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Back at it yesterday. I had to fill 75-80 holes in this body, besides where someone cut out a section so they could charge/jump the battery!
I'm adding the chrome bumper and side trim from the other body, and it uses less mounting bolts than the rubber ones. They also used pop rivets to hold black carpeting in the back and between the seats. I ground the back sides with a flapper wheel before laying in fiberglass mat or cloth, depending on the size of the holes.
This corner was smashed and poorly repaired, so I did it right. I don't have a top, and probably won't, so I filled the hole too.
I also wanted to see which seat mounting holes to keep. I'm leaning towards higher, but decided to keep them all anyway.
Today I will start on bondo on the outside of everything, and hopefully start spraying gelcoat soon!
My trip to Italy is over, and I'm back to reality. All of the repairs needed some amount of bondo to finish the outside. It makes a big difference to the general appearance, and gave me an idea of what the final product will look like.
Now the big question. I had intended to spray gelcoat to finish it for an original look. But should I do base/clear paint? What are the pros and cons to each? The body has a lot of stress cracks in the original gelcoat that I think new gelcoat would fill? Paint would require a lot more prep work, right? Which stands up to outdoor storage best?
I wanted to try gelcoat for an original finish, but unfortunately there is no place local that will tint gelcoat. So I am going with single stage paint. It'll look more period correct than base/clear and I can still cut and buff it. I spent the past few nicely warm days filling what I can see, and today sprayed the first coat of high-build primer! I have to get more, plus the paint this week. I found the code for HD Birch White, and if that fails, Ford Wimbledon White is very close. Here are the latest pictures:
There are a few spots that need more work, but overall it came out pretty good!
I didn't know how translucent it is, the light spot is where I filled a hole with fiberglass.
$400 later and I have all the primer and paint that I need to finish. Today's progress was filling and sanding what the primer showed needing work. I marked the areas with masking tape so I could find them easier. Most of them were just little imperfections, but I did find quite a few round corners that had a lot of flat spots.
After that I sprayed another two coats of high-build primer and called it a night. It looks 100% better than before all the touch-up. Tomorrow I'll go over everything one more time, then get it ready for paint!
Woo Hoo! Today was the day! I think it came out great! The paint was amazing, it flowed out so nice. Color is perfect. Two coats of PPG Delfleet ESSS Single Stage Polyurethane Enamel. I also got the same in black and orange for the stripes.
First coat looked great, I was tempted to stop.
I thought all the bugs were gone for the season, but one found it's way to my fender
These new paints are amazing. I picked it out with a dental pick and sprayed two more coats:
Here's the final product. I'll spray the black and orange in a few weeks.
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