Updating a classic

The wiring harness for the El Camino arrived today. The American Autowire Classic Update harness is the harness that I always recommend to my customers. I have wired numerous cars using the various American Autowire products and I have never had a problem. Well, not one you could blame on the harness anyway.

The second and third pictures show what comes in the box. It looks intimidating but American Autowire makes it easy to install. I’m no Thomas Edison and I can figure it out, so how hard can it be?

The owner of this car wanted all the bells and whistles when it comes to the electrical system. I will be installing, for the first time for me, some of the expansion modules that American Autowire offers. One module adds a slow dim feature to the interior lights. The other module bypasses the head-lamp switch so that the car can run high powered head-lamps. The head-lamp module also offers a “flash to pass” feature as found on modern cars.

Wiring a car is always a challenge because each car is different. Add the full LED lighting, the expansion modules and the high powered head-lamps … that is going to make this one even more fun.

Smoothie

We had a couple of other thing to do around the shop today but, for the most part, we were steady on the Chevelle today.

Not a lot to say really, what we have here, in pictures, is an entire day spent blocking the car straight.

Blocking is a technique of wrapping sandpaper around a semi-ridge plastic block that causes the sandpaper to really dig in on high places while gliding over low spots, smoothing the panel to perfection. You can see a block in my hands in picture one.

The car will be blocked a total of five times before it is completely finished. That may seem like a lot, but all the blocking is absolutely required to produce a High Performance Finish. Without all the blocking and sanding, blocking and sanding, no matter how smooth I lay down the paint, the finish will never make it to the High Performance Finish level because the foundation simply isn’t there.

As you can see, it is hard, dusty, tiring work, but when the car is finished and the paint has that mirror like reflection … all the hours spent on the business end of a sanding block are all but forgotten.

Next!

Now that the El Camino is out of the shop for a few days, we can turn our attention to another project … the ’67 Chevelle.

The first six pictures pretty much tells the story of what we have been up to. Sanding, sanding and more sanding. This car is very straight so it isn’t going to require extensive bodywork to get straight … much to the relief of everyone in the shop.

The last three pictures, 7, 8 & 9, are of the right fender, hood and trunk lid in the booth with a coat of high build primer applied. These were the only pieces that we were able to get ready for the primer today.

I don’t know what has happened to all the collision work these last couple of weeks. The way it normally works is later this week, or maybe next, we will be slammed with collision work again, but for now it has given me a chance to catch up on some backlogged work.

I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth … so I’ll take it.

See ya later, alligator

Today the El Camino left for Murphy Rod & Custom to have all the mechanical bits installed, things like the drive train, brakes, fuel system, steering and air conditioning. You can see it going on the truck in the first two pictures. What the pictures don’t show is that the truck hadn’t much more gotten out of the drive when the heavens opened up. Sigh … Well, that is why we apply the bed-liner inside, but Kelly is going to have fun sopping up all the water out of the thing.

Since Kelly is going to install the rest of the braking system, we had to get cracking on getting the brake booster and master cylinder painted. You can see the power brake booster in picture three and the master cylinder in picture four painted in the same semi-gloss black as the rest of the car. The owner is going to have to take care to not spill brake fluid on the parts, or if he does it will need to be wiped up promptly. It is worth the hassle and extra care because I think it looks a lot better painted.

The last picture, number 5, is of one of the hood hinges. Since we were painting, might as well paint everything, right?

The car will be gone for a couple of weeks or so before it comes back here for wiring and final assembly. But while it is gone we can make some progress on some of the other projects that have been languishing while we worked on the El Camino.

A little of this, a little of that

Normally the photographs on this blog are arranged chronologically to show the progress throughout the day. Today there were so many things going at once that the pictures, in the order taken, were very hard to follow. So for this post I arranged the pictures together in groups by task so that all the pictures that pertain to a task are together, then they are sorted chronologically within their task groups. This should make all the stuff we did today a little easier to follow. I hope.

In the first photo Chis prepares the new fuel tank for paint. The tank that came with the car would have had to be replumbed for the fuel injected engine, and who knows what kind of gunk may have been in it or if it leaked, so the owner just opted to buy a new tank, complete with new fuel pump, return lines and sender. It just seemed simpler and, probably, cheaper in the long run.

The second picture shows the tank scuffed, cleaned, and ready for paint.

The third photograph shows the tank painted in the same semi-gloss egg shell finish as all the other black parts of the car. Not only does it make the tank look better, it also protects it from rust.

In the fourth picture Chris is sanding the cover for the “smuggler’s box”, the foot well that isn’t used on an El Camino because it doesn’t have a rear seat. Someone was working on this panel all day because it was badly pitted and needed a lot of sanding before it would be presentable. Because the ridges are so close together a regular sanding block wouldn’t work so a paint stirrer stick was used instead. Thank goodness the owner had to replace the floor. If we had to do this to the entire bed floor I would have … done it I guess, but I wouldn’t have liked it one little bit, and neither would have Chris.

Picture five shows how the panel was left it at the end of the day, ⁹/₁₆‘s complete. You can see the “block” lying on the cover, along with all the sandpaper that was used today.

I got in my share of the sanding today also. Picture six shows me working to get the console sanded and ready to paint. The console is in the booth in picture seven, ready for it’s coat of paint.

Photograph number eight shows the console painted up in the same black we used on the console yesterday as well as the black parts of this El Camino. While this console doesn’t have quite the pop and sizzle that the console we painted yesterday day does, it isn’t a total plain Jane. A piece of brushed stainless steel goes on the top to give it a bit of zing.

While the owner isn’t trying to fool anyone into thinking this is an SS car, he does like some of the styling details that the SS cars had, so he is picking and choosing the bits he likes. Like the SS grille. In picture nine I am taping up the standard grille so that the mesh can be painted black, like an SS car. It is in the booth, along with the console, ready for paint in picture ten.

Pictures 11 and 12 show the grille after the paint has been applied. Once again this is the semi-gloss black paint we have been using on the rest of the car. When the owner showed me pictures of a SS Chevelle with the blacked out grille I had to agree, this nearly black car will look good with a black grille. Sinister, but good.

In picture 13 Chase, waiting while various parts were prepared for paint, is working on the primary project of the day … putting down the sound deadening. Every person in the shop got in on the work at one time or another today.

I have never used this brand of sound deadening before. It is called Rattle Trap and is a product of Fat Mat. The owner of the El Camino provided us with the product to use and it seemed to work about like the other products I have used, attenuating the metal so it no longer has the tinny ring to it.

While Chase painted, Jordan took over placing the sound deadener. Jordan thought he was going to have to sand the smuggler box cover so when he was told he could lay sound deadner if he wanted to he jumped at the chance. Picture 14 shows him all wadded up in a car, like only the young can do, as he presses a piece of the deadener down to make it stick.

It looked like Jordan was having so much fun I decided to get in on the act in picture 15. As you can see, I wasn’t quite as graceful, nor do I fold up into as compact a package, as Jordan.

Pictures 16-19 show the car covered in the sound deadening material. Unlike the car shows on television we didn’t just go nuts and cover everything, but then it doesn’t seem that you need to. The difference this made, even with the small gaps and holes, is just amazing. The running joke in the shop was who ever was in the car would pretend they couldn’t hear what you were saying, because of the sound deadener, even though the car has no doors or glass in it yet. Yeah, we have a good time at JMC AutoworX.

Picture 20 shows that after a week the header is finally shown some love. This is with just the base coat applied, but it still looks good, if a little on the dull side. The dullness is because the base coat dries to a near flat finish, but we are going to fix that.

The base coat might dry dull, but picture 21 shows the clear dries anything but dull. The clear deepens and enriches the colors and provide the luster that makes automotive finishes so beautiful.

The tailgate has a small el Camino logo painted on it, and we didn’t want the front of the car to be jealous, so you can see in picture 22 that we put one on the front as well. Now you can tell what this strange cross between a car and truck is, coming or going.

The last picture shows how the SS stripes from the hood continue onto the header panel. Those corners look great, but they are a real pain in the … well, let’s just say they are hard to get right.

We have positively hammered on this car all week and I am extremely pleased with the progress we made. In fact we have made so much progress, we are stuck until the drive train goes into the car … and that is supposed to happen next week. The car leaves Monday for the Murphy Rod & Custom shop for a heart transplant.

Kelly is going to install all the mechanical systems on the car … engine, transmission, breaks, steering etc. When the car comes back it will be … well … a car instead of a rolling metal sculpture.

Odds and ends

We have been hammering on the El Camino all week, but today was a bit of a coast. The next big step is the installation of the engine and transmission and we are running out of things to do on the car until that step is complete.

These three pictures are of some items that still need a coat of paint, so they are in the booth for their primer coats. The first two pictures are of the console that is going into the car, the third is the plate that covers the rear passenger foot well if this were a Chevelle instead of an El Camino. What El Camino owners call the smuggler’s box.

Just word of advice … don’t smuggle anything in there that you need in a hurry because the plate is held down with a whole bunch of screws.

Taken’ it to the hood

We are beginning to wind down work the El Camino this week so we are starting to devote some time to other projects. In this picture Jordan is blocking the hood on the bent ’67 Chevelle that arrived a few weeks ago.

Sanding isn’t glamorous work, but it is vital work for the High Performance Finish.

Pushing it to the red line

We finished up the console for the ’65 Chevelle today. Yesterday we painted the console in basic black. Today … today we added some pizzazz.

The first two pictures show the console all masked off and painted red. Red? That’s right, red. Just watch what happens when the mask comes off.

The last four pictures show the completed console with the red, the same red that is on the outside of the car, in place. Now I ask you … does it look good or what?

Yeah, I think so too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile …

While we toiled away on the El Camino for a third day, Chase broke away and shot some paint on this console from a 1965 Chevelle.

The console was in semi-rough condition, too far gone to restore properly anyway, so the owner had use grind out and smooth the ridges in the center portion then paint it a nice black to complement his interior.

This is what the console is supposed to look like, but I have to tell you, the more I look at this black, the better I like it.

Shine me on

For the third day in a row we hammered away on this El Camino putting, a shine on the car that the owner can be proud of.

The first picture shows someone, I can’t even recall who now, wet sanding the doors. Wet sanding is a technique to remove any imperfections in the paint so that the true beauty of the paint finish can come through. There is no secret to how we produce the High Performance Finish … it just takes hard work and attention to detail.

The second photo shows the results of the wet sanding process. Wet sanding removes the tiny surface imperfections and leaves behind a glass like smoothness that when polished produces the deep rich color and razor sharp reflections that the High Performance Finish is known for.

Pictures three and four show show me, in picture three, and Chase, in picture four, polishing the doors. As you can see in the second picture, sanding paint removes not only the imperfections, it also removes every bit of the gloss. It the polishing process that puts it back. On dark cars like this one we use a three step polishing system. The first step removes the sanding marks and restores the gloss. The second steps removes the swirl marks introduced in the first polishing step. The third and final step kicks the gloss up that little bit extra that makes the paint not just pop but explode off the car.

The next three photos, numbers 5, 6 & 7, show the doors complete and ready to go back on the car.

Not only did we get the doors polished today, we also finished polishing the body of the El Camino. Picture eight shows the car after the final polishing and clean up. Not a bad shine … not a bad shine at all. I think it is safe to call that reflection a High Performance Finish reflection.

After spending most of the day on the business end of sandpaper and polisher, near the end of the day I masked off the header panel for the stripes. That’s what I am doing in picture nine. This is a task that we didn’t get to yesterday when we were painting everything else.

You can see in picture ten that yes, we did get it masked, but no, we didn’t get it painted. Oh well, I guess we will get it painted tomorrow. Where does the time go?

We’ve made tremendous progress on the Elky this week … tremendous progress. It looks we are on track to finish strong on this project, rather than with our backs to the wall like sometimes happens.

And that is a good thing.