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...
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
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.
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.
Friday, June 13, 2008
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.
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.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
"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!
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!
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