A much needed update

So, as always, I've been working on the car--although not as often now that school has started up again. I finally got the body as straight as I'm gonna get it, I think. There is this one dent that would be pretty much obscured by the front bumper that I was just going to ignore, but now I kinda wanna fix it. I tried hammering it out for a bit tonight, but didn't have much luck. ANYWAY, other than that, things look good. I still have to hang the replacement door on the back passenger side. Oh yeah! I haven't told you. I went down to Tennessee a few weeks ago to pick up a back seat and replacement door, along with a few other incidental goodies, like a map pocket and rear view mirror. Thing is the door is beige, so I have to repaint it completely, inside and out. Plus, it's from a 300D, which has power windows, so I have to pull the regulator/motor and refit the door with the manual mechanisms. I don't think that's gonna be too hard, and I'm actually half-way there.

My main focus this weekend was to get all the minor imperfections out of the sheet metal so that I could do my first coat of high-build primer. Mission accomplished:

Before:






After:






Now, just gotta block sand at 400 grit, re-prime, then do it again at 400 and then 600. Ugh. Oh yeah, and paint the trunk, replace 3 door seals, paint the jambs and around the trunk seal, prime, paint and hang the new door, clean sand and paint the under side of the hood, paint the under side of the trunk lid, replace windshield and back windows seals (and treat any rust around the edges under the rubber), replace the sunroof seals, finish treating the interior floor with sound proofing, replace the carpet, fix an 8 inch tear in the headliner, put a dash cover on, and probably a few other things that I'm not thinking of right now. Oh! Almost forgot about having the rust cut out and the new piece welded into the passenger side quarter panel. So, I'm practically done.

Getting closer

Today I'll just post a few pictures of the current status of the car, and then a note on stripping. Paint. Stripping paint. (What kind of blog do you think this is?) I want to try to cover questions that I had before I started and put in my two cents about what I've found.

First the pictures. If you click on the pictures, you can see a larger one. If you look closely at the first one, you'll see some waviness along the center ridge where the trim attaches. I worked SO much on this panel and still didn't manage to get that line completely straight. I may have to go for outside help...

A closer look at the rust that has to be cut out and replaced:

What I did today:

What's left to strip:

Now a few words about how I've been stripping paint. Before I started, I researched quite a bit. I decided on using aircraft stripper because sanding and or grinding seemed like it would take too long. I looked into soda blasting, and Eastwood sells a unit for around $250, which is addition to your compressor. I didn't want to spend that extra money, so I bought some aircraft stripper. I actually did the whole replacement decklid that way. It takes several applications and is messy. Not to mention, you DO NOT want to get any on your skin. You'll feel it within seconds! Also, it's around $25-$30 per gallon. I think I used close to a half gallon just on the trunk. It would've gotten expensive. I really don't recommend it.

During a trip to Home Depot, I was looking at power tools and ended up getting a Ryobi 4.5 inch angle grinder that came with a sanding disk, a grinding disk, and a stripping disk, all for $39. Not too bad. I think it's a 11,000 RPM one. I tried the stripping disk on the paint and never looked back. Works quite well, and probably about as fast as a home soda blasting kit, although not as friendly to aluminum trim pieces, so be careful! The replacement disks are about $8 or $9, and I think I'll end up using around 6 of them. I've used some aircraft stripper to get into small places that I couldn't get to with the disk and it's very messy. Not to mention you don't want any hanging around only bubble up through your nice new paint later on. That stuff is powerful.

In spite of its relative effectiveness, it still takes a bit of work to do a whole panel with a stripping disk. And it gets paint and metal dust all over you. Here's how I gear up for a stripping session:

So, here are the grinder attachments I've been using. The DeWalt wire wheel on the left has been good for tighter spaces. It's actually quite heavy wire which doesn't work as well because you've got to apply more pressure to get all of the bristles to contact well, which can't be good for the sheet metal. The stripping disk I've been using is made by Norton, pictured on the right.

Regular flat shaped wire wheels also work very well on paint, and are particularly effective on surface rust. The stripping disc doesn't really remove rust as well, but it will some. Here's the remnant of the one that came with my grinder:

I'm glad I kept it because it came in handy today. Since it's so small, I'm able to get it into creases that nothing else would touch. They look like this when new:

I haven't been able to find a new one that has a center hole big enough to fit my grinder. There are ones that will fit a drill, which will work in a pinch, but drills just don't have the RPMs to be very effective. At least mine doesn't. Plus the battery runs out in about 5 minutes!

Well, I think I've more or less covered it. Hope this helps someone out there!

Pressing Forward

The saga continues. Slowly but surely. At this point I've got 3/4 of the car in the first coat of primer. That is, a coat of the first primer. If I haven't said before, I'm doing a coat of self-etching primer that is meant to counteract any surface rust before going on to the application of regular high-build urethane primer that can be sanded. This is necessary because I'm not in a position to IMMEDIATELY apply primer after stripping the paint. And since rust begins to form within minutes, it's necessary for me to apply the self-etching primer first.

ANYWAY, I only have the fenders and hood to strip paint off of. Sorry, that is, I only have the fenders and hood from which to strip paint. Better. At that point, I'll have the whole car in s.e. primer. I still need to finish the floor pan by giving it a final coat of black POR-15. I also need to do some final, small applications of body filler in the trunk, and it should be ready to paint. Going to do a semi-gloss black inside. Then I think I'll have to buy my paint (I'm thinking big...thinking Glasurit. But we'll see. It's pricey.) The reason I need to get the paint now is so that I can paint around the rim of the trunk before putting the seal in place. I can't wait to get that on there so I can seal the trunk to protect it from water. But also because the trunk lid bangs every time I hit a bump in the thing.

Ugh, that reminds me: since I used the trunk lid from a '72 200D, I need to fill the existing holes where the model decal mounts, as well as the chrome handle because they're in the wrong places. Obviously, I have a "240D" badge and not a "220 DIESEL" badge. Then the handle is much longer on the 240D than it was on the 220D. One final note about the lid: I put a coat of black POR-15 over the area that contacts the hinges. That's an obvious place for paint to get scratched (metal on metal) which would then be a feast for water. So the rock hard finish of POR-15 should take care of that nicely. I'm also going to do that along the rain gutters on either side of the roof. Since the aluminum trim clamps right over the lip, it's more opportunity for metal-on-metal scratching. Can't have rust forming there.

Body work hasn't been the only thing I've done. I also just put on new brake discs and pads all around. Mmmm...it stops quite nicely now. (I mean, not as nicely as my 420SEL used to, but then again, no car I've ever driven has had brakes like that.)

I will get some pictures up in the next few days...ideally after it's all in primer. 'Til then.

Good Things Come to Those Who Wait

I mean in general. At least that's what they say. Not this time, really. Nothing bad, just I wish I could say more than I have to say. On the up side, things are starting to feel like they're moving forward. The bad part is that it's taken forever to get to this. The culprit is my driver's side quarter panel that was featured previously. The one with all the filler on it. I was working on straightening it the right way and envisioned a beautifully straight panel with almost no filler. But it was not to be so. Don't get me wrong, there's A LOT less filler than there was before. A lot. But I also don't have it perfect either. Close, but not perfect. I don't think I can get it perfect. Maybe you have to do what the guy did that fixed it before in order to have perfect lines. I just don't know which is worse, slightly less than perfect lines yet still some exposed metal, or almost a 1/4 inch of filler. Well, I'm gonna get some primer on it and see how the lines look then. It's hard to tell when it looks like a holstein cow. (That's the black and white one in dairies, for those of you not raised in farming country). Observe:




That's where I've been spending most of my free time for the last...two weeks? More? I don't rightly know. I've kind of lost track of time. And sorry for the proximity of my mug in the second shot. I should've used a wider angle lens, but that would have involved going into the house. (Does my face look fat? I always feel like it looks fat in pictures. And I'm a pretty skinny guy, for those of you who don't know me).

So, aside from the cursed (read poetically: 'kərsid) quarter panel, I've now got all the paint removed from the whole rear and the other quarter panel. I've also got the inside of the trunk sanded and ready for some filler to smooth out the fiberglass cloth patches that cover the rust holes. Speaking of filler (I must smell like it all the time. It has a distinct chemical smell), the other quarter panel is perfectly straight apart from the rust at the very bottom back (which will be cut out and replaced). Or so I thought. I discovered a small patch of filler about 8x8 inches that I COULDN'T just leave in place. I HAD to remove it to see WHY they had put it there, and if there was something awful underneath. There wasn't. Just a small dent that's placed just inconveniently enough that you can't really get a dolly behind it to hammer it out (due to the wheel well inside the trunk). But that didn't stop me from trying. To make a long story short, it's got its first coat of filler back on it. Another one should level it out. I just can't leave well enough alone.

What else? Um...nothing, really. See, I told you there wasn't much to report. All this time without posting and this is all I can give you. It's because I've been spending SOOO much time on that quarter panel. My neighbors must be wondering why I'm always sitting in the same place on the curb. Which reminds me...the last few days people have been driving by, some of whom I've never noticed before, and are stopping to ask how it's going and give me words of encouragement. I've become acquainted with probably 8 to 10 people in the neighborhood because they always see me out there. Apparently I've got my head down a lot so I haven't seen all of them before this week. Some I see often, usually older men, who drive by and like to stop and chat about it. Most have some advice to give, a story about an old car they restored, or their uncle or their nephew or son, etc. It's pretty funny. It's like I have my own cheering section.

More to come...

That title reminds me of the old Tonight Show commercial breaks when Johnny Carson still was hosting. There was always some little picture or drawing of something a bit strange or funny that said "More to come."

Anyway, there is more to come. I've been a bit lazy about posting, but I have been working on the car. Mainly getting the aforementioned quarter panel straightened out. There will be pics and details shortly...stay tuned.

Over and out.

OH! And happy birthday dad and Susan!

Worth it? I think so.

A lot can happen in 33 years. That's plenty of time for a car to become less than perfect. Far less. Things get bent, corroded and just plain dirty. I mean really dirty. Not to mention the dumb things that previous owners have done. I once had a '77 Wagoneer that had really been put through the ringer. Someone had cut the wiring harness off right at the firewall. Nothing electrical worked in the dash. On top of that, it had something like 4 or 5 BAD paint jobs, the last of which was grey latex paint that had been applied with a brush (there were brush marks). But it was still cool. At least I liked it. The thing is, when you come into contact with a car after most of its life (in my Benz's case 33 years) has gone by, it's easy to look at it and think that that's how it is. That's just the way this car is. It's pretty hard to picture it as being anything else. Meanwhile it's wishing it could tell you about the day it rolled of the assembly line so that you could picture it.

Because of this, I find that I look at things and somehow just think that they're part of the car. Today as I was prepping the floor board for rust patching, I got under the front fender to clean off around the rust holes and saw just how dirty it was under there. Now, I've been under there before. Many times. I put new shocks on the car when I got it. I've rotated tires. I've re-packed the front wheel bearings. Each time I've been under there I've undoubtably seen the years and years worth of caked on dirt. I think I thought it was the texture of the undercoating. I don't know. But today I took a wire brush to it and it sure looks different. Now I see little surface rust spots that will need to be treated. The whole wheel well will need to be repainted. Yet another example of my ever-expanding project. But it'll be worth it. My car's gonna look so good when I'm done.

Sure, I've thought about just getting a nicer car that I wouldn't have to do the work on. More than once. Wouldn't it be nice to just start over with another car that looks better than mine does, especially compared to how it looks now! But that car will have problems too. When I get to looking a little closer, they'll be there, and I'll have to deal with them or they'll just get worse. They won't be the same as the ones I'm dealing with now maybe, but they'll be there. Plus I just really like my car. It was love at first sight.

So, I'm gonna stick it out with my '75 240D 3.0. Yeah, it's given me problems in the past and continues to at times. But I've got so much time already invested in it, and the payoff's gonna be worth it. Plus we get along pretty well...

Yet more to fix - or - The Case of the Shrinking Quarter Panel

Wherein our hero heaps more work upon himself.

Today started (as far as my car is concerned) with a call to the good folks at POR-15. That's PEE OOH ARR fifteen, Kevin. (Kevin is the guy at the paint store who was nice enough to give me a 90 minute class on paint and body work which went right up to closing time and he had to rush to get to his second job. The next time I saw him, he indirectly tried to blame ME for making him late. I told him that I was sorry that he was late and that I wish that he had told me that he needed to go, which, in my language means "Don't try to push it off on me just because YOU didn't pay attention to the clock KEVIN." I figure you catch more flies with honey and I like for people to realize their own errors most of the time. I think that he soon did, actually. Plus, he didn't have to help me in the first place. Thanks, Kevin. Anyway, he once corrected me when I said "P.O.R. fifteen" with "por" like "pour" fifteen. When I called customer support today, the message said, "Thank you for calling PEE OOH ARR 15". Yes! Life's small victories. See, I figured it was an acronym for something like "pisses off rust" or possibly (work with me here) "prity ossum rustinhibitor", which would, of course, be thought of by someone with terrible spelling for common words but strangely capable with bigger words like "inhibitor". Then the "15" part of course would mean that it took them 15 formulas to get it right.) That's the end of my parenthetical statement (yes I know I put parentheses within the parentheses). Are those of you who don't know me personally beginning to get a sense of how my mind works? Are those of you that do knowingly rolling your eyes?

ANYWAY, Dave or Mark or whatever his name was from POR-15 responded to my e-mail and told me to call him and he would tell me "exactly what to do". My problem was that I had put the fiberglass cloth over the holes and then done three coats of paint over it. I thought that the fiberglass cloth would sort of become one with the paint and make a beautiful, seamless cover over the hole. Oh, but it was not so. The fiberglass stayed nice and fibery leaving an obvious patch. I asked if maybe it could be sanded. "No" was the answer. That paint just sets up too hard to be sanded very easily. Dave or Mark or whatever then said that if it had been him, he would've just put two coats of paint over it. Three was probably too much. He seemed pretty interested to hear that THE INSTRUCTIONS SPECIFICALLY TOLD ME TO PUT THREE COATS ON IT. His honest suggestion to me, which was all that he could offer, was to use body filler over the fiberglass to smooth it out. Which would mean that I would just have a smooth raised patch, not one that's nice and flush with the surrounding sheet metal. Honestly, I don't know what I was expecting. Maybe for them to know what they were doing and write the instructions accordingly. Maybe to give me an idea of what the end result would be so that I could modify my approach.

Well, I DID sand it, and it seems like that is going to work okay. I'm just going to have to sand a lot.

Moving on...since I had my grinder out to try grinding the fiberglass (which it did--into oblivion), I thought I'd start to take some of the primer/paint off of the quarter panel that I had repaired last year. Just to see what I was dealing with. As it turns out, there was a whole lot of filler on it. See for yourself:




If you take a close look at the second photo, you can see sedimentary layers, as it were. FIVE layers of filler. I'd say that it was about 3/16" thick. You see, the guy who did that work, who will remain nameless, got to working on my car and realized that the pre-arranged price/trade we had worked out was not going to be worth the amount of effort it would take to do the job right. So, he pulled out the bulk of the dent in the quarter and the door in front of it (which were pretty well smashed in by some drunken idiot who proceeded to leave the scene) and then began to trowel on the filler. He should be a sculptor. Or a mason (as in brick layer, not the brotherhood to which many highly-revered people from the past have belonged. I just saw a Masonic sticker on a car the other day. Still going strong, I suppose. Maybe I'll look into it. Perhaps I could make some connections and start getting photography gigs or deals on auto paint).

So, I took ALL of the filler off that panel and had a look. It's pretty bumpy in places. So I tried my hand at hammer and dollying it in order to shrink the metal. Since sheet metal has a "memory" of how it was originally pressed, it wants to snap back into place. If you put a dent in metal, you are stretching it. Therefore, it needs to be shrunk. This is done by tapping with a hammer on one side and a heavy, slightly convex piece of metal (the dolly) on the other side. You work around the dent and shrink the metal by tapping it. There was a pretty noticeable low-spot about 8" wide by 10" long. I am happy to say that I actually got it close to snapping back! I had to quit coz it was getting late and I don't think neighbors love to hear a hammer on sheet metal at all, much less after dark. Plus I wouldn't be able to see.

So, it'll take some doing, but I'll get it done right. It'll just take me til fall of 2010.

Aaarrrrgggghhh!!

Well, the good new is that last night I did my first shooting with the HVLP (High Volume Low Pressure) gun last night. Got the decklid shot in self-etching primer. The first, anti-rust step. It got a bit late and the neighbor came over to let us know that she was trying to put her baby down. Who knew babies went to sleep at 8:45? Good thing I was just about finished. Here it is:





Also, I dove into the trunk rust repair with the POR-15 trunk and floor pan repair kit. More on that in a moment... Oh! I forgot to mention that I got a compressor. I ended up getting a somewhat small dual tank design, 8 gallons total, but it's got a 5 HP Honda gas-powered motor on it. With that, it manages to crank out 9.5 cfm at 90 PSI and 11.5 cfm at 40 PSI. I know a lot of people say that's not enough, but my gun is rated to run at 4-7 cfm at a max of 29 PSI. So I think I'm good. It just runs all the time, which is why the neighbor complained.




So tonight I hauled the decklid out again to prep it for the high-build urethane primer (the last step before paint. after you sand it smooth, of course.) I went over it with 220 grit paper, then blew it with pressurized air, then went over it all with degreaser as a final step before shooting it. I had just gotten some teflon tape to get ride of some air leaks at my hose connections. Things were looking good. Oh...what's that? One last fitting I forgot to tighten, the one at the end of the hose that feeds the gun. Torquing....snap! The cheapo fitting on the pressure regulator gauge that came with the gun kit broke and is useless. I was just about to mix primer and go live! Alas, it was not to be. Lesson: If you buy a bargain-priced HVLP gun kit, DON'T torque anything too much. (You'd think they could at least use a brass fitting on there....geez.)

Well, it was too late to do anything about it, so I touched up a few bare metal spots on the decklid with the VERY LAST drops of a spray can I still had (after fishing it out of the recycle can) of self-etching primer. I think before I said something about rust starting to form in about 8 hours. Scratch that. It's actually 8 minutes. Can't leave that metal bare. Then I put everything away and I'm showered and done for the night.

About the POR-15...they supply a fiberglass cloth to lay over rust holes and then coat with their thick, rust-inhibiting paint. I assumed that the fiberglass would just kinda blend into it. Nope. Take a look:



It's still a fibrous mess. Not sure if this is supposed to sand out or what. I've got a message in to the folks at POR-15. At this stage I have two coats of the thick silver paint, and now (after taking the pictures) a coat of the black, thinner paint. I also filled some of the pits and irregularities with the putty they provide. Good stuff. If I had it to do again, I'd fill all the rust holes about the size of a pea and smaller with the putty. It's easier to work with. If you're going to use the putty, I recommend taking about a grape-sized chunk from each of the two bars and then blend those together. I did about three times this much, and the stuff sets up sooner than you can make your way through it. It's really easy to smooth at first, but got a bit too stiff to work with after about 20 minutes. I ended up throwing about half of the original walnut-sized chunk away.

Trunk preparation

Not a lot to say today. I didn't get too much done in the last week from being out of town for the weekend, then kind of waiting for the heatwave to subside. Now that it has, I mainly spent the day prepping the trunk for rust repair. I washed it out with soap and water, then industrial strength marine cleaner (which is the first step in my Por-15 Trunk and Floorpan Restoration Kit), waited for it to dry, then sprayed on the rust remover, and that's as far as I got. Tomorrow will be brushing on the first coat of Por-15 paint and patching holes with the included fiberglass fabric which basically just holds the paint in place over the hole while it cures. Supposedly this stuff is amazing and will set up hard and put all the rust to sleep.

I also finally sanded down the filler on my replacement deck lid. There were just a few spots--pitting from surface rust--that I had filled. The Rage Extreme sands really easily. I went back over the same spots with Evercoat metal glaze and it's setting up as I write.

I'm also getting started on removing the cloudy anodized layer from my aluminum trim, using Easy Off Heavy Duty oven cleaner. That came recommended from the folks at V8TV who did a series on the COMPLETE restoration of a '69 Chevelle SS 496. A pretty good video blog, if you ask me. It's on youtube. (What isn't?) You have to spray the trim several times and wash it off, then go over it with 1000 grit sandpaper. After you get the rough spots out, you polish it with aluminum polish. Looks pretty good so far!

That's all I have for today. I'm going to see how this Por-15 stuff turns out, and then maybe try it on my floor pans. If it's tough enough, then I can forgo having those cut out and replaced. That would be so nice...

Til nex time.

"Seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you."

I now know this to be true. Just look at these pictures:





This is the floorpan under the driver's (my) feet. I knew I had seen some rust under there, but had not really delved. I was in denial. I already knew since I pulled the rear seat last week that there was some rust in the driver's side rear seat floor pan. But today I was pulling the plastic cover that runs along the bottom of the door jamb in order to get at the wiring harness for the taillights and started seeing the rust. And the more I looked, the more I found. I peeled and chipped off the rubber coating of the floorpan to reveal holes. Not quite Fred Flintstone, but give it a few years. And just when I think I've found it all...




psych!



So each time I do something on the car I make more work for myself. But as you may start to notice, I can be a terrible perfectionist about some things. Not everything...those who know me know that I can definitely do a half-arsed job on certain things. But when it comes to tedious tasks, something about my brain likes to find more and more to do. Plus, if I see something there (at least with my car), it will drive me nuts knowing I didn't do anything about it. So, bad for me, good for my car.

I also have a huge tendency to set out to do one thing and end up doing another. Today I was going to try out my new cheapo hammer and dolly set on a few dings on the car. Really I should be practicing on a scrap piece, and probably still will, but I figure I can't hurt things too much if I just tap lightly (I can just picture the grimaces of the experienced body guys reading this). Anyway, I did a little of that on a couple of small dings and I think I actually might have made them slightly better. But I got distracted looking at the rear window seal which needs to come out (one of the things I'm afraid to do, and with good reason), which got me looking at the inside of the seal, which I noticed holds in the head liner at the back of the ceiling, and then my eyes wandered down to the aforementioned plastic cover that runs the length of both doors along the jambs. I had had difficulty pulling it up before and I'm always afraid to pull too hard on things for fear of breaking them. But I got under the edge of it with a chisel and started prying, and *pop*, it started to come up. Turns out it's just clipped onto a metal ridge. The only other things kind of holding it back are the vinyl-covered plastic (or metal? i don't remember) piece on the center post and the fabric covered metal strips that are crimped onto the back of the back door jamb and the front of the front one.

Ugh, that paragraph got out of control. So, after pulling that plastic piece out, I started pulling the carpet that's stuck down with adhesive along the length of both doors next to the floor pans. This is when I really started to notice the rust. Guess that whole side is going to have to be replaced. Which means more money to the welder. I already didn't wanna have to pay that guy for the quarter panel. But all in all it'll be cheaper than renting a TIG welder and then doing it wrong myself (as much as I wanna try to weld).

Anyway, in my zeal to get a real good look at the floor, I pulled both front seats out. Right after I got both pulled, it started to shower and I had to rush to get my floor mats and sheepskin covered seats into the basement. That concluded the outside portion of my day.

I came in and started prepping my replacement deck lid (trunk lid) for a final self-etching priming. Did a quick soap and water wash, then after it dried, I did a solvent wash for good measure. Don't think that's as crucial on the self-etching stage, but I figured what the heck. Between steps I started cooking dinner (Thai green curry with chicken..mmmm). I had most of it sprayed but had gone back over some surface rust with the grinder to get the bulk of it off. The rust has left some pitting on the underside of the trunk along the edge, and then a little where the emblem and deck badges were on the outer side. So now I'm going to try my hand at body filling.

As I think I mentioned, I splurged for the Evercoat Rage Extreme which is supposed to be excellent. It adheres well, sets up quickly and sands very easily. Shouldn't be too tough, but I figure it's good that I"m starting out on the underside of the deck lid. Not too terribly crucial.

So, all in all, kinda tough day as far as adding things to the list. On the upside, I found $2.47 in change under the driver's seat. I knew there was some under there! That's a half gallon of fuel (sigh...).

Well, I'm off to mix filler. Wish me luck. Til next time!

You'd think I was Aaron Burr from the way I'm droppin' Hamiltons...

So, money. When I'm savin' it I'm still spendin' it. Those in the know say, "You've gotta spend money to make money." In that case, it's about to come pouring in. I just dropped (skip to the next sentence Mom and Dad) $500 on supplies today alone. That's not counting the grinder and sander I just bought.
Because of the way I'm stripping the paint off (one section at a time), I'm going to need to do an initial and immediate self-etching primer coat. This well keep the rust at bay. Apparently there's a window of about 8 hours before rust starts to form on newly-exposed metal. So, I'll be priming the car twice. The second coat is the high-build primer that fills in minor imperfections and is sandable, creating that smooth surface before painting. So the primer alone set me back close to $300 (with accompanying activators).
I also got a gallon of Evercoat Rage Extreme body filler, as well as some of their metal glaze for final scratch filling before priming. Add on a roll of 400 grit sandpaper, 2 sanding blocks, a glaze spreader, and probably something I'm not remembering right now, and we're at $500. But that's okay. It's saving me money in the long run. Now I just have to decide if I'm going to do the cheaper BASF Limco paint or spring for something better. (No, I'm not going get Glasurit. It's super expensive and you have to know what you're doing, apparently.) The store I'm going to also sells Sherwin Williams. They guy said they've got one that's very high quality, and sells for $308 per gallon, and I'd need just one gallon. That's not including reducer and hardener. All told it'd be $500. Anyone have any experience with it? The salesman said that the only difference I'd see between the expensive stuff and the cheap stuff is how long it lasts. Which is a big deal to me.
OH! I also got a spray gun kit. An ATD 3-gun kit. Yes, it's cheap ($96). But they assure me that it's going to atomize my one-stage paint just fine. No, it won't last as long as the more expensive ones, but I'm not going into the painting business either. (Or am I?) No.

So today I tried out my new grinder and went to town on the inside and rim of the trunk to remove rust scale. Good thing I drive a diesel or I'd probably be in the afterlife right now. As the sparks were flying (with my 1/3 full fuel tank right below me) I thought "This might be one of the dumber things I've ever done. Wait, it's diesel. It won't blow...will it?" It didn't. I didn't smell any fumes, so I figured I was fine. I was still a little nervous though. I can't wait for my POR-15 trunk repair kit to arrive in the mail. I have to get all the rust fixed before I can really move forward with the rest. I suppose I could start stripping panels further forward. I just wanna get my quarter panel cut out and replaced and all the trunk rust fixed, then prime it before I prime the quarter panels. I just wanna know the rust has been put to bed.

Things I'm thinking/concerned about:

-Getting a good enough air compressor for painting. I guess you need a really big one so you don't run out of air. However, I'm thinking that since I'm doing a panel at a time, basically, that I don't need to go too big. Maybe 25-30 gallons with a 5 hp motor? My biggest area to prime or paint at one time will be the roof and rear pillars. Will this be enough?

-I DON'T HAVE A GARAGE. My car is on the street. Painting it there will be less than ideal. The neighbors might be a little concerned. But the biggest problem is wind/breeze and dirt, bugs and pollen. For the primer it doesn't matter so much because I can sand it. But the paint?! If anyone knows of a place I can go in the DC area to paint it, please, please let me know.

That is where I am as of today. Finding an air compressor stands in the way of getting started on stripping down the panels. I'll be isolating an area at a time: strip, fill/sand, glaze/sand, prime, prime again. Wish me luck! Until next time...

Let the great experiment begin!

I've always liked Courier font. There's something so newsy about it. As a boy, I'd often lay awake at night setting type in my mind. I know this is different from your normal boy, but then again, I was no ordinary...okay, sorry. Let's start again.

This is my blog. My first blog. Ever. And probably last. In fact, this may be the only entry, knowing me. But I'll try to overcome that tendency and write at least two. I don't know what you're expecting from this blog, but I'm going to keep it respectable. It's PG-rated. Possibly PG-13 at times, but only if it is something my character would really do. No gratuitousness. Unless you go with the second meaning of gratuitous: "given or done free of charge." In that case, it's all gratuitous.

Alright, enough self-aware rambling. Go read Salinger for that. Um...okay. Oh yeah! My car. I have a 1975 Mercedes Benz 240D. Really it's a 240D 3.0, for those in the know. NO, it's not a factory 240D 3.0. It was made as a regular 240D with a 4-cylinder 2.4 liter engine in it. But someone at some point installed a 5-cylinder 3.0 liter engine in it, but left everything else the same. My good friend Peter (a.k.a. Pierre) Hedary down in Orlando helped me with a lot of things, one of which was to put in the corresponding rear axle out of a 300D. I can never remember the ratios...I think it was a 3.4something and now it's a 3.3something. Or not. Anyway, since the interior package and a few other things are still a 240D, that makes it more or less a 240D 3.0. With a 4-speed manual. Eat your heart out all you automatic-diesel-driving schmucks. Mine has pep. At least as much as an old Mercedes diesel can have.

Okay, so, I've had this car for a couple of years now, and have taken good care of it. The paint is not original and has always been dull, not to mention poorly done, since I've had it. Also there are various dings and rough spots, as well as the all-too-common quarter panel rust on one side. Then the other non-rusty quarter panel got smashed in along with the rear door one night in a parking lot. Hit and run. That has since been repaired but not painted. So for the last 8 months I've been driving around with a gray primered quarter panel and rear door on the driver's side.

Well, now that school's out (I'm doing a master's in Second Language Acquisition at the University of Maryland) for the summer, I'm going to go into full-blown restoration mode. I thought it would be fun to document it with this blog and some photos in order for a few of my friends and family to follow along. For you non-enthusiasts out there, which I anticipate are most of you, I'll try to make it somewhat interesting. But I can't guarantee anything. For those who happen upon this and are contemplating doing a restoration, or those who have already done one, comments and questions are more than welcome.

I've been polishing this and replacing that with a better/cleaner one since I got the car. The steering wheel is not original, I put in euro headlights, the front seats have been switched out for ones in better shape, the instrument cluster is a conglomeration of the best parts of I think three different ones. The list goes on and on of little things that I have switched out or just made nicer. But now that I've set my sights on doing the body work and repainting, I'm seeing ALL KINDS of things that I need to do. The scope keeps getting wider and wider. Here's a list of what I've done in the last few days:

-Strip paint off, sand and prime a replacement trunk lid that I found (mine is rusty).
-Pull all trim off.
-Pull rear bumper off.
-Pull trunk seal and grind rust around edge
-Pull rear seat and disassemble back part (there is no padding left in it and the frame is rusted)
-Probably more that I can't think of at the moment...


Here's a list of things that I need to do as far as I know right now:

-Fix the rust in the trunk and around the trunk seal and repaint the inside.
-Replace the trunk seal
-Repair or replace the back of the rear seat and reinstall.
-Fix torn ceiling liner by back seat.
-Run new tail light wiring.
-Run new vacuum lines for the locking system.
-Have the rust cut out of the quarter panel and a new piece welded in.
-Grind out all the rust I can see which, incidentally, is almost everywhere in spite of what decent shape the car is in.
-Strip ALL of the paint off the car.
-Straighten dents and dings as much as possible.
-Fill the imperfections with body filler.
-Spray the whole thing in self-etching (acidic, rust-inhibiting) primer.
-Block sand and look for more imperfections.
-Fill and sand those.
-Spray the whole thing with high-build primer to smooth things out.
-Sand the whole thing completely smooth.
-Pull windshield and back window (backlight).
-Paint it.
-Put windows back in with new seals.
-Put all the trim, lights and bumpers back on.
-Buff to a shine.
-Drive and smile.

Here are some pictures of what I've done in the last few days...








Stay tuned!