Shine on

The shine is on! After buttoning up a few things this morning, we spent the rest of the afternoon spraying the Cobra. Paul started off by wiping it down and making sure it was clean as possible. Next it was tacked off to remove as much dust and lint as possible. Then it was time to start spraying. The first two pictures show the Cobra in base coat. As you can see its black but has no shine. Paul sprayed 3 coats of color the followed that up with 3 coats of high solids PPG clear coat. The last three pictures show it cleared. Next week, after sufficient drying time, we will sand it all back down again and buff it out to an ever higher gloss than this. Stay tuned.

Time to shine

The Cobra had some time in the booth this afternoon, or at least parts of it did. We like to paint cars apart then re-assemble them once its all complete. This way we can paint all of the edges of the parts and it also greatly reduces the chance of peeling paint because of the difficulty in sanding the gaps between parts. So you can see the bumpers, bottom of the hood, mirrors and side scoops are all black and nice and shiny. We also were able to get the car tapped up and it will go in the booth tomorrow morning for its time to shine.

Paint upgrade

  This ’04 Cobra is in the shop to get its paint upgraded. The paint on the car is in pretty good shape but does have a couple of places that could use attention. So we will go ahead and take care of those and give this Cobra a nice slick paint job that will set it off from the others. We started by removing the bumpers, mirrors, headlights and tail lights then we washed the car with a strong soap to strip off all the wax and paint protectant that has been applied over the years. We then sanded the entire car with 320 grit paper followed by 600 grit paper. Once we were done with that, we used a scotch write pad and scuff stuff. This process sands the hard to reach areas and also cleans the car. Not pictured are the bumpers which were also treated with the same procedures as the car. Tomorrow we will start with the bumpers and the under side of the h00d. We are planning on also getting the body masked off  tomorrow and the car painted on Friday.  

Ahh, much better

Here is where we stand on the ’86 Chevy. For those of you not following this build, we have already painted the bed and done the spray in bed liner. Now we have the cab painted so assembly is where we are now. We hope to start putting some parts and pieces back on here by the end of the week. This is sure to be a very sharp looking truck

Yep, its deer season

The Aviator struck a deer and stopped by to get repaired. We will be installing a new bumper and header panel on here. As you can see the headlights on this vehicle are starting to yellow and show damage from the sun, so while its here we will clean those up for the customer as well.  The last two pictures show the finished product. A new factory bumper and almost new looking headlights that will last for years. This should make for a happy customer

Garage door battle

This Chevy Equinox is in for some repairs on the right fender. You can see in the picture that there is a big scratch but there is also a fairly large dent in there as well. As a matter of fact, the fender has several dents in it that we will fix too. Chris repaired the dents yesterday and Paul sprayed it this afternoon. Tomorrow we will put this one back together and get it back to the customer.

Ready for the booth

 The ’86 is now ready for the booth. Paul finished sanding it today and we had time to wash it all up to get a nice clean job. Before we left today, we also cleaned the booth and did a filter change. Tomorrow this one will get masked off and we will start the painting process.

Floors are in

Lots of good work on the Ghia today. Chris pulled the right floor pan this morning and welded in the new one. After they were welded in, Chris etched primed the welds and then seam sealed them to ensure no water gets in there. These new pans do not come with the seat rails, so he also cut out one of the rails and welded it in after carefully measuring it to make sure it was in the correct place. While that work was going on, we were also finishing up the rust repairs started yesterday on the lower front. In between the welding and grinding steps on the front, we cleaned up the welds on the quarter and swiped a coat of All Metal on them. This filler is super strong, has excellent hold out from shrinkage and its waterproof. Next we will block the All Metal out and finish it off with regular filler. We will keep moving around the car until we have all of these areas addressed. Its a long process but things are moving along.

Ghia repairs

Back on the Ghia this week. We started on the front where there were a few rust concerns and previous repairs that were not up to par. We cut those out yesterday and started making patch panels. Today we started welding them in and cutting out the right floor pan. While the cutting and welding was going on, I took the brake pedal assembly apart and sand blasted it to remove the years and years of grime it has accumulated. Once it was clean, I hung the parts up in the booth and painted them. Then all moving parts were greased up and reassembled. Its now ready for another 40 years of service. We got right much done today and we will keep moving along on this one tomorrow as well.

Get your shine on

 Today was a very productive day here at the shop. We took some time out this morning to get the bed and hood ready to paint and was able to start shooting them about lunch time. We started out with a full coat of urethane sealer followed by the lower charcoal color on the bed. Once that was dry, we masked it off and sprayed the top light blue color. These pictures really do not do the color justice. This color really looks good in person. It has so much more life and vibrance to it compared to the factory paint. Once the top color was dry, we sprayed two coats of PPG’s high solid clear coat. This provides the shine and protection of the base coat. Tomorrow we plan on wrapping up the body work on the cab and fenders, a final prime on those parts should wrap up the day tomorrow. We will then be ready to paint the cab in the same steps as today. The ultimate body transformation is progressing nicely.