Ok,a little touchup on 69 Chevelle SS
 

I'm going to be posting the process of doing some repairwork I'm doing on a 69 SS for another Chevelle nut in the crowd :D, Dave is his name and this is a "very" nice car but needs a little help..I will give him a link too this page so I don't have to send e-mails of progress :D

What has happened is that someone had redone the car in the past and put a vinyl top on it (which it did not have originally) and they used an "aftermarket" molding on the 1/4 panel that was attached to the panel below the original OEM molding. He's putting a new top on it and wants too use the original OEM moldings this time around so I need to weld some holes and do some work here.... It's also a good thing we're doing this as there is some rust to deal with because of the aftermarket moldings poor installation in the past.

I'll try to keep up with the photo's as I post them.....:)

I started the photo's after I had already began work, but it's still pretty much at the beginning. I first started by covering the car with sheet plastic and only leaving the work areas exposed.This car is extremely clean and it will stay that way ! (You can pretty much eat off the bottom of the car :ntwrthy:)
I first ground all the crappy area's up and got ready too weld holes up.Got it as clean as I could with fiber disk and welded,, then I ground the welds flush and cleaned with fiber disk again, then gave it a quick breeze with a sandblaster. Directly after that I gave it a quik blow with air and hit the bare steal with "self etch" primer as too seal the bottom of rust pits before any moisture could set back in.I spray it somewhat wet and then smear it too the bottom of the pits with my finger....Just the humidy in the air will start the oxidation process so I "prime it and then feather the paint" after this has dried.

Allright, after it's primed I go ahead and feather the paint first with some 80 grit, then 180 before applying filler. I'm trying too keep the work area as "small" as possible cause we are only planning on some "blend" work here, not full on panel painting so I'm going to keep it as tight as possible to the roof section..

After its feathered I use some Duraglass on the deeper pits and then regular filler over the length of the repair area,once again keeping it as high off the stripe as possible. I knock down the first coat of filler wich is pretty close to the shape we want and then prep the surface again for a plastic/polyester mix which hopefully get me very close too where I want to be before primer. After the Polyester mix is applied it will sit overnite to "fully" set/shrink before being sanded again..I use a different color hardener for the 2nd application to show how the material is coming off as I sand which helps from taking too much off :) This is where the car is at right now

Looking good so far. Good luck!

wow good job man! where do you live so i can have you do my fender for me :)

Looking good.

I still need to shoot you off a few pics of what I need fixed.

Well the next step will be a 2K primer on the 1/4 panels.

When I got home from work I sanded what was left from yesterday and needed to apply one last coat of filler for the pinholes and "finetuning". Once again I switched up color on the hardener back to blue and this last coat is straight polyester glaze.It's a very dense material and has good holdout qualities when topcoated with primers and urethanes :). I used 150 grit for starting off blocksanding on the last coat and when I got close to being complete I used 240 grit to finish the blocking.Once the blocking is finished I breeze over it with 320 grit on the DA and it's ready for primer..

The trick is to get all this repair area to a fine grit before priming so it has minimal shrinking when your color and clear are applied. If you prime over say, 80 or 150 grit a couple of weeks or so after you've completed the job those coarse sanding scratches will become visible in the finish due too shrinking. It will look good at first but they will come back so fine grit it is.

I ran out of some material so hopefully tomorrow I can stock back up. This is how they look now in 320 grit.

Class "A" work. Looking good. Keep us posted on your progress.

Ray

Hey thanks you guy's for the comp's. I was thinking I would put down some of the process of this type of work incase someone wanted to take a stab at it themselves.. If nothing else,too show what it takes to do this type of work in your own garage.....It's good stuff for "Father / Son" projects too,good bonding time. My Dad learned me when I was growing up !!! ;) (Now it's my trade)


Well, we're in prime now. I tried too keep the material in as tight as I could covering the filler while still getting a few nice coats over the feathered paint also......Many people will use the tape as a border and flow the primer right over the taped off area...This is a NO NO !!! If you apply this material over a sharply edged tapeline the solvents in the primer will swell up the old paint next to the tape,but not under the tape (you see what I mean ??) and that will create a line you can never get rid of unless you go back and "strip" all the material back to bare metal...not very efficient money or time wise...So here's some more photo's

I did end up taking off the decklid because there is some flaking off paint in the gutter that Dave wants me to take care of while I'm here,hopefuly you can see it in the shots.

Ok, the primer I put on can be sanded in an hour or so but I prefer to let it set at least 24 hrs so It can get nice and hard for better holdout when topcoated.... Believe it or not optimum wait time on this would be about 6 months or so !!!

So during the wait after I primed this evening I started to tape up some things that will remain till the job is completed... Can't sit around waiting for primer too dry !!!! :D

Nice work, I'm getting in line with the other guys that need some paint work.

Today after work I blocked down the primer I applied yesterday,and I used 240 grit exclusively.You can see some areas where I did not get enough material off before it was primed.It's hard too judge when your dealing with repair area of these size's not to mention a gradual curve with a negative radius of this length....can be somewhat tricky :D

But it did turn out nice after one blocking. I put three more coats of primer on the area's with some extra reducer in the mix so it lays a bit flatter/smoother for easier final sanding before the topcoats. If things go well I should have the custom mixed paint tomorrow and possibly spray color/clear tomorrow night :)

Here's another round of shots.............

I also got some primer on the rear gutter........

Looking good. Love the color of the car. Can't wait to see the finished product.

Yeppers... I was always partial too this type of color,I even painted my Biscayne a color very similar to this. Don't get me wrong,I love black but all my previous hotrods were black and over time it gets a little old with the constant maintenance you have endure for it so I think it's a nice change for me... I'm diggin' it !!!


Ok, Daves Chevelle is in paint !!! I'm liking it, and if I'm liking it I'm pretty damn sure Dave 's gonna like it too :D I just got in and I'm pretty wipped so I will lay out a spread tomorrow with some explaining of what went down...There is plenty of pics so it will take a few posts too get them all in........till tomorrow ;)


GD

Ok, I started with blocksanding with 320 grit(dry) on the reprimed area's and finished up by wetsanding the entire surfaces after that with 600 grit to get them nice and smooth/flat for the topcoats....

Next is to get the car dry and start to tape everything for paint.This is a very important process that gets overlooked by many.You want to make sure the tape is secure so that it does not come up during the paint process.Solvents in these chemicals tend to attack the adhesive on the tape making it lift so I keep an eye on this during the entire process of the job from having unesessary overspray getting under the car cover.

I use "jamb" tape in a couple locations so when the paint is sprayed here,it will go in "tapered" instead of having a sharp line.Usually after the job is complete you can hardly notice an edge.

I will be applying clear all the way down to the stripe so I use "fineline" plastic tape on the edge of that. Regular masking tape will tend too (bleed) through the edges and under,leaving a shitty mess.If you've done some painting at home using this you will know what I'm talking about...........

I don't have any sealer and frankly,I don't want to use it here cause we are to close to the doors.So what i did was to use the paint and apply two descent coats over the primer and allow that too dry and sand that down as to "seal" were the two different materials meet...If you don't do this you will see a funky line where they come together.

After this I apply another coat of the color and start to make judgement on the tint......it is too light !

They supplied me with some silver tint but that would have gone the wrong direction so what i did was end dropping in about 10 drops of "black" paint into the mix to "dirty" it up which helped alot from what we had,definately a step in the right direction. After spending some time at the edges of the blends ,it's time for clear.......

Now from these shots with the clear you can see how i tried to stay away from the stripe,the front and rear of the panels, and away from the decklid on the tops of the 1/4 panels....very tedious stuff let me tell ya !! This color is very difficult.....In fact the mix we have is not a perfect match by any means but the way it's blended makes it presentable and thats what we're after here. Absolute perfection would be too respray the whole car and thats not going to happen.

Looks very nice ,love to see work in progress pics like you have posted .Thanks for taking us along for the ride and send more pics.
John

Thanks John,had too take a break for a nap.My eyes started gettin' real heavy there !!

So I sprayed the car last nite and today I wetsanded the minor dirt nubs in the clear with a 2000 grit block thats available from Meguires...Now I do "just the nibs cause I want to leave the "orange peel".if I sand flat it wont match the rest of the car. After this I sand all the clear with 3000 grit under a foam pad and then polish with a machine.

After I've polished everything with hardcut once I have the stripe to deal with before final finishing..When I pull the fineline tape up there is a "sharp" line along it that must be knocked down. So I pull just the fineline and replace it with 1.5 inch and lay it about 1/16 of an inch below the existing tapeline and hardcut this sharp edge off whith the polishing wheel,doing this makes it less noticable that you used the stripe as a border :D

After that I expose the 1/4 extensions and use a fine compound on all surfaces and then polish by hand.
Since I didn't paint the decklid I hardcut that with compound and final finished it also so it would hopefully shine as nice as the top[s of the rear !/4 panels and it did turn out well......

First couple pics,semi finished product...Then I took a shot of the difference in the color even after the black added,at certain angles it looks perfect at others, not so. But blended looks good.

This is how you hang a decklid with only one person

Now remember that I haven't painted the decklid and see how well it looks with the new paint blended away from it !! Nice !! And the sides look pretty darn good also,plus here's a couple shots of some of the rest of the car.....

Couple pics of some interior............

And this is the setup keeping me entertained during the whole Fiasco.My Garage ROCKS lemme tell ya !!! ;) :D


And that would be rap folks,somewhat time consuming but when the Vinyl top is on this it's going to look like a million bucks !! When that part of the job is done I will get some pics of that also and post them up too finish this thread off :cool:

Very nice job. Car looks amazing.

looks like its coming together real nice!

Ray I went through your photobucket and you have a real nice 70 there !! It's quite a bit of work and sacrifice but the end result speaks for itself. Well done sir ;)

Thank you, getting ready to put the motor back in. Hope to be running by Christmas. It will be 6 years of work.

Man, Dave already has the new top on it.He sent me some images but not as attachments so I'm not sure how I can get them up here. Maybe I can get some time this weekend to get a few shots. He made a very nice job of it.

vinyl bin done need figger out how to load pics

ned figger how too speell two. LOL

fuck you did i get that rite

Wow, sensative aren't we? It was a joke, hence the LOL at the end. No, you didn't get that rite (right). Nice way to introduce yourself to the forum by the way.:butt1: