of failing paint.
I wasn't ready to listen to the sander this morning so I got out the VPA and filled some gouges and the holes for the passenger side mirror, which was mounted with wood screws in the wrong location. That stuff sets up really fast, I mixed up a decent sized batch and it hardened before I could get to all the areas I wanted to fill. I ended up mixing up several small batches to do the rest of the areas. I'll have to do it again later today, because most of the stuff sank. I sprayed some paint over the mirror holes to see if they had sank, and they did.
I moved on to sanding the bumpers down, and what I thought was just cracked paint was actually cracks in the urethane. Not sure what I want to do with them now. I think they might be repairable, but I'm somewhat tempted to buy some fiberglass bumpers and sell the originals.
It's pretty hot out today, and I got a sunburn yesterday, so I think I'm gonna wait until I have a bit of shade to go out there and get something done.
Buy yourself a $75 canopy from Lowes. It is much better NOT working in the sun
I've been thinking about doing that lately. The only place I got burnt yesterday was the back of my neck, which is weird because I've been wearing a dumb looking hat that usually keeps the sun off my neck, but for whatever reason it didn't work yesterday.
By the way, did you have any issues with your fiberglass bumper? I think I'm gonna pull the trigger on those this week.
I've been thinking about doing that lately. The only place I got burnt yesterday was the back of my neck, which is weird because I've been wearing a dumb looking hat that usually keeps the sun off my neck, but for whatever reason it didn't work yesterday.
By the way, did you have any issues with your fiberglass bumper? I think I'm gonna pull the trigger on those this week.
I bought a used one, and the only issue that I had was getting the old paint off. Ended up using paint stripper since it was on thick
I bought a used one, and the only issue that I had was getting the old paint off. Ended up using paint stripper since it was on thick
Did it look like it had been cut to widen/shorten it at some point? I've heard of people having to do that to make them fit right but it looks like yours fits pretty well.
Awesome work! As a recent college grad(spring 2016) I can really appreciate your passion for the car and the work you've done to it. Mine's an 85, but my first love was the C3. Great work!
The only people that comment on my 'Vette are middle-aged dudes. Must not be shiny enough.
That's been my experience so far haha. We'll see what happens when it's shiny.
Originally Posted by junkyard_dog72
Awesome work! As a recent college grad(spring 2016) I can really appreciate your passion for the car and the work you've done to it. Mine's an 85, but my first love was the C3. Great work!
Thanks! Looks like your '85 is pretty nice. What did you study?
I ordered some new bumpers this morning. I don't think I'm gonna do too much to the car this week. It's gonna be in the mid to high 90's all week, I've got family flying out to visit in a couple days, and I'm ready for a break from sanding anyway. On Sunday night I put some stuff back on the car to make it driveable and drove it to work yesterday. I was in a big hurry to get this thing done so I could drive it again but I'm feeling a bit more patient now that I've driven it again.
07-21-2016, 01:03 PM
Good on you for helping a fellow out!
