Priya's SX/4 project

[Pat]

Looks great so far! It can be done quick & easy or done right. Not often the same thing.

[priya]

It usually doesnt take that long but this car is being done the right way all around. The results should be amazing.

That's what I thought before the primer went on.  After I saw all the imperfections on the hood in what I thought was excellent prep I wasn't so sure anymore.  I'm sure I can improve on it when I sand down the high build primer but I'm a lot less confident than I was that I'm going to get a really good finish.  Strangely, the last car I did body work on I couldn't see any flaws in the repairs or paint finish although I didn't really scrutinize it either.

[thereverendbill]

Yes, its a water based paint and its a pain in the butt.  When I told the painter I wanted the door window frames and the roof drip rail painted blue he got upset and said no way, that's too much work, I won't do it.  We asked the shop if they'd do it for money and they said with waterborne paints its a logistics nightmare and they want no part of it. We eventually got the painter to agree to paint those areas purple and then after the clearcoat is dry if I go back and mask and scuff those areas he'll paint it with a regular paint which probably won't be quite as shiny and may be a slightly different shade but at least I'll get it all the colour I want.  Apparently even with that its going to be a very long day Saturday to paint the exterior purple, the lower body blue and put two blue racing stripes acroos the hood and roof.  The purple is sprayed first, then after 3 hours the blue is painted roughly where its going to go and then 3 hours later we mask off the blue we want to remain blue, the car is repainted purple again, the tape comes off some time later and then a number of layers of clear go on.  I was told that back in the old days it was much easier to paint a car the way the sport model Eagles were done but nowadays you never see cars with those sort of multi-partition colour schemes, they're almost all one colour or at most a two tone with the lower body one colour and the upper a different one.

I know all too well about that waterborne being a pain in the but.  If you don't let them bake for an entire day the whole finish will wash right off.  We had a problem with a Suzuki XL7 in the shop on friday where we forgot to paint the underside of the new hood and the painter (who has a higher spot on the totem pole than I) decided to just dust the hood in and no clear it.  Needless to say it got to the QC/Detail guy and he used a high powered pressure hose to clean under the hood and took ALL of the paint off.  But as deadlines go with that shop we ended up cleaning all of the paint off and sending it out the door with the underhood just in it's factory primer.  And people wonder why I'm looking for a job in another body shop

[priya]

We've been working on the car in the evenings this past week using sanding blocks to sand off the red guide coat to further smooth out the surfaces of the car.  There's a very thick primer underneath and as one sands with a block and gets to the grey primer underneath if there is a low spot where you're sanding that spot will remain red.  You continue sanding and lowering the surrounding grey primer until either the red in the low spot is gone and you're smooth, or you've sanded through the grey primer and the red remains in which case you need to add filler to the low spot and re-sand to make it smooth.  Ward has enlisted the help of a friend who's a professional bodyman  and we've got just about the whole guide coat removed and the car a good deal smoother than it was:


The power bulge in the centre of the hood was really a mess.  There was a lot of minor dents and dings in it originally which I hammered and dollied and filled and smoothed but after priming I could see all manner of imperfections in it and you know when you can see imperfections in the flat primer its going to look really bad when the shiny paint goes on.  Even after sanding off the guide coat many highs and lows showed up. I added filler to the individual low spots, started sanding them down and Ward's friend looked at it and said "No, no, you can't fill here and fill there and there and there, you have to cover the whole area with filler and then sand it down as one section".  I said "That's what I wanted to do, but Ward told me not to do it that way.".  Trevor let out some sort of "Bloody 'ell" comment and proceded to fill the entire power bulge with filler and sand it down - that's why it's all white now.  Even though I've been relying on the hubby for advice, aparently now sometimes I know better than him how it should be done.

I'm more confident now than I was that we're going to get a good smooth finish on the car.  Trevor is bringing some experienced friends to help blocking the rest of the car out tonight (the hood and areas that sanded down to bare metal will have to be reprimed) so hopefully we can still have it done tonight.  We're working on it only in the evenings as the car is in the shop at Perfection Automotive and we can only work on it after working hours.   All the plastic body cladding remains to be sanded down and most of the car was sanded with 240 grit and now needs to be resanded with 400 grit.  Even if we get it ready tonight it may not get painted on Saturday as the painter has been sick the past couple of days and may not be available to do it.  If not this Saturday, then it'll be the next.  Any way you slice it I'll be sure glad to have the paint finally on (assuming it looks okay!).

[shaggimo]

Awesome, no doubt you'll have a heck of nice ride when finished! I had to prime the sx a few times to get the body half decent, my first attempts were the spot fill type. My dad then chimed in to tell me that I was doing it all wrong, and to fill the big area rather than the little spots, lol.

[thereverendbill]

I recommend the stud welder technique for raising the low spots.  Lord knows i am in for ALOT of work once I finally start on my wagon's bodywork.  i have a few pretty good dents in the rear hatch pillar and some bondo cracking on the bottoms of 2 of the doors

[priya]

For the most part I was able to get behind the panel to hammer low spots however I was unable to get the panel perfect just using hammer and dolly hence the need for filler.

[thereverendbill]

filler is a necessary evil when making a car "perfect".  just remember to not go too thick or it will crack.  My dad showed me a method of pulling dents years ago; take a piece of dry ice and rub around the dent and it should pop itself out.  I have yet to try it but i have seen him do it dozens of times with his "seller" cars

[priya]

We weren't able to get the SX/4 into the paint booth a week ago because after the filling and sanding of the hood it needed to be reprimed Friday night and wouldn't have been ready for paint until later Saturday which didn't leave enough time to paint the car during the weekend.  We did get it ready Thursday night and yesterday it was into the autobody shop at 5:00 pm.  After a few hours of cleaning and masking the car was into the paint booth by about 9:00 PM.  The initial stage of the paint job was done by 12:30 AM and a sealer coat, one coat of purple and 3 coats of blue roughly where the final blue was to be were laid down.  As this is water-based paint the base coats are flat until after the clear coat goes on and makes it all shiny.  Here's how the car looked very late Friday night:



Johnny the painter still had an hours drive home that night and an hours drive back in the morning and we were all there by 8:00 AM Saturday to continue the job.  I had developed back trouble in the middle of Friday afternoon so I wasn't able to help at all beyond telling Ward and Johnny how I wanted the paint job done.  The two started masking off the areas that were to remain blue so when the rest of the car was repainted purple  they'd stay blue.  It took five hours to lay out the stripes and mask off the areas to remain blue.  Here's how it looked before the final coats of purple were ready to go on:



Three coats of purple were then laid down on the car and here is the result:



Two coats of clear were then painted on and the car was all shiny but unfortunately I wasn't able to get into the booth to get pictures as it needed to dry first and we all wanted to go home as it was 5:00 PM by that time.  Monday morning we go down to pull the car out of the booth and I'll have pictures of the shiny clear-coated car then.  The plan is to that evening mask off the entire car except for the door window frames and drip rail so we can paint those blue as well.  All the plastic body cladding, bumper corners, mirrors  and window trim pieces will then be painted blue at some point later in the week and the blue stripes on the spoiler will be added as well.

[Pat]

  NICE!!!!

[rollguy]

We at least need a before and after shot, and maybe another before and after Eagle of the month category.  That is going to be a very nice car when it is all done.  I think it is the most rust repair/body work ever done to an Eagle on this forum.  You deserve another egg!

[priya]

Thanks guys!

[IowaEagle]

I am envious!

[Eagleearl]

Looking Great !!

[68AMXGOPAC]

Definetly way cool.I can relate to the amount of work , such a nice job you guys did.  I just finished a tractor restore for a client,I probably have 8 months time in it , talking averaging  a year and a half out into 8 months total probably. some pics out on my facebook page. Egg your way.