The Snowball Saga - '68 Standard Revitalization Project by Blitz

7 minute(s) of a 767 minute read

Hey guys! I do have updates... was kinda waiting on having more pics to share but I can definitely do a partial update.

To pick up the story where I left off, in the process of fitting panels / quarter extensions, the shop discovered that the existing paint on the body would pretty much flake right off with a razor blade if they scraped it. This basically called into question everything that was done before, and there went any confidence that the existing paint job would be a serviceable base to paint over. So the reality was, we'd have to take it down to bare metal and start over. Ugggh. I gave them the go ahead to begin stripping the back of the car to see what we were dealing with.

Once the quarters and trunk lid were exposed, they didn't look too bad in terms of the metal, but it became apparent just how thick the car was with previous paint jobs and filler.



I'm no expert but to me this looks like at least: factory red primer / factory paint, second prime & paint, third prime & paint, and finally fourth prime & paint I had done in 2012 / 2014 - with various amounts of bondo in between. There will be more pics forthcoming of what else was discovered after this, but I don't have them yet.

So. Given how much work was left to do to get the car all the way stripped, straightened out, and repainted, and given the $ rate of the shop, and given how meticulous and time-consuming their working style is, it was going to cost well over $10k the way things were going. So I made the decision to stop there, pull the car out of the shop, and made arrangements with a friend of a coworker to finish the car. The shop was very cool and understanding about it, so luckily there was no drama in getting the car back.

Car retrieved 1/24/17 . Crates in the truck are WCCC shipments that had to go to PDX, might as well kill two birds with one stone. Thanks to Richard ("Mistress" on here) for piloting the tuck and helping out.



Scott B. (CougarCJ) scoping it out:



Closeup of patched area on RH quarter. You can tell the fit / contour wasn't great. The reproduction patch panel was used here, and I remember the guy who patched it (2011) wasn't really a fan of that repro piece.



Rear window patch panel. I'm not sure why the shop welded the seam on the top side, it's not supposed to be done this way. Will be corrected. At least the fit with the trunk lid is way better than before.



So, after this, we took the car up to the new guy. A little about him: he's not an official shop or business, just a passionate hobbyist with a real paint booth at his house, who has been painting cars for himself and friends for years. He seems to have a good grasp of the right materials to use and the right way to prep a car for paint and all that good stuff, and I've seen some of his work. I'm pretty confident that he can deliver good bodywork and a nice paint job in a reasonable amount of time, without completely destroying my finances. All along, I've never been going for show car perfection, I just want it to be nice and consistent and shiny.

Here's the same night, when we dropped it off:





And then here's 11 days later, almost completely stripped:





There were issues with some of the wheel arches being crunched, and they had been re-sculpted with bondo. The truth comes out when you go down to the metal.





You can also see above that there had been a crease down the RH side of the car, which had then been pulled back out. No idea when that was, but again, it was my grandparents' daily driver long before I was alive.

In this shot, you can see a pretty sizable dent on the nose of the hood. I had no idea that was there, it was just filled over.



So this is the most recent time I saw the car, but plan on going back in the next couple weeks. He took pictures through the stripping process and I'll share those highlights when I get them from him. There was an amazing amount of bondo everywhere, and he said the way the paint sanded off was really weird, unlike anything he'd seen before. Clearly something was very wrong with the 2012 / 2014 paint work, and most of the car was never stripped all the way down until now.

As of the last few weeks, he tells me he's got the metal work about done and is almost ready to prime / seal the car. Looking forward to seeing it, will take some pics.

And in case you're wondering, I am planning on saving the vinyl top, so that's staying in place and I'm hoping it can be re glued back down at the bottom after the new paint is done. It seems a shame to rip it off since it's a new, expensive premium top. I do have some doubts about the quality of the roof surface prep and paint adhesion after seeing what happened to the rest of the body, but I suppose the roof could always be redone separately down the road if it comes to that. I'm thinking it'll be okay for a while.

That's the update for now! ETA for getting the car back is June, but at the rate he's going it may be even earlier. Then I hope to work my butt off on it, get it togther and enjoy it this summer, maybe even bring it to the Cascade show in August if all goes well. Needless to say it feels ridiculous to start over on the body & paint at this point, and it's super frustrating, but at the same time I'm pretty excited that things are going in the right direction now and that I might actually be done with it this year. I can't even fathom the idea of it being finished and beautiful, and being able to drive around in it.