Paint and Body 1962 Impala - Bodywork

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There will be a slight delay on significant progress. About two weeks roughly.

The pinhead that talked me into this wants me to paint four different small collision jobs for him as well. It'll take me roughly two weeks to get them done.

The jobs are fairly small, front end on a BMW suv, rear end on an Acadia, right side on an explorer and something i'm not clear off on a ford edge.

I'm going to make enough to make it worthwhile to do them, which translates that i'll make enough to buy parts for my blue car.

I really hate to take focus off of the impala since by the time the impala is prepped for paint the warmer weather will be just about here. Oh well, I may end up painting the car at two in the morning somewhere towards the end of June now.

I'll get the panels on it this week, but significant bodywork won't be happening till I paint those other jobs.

Sorry about the delay, my blue car is like my son, they both love green.:chin
 
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Did some stuff tonight. There's a slight delay on the other jobs because he's waiting for the insurance companies to do an inspect.

Though I did fix the first one, a BMW suv of some sort. It's brand new and very nice with a three stage white paint job. It has a night vision camera on the front of it, a freaking night vision camera. @madmike1157 ,what's this for? (I know, seeing at night....). It was behind a truck that had a container of acid fall off and splattered the entire vehicle. AAAAHHHHH! I told him not to do this job. Luckily it was a mild acid and didn't eat into the paint. All I saw was a complete strip and repaint at first. I wasn't going to do it, I told the guy I wasn't going to do it. So naturally he said he would do it:nonono: I ended up buffing the entire vehicle. Gooder than new.

So, to what this thread is about. I had several small pieces that needed to be stripped and coated with epoxy. The gas lid door, the cowl panel, the filler from between the bumper and grill, and the pitted area immediately behind the top and deck lid. I was able to, with concerted effort, sand blast the pitting till it was clean metal. I did this in short sleeves and no face shield. My pores have never felt so painfully clean.:eek:

Then we did the big one. We fitted the panels! It turned out not to be that bad after all. The fenders, hood and doors were great.
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The door to quarter fit was a bit off though. In this picture you can see where the PR had welded in a new patch panel on the upper front quarter. The rest of the door to quarter fit is great, but not the top body line. I can fix it though. I'll use a cutoff wheel to slice along the bodyline and reshape it and weld it back in the correct spot. It's like the PR welded it on without the door on to compare body lines. Once they found it didn't fit, they filled the bastard in with mud.:nonono: (Yes, another head shaking emoji. I'll be using that one a lot during this job).
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Here's a couple pictures of the vehicle with panels on.
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Tomorrow I will be doing the bodywork on the driver's fender and door. I hope to have that completed and have them in a high build primer before I'm done. We're due for some nasty weather tomorrow night, I want to get back home before it hits. The weather people are saying the possibility of hail up to the size of grapefruits! Fckin' grapefruits! I hope they're wrong. Grapefruit sized hail at 70mph might leave a bruise.......:nonono:(and i'm so pretty right now:nice:).
 
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I've always liked really early "big two" sheetmetal. (hate the early chryslers,...way too much fin) and I do like the Impala SS,...I just don't like it as a vert. (Which I know means squat here except for conversation). But like the guy over at FEP that thinks I hung the moon because I have a six in the car, I'll fill your thread w/ pics of non-relevant pictures of what I do like...

I like a bubble top....I'd build and trade ten monsters for one of these...
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Although the Ford version is somewhat similar, It doesn't have the cool factor that this thing does.
 
I spent my Saturday with the SS today. I'm a tired camper.

I started with the fender. I blocked it with 150 to get a view of what needed to be fixed. Three main areas. The top of the fender had some waves, the back where it meets the door and the front edge that meets the headlights.
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I used a spitznagel gun to pull the worst of the dents out, I then used a couple different body hammers and dollies to beat the remaining low spots out and then slung the mud. It's similar to what i've used on my mustangs, just a little more old fashioned. The gun welds on the small studs that you use to pull the dents out.
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I hope you understand the mud is not very thick at all. Compared to what the PR did, it's positively scanty:eek:. These panels were coated with mud and Z-chrome (a polyester spray filler).

The fender took me about five actual hours to fix. I hope this doesn't sound too weird, but repairing these panels is almost like a love relationship. I want the best for each panel so I go over every inch of the panel slowly with a soft touch and varying degrees of sandpaper and different blocks that will allow me to bring each curve, each straight surface, bodylines, whatever back to at least as good as original, hopefully better.
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Just so you know, I've spent literally hours studying photos of '62 impala SS convertibles studying every line and curve on these vehicles. This one will be better than the previous restoration.

Then it was time to play with the driver's door. The door was perfect as far as the edges matching up, except for the lower edge that matches up to the rocker panel from about 10 inches from the front edge to and through the curve where it transitions into meeting the quarter panel. It stuck out by a good margin.
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What to do? Two 2x4's and a five pound sledge hammer. I blocked the door from behind with one 2x4 and used the other to help reduce the blow strength of the sledge hammer. Then I went to town beating the hell out of the lower edge to bend it to the lines of the rocker. It took about 200 hits to form it to the correct shape. Have any of you every swung a five pound sledge a couple hundred times within a 5-10 minute period? It really sucks the life out of a person. Anyhow, it worked. The bodylines match up all around other than that pesky upper quarter line we've discussed before. So I have the edges for the final paint job.

A moment on edges. When fitting up your panels after stripping a car and putting on the protective coating of primer. You want to get the connecting edges and lines between panels to match up. Then you straighten the panel. The quarter panel will be brought into submission to the lines of the door in the case of this car. So, all I needed to do to the door was to change the lower edge to match the rocker.

I took the door off to begin the general straightening of the panel now that the edges are aligned. I knew after walloping the crap of the bottom edge that I would need to spend time on it. Also in the lower door was this wonderful crease.
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I used the spitznagel to pull the majority of the low spots from the crease and the waves in the very bottom of the door. Then i ground the lower part to bare metal and slung the mud. I didn't take pictures at this stage because I was so freaking tired.

I primered the fender and the lower half of the door and called it quits for the day.

So the fender bodywork is done and primered and I made good headway on the door. I'll finish the door next tuesday night and reprimer it. Then off to the passenger's side.
 
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Red. It was originally 923 Roman Red. That's what the owner wants back on it. I'm fine with that.

I thought it might have been blue at one time because the rockers had blue underneath the red paint. I believe they may have been replaced sometime in their past. When replaced they weren't stripped.

There's a lot of frankenstein patching on the lower part of the vehicle, I really need to spend more time on tuesday night studying what has been done in this area. It's not rotted, which is good, just ugly. I'll post some pictures after tuesday.
 
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[QUOTE="madmike1157

I like a bubble top....I'd build and trade ten monsters for one of these...
prd_891.jpg


Although the Ford version is somewhat similar, It doesn't have the cool factor that this thing does.[/QUOTE]

I think the Starliner and the Fastback Galaxies looked better.
 
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I like the Galaxies a lot as well. If I had free time out the butt and money flowing like water, I would try to get this car from the same yard as my blue car and make it into a really btchin' rod.
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I'm not knocking the impala i'm working on, I'm just a fan of Fords. I'll just have to see if the lottery pans out like I want it to first......:jester:
 
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I like the Galaxies a lot as well. If I had free time out the butt and money flowing like water, I would try to get this car from the same yard as my blue car and make it into a really btchin' rod.
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I'm not knocking the impala i'm working on, I'm just a fan of Fords. I'll just have to see if the lottery pans out like I want it to first......:jester:

Same here Dave, I think the Impala is a neat and rare car. Probably won't find many of those left, especially with all the neat options. Any idea how many like this were produced ?
 
Same here Dave, I think the Impala is a neat and rare car. Probably won't find many of those left, especially with all the neat options. Any idea how many like this were produced ?
Not really, I do understand it's more about how many have survived that's held in importance to the owners. Especially with the 409 in it.

I researched what i needed to know really, the shapes of the bodylines, etc.... Whatever will help me to take it back to it's original shape. The other details are for those that can afford to buy these cars. I can't quite squeeze out the coin for something like this!
 
I like the Galaxies a lot as well. If I had free time out the butt and money flowing like water, I would try to get this car from the same yard as my blue car and make it into a really btchin' rod.
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I'm not knocking the impala i'm working on, I'm just a fan of Fords. I'll just have to see if the lottery pans out like I want it to first......:jester:

I'm glad you're on our side.
 
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I'm heading out to work on the door tonight. I hope to have the bodywork done and have it back in primer this evening.

I have noticed one thing missing in this thread that I've failed to put in it, so here
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Ok, I got the bodywork done on the driver's door and got it in primer. It would have been relatively easy except for the straightening of the edges at the bottom of the door. It took a little time to make sure the edge was straight after having beat it to the rocker panel edge.

I spaced out pictures except for one when I started priming when I remembered i didn't take any pictures with just mud. The top half of the door was really pretty nice, three or four dings is all.
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Tomorrow night i'm going to flip it over and strip the jamb, i know this seems a little out of order, but I was brought into this job after others had started doing stuff. Just trying to make sure everything gets done right. After stripping it and spraying the primer I will seam seal it.

So I will probably get into the passenger's fender tomorrow night as well.
 
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Dave, I gotta hand it to you man. I've got hourssss into this paint project of mine and as I was blocking out the high build last night, I found a half dozen other hickeys that I need to fill; each one crushed my soul a little more than the last. Even then, there are still waves and whoops that I have neither the tools nor the knowledge to fix, so they're going to stay. I went inside last night after 3.5 hours of work aching and sore, and I'm 30.

What I'm trying to say is you're my hero for doing this every day. There's no way I'd be able to.
 
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Dave, I gotta hand it to you man. I've got hourssss into this paint project of mine and as I was blocking out the high build last night, I found a half dozen other hickeys that I need to fill; each one crushed my soul a little more than the last. Even then, there are still waves and whoops that I have neither the tools nor the knowledge to fix, so they're going to stay. I went inside last night after 3.5 hours of work aching and sore, and I'm 30.

What I'm trying to say is you're my hero for doing this every day. There's no way I'd be able to.
x1000

i've been sanding my engine bay (again, because i got a coat of epoxy on it and saw it still looked like ass) for the last 3 days for at least 4 hours a day, and every time i think im done i find a pinhole or some other random fudge up and gotta put more on and sand some more. and im not even to high build yet :(
 
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Ok, I'm still sidetracked on the side jobs. I'm still taking care of his other "little" jobs. I'm shooting the Acadia tailgate and rear bumper tonight. Tomorrow I have to shoot another BMW X5 front end. They're both three stage white.

On the positive side, he has this in the fridge and asked me if I like beer:eek:
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Maybe......:scratch:
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