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I was fighting off pneumonia recently, but as I got better I would get in the shop and finish up the fine sanding and body work on the C3. I was able to get in Christmas Eve to tape it all off, do second cleaning of the body, then put down two layers of epoxy primer on the body:
when the primer was curing I noticed a lot of little spots, especially on the front clip that would need to be fixed. Once the primer cured, I went around the car and marked all the spots with masking tape, so i could then go back and fill them with glazing putty and block the primer down with 220 then 320:
So my intent here is to do all spot work and glazing putty fixes on top the epoxy, then come back with the 2K urethane primer and start the final blocking of the body. Now that the body is sealed with epoxy, I don't have to worry about moisture and containmanents eithers. I may leave it as is and get the chassis back under it so I can check/work my gaps and get the doors and hood in primer as well. Any thoughts on this work flow ?
This is the best on-line guide to prepping and painting a C3 Corvette I have come across.
Grab a beer and be prepared for several hours of reading! Old Man's Guide to Painting a Corvette
This is the best on-line guide to prepping and painting a C3 Corvette I have come across.
Grab a beer and be prepared for several hours of reading! Old Man's Guide to Painting a Corvette
I've read this several times , it's an amazing resource!!
My reasoning for wanting to leave it in epoxy and wait for 2K is that 2K can absorb moisture and containments if it's sitting like that for months. Epoxy is sealed and I can just sand it down with 320 when I'm ready and shoot 2K .
I got to get the hood stripped then prime it and the doors. And get the body back on the frame and do any needed gap work - hopefully I can hustle on this but might take a month or two to have it all ready and together.
I would still cover it.
An amazing amount of dust will find it's way on there over a couple months without one.
At the local corvette shop they cover all the expensive paint jobs with plastic made by Norton. (Paint Supply)
Those are so light they float them over the car like a parachute.
Just two hand towels to hold it down.
I would still cover it.
An amazing amount of dust will find it's way on there over a couple months without one.
At the local corvette shop they cover all the expensive paint jobs with plastic made by Norton. (Paint Supply)
Those are so light they float them over the car like a parachute.
Just two hand towels to hold it down.
Definitley will be covering it in my dusty old shop. I bought a punch of the plastic paint drop cloths to pur over it.
I've been hustling this week as we count down to our baby boy being born in 5 weeks! So when I can I'm working to get the chassis back together and the rest of the body parts ready for paint so I can have the body on the chassis with everything primed and start working on my gaps and fine tuning the panels for paint. This week I got my trailing arms broken down and sent my bearing assemblies to Van Steel to have offset trailing arms built. If you can remember, I had older trailing arms that had been rebuilt and I stole them for my '69 convertible and rebuilding the ones off the '69 to put the fresh new one's on this '71 I'm building. I love the offsets and plan to put 18" wheels with 285 or 295 on the car depending on what I can safely fit.
The next piece of the puzzle was the doors. I had managed to remove 95% of the paint from them while they were on the car, but now needed to be fully dissassembled and fully sanded and prepared for primer.
I first removed the windows, tracks, latches, handles, and key tumblers from the doors . Then I tackled getting the sport mirrors that were hacked on the '71 doors by bubba off. Also they had put the '80 door openers when they resto modded the '71 , so I have to convert back to the correct '71 hardware and door panels:
I then sanded down the insides of the doors and made quick work with my 3" DA sander, then came back with a tiny flex block and got all the little spots:
Here you can see what was left of the paint and the holes that were drilled into the car for the sport mirrors. I'm going to measure the mounts off my '69 to see what's needed to make them fit, some glass work seems to be needed here:
Then it was time to get all the paint off and block this panel down lazer straight. I used a heat gun and razor blades to get the rest of the paint off:
Blocked it down with 120 then long then 180 - there was feather fill on the door which helped get the panel straight:
Finally, I used icing on the tiny nicks in the door and will come back today with 220 then 320, and the door will be ready for primer!
I've been hustingling this week as we count down to our baby boy being born in 5 weeks!
Five weeks is going to pass quickly! I know you both are ready to welcome the new addition to the family.
When you are ready to put down paint, are you doing it or a local shop? And, if you mentioned it, I must have missed it, are you going back with original color or something different?
Hope all is well with you and yours.
Five weeks is going to pass quickly! I know you both are ready to welcome the new addition to the family.
When you are ready to put down paint, are you doing it or a local shop? And, if you mentioned it, I must have missed it, are you going back with original color or something different?
Hope all is well with you and yours.
It's been flying by and we're excited to meet him soon!
I bought an inflatable paint booth and going to paint it myself, with the help of a friend that's a much more experienced painter than me! It's an original Brigehampton Blue LT-1, but I'm a RED Corvette guy and don't want to mess with spraying a metallic paint. It's really easy to fix mistakes on a solid base and make the end result nice! So I'm going to be spraying the car in SPI RED in my booth at home. Say some prayers for me! LOL
I got busy on the other door today and repeated the same process to get the whole door sanded down. I did find in this door that there was a crappy fiberglass repair and also measure the mirror holes and confirmed that none are usable and they're in the wrong spot when they hacked it up for the sport mirrors!
Took some measurements on the factory mirror on my '69 to compare to the doors on the '71
And it's in a different spot , so I'm going to have to fill these holes with fiberglass
Looks like this repair is Kitty Hair?
So i'm going to have to fill these holes in the door with fiberglass and drill new holes, which isn't a big deal. The problem is there isn't really access to the backside of those holes to sandwich the glass in. Any auggestions to strategy to to a robust fiberglass repair on those mirror holes?
I got busy on the other door today and repeated the same process to get the whole door sanded down. I did find in this door that there was a crappy fiberglass repair and also measure the mirror holes and confirmed that none are usable and they're in the wrong spot when they hacked it up for the sport mirrors!
Took some measurements on the factory mirror on my '69 to compare to the doors on the '71
And it's in a different spot , so I'm going to have to fill these holes with fiberglass
Looks like this repair is Kitty Hair?
So i'm going to have to fill these holes in the door with fiberglass and drill new holes, which isn't a big deal. The problem is there isn't really access to the backside of those holes to sandwich the glass in. Any auggestions to strategy to to a robust fiberglass repair on those mirror holes?
DUB (RIP) had a really cool way to get a backing plate in that inaccessible place to attach the OEM outside mirror to.
I had to replace or install a backing plate on my 68 for the RH addition and the replace the missing LH.plate.
Once you get the backing plate in place, I would say you could lay in some glass although I did not have to lay in glass on my 68.
So, in short, maybe you can find DUB's post or I will look to see if I saved it. However, the summary is:
1. now this is for OEM mirrors, if you want sport mirrors, not sure how they attach. So you drill 3 holes in a row where you want the location. Front and rear hole match mirror base and middle hole? well in the middle.
2. make a backing plate (1/8 or 1/16 thick, you want to get a couple or three threads in the thickness) with 3 matching holes, and drill and tap all three, forgot the thread size for the OEM attaching screws.
3. Fish tape 2 wires through the closed box on the backside of the door to the opening on the rear door end.
4. Attach your 2 wires to the front and rear holes of your plate and attach a trailing wire or string (so you can pull all of these wires out the way you came when you are done). You need a knot or something to enable you to pull the wires out the holes in the door and drag your new plate into position.,
5. When you get the plate pulled in to position, install a screw in the middle hole to hold the plate in place making sure your front and rear holes are lined up for the later install of the mirror base.
6. When you get the new plate held in position with the middle screw, pull on your trailing wires/string back out the opening in the box at the rear and allow you fishtaped positioning wires to feed into the door and out the opening following the trailing wires/string out too.
7. In your case I would wax screws and install in the front and rear holes and glass in the opening.
I do not know if your opening to be glassed in is in your desired location or not; does not look like it, right??. If in a separate location you could do this exercise to get a backer plate made from a left over piece of fiberglass in place for the glass repair. Or if the repair hole is in the middle where the above middle hole would be then you might have to do 4 holes, one outside of each mirror base hole.
Anyway you get the idea of fishtaping wires to position a backer.
Hope this helps!
(I suppose instead of a backing plate like GM did it you could also just use those expanding rubber cinch anchor nuts like you would use on a trolling motor bracket where you could not get to the backside to attach a nut under the bow??)
The video is pretty cool too. IHMO, getting a backing plate in place would get you better thickness while easier to maintain the outside curve, I think.
Last edited by 20mercury; Jan 13, 2025 at 01:52 AM.
DUB (RIP) had a really cool way to get a backing plate in that inaccessible place to attach the OEM outside mirror to.
I had to replace or install a backing plate on my 68 for the RH addition and the replace the missing LH.plate.
Once you get the backing plate in place, I would say you could lay in some glass although I did not have to lay in glass on my 68.
So, in short, maybe you can find DUB's post or I will look to see if I saved it. However, the summary is:
1. now this is for OEM mirrors, if you want sport mirrors, not sure how they attach. So you drill 3 holes in a row where you want the location. Front and rear hole match mirror base and middle hole? well in the middle.
2. make a backing plate (1/8 or 1/16 thick, you want to get a couple or three threads in the thickness) with 3 matching holes, and drill and tap all three, forgot the thread size for the OEM attaching screws.
3. Fish tape 2 wires through the closed box on the backside of the door to the opening on the rear door end.
4. Attach your 2 wires to the front and rear holes of your plate and attach a trailing wire or string (so you can pull all of these wires out the way you came when you are done). You need a knot or something to enable you to pull the wires out the holes in the door and drag your new plate into position.,
5. When you get the plate pulled in to position, install a screw in the middle hole to hold the plate in place making sure your front and rear holes are lined up for the later install of the mirror base.
6. When you get the new plate held in position with the middle screw, pull on your trailing wires/string back out the opening in the box at the rear and allow you fishtaped positioning wires to feed into the door and out the opening following the trailing wires/string out too.
7. In your case I would wax screws and install in the front and rear holes and glass in the opening.
I do not know if your opening to be glassed in is in your desired location or not; does not look like it, right??. If in a separate location you could do this exercise to get a backer plate made from a left over piece of fiberglass in place for the glass repair. Or if the repair hole is in the middle where the above middle hole would be then you might have to do 4 holes, one outside of each mirror base hole.
Anyway you get the idea of fishtaping wires to position a backer.
Hope this helps!
(I suppose instead of a backing plate like GM did it you could also just use those expanding rubber cinch anchor nuts like you would use on a trolling motor bracket where you could not get to the backside to attach a nut under the bow??)
The video is pretty cool too. IHMO, getting a backing plate in place would get you better thickness while easier to maintain the outside curve, I think.
This is a great idea! I think I could use this and cover the big holes and only have one small hole to fill. Do you have any pics of this repair ? I want to get rid of those sport mirrors and put the correct chrome mirrors back on the car.
(just reviewing DUB's method now, I remembered I just did one hole in the middle to hold the plate in place and was able to get the front and rear holes in the mirror base to align to get the screws in. I think I did it this way to make sure my middle hole would be under the mirror base. Lots of variations here, but the principle is a clever one!)
Last edited by 20mercury; Jan 13, 2025 at 10:09 PM.
