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I have been working on my 1978 project for about 10 years.I was self employed so I either had the money but not the time, or the time but not the money. Anyway, I decided to work backwards on this project, build it all up and THEN paint it. I just knew that if I had a new paint job I would scratch it the first week it was in the garage. I toyed with the idea of starting a thread about the build, but I am basically too lazy to write down all of the details. And besides, we all have ideas, some work and some don't so there was no need to put mine out since we have all had similar issues. The history of the car, 1978 Silver Anniversary that I got about 11 years ago. I bartered a boat upholstery job for the car. WE had a marine fabricator shop and this car was under a tree, mold growing all over it and a new caliper in the back that the guy couldn't figure how to put on. I wasn't looking for a project ( this is my 3rd vette) but my son saw it and had an idea...600HP, 4 speed yada yada yada. I had a different idea, I wanted a corvette TPI engine, 20+ mpg overdrive trans and cupholders. And I finally got it. Built up a TPI, put a 200R4 in it and I managed to get a C4 center console in between the 2 C4 seats, so I have 2 cupholders. Got it all together complete and it looks great. Now I have to take it all apart to paint it and a lot of you will think it is a crazy idea, but after all the sweat and blood ( lots of blood) I need to finish this out, so I can without any doubt say this is MY CAR. There have been some great DYI painting threads lately ( here and on the PAINTING/BODY forum)and some very knowledgeable people more than willing to help out and share their experience. Last week I started taking off the paint. Lots of thoughts about how to do it, stripper, razor blades, heat but I settled for an old fashioned DA. The car has a pretty straight body with only one repair, left front fender replacement. I started with 120 grit paper but it was suggested I needed more scratches so I went down to an 80 grit. Thank you BOB. As an aside, anyone thinking of doing this, don't be bashful about reaching out to other forum members who participate in the paint discussions. Most of these guys are more than willing to help.
The car had been repainted once and I had fun looking at all the layers of paint, black on the bare glass, then red ( in some but not all places) then the silver then the dark gray two tone. Then another layer of primer, another silver, another gray and some clear. Most of the clear was gone except for the lower half of the panels. The only thing I haven't gotten off yet is the paint on the hood, that will be next week maybe once I take the hood of to clean up the underside as well. I went down to the bare glass since I had no idea of what product was on the car when it was repainted, and there were places where the black primer was coming thru the top coats, and there were bubbles coming thru in places. So down to the base it went. Here is where I am as of tonight. coming home a long time ago
My time so far has been about 2-3 hours per panel to sand down. I am spreading it out since I know this is a long term project, no point in burning out first thing. A note to anyone using a sander. When I first started I was making a mess in the driveway. I spent almost as much time tyring to keep the other vehicles in the fleet clean ( like my red C6) that I knew there had to be a better way. SO if you are going to sand, google VELOCITY VACUUM. Basically you make a canister from 2 -5 gallon pails, put a hose in one that comes from your sander ( I have one that a vaccuum will hook up to ) and then another hose from the canister to the vacuum. It kept things so clean I barley got any dust on me.
Redneck vacuum using 2 pool chemical pails
Hard to see, but that is about 5 inches of ground up paint at the bottom of the pail. Way easier to clean out of here than all over the driveway
SO this is my first installment. Not going to do this every day.Tomorrow, for example, I have to replace a trailing arm bushing..in my wife's mini cooper! But as I get started on my bodywork I will update with pics and details for anyone interested. Thanks for looking.
Last edited by kanvasman; Nov 12, 2024 at 08:35 PM.
Reason: spelling
As for the paragraphs, Sister Timothy Marie would be very disappointed in my grammar. I guess I just had so much in my head it came out too quickly. But it’s probably because when I text I try and do it like my kids. One long sentence.
new paragraph
For the spoliers I already have an aci rear bumper mostly fitted and it has a slight lift up in the back, but not a Pace Car size. And in the front I have a 78 ACI that I morphed into a 73 style with a center grill and the 2 larger side grills. And the 78 oem valance underneath. I also have added C6 side markers which was a project in itself. I will show more as I go. And Rick your mention of your 74 paint project got me thinking of detailing my paint journey. And great, I have another paint resource in addition to Mr Golfobsessed and MarkG both of whom have been in a lot of discussions I have been following. This is going to be fun! Thx
I have been working on my 1978 project for about 10 years.I was self employed so I either had the money but not the time, or the time but not the money. Anyway, I decided to work backwards on this project, build it all up and THEN paint it. I just knew that if I had a new paint job I would scratch it the first week it was in the garage. I toyed with the idea of starting a thread about the build, but I am basically too lazy to write down all of the details. And besides, we all have ideas, some work and some don't so there was no need to put mine out since we have all had similar issues.
The history of the car, 1978 Silver Anniversary that I got about 11 years ago. I bartered a boat upholstery job for the car. WE had a marine fabricator shop and this car was under a tree, mold growing all over it and a new caliper in the back that the guy couldn't figure how to put on. I wasn't looking for a project ( this is my 3rd vette) but my son saw it and had an idea...600HP, 4 speed yada yada yada. I had a different idea, I wanted a corvette TPI engine, 20+ mpg overdrive trans and cupholders. And I finally got it. Built up a TPI, put a 200R4 in it and I managed to get a C4 center console in between the 2 C4 seats, so I have 2 cupholders. Got it all together complete and it looks great. Now I have to take it all apart to paint it and a lot of you will think it is a crazy idea, but after all the sweat and blood ( lots of blood) I need to finish this out, so I can without any doubt say this is MY CAR.
There have been some great DYI painting threads lately ( here and on the PAINTING/BODY forum)and some very knowledgeable people more than willing to help out and share their experience. Last week I started taking off the paint. Lots of thoughts about how to do it, stripper, razor blades, heat but I settled for an old fashioned DA. The car has a pretty straight body with only one repair, left front fender replacement. I started with 120 grit paper but it was suggested I needed more scratches so I went down to an 80 grit. Thank you BOB. As an aside, anyone thinking of doing this, don't be bashful about reaching out to other forum members who participate in the paint discussions. Most of these guys are more than willing to help.
The car had been repainted once and I had fun looking at all the layers of paint, black on the bare glass, then red ( in some but not all places) then the silver then the dark gray two tone. Then another layer of primer, another silver, another gray and some clear. Most of the clear was gone except for the lower half of the panels. The only thing I haven't gotten off yet is the paint on the hood, that will be next week maybe once I take the hood of to clean up the underside as well. I went down to the bare glass since I had no idea of what product was on the car when it was repainted, and there were places where the black primer was coming thru the top coats, and there were bubbles coming thru in places. So down to the base it went. Here is where I am as of tonight.
My time so far has been about 2-3 hours per panel to sand down. I am spreading it out since I know this is a long term project, no point in burning out first thing. A note to anyone using a sander. When I first started I was making a mess in the driveway. I spent almost as much time tyring to keep the other vehicles in the fleet clean ( like my red C6) that I knew there had to be a better way. SO if you are going to sand, google VELOCITY VACUUM. Basically you make a canister from 2 -5 gallon pails, put a hose in one that comes from your sander ( I have one that a vaccuum will hook up to ) and then another hose from the canister to the vacuum. It kept things so clean I barley got any dust on me.
I see the rear window is poised for its trim! You'll have to check out my trim, now finished in SEM trim black. Came out nice.
Just wanna help you out. Not on the paint but the grammar!!! I found an improper preposition-
An adverb that is used like a preposition but is unable to form compounds. The case that follows an improper preposition is determined by the preposition itself, and not by the verb.
Glad to see you working on the vette!!!
What an excellent project! I'm glad to see you've started a thread about it. Personally, I would also like to attempt painting an entire car in the future Excellent suggestion regarding the velocity vacuum; I'll look into it.
I can't wait for the updates. Keeping my fingers crossed!
Mr Huntforcleanair, I am sure it looks good but only if we get the window in straight on the 23rd. .
Bazza, I cheated on the markers, I got ahold of 2 rear quarter panel pieces and cut them out then glued them into the C3, Fronts were different so I made a mold of each side, then glued them in.
And Richard, I knew that, or at least I think I knew that. Maybe if I translate it into Latin....
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving holiday and now it's time to get back to work. But before I do I will update on the progress I have made in my paint journey. As I said, I sanded most of the car down to bare fiberglass. I haven't done the hood yet since I need to take it off the car to do the underside, so I will do all of it outside. There were no surprises, no accident or body work that I hadn't known of. The only panel not original is the left front fender and there was no other body work at all on the car. So I will take blame or credit for anything that happens now. I did a survey of the body work that I need to do and it wasn't much. There was a pretty large gap where the left front fender meets the door. Very similar to what a lot of these cars have, but mine was sticking out about 1/2" at the top and I saw it every time I went to open the door. The lower rear corner of the left door stuck out about 1/4" past the quarter panel and on the right side, it was the complete opposite, the quart panel stuck out about 1/4" past the door. The door gaps were pretty uniform on both doors except for the top corner where the doors meet the fenders, again typical of most original C3s. The only odd thing is the rear of the right door sticks out high and wide at the quarter panel, and I haven't determined if it's the door latch needing adjustment or something else. All the hinges are good and most of the gaps are OK, just needing some fine tuning but no door re-alignments. And finally I need to fit the front and rear ACI bumpers.
For my bodywork I am using Evercoat 870 VPA for SMC panels. If you see some of this stuff online make sure it says for SMC. I only mention this because when I was shopping for it I came across a few cans that were cheaper and that LOOKED like this but did not say SMC. It was for regular fiberglass repairs. Since my car is down to the bare fiberglass my research showed me that this would be the best product to use. Others may have different ideas and I would like to hear them. I really want this thread to teach me and others the best way of doing this type of project.
I probably will use 2 quarts of this, mostly on the fitting of the bumpers. Fleabay prices around $95/qt
The only straight fiberglass I will be using will be for the 2 pointed corners of the hood which have been worn off from dragging it around ( literally) for the past few years and I want to re-inforce those small tips by backing it up with some fiberglass. The hood also has a low spot dead center in the front, probably 1/4" low in the center 4 inches. The hood gaps are fine and there are no stress cracks anywhere on the fenders so I think it is again, just a question of how the hood was stored for the last few years. Not a big problem to correct.
Starting with the left door, here are some pics of the messed up corner at the top that I repaired, and the gaps along both sides that I have adjusted, using the VPA. Most of the door had about a 1/4" gap so I made that uniform all around. I probably could have tightened it up some more but I didn't want the car to look PERFECT. What did someone just say, "no chance of that"? Actually I checked the door gaps on my C6 and they are just about the same, so that is what I am sticking with.
The mess you see on top of the rear quarter is some VPA that I am putting over the bonding seam. I am not sure why, but for some reason that seam actually showed thru the original paint. Like a dry spot on each panel. The spots under the mirror and the door handle are going to be the last things sanded down. I need to remove the door glass to take off the C6 mirrors so when the glass is out it will be easier to remove the handles as well. Any small blems will be sanded down just before I prime the car.
Once the door was done I went to the rear bumper. I bought a used ACI bumper for $200 and it was in very good shape. At some point I had decided I wanted LED lights on the back and I came across these lights from someone here on the forum a few years ago. Not just LED bulbs, but and actual circuit board inside. The lenses say Premier and there is actually an opening in the housing for the fiber optics to get inside, so I am guessing these are early 70 lights that were modified. I also wanted to have 4 stoplights, 2 signals on each side and 4 tail lights, so I wired them as needed. Back up light will be handled with one under the license plate. I also had to open up the housings in the bumper for them to fit so I have had the bumper on and off a lot of times. Did you know that there are 15 ( or is it 17 ?) bolts holding this thing on. That is a lot of nuts on and off...again
Did you know that there are 15 ( or is it 17 ?) bolts holding this thing on. That is a lot of nuts on and off...
Using the tape and mold release product per Dub's instructions After taking it off and apart and putting it back a few times I still wasn't happy with the seam itself. It wasn't straight enough for me Almost there. My wife said to just glass it all over and eliminate the seam.But where's the challenge in that? Here is the final product. Zoom in and I think it looks pretty good. Even the sides came out good. Except for the green tape where I have some filling to do.
Do you remember my note about the redneck cyclone vacuum set up in the begining? Well it worked so well I wanted to do more like that. I have a REALLY REALLY clean garage,
lots of man cave stuff and a great painted floor as well as a 2012 C6 parked next to this 78. I move either car outside as needed but I really want to keep the mess down as much as I can. I came across this little item on the internet from Eastwood. Amazon price was over $200, and although it looked good, I an sweep a lot of dust for that kind of money. Then I went over to their site ( this was 2 weeks ago) and they were having some kind of sale and it was marked down to less than $100! That included 2 more different size sanding blocks in addition to the one in the box. I tried it out yesterday and it really does keep the dust down.!! https://www.eastwood.com/eastwood-el...tials-kit.html
Next up I am going to start on the right door and figure out what needs to be done there. And as I final sand and finish off the little dings in the bumper I am trying to learn all I can about primers, polyester vs urethane etc.. Since I have no old paint left on the car I am starting , literally, with a clean slate. While I was over at Eastwood I came across a roll on primer ( either type) that you can do one piece at a time. That idea really clicked for me since I am taking a few weeks ( hopefully) to get mine prepped. I need to learn more about it, it's pros and cons. https://www.eastwood.com/paints/optiflow-roll-on-primer-system-paint.html.
Any thoughts or experiences welcome. Thanks again for your time.
Absolutely. I need to remove the glass to get to the bolts holding the c6 mirrors. And th door latch/lock is easier with the glass out also. The plan os to pull the hood and sand down the underside and once I am sure the car doesn’t need to be outside the glass and other stuff gets pulled and those areas prepped as needed.
I figured you probably were.
You seem to be very thorough in your processes
That will be a good time to buff out the lock cylinder (you can use a drill or even a buffer and paint buffing compound for just those), then re-look at door hardware while you're in there. Is the spring still good? Clean the rollers.. degrease and re-lube the wheels/tracks. Probably that half-round ball on the glass, up by the mirror is worn out. If there's any question on the door pins/bushings, replace them before you spray (few chances of chips). There's actually a LOT of parts/pieces inside the doors. It reminds you how much more efficient and far fewer parts on new car doors ...than the old days.
Been there done that. I am actually doing this project backwards. I have had the entire car back together. The doors were completely stripped down, all new hardware, new motors, new felt strips etc. Had a lot of custom wiring to do w/ c6 mirrors and a C4 mirror toggle switch in my console so I have been inside doors a lot. My thought process ( you kindly said THOUGHTFUL) was to put it all together from front to back, adjusting, fabricating as I go along and not having to worry about scratching new paint. Except for the actual dash pad, there is nothing stock on the inside. Once I was happy with it all, and noting minor tweaks for when reassembling, I took it all back apart and started my bodywork. It has taken me a long time to get where I am with this, mostly because we had ourown business for 25 years which took up lots of time. Retirement 3 years ago, 3 cross country road trips and now I have time to finish it up. Before the next trip in August!
I bet a lot of guys have restored and gone back and taken things apart... What's the hurry, right!?
For a lot of Classic Car guys (incl me), the journey is as much part of the fun, if not more ....than the destination. I've been enjoying reading about your journey.
OK, the holidays are over but I haven't gotten much more bodywork done. I decided to take a break from it and build my spray booth. I have a few goals in mind. Mainly I wanted to keep the garage as clean as I can. I also wanted to be able to keep the C6 in it's stall as long as possible. The 13 year old paint on it is remarkably pristine and I want to keep it that way.
I have done some painting over the years but never really paid much attention to safety but the more I read about the isocyanites in todays paints, the more I had to learn. And I never really was concerned about exploding paint vapors before, mostly because I wasn't doing this at my house, but rather my truck shop, where my wife wouldn't be as concerned if it blew up.
My first step was laying out the booth. I figured half of my 2 car garage would be good for the rest of my body work, except for on the actual paint day there wasn't enough room to open both doors to paint the jambs etc. I figured out a way to make the ceiling joists about 2 feet longer than the single bay. In the pics you can see they overhang the sidewall. When I am ready to paint, I just need to remove one screw on each joist and pull that wall out the extra 2 feet so I have plenty of room. Until then there is space for the C6 in the garage. The framing is 2X3's and the plastic is 6 mil thick. It is definitely overbuilt, but I didn't want any issues later on. In total I have $150 in lumber and another $75 in plastic. Another decision was where to mount the plastic, inside or out. On the inside would be easier to keep the dust down. But the suction of the fans would pull the plastic against the staples and it would come down while I was painting. So on the outside it went. The door was one I had hanging around that I kept saving for something special. The door should mount with it closing from the outside into the booth. The idea is that the suction will pull the door closed tight thereby keeping out dust. Well here it is. I haven't figured out what to do with the floor yet, some suggestions are just wetting it down, some say plastic, I am not sure. I need to ask a few more people, usually over on the paint and body thread here on the forum.
The next issue I had to figure out was the air flow. Originally I was going to buy one of those blow up paint booths ( no pun intended) which use a positive air flow. That means you use a fan of some type to blow the air into the booth, and that forced air blows thru the booth and out the other side, carrying the overspray with it. The advantage is you don't have to worry about sparks from electric fans igniting the vapors. The downside is that it doesn't do a good job of removing the vapors so that when you are spraying, a cloud forms high up in the booth and it's hard to see what you are doing. That brings me to a negative flow booth. The fans suck the vapors out one side while drawing in clean air thru filters on the other side. The upside is that it does a good job of removing the overspray, both the vapors and the particles of paint floating around in the booth. Those particles usually end up landing in your new wet paint. Not good. The downside is that as the vapors get pulled past the fans, any spark can set them off. Like the spark from the electric motor in the fan itself. While I was researching this I came across a lot of people who have painted a lot of cars using just cheapo box fans, the $20 from the home store, for example. It almost became something of a REAL MEN DON'T WORRY ABOUt PAINT EXPLOSIONS kind of thing. Like I said, back when I was young and foolish, I didn't worry about it either. I painted a lot of big trucks and some cars in a shop with a big fan in the back, the 12' high door open and the aircompressor was right next to me. But now I do worry, especially when I considered how I would explain to my insurance company why I was using a $20 exhaust fan while painting a car in my garage. If I lived thru it. There are explosion proof fans out there but they are pretty expensive. I found one on ebay for about $135. I don[t know how accurate the ad is when it says EXPLOSION PROOF, but at least my wife will have something to hand the lawyers when she sues the company. Before you buy a fan, any fan, you need to know how much air it moves. The common formula is the width of the booth opening X the height of the booth opening X 100. My booth opening is about 10' X 7' which brings me to 70 X 100 = 7000 cfm of air movement. Add in a little more for when I move the wall out on paint day. The fan I bought blows over 4000 cfm so it wasn't enough to do the job, so I bought 2. That gives me over 8000 cfm which should be sufficient.
Now I have a booth which will draw air thru filters from inside the garage so I don't have to worry about humidity or temps ( there is a split A/C unit in the wall of the garage, and I have exhaust fans but where will the exhaust go? There is a window in the small utility room behind the booth, so I bought 2 flexible exhaust ducts to connect the fans to the outside yard going thru the window. Those ducts cost $75 each. I probably could have gotten by with one but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to discover that problem once I started spraying.
The original blow up booth was in the $500 range and it was smaller and darker inside than the one I built. I now have better visibility, better air flow and it is larger for about the same price. Here are some pics of my progress so far. I plan on sanding again in the next week or so, and I am also learning about PPE, personal protection equipment. So far it isTHE most important information I have gathered. As I mentioned at the top, isocyanites are dangerous. You can't see them. you can't smell them so you have no idea if you are inhaling them or if they are getting into your skin. It is another one of those discussions where some people think you can get by doing only one or two cars without the protection, but most people admit to the hazards involved. I am almost done with that part of this journey and will let you know what I learned and how I handled it. Framing it up. The center section in front of the roll up door is removable so I can get the car in and out. The ceiling joists overhanging the sidewall. On paint day I can slide the wall out to the end of the joists, giving me an extra 2' inside the booth the 2 exhaust fans . The plenum is an old shelf I had laying around. Still need to put some filters there to keep the solids from the overspray getting out. That is the window in the back o9f the garage where the exhaust ducts will go those are the 20X20 intake filters above the door SIdewall and door done the view from the main opening. I just stapled the plastic over the drywall on that side of the booth. I also added 2 lights on the wall, about $10 each.
As for the paragraphs, Sister Timothy Marie would be very disappointed in my grammar. I guess I just had so much in my head it came out too quickly. But it’s probably because when I text I try and do it like my kids. One long sentence.
A bit of a struggle I guess, but I can see you are trying.
My DIY Paint thread
Excellent suggestion regarding the velocity vacuum; I'll look into it.
