Time to shine!

Its been a long time coming but we are finally spraying some color on the C-10 project. We had intentions on painting both bedsides today but when we were prepping them, we found a spot on one of them that wasnt up to snuff. So it came back out for repair and we slid the radiator support in in its place. These parts were sealed with PPG’s urethane sealer followed by 3 coats of PPG base coat then 3 coats of clear. Things went smoothly and the turned out very nice. The color looks amazing. We will wet sand and buff the outside of the bedside before reassembly. Hopefully we will get another batch of parts painted in the next couple of weeks.

No junk in this trunk

 The ’57 got a trunk today. We installed the rubber on this and the doors last week and today we were able to get the trunk installed. Tomorrow a door goes on and the last door hinge should get painted. We had to send that hinge over to our buddy Kelly to get it repaired. One of the decorative covers was bent up pretty badly and he worked his magic on it and was able to save it.

A little clearer

A few parts trickled in today so we were back on the bug. We finished installing the sound deadner on the luggage compartment and on the roof first thing. You would be amazed at how much that stuff will quiet down a car. We then finished rebuilding the vent windows. Well the right one anyway. Once it was complete and the glue was dry on the felt channel it went into the door. Next was the other felt channel that goes at the back of the door and finally the door glass. This all went very smoothly. We were also able to install the license plate housing and the speedometer. Guess you will have to see that next post. I forgot to snap a picture of it. We also completed a bit more of the wiring and ran the brake lines from the reservoir to the master cylinder. Not super exciting stuff, but progress none the less.

Introducing the 1955 Chvey

This little beauty has been brought to us to finish up a long ago started restoration. Its a ’55 Chevy 2 door post car, one of my favorites. Tons of work has already been completed on the car a few goodies include rack and pinion steering, coil over shocks, big V8 and several other things. The owner wanted to dechrome the car so the first thing we did was weld up all of the molding holes. You may notice that we didnt have to weld up the ones in the quarters. Those panels have already been replace years ago and the new panels didnt have molding holes. Once the holes were welded up we started repairing the areas and blocking out the entire car just to see how the body looked. Not too bad. We do have some work to do but it should go along pretty smoothly. The car will be painted the green that you see here when its finished.

Slicky slicky

Still working on the ’57 to wrap up the week. Today we were able to get the doors and deck lid sanded down for buffing. Jordan started on the deck lid then moved to the doors. Paul couldn’t resist the fun and quickly helped Jordan out. Once they had the truck ready, Paul started the buffing process while Jordan sanded the doors. Just like the sanding process, the buffing process consists of 3 steps. First step is a cutting compound. This process removes the sanding scratches but leaves its on scratches from the process. The next step is a polishing compound that removes the scratches left by the first, but it too leaves really fine swirl marks. The final step removes the really fine swirls and leaves the paint super smooth and scratch free. Its a long process but very worth it when only the best will do. We didnt quite get done with the buffing, but the last picture shows what the paint looks like after one round of step 2. Yes, sometimes you have to go over it a few times to get it right but its worth it in the end.

Wires everywhere!

Still plugging along on the VW. The wiring is coming along nicely. All of the major wires are run and most things are hooked up. We are waiting on some parts that is keeping us from finishing that up so we are installing what we can to keep things moving.  Once we get the speedometer and the steering column installed that mess of wires will be cleaned up a little. We secured the wiring back at the firewall and started installing the insulation back there. VW made little flexible hooks for the wiring to run through when these were new but the aftermarket parts don’t put them on the ones made today. This firewall was replaced at some point a while back so we had to add the clips to hold the wiring. We are making good progress each day. This little VW will be back on the road before you know it.

Fender bender

Jordan has been devoting the past few days to the C10 project. He has the body work on the doors pretty well wrapped up and today started on the fenders. Here again these are new parts but not without issues. The owner wanted to do fill in the turn signal holes that were in the fenders to match the way the quarters were done. This cleans up the look of the truck. It makes the sides look smoother. When that was done, they left the inner lip where the light use to mount and it didn’t look good. Although it will be hard to see and most people would never notice it, we would. So the first part of the day was spent grinding away all the metal that wasn’t needed on the back side of the fenders. He then started blocking out the front side to bring the high and low spots out. Once those were found he started straightening.  A hammer and dolly were uses to minimize the amount of filler. It looks like a little too much heat got to the panel when the patches over the signal holes were filled because the fenders were a little warped around the area where the lights use to be. Its hard not to get any warping when welding sheet metal because today’s metal is so thin. This is why there is just a large patch at the fronts of the fenders.  He should have these finished up tomorrow and the goal will be to get these and the doors in their first coats of primer by Thursday.

C10 in progress

Over the past couple of weeks we have been plugging along on the C10 project. Repairs on the cab are moving along. The firewall is pretty smooth, work on the cab continues and work on the doors has begun. Although these are new doors they still came with a few dents that needed attention. We blocked them out to find the low spots and high spots then straightened them out. We will be applying our high build primer over these doors in the next day or so and they will receive another blocking followed by a final prime with regular urethane primer. Once that happens we will have 2 more panels ready for paint.

Painting the trim

Painting continues for the ’57. Today Paul sprayed the batch of interior parts he worked on yesterday. These parts are interior trim parts that were pretty much stripped and repainted. We started out by applying a coat of PPG’s DPLV epoxy primer. Once that was dry we were able to go straight to the Tropical Turquoise color. Once that was dry Paul sprayed 2 coats of PPG’s DC 3000 clear. These parts should look nice for years and years to come.

Trim time

While Jordan and I worked on the VW, Paul was busy sanding and prepping about a dozen or so interior trim parts for the ’57. Most of these parts were stripped because the factory only applied a couple of coats of paint and did so directly over the bare metal. This isnt going to cut it for todays quality. When trying to sand these parts the paint just flakes right off so stripping them wasnt really hard, just a bit time consuming because of the number of parts. Looks like he has them pretty close. We hope tomorrow evening they will look as good as the car does.