Guess who’s back…

We got the Chevelle back from the blasters today. And just as we suspected this is a very nice car. There were no surprises here. A nice solid body. We will get to sanding on this one next week and start the priming process. Once you have a system that works, you stick to it. So this car will get the same treatment as all the others. Epoxy, slick sand, block, body work, final prime. Its a tedious process but it yields great results.

Ahh, that’s better

Finally!! Today we were finally satisfied with the inside of the Camaro and late in the day we were able to get epoxy sprayed on the inside and get the seams sealed up. The first few pictures show Chase laying down the epoxy. (Not exactly sure why the pictures are in reverse order but, I think you can figure it out)  While we were working on the inside, we welded up some holes in the dash that were not supposed to be there. They were probably added years ago for rocket boosters, oil slicks or smoke screens. Who knows. That stuff is out of style now so we are putting it back the way it was made.  After the epoxy dried, we used SEM’s two part seam sealer to make all the seams on the dash and firewall water proof. We also sealed up where the new panels were welded in to ensure that those repairs last for decades to come. The last few pictures show how clean we were able to get the inside. Yeah, there is quite a few hours getting all that sand and media out of all the crevasses. But, all that paid off today. We ran out of time, so stay tuned. Tomorrow we will apply the Raptor liner to the inside and trunk. See ya then!

Clean, clean, clean

We have spent about 2 days blowing the excess media and sand out of the Camaro. As you can imagine, when  a car has been blasted like this, the product used to clean down to bare metal is in every nook and cranny there is. We try to get all that out before we get going on the car. While were cleaning, we also took some time to clean out all the old seam sealer. A wire brush on a  grinder was used for most of it while Chase used a scraper on the softer more rubbery stuff. Once we started wrapping up the body, I started prepping the trunk for epoxy. Chase welded up the holes in the doors that were no longer going to be used because the owner isnt putting those moldings back on. Chris got to join in the sanding action as well. You can see him doing what he loves to do best, sanding the fenders and hood. We got a start on the doors but ran out of time Friday before they were finished. Monday we will finish prepping the doors and load all these parts in the booth for epoxy and slick sand. So far so good. We have a great start on putting one of Cheverolet’s most popular cars back on the road.

A new start

Kelly Murphey over at Mur-Fab dropped our next project off today. A 1967 Camaro. As you can see he installed new floor pans, new quarters, new fenders, new cowl induction hood, and a new upper dash. Although it may not look like it now or by the list of new parts that were just listed, this car was in pretty good shape. We have fixed far worse. So today we had a few hours to spend on it so we all three got to work. Since this car has been media blasted, we had tons of media to remove out of the all the nooks and crannies. Media blasting removes all the old paint and rust leaving the car in bare metal. The black parts are the new parts. The greenish colored parts are original but have had a primer already sprayed on them. We will remove that before we really get started. We also removed all the panels today too. We still have quite a bit more gunk to blow out of all the seams because of the rain today. We do that real dirty work outside and with the spotty showers today we couldnt get quite done with that.

While the car was at Kelly’s and on the rotisserie, he sprayed the bottom with epoxy sealer and 2 coats of the Raptor liner. This will keep the bottom of the car very nice. Its really great for projects like this. It durable, looks good, and its water proof. We will do the same steps to the floor on the inside of the car. This one will get a big block, 4 speed, A/C, power steering and power brakes. This is going to be a fun project. Keep checking back to see this build all the way through.

Clean-up … aisle three

Today the Mustang left for media-blasting. Media-blasting is like sand-blasting except instead of shooting sand, the media-blaster shoots another material … such as tiny plastic beads. A media-blast performs the same function as a sand-blast, but it is much gentler on the metal of the car.

When this car returns in a couple of weeks it will free of paint, surface rust and crud … that unidentifiable stuff that all old cars seem to accumulate.

Then we can start with a clean slate for making this car something special.

The hole thing

The 1969 El Camino that was first featured on this site back in September is finally back from the media-blaster. It is currently at Murphy Rod & Custom to have the various rust holes repaired and to have the drive train installed.

It will be a while before I get my mitts on it, but it is good hands with Kelly. Better hands with Kelly than with myself at this point because there is no way I can work the kind metal magic that he and Josh can.

These two pictures show the car up on the rotisserie so that Josh and Kelly can reach all the hard to reach places without them actually being hard to reach. The car is going to need pans and a new bed, and a few other minor rust repairs, but even after the removal of 43 years of gunk and grime, the car still looks to be in a little better than average shape.

After Murphy Rod & Custom works their magic on it and I give it a splash of paint, then it will look much better than average.

Every petrolhead’s dream

This 1968 Camaro SS is something special. With less than 30,000 original miles and perfect original sheet metal, you don’t find a car like this just every day. Prepping this car for paint will involve a media-blast and prime … and not much else.

Here the car is back from having its paint removed by media-blasting. Media-blasting uses tiny plastic beads propelled by high pressure air as a gentle abrasive to remove paint and rust. The concept is the same as sandblasting, but the plastic beads are far less damaging to the metal surface than sand would be.

G’day Gov’nor

The owner of this 1961 MG A is doing the bulk of the restore himself but he needed a little help with the paint. We here at JMC AutoworX are ready to help.

The car was first sent away for media-blasting to remove the old paint to give us a good foundation for laying on the paint. Media-blasting is the process of removing paint, rust and crud by spraying tiny plastic beads against a surface with a high pressure stream of air. It is just like sand-blasting except the plastic beads don’t chew up the metal the way sand would.

The body of the car is in terrific shape. After the paint was removed we tackled the little bit of metal work this car needed.

This is bugging me

This 1964 Beetle arrived at the shop in need of some help. The paint was in such poor shape that we had the car media-blasted to get back to bare metal to prevent problems in the future.

Media-blasting is used to remove paint, rust and crud from a car by expelling tiny plastic beads with high pressure air against a surface. As the beads impact the surface they chip away the paint without damaging the metal underneath.

After the car was media-blasted, we cleaned it up and rolled it into the booth for a coat of primer.