Thread: Followed Me Home II

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I messed around with little stuff, like taking the back hood retainer off and having to play contortionist to remove the nylock nuts while holding the phillips head bolts, so I copied Jim Robinson's good idea and put in a pair of nut-serts. Not sure why I didn't do that from the start, but it's done now and putting the clip on will be a piece of cake! Thanks for the idea, Jim!
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I'm not fond of sanding and it seems that I have to re-learn the process every time but I spent several hours on the firewall and finally got it into shape from all of the hacking I did to it to clear the 700R4 tranny. There's a removable hump that's held with nut-serts in the floor inside. It looks pretty good now!
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Got the fuel line installed with clips drilled & tapped for stainless button heads, and ordered a gallon of Herculiner bed liner to coat the bottom of the body - gravel road and shiny paint just doesn't make sense, plus it's a bit quieter. I'm about to run out of things that I wanted to get done before painting the frame & firewall....

I hear you on not making anything too shiny underneath when you live in a gravel road ��

So I finally got the underside of the floor coated with the Herculiner Poly Bed Liner. I was telling Jim that on my coupe I was coming home one day and someone down the road was moving and had put out a king mattress for the trash man. I flipped it atop the Jeep, drove home slowly and a few days later lifted the body off of the dolly, set it at the edge of the mattress and flipped it up on it's side. I had talked to Duane at N&N and he said the body was plenty stiff, and it worked great! Super easy to mask off the frame rail area, then roll several coats of bed liner on. With the roadster I wasn't comfortable laying it over, so I was stuck rolling on the sticky, goopy, drippy bed liner laying on my back, keeping my face out from under the roller and wearing my welding cap and safety glasses. Xylene or Acetone are the solvents to remove drips, and both are pretty strong solvents. I'd forgotten how much I used on the '33 so I again bought the gallon kit, and could have done it with 2 or 3 quarts but 3 quart kits is almost the same price as the gallon, so I'll do the ATV bed or something.

From the front, the 4 plates on the bottom have the bolts for the seats welded to them, then they're glued to the floor with body filler. Spreads the load to a larger area, and basically means the floor has to come out for seats to separate from the body. They make the underside kind of ugly, another reason for bed liner vs shiny paint.
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From the back, you can see that I masked a 2" strip on the outside where the floor meets the frame. Not necessary, but no added bulk.
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The removable tranny hump and the cover for the master cylinder access plate. This shows the texture better.
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The body is suspended just a bit above the dolly to dry at least over night, just for grins. I'd rather not pull chunks of bed liner off with the dolly.

I found over the years that bedliner on the bottom and even on the insides of fenders will prevent a lot of star cracks from popping up in your fiberglass pieces, too! I always thought it gave a bit of sound deadening, also. Looks good, nicely done Rog!

Too, too true!!
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SERIOUSLY! YOU'VE HAD 5 MONTHS OF QUARANTINE!!
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On Sunday I had everything (frame, firewall, gas tank cover, grill shell, gas tank mounting straps) ready and primed them, but by the time they were done it was 4pm and instead of shooting color and clear late into the night I decided to let it rest overnight....
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Monday I woke early to the sound of showers, and then shortly after Chase & I got up, got the paper and were back inside the skies opened, things got dark again and we had a good old thunderstorm. Rain through the day, so no painting, and then Tuesday brought the threat of rain all day, with showers late in the day and fog for this morning. I waited for the fog to cook off and the temperature to come up a bit, and mid-morning went out to scuff the primer, wipe everything with wax & grease remover to clean it up, and was spraying by 10:30 or so.
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Everything is blue! It's not near perfect, but it's blue and it'll do! The plan is to roll the differential & attached ladder bars into the booth, clean them up and patch any dings in the black, then clear them. I decided to leave them black as opposed to stripping them back and starting over. I like the contrast.

Once those are cleared I can put things together for the last time, then easily mask off the frame, firewall and gas tank cover to shoot the body in place. Then wire, fire, some upholstery and go for a spin!

Looks stunning to me!!! Beautiful blue!

It looks pretty good to me too!
Well done that man!

What color blue did you use?

Originally Posted by rumrumm

What color blue did you use?

The Coatings Store's Midnight Blue Pearl.

Great color choice Roger! She'll be an eye popper out in the sun!

I used a product to call the raptor liner on the bottom of Rita, it is time well spent! I love the color blue you chose, it's going to pop out in the sun!

Roger, that looks very, very nice! You're getting right after it!!!!

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Even tho I've had many green, black, red, vehicles----------my favorite color is blue-----and probable half the worlds population that like any type of motor vehicles know that!!!!!!!!!!

I've got a new level of respect for those guys on the car building TV shows who clean up the engine and mask it off to be painted! The ZZ4 engine was sprayed black from the factory, but after 13 years sitting around the exposed machined surfaces had some surface rust, and there were several places where the paint was gone so I made the decision long ago that I would shoot the engine & tranny black to match the rest of the drive line. I quickly decided that I needed to put the engine on a stand to be able to get to the lower parts and of course both engine stands are in rotisserie duty for the frame so I had to deal with that. Finally got the engine on a stand and started cleaning it up and masking off the heads and intake which are bare aluminum and will stay that way. I decided that I would pull the water pump so that I could get good coverage on the front cover, and made another discovery. The PO bought a big set of ARP "Dress Up" bolts, and there were two polished 12 point head bolts holding the water pump in place. Yes, only two with one on the top and one on the bottom. Worse, rather than taking out bolts one at a time and replacing them he removed the pump, destroying the gaskets, and simply pushed it back in place with half the bolts, and put them in finger tight. First he installed the crank pulley but left off the balancer bolt, and now he destroyed the gaskets and just left it for later without even cleaning the surfaces! ARRRRGH! What a guy!

New gaskets for the water pump is no big deal, but having the pump on there with the two most visible bolts in place, but only finger tight is like the guy was trying to set me up! I'm thankful that he wasn't enough of a mechanic to drop the pan, pull the intake, etc so I'm fairly confident there's nothing amiss there. Regardless, I'll be checking every bolt before the engine goes back in the frame.

I had intended to paint the engine today, but by 3pm I was drenched from the temps in the upper 90's. The engine is ready for color other than hitting it with wax & grease remover, but I'll get the tranny into the booth tomorrow, hose it off and wipe it down, mask off the front and any holes and shoot them both. Baby steps, but each step forward is progress.