Heat is on

After being slammed with collision work for the past few months and some unforseen circumstances, we are back on the Ghia today and and we’ve made some progress. We have been working on it a little over the past few weeks but we were fighting the fitment of the heater channel. Well today we muscled that thing into place and were happy with the fit and stated welding it in. The first piece to be welded in was the grey part in the last two images. Once that is tacked into place, we started welding in the heater channel. We did get pretty well done today, but still have a few welds before moving on to the outer rocker. Tomorrow’s plan is to make a few patch panels and have them ready for Thursday. I will be off tomorrow but will be back on this car for the rest of the week.

Fine ’69

We are just about to wrap up this Mach 1. We had a storm come through a few weeks ago that damaged a few panels on this Mustang so we took care of that for the customer and while it was here we went ahead and buffed the rest of the car to get him ready for the upcoming show season. We also wired up sequential LED turn indicators that mount in the hood scoop for him.  We are waiting on a new hood molding to come in which will be the final piece for this hot rod. It will be ready to go once that part comes in.

Finished product

Here is the final results on the Hyundai. Turned out nice.

Shine on II

Today was paint day for the body of the Camaro. We spent a couple of hours this morning masking off the areas that we werent painting, then just before lunch we started spraying. A coat of sealer was sprayed over the primer areas and since the rest of the paint on the car was in good shape, we just sprayed base right over the old clear. Once the base coat was on and dry, a couple of coats of PPG’s high solids clear was sprayed. Tomorrow, we lay down the ghost stripes.

Shine on.

Today we were able to get some painting done on the Camaro. We started with painting the bottom side of the hood and trunk. We then painted the inside of doors. Once all that was dry, we flipped them over and painted the top side. While these were getting painted, the car was getting its final sanding so that tomorrow it can be made shiny. On a separate note, I will try to get that camera lens cleaned tomorrow.

Looking good

We painted the Mustang today. This one is back in the shop to get some hail damage repaired from a couple of weeks ago. We did paint the hood on Friday, but I don’t think I got any pictures of that.  We started prepping this first thing this morning and a few hours later it looks like this. It really turned out nice. We will give this a couple of days to dry and hopefully we can start sanding and buffing it by the end of the week. Once that is done, we can get it put back together and back to the owner. Car show season is among us and I have sneaking suspension the owner will want to show this one off.

Closer to paint day

This Camaro is almost ready to paint. We painted the roll bars last week and started getting the body ready for paint. Today we put the final sanding on the car as well as the final priming. We will only have to sand the new primer seen here before painting. The doors, hood and trunk are all ready for paint. We will get the doors trimmed out tomorrow

Rocking the rocker

Today we worked on the left rocker on the Ghia. The right side is in and it really went well. The left side is putting up a little fight. These rockers have to be installed in stages. We have a main inner part and outer part. The rear has another piece that has to go in before either of the rockers do. Then, there are the two outer parts that go on last. They are the lower  fender and lower quarter finish pieces. All these parts must be fit before welding them in to ensure that by the time the last part goes on, it fits the area its supposed to occupy. So, as you can see getting the first piece in properly is pretty important. We put the door back on today to make sure the lower body line is right and that once the rocker was in, the door would still open and close with out rubbing. We did make some progress but not quite enough to start welding just yet. We will have to spend a little more time fine tuning a couple of things and hopefully this will be welded up this week.

When trash cans attack

This Hyundai is the shop to get a new mirror and a nice sized dent repaired in the door. First thing we did was use the stud welder to pull the dent back into shape. We then smoothed the area out and applied the body filler to make the door straight again. Once that was all blocked out, we were ready for primer. While we were doing the repair process,  the broken bits of the mirror were removed, the belt molding was removed as well as the outside handle. Tomorrow this one will be back silver.

Back in black

Today we painted the roll cage on the Camaro. It was a challenge, but we got it done and it looks pretty good. We started off by masking the car so when we paint the blue, we don’t have to sand all of the overspray off before prepping the outside for paint. Once that was done, we wiped down all the areas that were to be painted. Once it was ready to spray, we started with 2 coats of PPG Epoxy primer. Once that was dry, we sprayed 2 coats of PPG semi gloss black. Painting bars doesn’t sound all that difficult until you put them into a box, weld them all together at different angles and then add layers to them. It was definitely not something I want to do everyday but it was a nice break from the normal fender, bumper jobs.