Aaron's 76 Type LT Project

11 minute(s) of a 383 minute read

Today was sand blasting day (media blast actually) for the shell. I used Black Beauty media. I needed to blast some tight spots around the trunk, door openings, tail panel and cowl panel. Media blasting in near 100* heat is not fun, but it had to be done.

The plan is to spray epoxy primer tomorrow, but I might not get to that until next weekend. But we'll see.

Before



After - kind of hard to tell the difference, but I sanded the roof and both 1/4s with 80 grit for the epoxy primer. I need to do the rocker panels, tail panel and cowl panel some more, but just some touch up sanding. Then I can think about spraying epoxy primer on the shell.



Trunk area all nice and pretty



Most of us know this trick, but I will share it anyway. Once the door hinges are correct, drill a few alignment holes to make it easier to re-install the hinges later. A 1/8" bit will do the trick

8-24-2014

I didn't spray the epoxy primer today, there was still a lot of prep work left to do which I did not want to compromise on. I also had to do a little more media blasting along the bottom of the car. I plan on spraying it tomorrow night if all goes as planned. I need to put some new masking paper in place which I will do tomorrow morning. I will also do an initial wipe down in the morning if time allows
it. But tomorrow might be one of those late nights.

Here's a few pics of the car BEGGING me to spray something on it.

8-26-2014

So I am spraying the epoxy primer tonight, I did not have enough time after final prep and masking was done. I got the shell wiped down with W&G remover and then tacked it off. I will tack it off again before spraying.  

Just for reference, I called Barry @ SPI today and this is the advice and settings he provided for the Harbor Freight "purple" gun w/ the 1.4 tip

* For just the shell he thinks 3 pints of mixed product will be plenty for 2 coats
* No need to reduce with the garage temp in upper 80s, he said SPI epoxy primer loves it at that temp
* Fluid adjustment - 2.75 turns off seat
* Fan adjustment - wide open then close ~10%
* If using a wall regulator, open it up as much as you can
* PSI at the gun regulator with a trigger pulled wide open set to 26-28

Hope this info helps some others

So I got off to a poor start tonight. My HF purple gun was malfunctioning, as in primer was dripping heavily out the tip. At least it decided to break before I got going. I could not fix it (took it apart, cleaned it and no change) so I drove and got another one and will return the broken one later. Then a damn mockingbird flew into my garage and I had to chase it out with a broom, which meant I needed to tack rag the body again (whatever). So I was convinced the Camaro gods were not going to let me spray tonight, but I defied all odds and sprayed two coats. I will spray another coat on the roof and 1/4s (maybe the entire shell) no later than this weekend, it will be worth having a third coat between the metal and me block sanding.

All in all it turned out well. A little trash got into the primer in a couple of spots but that's not a big deal. It felt good to get the metal covered up finally.

Please ignore the crummy masking job on the door openings, I didn't care enough to fully cover them for this.

8-27-2014

Thanks guys. Yes, seeing ANY color on the body feels good, esp since the car will be painted black. I was mostly concerned with getting the bare metal coated, so that is out of the way. I plan on spraying one more coat tonight, but that should take all of an hour.

The immediate plan after that is to:

* Prep the dash/cowl area for hot rod black and then spray
* Perform any major spot dent repairs on the shell. The main areas are the roof-to-1/4 patches and the rocker panels. The roof and 1/4s are pretty clean
* Spray Slick Sand on the shell and start blocking!

I think I will fit the rest of the body panels for alignment after I block the Slick Sand. I don't think installing and removing the doors and front clip would be wise with the shell completely painted. It's the dilemma when painting the car in pieces. It definitely adds more time but I think it will be worth it

8-30-2014

I spent a few hours working on the dash area. I applied a light coat of filler to smooth out the entire area. I skimmed a few areas after sanding and called it a night. I burned through in a few spots so I will spray another coat of epoxy primer and then spray the Summit hot rod black. I should have it completed by Monday.  



I started the day off by demo'ing a structure in the backyard of a rental property we bought on Friday. It was a patio cover and the deck was decent but had to come up since they built the entire thing so poorly. I listed the lumber on CL and it went fast, so that was good. I have to go back tmro and finish the demo, but that should only take 2-3 hours.

9-2-2014

So I began working on the sail panel areas and have a few questions. Most importantly, how big of an area does the filler need to be? I began with the driver side (first two pics) and then worked on the passenger side as an experiment (last two pics) to compare two different area sizes. I did not add as much filler on the pass side along the top edge. It seems like I need to add the same amount as the driver side in order to feather that area properly, but I have no frame of reference. Should I sand it down further until I start seeing a little burn through to the primer along the actual seam repair?  

And ignore the really low area on the driver side, there is a low spot there so that area needed filler whereas the passenger side is fine.

Driver side





Passenger side

9-3-2014

Thanks Kevin. Interesting idea with the wet rag.  

I agree about using a block. I have Durablocks and Soft Blocks. I am using the Soft Blocks now on the sail panel area due to the curves involved. Those things are well worth the money.

I worked on the sail panel areas again tonight. I burned through the primer on the driver side in particular, but not much I can do about that except re-prime when I finish the body work. But the filler cut down quite a bit versus where I left off Tuesday night. I wiped them down and will apply a skim coat to address any pinholes and then work toward finishing the filler with 180 grit. I really need to get a glaze for pinholes and such.

Once the sail panels are done I can hit the rocker panels and the small low spots on the shell. I still need to paint the dash, which I can do this weekend (or whenever really, but fairly soon).

9-22-2014

It's been a few weeks since I had time to work on the 76. We picked up another rental property in late Aug so I had to get that handled, but we found a tenant in ~2 weeks after closing so it worked out well. Then we had to go new car shopping for the wife, but got that done this past weekend. I was able to tackle some of the body work today, which is the next big thing on the list before I can spray Slick Sand.

I think I can get the body work done this week so I can move on. I will need to hit the sail panels once more but it should be pretty minor coats of filler that I need to apply to get it right.

I need to apply another layer to each rocker panel patch but they are close to being done.

I actually took the affected areas down to bare metal with 40 grit. SPI does not state this is necessary and in fact says you can apply filler directly over their epoxy primer, but I decided to go the route of applying filler over bare metal. Once the areas are done (I will finish the filler to 180 grit) I will spray a coat of epoxy primer on the bare metal and leave most of the filler exposed for Slick Sand.  

I might have to spray epoxy primer on the sail panels to make sure they are correct, as I am not good enough to tell if those patches are correct without some extra guidance. I will first try to spray some wet guide coat (W&G remover in a compressed sprayer) and shine a light over the sail panel area to see if there are any waves. While I think leaving filler exposed for Slick Sand is the better way to go, it's not unacceptable to spray epoxy over filler.