Wheel Well Painting - U Pol Raptor Liner

I sprayed on the first couple sections of U-Pol Raptor tintable bedliner on my wheel wells today. I am happy with the look and feel of the stuff. It went on very easy. My first step was the driver's fender well, then I did the luggage area and firewall. I decided after the first quart that I don't need to worry about 100% coverage on the first coat, just get the product on. That said, I think I'll put 2 coats on everything and that will take 2 kits to make that happen.

Driver's Side fender well
First Coat on Luggage Compartment

Car on Rotisserie

It's been awhile since I've updated the blog. I've been posting lots of videos to Youtube since it seems to be a quicker and more descriptive vehicle for showing detail about the restoration. That said, I took a week off work to push the project ahead and was able to bodywork the car from the back of the doors forward. I got the front bumber brackets mounted, I fit the rear decklid, gapped the doors, finished tubbing out the rear wheel wells, finished building my rotisserie and straightend out my torsion bar access holes.

This week I got the car ready to put onto the rotisserie. I did the whole operation by myself with an engine hoist. I was nervous about it, but it could not have gone smoother. I wrapped a chain around the two inspection hole for the steering boxes, through a square tube and put a cross brace at the back of the doors under the convertible stiffner panel that attaches around the back of the striker. The car lifted like a dream and the rotisserie fit like a glove. All the measurements I made for the rotisserie were done with the body on, so they weren't perfect by any means. I was actually surprised when I was only off about 3/8" from front to back. The car swings really heavy at the bottom of the swing and the car clears the fixture by about 1"!!! I couldn't be happier with it.

I'm hoping to get the front wheel wells coated this weekend, but I'm not sure I can get everything prepped and coated... We'll see.

Car on the hoist rolling across the garage

Car on the rotisserie fully rotated

Blocking and some paint

It's nice to have help once in awhile... My wife's uncle Scott came over to the garage for a couple hours to help knock down bondo, strip off the JP-205, push out a few dents and drain a couple beers (buying beer beats the hell out of paying a $50/hr shop rate). It seemed like we were able to do 3x the work with only two guys.

While Scott was sanding the doors and fenders, I was busy working on the front hood, fuel filler lid and license plate light/decklid handle. I found more panel damage from the sandblasting and made a promise that I would never again sand blast a panel with structure behind it. After some block sanding, it was evident the hood had low spots around the perimeter where the structure pushed while it was being blasted. The spots weren't deep, but still required a lot of work to smooth out. I had one spot that was close and I wanted it to be perfect, so I stuck the hood in the e-wheel for some smoothing... BAD IDEA! I accidently went too close to the edge and pinched the structure below into the panel and created some deep grooves... I wound up having to fill in the area rather than metal work it.

Unkie Scott grinding out some filler The bodywork on the low spots The hood after a couple coats of epoxy primer 4 coats of Matrix MP3-HS Urethane Primer and a guide coat

Paint Supplies Arrive

I've been collecting body and paint supplies over the last 4-5 months. When I can find a good deal on the internet, I buy it... I've finally found a bunch of good deals and I have assembled almost everything I need. I had to wait for warm weather because my paint was shipped in from the East coast and I didn't want it to freeze on the way here.

I ordered a pint of color - VW Gecko Green Metallic - in PPG's Deltron 2000 DBC. I haven't seen the color in real life (only in photos) so I figured I'd order a small amount and shoot the hood or something small to see if I like the color. I'm also going to use the test panels to the upholstry folks so I can figure out what materials and colors will go with the paint.

I did a quick drop of paint onto the fuel lid... I like what I see. I'll take it out into the sun tomorrow to get a better idea of the color. I'd like to paint the hood this weekend, but I seriously doubt I'll have enough time to get everything prepped and painted before it's time to go to work on Monday morning.

All my new supplies: Evercoat, Deltron DBC, DC3000 Clear, MP3-HS 2K high build primer, norton 80 and 180 grit PSA, U-Pol Raptor Tintable bedliner (for the wheel wells), filters and sticks.

Beginning Bodywork

After a LONG time away from the car, I started the bodywork this weekend. Last time I touched the car, I was squirting on a gallon of polyester primer in hopes it would save me some headache when it came to surfacing the car out.

Once again, I have learned there are no shortcuts or easy ways out. I began my weekend by visiting my friend Brian. He has built about half a dozen cars in the time I've been working on the Ghia. I asked his advice on block sanding and prepping the car. In his explanation, he gave me some great pointers and sent me home with a box of long blocks to try out. I already have a 16" body file, an air file and a couple small sized blocks. Brian lent me a flexible 12" block, a 24" block and a couple small pieces of flexible rubber.

The first thing I did when I started to work was to spray the car with a guidecoat of black rattlebomb paint. After the paint was dry, I went to town on the rear quarter with the long block. I figured I would have a lot of paint to sand through before I'd hit the epoxy primer... WRONG!!! I hit the primer and went down to the metal all over the place. Judging from all the low and high spots in the guidecoat, you'd think the car had been in a hail storm. HOLY COW!

I figured I'd bust out the filler and start filling the low spots, well after a couple hours of filling lows and sanding through primer, I figured I'd stop and start asking questions... I'm wondering if I am doing something wrong, so I am halting operations until I can talk to someone who can either confirm I am doing itright or can tell me what I am doing wrong.

Polyester Filler/Surfacer Applied

My last official day of vacation and I checked off the last item on my todo list! I got the car coated in PPG JP205 polyester primer/surfacer. I don't have any experiece with this stuff and it was a bit of a challenge setting up my gun to get it to shoot properly. It is THICK stuff. I bought a gallon and I was planning to use about 3/4 of it. I managed to put the stir stick into the gallon can AFTER I stirred some hardener into a batch in a mixing cup. After that, I figured I better use the whole gallon or it would probably be rock hard the next time I went to use it.

It took me about 8 trips around the car to use up the whole gallon. I think I had the gun set too thin to start with, so I thickend up the mix and I was draining guns in about 10 minutes. I also shot both doors and the deck lid. I was going to shoot the hood too, but I wrapped the edges in packing tape a year or so ago and when I went to take it off, it left adheasive all over the place. I tried to wipe it off with thinner and cleaner, then tried to sand it off and went right through the epoxy... The hood is about 100% so it shouldn't need a bunch of primer/surfacer. I'll probably shoot it with a 2K primer later on.

The whole house stinks like bondo. It's 50 degrees and we have all the windows open. Hopefully it burns off soon!!!

Car in JP 205
Doors in polyester

Epoxy is on

This was probably the most stressful day in the entire restoration. Paint is always a bit nerve racking for me, but this was over the top. I had a bit of welding and grinding to finish up this morning before I moved to painting.

I hit Home Depot at the crack of 8am for painter's plastic, steel wool, and a couple small items. The plastic I bought was a roll of .35 mil 12'x400' for $24. I also dropped by my dad's house to pick up a box fan. I added a handful of thumb tacks and that was my paint booth for the day. Sorry, I didn't take picks, but it's in my video.

After the Depot, I hit the final wheel arch welds and ground them down. Wouldn't you know it, my welder was very tempermental, and almost pooped on me durning my last few welds. Thankfully, it held out. I was done with the welding and grinding about noon.

I started to DA the entire car thinking it would take about 30 minutes... WOW, that's a huge job. I spent about 2-1/2 hours and went though about 15 discs of 80 grit. When I was done the car looked great. I wire brushed the weatherstrip channels and all the weld beads to make sure I got all the surface rust that was on the car.

After the DA, I hit the whole car with "Pete's Pickle Juice" and steel wool. Pete from Southwest Rod and Custom said that you can buy the metal prep from PPG for about $25 a gallon or you can buy a $2 bottle of white vinegar and add it to water... It's the same thing except for the blue food coloring. The vinegar turns spots on the car a gold color. I suspect it's some sort of impurity, I don't know. I wiped one fender at a time, then rinsed it off with a hose, then dried with paper towels, then hit it with the hose again. I've never done that step before, so I hope I did it right...

Once the car was hosed down and dry, I hit it with Final Prep (wax and grease remover) from Carrol Brothers. It's the same thing as PPG DX 330, but a heck of a lot cheaper. The panels were so clean they actually squeeked as I dragged the Torx paper towels over them.

After the final prep, I pulled the car into the garage and began building the cacoon out of the painter's plastic. Once that was done, I poured a bucket of water on the floor and started the box fan. Then it was time to start mixing paint.

I had two quarts of 402LF and one was no longer a liquid. Apparently, that stuff has a shelf life... The one that was still liquid, was amber in color, which happens with age. I used some DTV reducer and the mix was 2 parts dp90, 1 part 402, .5 parts DTV. This makes a fairly thin sealer that's easier to spray than straight DP. I used a Devilbis Starting Line HVLP gun. This was the first time I really put this gun through the paces.

Once the paint was in the gun (I forgot to strain it, I'll cover that later...) I turned the pressure regulator/valve at the gun to 0, pulled the trigger and slowly opened the regulator until the gun was about 10 PSI. I used a small, round pattern since that seemed to give me a lot of control. The gun performed like a dream! I couldn't believe I was laying paint down that smooth. I did get a couple sags because I lost my concentration for a bit, but all-in-all it looks good. When I got to the end of the first gun full, the paint started to spatter a bit and I couldn't figure out why. It only lasted a little bit and it was time to refill. I refilled and the paint was back to smooth again. At the end of the gun, same spattering... Duh, the paint wasn't strained through the filter... I won't make that mistake again.

I finished cleaning up from the primer/sealer at 7:30p.m.

Things I learned... Give yourself PLENTY of room to work. My cacoon was too small. I needed 2'-3' more room on the sides of the car than what I had. Also, I tripped over the platic in a few places and it came down. There was almost no overspray with the HVLP gun, so not having the plastic wasn't a huge issue. I barely squeezed this job in today and I was hoping to get polyester surfacer on as well... I didn't give myself anywhere near enough time to get everything done, so I was rushed and frustrated by the end of the job. The car is supposed to be a fun project and the stress level today did not make it any fun at all. The results are kick ass though!!!

Rear of the car
Front of car

Nose and doors