Well,...that Wasn't Fun.

Husky44 said:

Congrats!

Great story as usual. Glad to hear that others can make a quick job into an all day ordeal.



This line made me giggle. Old lady thinks it's weird, since I'm sitting on the toilet with the door shut. Gotta love these new tablets.

Click to expand...

Glad I can keep you entertained Husky, seems everything I touch turns into twice as much to get it fixed,....I'm like that Mida's dude,...'cept instead of everything I touch turning into gold,...my stuff turns to sh it.

VibrantRedGT said:

So what are you gonna do now? Drive it, sell it, enjoy it, take something else apart?

Click to expand...

There was always a plan for further dissasembly before it gets driven. The lower body side molding has been off since day 1,......the hood has a bazillion rock chips,.....and the rear bumper has impact damage to the paint on the LR corner. I am gonna pull the rear bumper cover off tonight,...and the hood after we get through this rain that is coming up. Gonna repaint the lower moldings, repair the rock damage to the hood, and probably repaint it as well, black out the tail panel and the center of the hood, and then clean and buff the whole car.

Then I'll drive it, enjoy it, sell it,....and take something else apart.

srtthis said:

those eatons stay hot a long time!

Click to expand...

They must!.....I didn't even get the engine anywhere near operating temp,...and the damn blower was probably 120* still after 2.5 hrs.

Only because it was so easy,..I kept up w/ my plans to remove the rear bumper,..and force myself to deal with it. Leaving it in place might've tempted me to drive it looking like I live at the 8 mile trailer park,....so to be sure not to be mistaken for Em&Em,... I took the bumper cover off.
(In -10 minutes I might add)


Look at the hidden dirt. Does this bother me despite the fact that it will never see the light of day?

Yes.

To be clear,...the "thing" I'm obsessing over is this small area of broken paint,...and a scuff where whatever stupid Larry backed into has damaged the driver side rear of the cover:



The "bump" managed to chip the paint on the body as well,......(I'll touch that up)



You can see where the tail light must've got pushed into the quarter,......it is chipped about an inch, right where the tail light touches.

I've also got this to deal with,.....the trunk deck has been touching it for 10 years,...and has rubbed through to the substrate.


I have a half day Wednesday,......I'll start on sanding the three pieces hoping to get it ready for paint maybe Saturday.

5.0Droptop said:

after blasting down the road and hitting boost I suspect mike might think again about keeping it.

Click to expand...

Yeah well,......I guess we'll just have to see wont we?

1.5 days later,.....a bitter/sweet update.

All I've heard from people when it comes to talking about touching up this paint is always the same:
""You'll have trouble getting it to match", "You may as well repaint the whole car,...You'll NEVER get any color to match that faded 10 year old paint job"

Yet I plod along.

I go to Ford, and order the touch up vial from the color code on my door jamb,...and attempt to touch up the rock chips......

It don't match.

So I Take the gas cap to the paint store and have a qt. custom tinted to match it. They even leave a little blob on the door to demonstrate to me how exact they have matched this particular paint.

Confident that I have solved the mismatch dilemma, I buy a qt. of premium base/clear from a company called Matrix, and a gallon of high solids clear from the same company,...it cost a little over 200.00 for the stuff w/ the requisite reducer, and activator. That was almost a month ago,......I knew that someday I'd tackle the rocker molding and rear bumper repair and I knew I'd need it.

Yesterday I started that project.

I started by ensuring that the Florida penguin smacker was happy........I washed what will never be seen:


Both rocker moldings were trashed. They had seen one too many curbs,...and were victims of just stupid jacking procedures, the rocker pinch weld was folded flat in several places....The moldings were still attached to the pinch weld despite that fact, and were all kinds of distorted because of that. So they were removed as soon as I got the car in the air 2 months ago. They were the first thing I dealt with today.


I stripped them w/ my DA using 180 grit paper,...followed by 320 before I primed them w/ rattle can high build primer. After 4 cans, I soon came to terms w/ the fact that as much of a pain in the ass mixing primer is,...I could buy a qt for less than the spray bombs were costing me and have product to spare,...so off to the paint store I went. Came back 40.00 lighter.

After I got the rocker moldings done,..I turned to the bumper,...after I got it stripped,...I masked off the cobra insert on the back bumper,.....found my Xacto knife,....switched out the blade so I could have the sharpest edge possible so i could cut the excess tape out around the letters. I start slowly, carefully cutting out the excess tape from the recessed c-o-b-r-a. It was right about at the "O" that I decided to see how far I could stick that Xacto blade into the tip of my right middle finger. Turns out it goes in real deep.

After a short recess so I could drip blood all over the main floor bathroom,..I return w/ doubled bandaids on the finger and resume cutting out the rest of the letters. I prime the offending damage,...and return to the rockers,....cause one way or the other I'm painting those b itches today.



The paint mixes at 1/1 so my one qt. should make 2 qts of sprayable material. I should have more than enough to paint the rockers,..and the whole rear bumper if I need to....I fill the gun and I spray the first coat.

I use the entire gun.

I wait for the stuff to flash,....mix up some more yellow,...fill the gun and dump another coat, and come back w/ an empty gun again.
The yellow is just starting to hide the primer underneath, It's gonna take at least another coat maybe two.

I'm down to a half qt. of paint

The paint completely hides at 4 coats,..and despite the fact that it has been two years since I've had a spray gun in my hand,..I think the base came out OK.



See that blue tarp? That was supposed to be under the stand,..in the garage.

The clear is the toxic stuff. Actually it's the activator that contains Isocyanates,......The same stuff in superglue,....a chemical that is not too far from the stuff they used to drop in the little basket in the gas chamber,........Cyanide.
You find out that it takes a certain respirator cartridge to safely breathe while spraying this stuff,....and the garden variety Home Depot respirator does not come with that cartridge.

What type of respirator do you 'spose I have?

The symptoms of exposure to Isocyanates are numerous,...but most revolve around central nervous malfunctions, central nervous malfunctions, central nervous malfunctions........... There,......sorry,.I'm a little foggy for some reason tonight.

Where was I? Oh yeah! I'm getting ready to post a picture of the same things only w/ the clear added.


As with all pics,...they never do the actual paint justice,....but you can just get a sense of the shine I was able to get.

So,.....you should be asking yourself,........ "He said this was a bitter sweet experience,...everything looks really good,....where's the bitter part?"..............

Ready?

It don't match.

It's off by a mile. So far in fact that I can't paint the rear bumper,.....it'll be so far off from the quarters, you'll see it a mile away.

It's actually a more lemony yellow when compared to the muted boring shade that now covers my car. Quite frankly,..I'm at a loss. I cannot afford the time, and money to do a complete repaint,..nor do I want to spend another month or more prepping this car for that.

I don't have enough material left to even paint that bumper anyway,...I guess I could take it back to my paint supply shop and have another qt. double secret probation custom tinted..........
Maybe it'll be a different shade and I'll have three shades of yellow on the pig.

hoopty5.0 said:

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Mike.

Can we maybe start a tally of the number of times we've both been told "told ya so" on here? I've heard it more than a few times.

Click to expand...

Regardless,...what was I sposed to do? There is no alternative to leaving that raggedy, scratched,...and broken stuff on the car.

jrichker said:

Set the whole newly painted thing out in the bright Alabama sun this summer while you are fixing all the other things that bother you . The sun and weather may just do the job...

After that, get out the clay bar, rubbing compound, polish and buffer for the car and Bengay for the tired aching arms and back you're going to have. Then compound, polish and wax the all the rest of the car. By the time you finish, the car either will come much closer to matching what you have painted, or you will be so tired and disgusted you won't care...

Seriously, my 89 has a repaint of the front of the car and the back half was original (and sun faded too). I had a guy do a complete, wash, polish, wax and detail. Then the faded paint of the back half of the car was almost a perfect match for the newer painted front half. It was very uniform from front to rear and looked very good.

Click to expand...

Thanks Mr. Richker,....I intend to do just that.

7991LXnSHO said:

Rhesperators are very good things when VOC's are involved. They will mess you up and lower your IQ permanenly. The guy who painted my yellow car 20+ years ago is a mess now. I would not let him touch up the car now. He sounds like Ozzy.

Click to expand...

Easy for you to say,.....at least I can still spell respirator. You sure YOU haven't been breathing that stuff?