The SN65 project car

shelbe67 said:

wow that is great! what is your game plan as far as the rest of the paint for the car like I know that you painted the hood and trunk are you gonna paint the rest of the body seperate and then assemble it or are you ganna paint everything assemble it and then put another coat on and keep clearing it? I am just wondering cause I wanna paint my car and want the paint quality to be like yours so I know when I atrt to check around I knw what I am looking for

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Hi S67,

If you really want your car to look as good as this one, just bring it to our shop.

Anyway... What we are going to do is finish painting all the pieces separately, just as we have the hood, doors and trunk lid. They have a coat of white sealer, three coats of color and three coats of clear. We are then going to wet sand everything to remove any dirt and orange peal. After that Wayne will spray one final coat of clear. We will then assemble the car. The final step will be wet sanding any small specks of dust and buff. This should give us the finish that we are looking for.

Hope this helps.

Coupe Devil said:

Bob, first time poster, long time thread follower. Friend if mine turned me onto this thread a while back and ive been lurking ever since. You are the greatest for taking on such a project. Everyone keeps talking about blending the old and new. One thing I JUST noticed is the holes in the leading edge of the hood, for the stock FORD letters. Thats one of those things that really brings the old back.. I see lots of cars with out the front letters but definantly glad to see you kept them.

Keep up the EXCELLENT work. I cannot wait to see the final product.

Brad

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Hi Brad,

Thanks for the kind words.

I agree with you in regard to the FORD letters on the hood. It seams that everybody eliminates them. I will be mixing the badging from the 65 and the 03. The hood will say FORD just like the origninal 65 hood. The fender badges will be the 03 cobras and on the trunk will be the SVT logo and the FORD blue oval.

Catch you l8r

Hi All,

It looks like our first show is going to be the Detroit Autorama coming up this March. When I told the guy's in the shop, they said, Ohhhh, maybe we will win the Riddler.....

BRAHHHAHHHHAHHHH!!!!!!

They may have been perfectly serious at the time but it is hard to tell. Maybe I should have taken the laugh as a little clue.

Anyway... It did bring up an interesting topic. The general feeling was that, even if this car came out absolutely perfect, it would not be given a second look for this award.

First off, it is completely different than any car that has ever won the award. They are all polished chrome, SS lines, shaved, frenched, blank firewall, minimalist street rod type cars. Ours is built to mimic factory construction. Wires everywhere, factory connectors, factory labels, etc... We would be more successful in a concourse competition than this type of show car setting.

Second, we are not one of the big name shops or builders. I think that there is a certain mind set at these events. If Foose has a car there, he will make the finals, regardless of the entry.

Third, We have not spent 1/2 mill on this project. This also seams to have an impact on the judges.

While these are all good points, I feel that we may generate some interest if only due to the unique aspect of this project. The fact that it is totally different from the projects normally given the nod might even work in our favor, that is of course if creativity has anything to do with the competition at all.

What do you think??? Will a project of this nature be given any consideration or will the judges keep picking cars that are more of the same???

1320stang said:

Now Bob, straighten me out here. I'm no paint authority, but as I understand it, you don't want to paint parts on different days because of weather conditions as even though it's the same paint, from the same mix, applied by the same painter with the same gun, it won't look the same.

Is Wayne applying the 3rd and final coat of color after the car has been assembled then the 3 coats of clear?

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Hi 1320,

Well, in our shop, there was not perfect solution to this. Yes, you are right. In a perfect world, we would have painted everything at the same time, but our booth is not large enough to accomidate this and the workload dictates that we mix in paying customers between phases of this project. So... We were going to have to split the job into different phases no mater what.

On a possitive side is the painter we have doing the job. I have seen amzing things here at the collision center. In fact, the typical job here is always a mix of matching old paint and textures. I am confident that when all is said and done, you will not be able to tell which was painted first and which was painted last.

bigcat said:

bob, what did you think of my light bar suggestion? CDC 05 mustang high mount.....

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Hi BC,

I like it a lot. We are currently debating the pros and cons of all the different lights available. I will let you know which we decide to go with.

Hi All,

One more step toward completion.

Wayne got the fenders painted last night, as well as the front upper and lower valance and some miscellaneous parts.




I, on the other hand, got little done other than sanding a few small parts getting them ready for paint.

I thought that now would be a good time to look back into the past and see just where we were one year ago. Here are a few photos of the project from last Nov.




We have come quite far over the past 12 months. I look forward to the day that we can drive this car whenever the mood strikes us. Hopefully, it will be sooner than next Nov.

Catch ya'll l8r

Hi All,

Haven't had much to post lately. The detail work is just eating up so much time. I spent ALL day Friday detailing the interior "C" pillar vent grills. I sanded all the corrosion from the surfaces. You know what I mean right? All that pitting that develops over the years. Sanding in between all those vents is a royal pain in the butt. All that work, just to get them ready for paint.



What we are going to do is paint them the dark charcoal color and then wet sand the fronts to expose the chrome after which we will clear coat the pieces. They should look pretty good at that point. The chrome front surfaces of the grills are now an interesting blend of chrome and brass which will look great with the current color combinations.

On Saturday, I worked up the seat brackets. These were much more involved than I had originally thought they were going to be. The seat tracks were much wider than the ford mounting locations. Also, the factory mounting locations are recessed into the floor about 2". To resolve these issues, I searched through the cash of stock Hydro-Flo material and decided to use two pieces of 2" x 2" unistrut. I had to taper and box the ends to clear the contours of the floor. I also had to remove about an inch of material fron the top of the rear mount to clear the seat when it is in the full down position.




Even though I was spending my spare time working on inane details, Wayne actually got the raw end of the deal. In between working on customer cars, he would continue sanding on the body getting it just right before rolling it into the paint booth. He will be wiping all the surfaces down reviewing the work today. He is being even more critical of this aspect of the build than he was with the bolt on items. He says "I only want to paint this once". This is such a large phase of the project, reworking any mistakes would really suck. Here is a shot of all the painted pieces currently in storage. If Wayne gets his wish, we will be able to start assembly at the beginning of December.




Catch ya'll l8r