Mike
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This was actually my first attempt at auto body, was able to do everything except finish the painting. Kept getting an uneven finish when spraying the basecoat. Only after it was finished by the professional painter did I realize where I made my mistake. According to him it was the thinners I was using for my basecoat. His words were, when you buy Salcomix paint, you buy the salcomix basecoat thinners, when you buy glasurit paint, you buy the glasurit basecoat thinners. Funny how the sales people at BASF kept selling me normal Lacquer thinners after I explained to them what I wanted to do and what I was experiencing after my first attempt. I guess that’s how you learn… Also didn’t have a professional spray booth to get the work done in. Anyway, just glad its done now. Now its basicly just the clear coat that needs to be buffed, polished to get it even, smooth and shiney, any advise will definitely be appreciated.
Had somebody else finish the spraywork. This ia what it looks like now.
So okay, after everything was mock fitted and all the necessary adjustments had been made to the rest of the components they were all taken off. I had been thinking of the idea to respray the entire car fixing all the small little dents and imperfections and finally decided that this was what I wanted to do. I sprayed Some MS Primer on the front end to get all the repair work covered as to not give them anytime to rust. Then started the intensely labouring job of sanding down the clear coat on the rest of the car. Took me 3 days with my long block and some P60 paper to get all the clear off by hand. Once all the clear was gone the car was masked and the rest of the body was sprayed with MS primer. I did this spraying outside as I wasn’t to concerned about dust due to the fact that everything would need to be sanded again in any case. In the meantime I had fixed all the dents on the car as well.
Right, next thing was to get the car block sanded. I used a long block and did the first sanding with P80 and the second time with P120. After the whole vehicle was block sanded and all the panels were as straight and flat as possible I did the unthinkable…. I sprayed the entire car with NC Primer. I dont know if this was required but it’s some of the advice I got from a body shop.
Anyhoe…. From there came 4 months of sanding. Long tiring sanding. First with P220, then P320 then P400 then P600 and lastly P800.
The car was ready for painting… so after the paint was bought and the car masked I attempted two panels… This was the result…
Not too good I realize now, but at that stage I thought cool, I can do this…. So from there I carried on….
That’s it for now, Next post will include the dreaded obstacles I came accross and what I did to try and resolve them…
Chat to ya guys soon…
Yeah, initially I thought that it would need to get onto a frame machine as well, but after speaking to a couple of body shops and making a couple of measurements I realised that the chassis had not twisted and the damage waslocalized ont he cradle itself. I decided to leave the engine installed to kinda hold the body together for taking the smashed up cradle off. Yes, you are correct, the left on the photo chassis beam was infact a bit low. I mock fitted the new cradle and fastened them with a couple of self tapping fasteners. From there I continued to measre up all the important spots, making little adjustments to the beams and cradle. When everything was within spec, on came the brazing with a porter pack I had borrowed from a friend. After all that was done I was able to mock fit the rest of the components.
Thanks for moving the thread to the right place… :blush: Apreciate it.
So, to continue. There had been signs of previous damage to the front of the vehicle which was visible and exposed after this accident. Idecided that I needed to replace the entire cradle. So with a hacksaw, grinder and cutting torch i got to work removing the old front end. See pics.
Thanks for having me guys…
