The Great Pumpkin - '71 Duster
Naturally it took a little longer than expected but I got the underside painted. Came out pretty good if I don't say so myself. This is a huge relief to get this part over with and a big step forward in the reassembly of the car. I am really happy that the chassis is clean and sealed.
Suppose I could have kept trying to get rid of all the little surface rust spots but I've been working on it or months and literally could not do it anymore. Frankly, there was already surface rust under the old paint and it had been there for decades so the decision was made to paint over the little areas that were left and move on. Plus, the car will probably never see rain so I'm not worried about it becoming an issue any time soon. Time to move on.
In retrospect I should have had the underside blasted but for whatever reason, I just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. I paid for that decision by spending 4 months doing it myself and ultimately not getting the entire thing as clean as I would have liked. I busted my *** trying to get it spotless but ultimately I could only do so much.
As far as doing the paint job itself, I'd never used a "real" paint gun. Always wanted to try my hand at painting stuff and this was a good place to start. Luckily, a friend of mine is a top-notch body and paint man and he loaned me his primer gun for the job and guided me through the process. (Thanks Ricky!) I used PPG DP50LF with DP402LF catalyst and some reducer. Nice to have decent tools and materials to work with, makes a rookie like me look like a pro.
Took a little time to get used to using the gun and how to get the correct spray pattern. At first, I had way too much paint in the cup and it was spilling out all over me. Eventually I realized I should probably dump some paint out. Honestly though, it's not that easy to paint a car on a lift. Next time I'll have a rotisserie.
I eventually got the spray pattern right by randomly turning the knobs on the gun until I was happy with it. Honestly, I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Regardless, once I got it to where it looked OK, it was just fill the cup and spray away.
So yeah, big accomplishment by getting this part done. What's left is to prime the front wheel openings, engine bay and trunk but those areas should be a little easier now that I have the chassis under my belt. Then it's single stage, 1971 Tor-Red/Hemi orange paint on those surfaces. Last step in the paint project will be some sort of lighter protective coating for the rear wheel wells.
The other main reason I pushed to get this job done was because I am having hip replacement surgery tomorrow (4.20.22) so I won't be able to do anything for at least a few weeks. Feels good to have this done beforehand.
Not as dirty as the undercoating removal but still need to scrub up.
More to come.
Naturally it took a little longer than expected but I got the underside painted. Came out pretty good if I don't say so myself. This is a huge relief to get this part over with and a big step forward in the reassembly of the car. I am really happy that the chassis is clean and sealed.
Suppose I could have kept trying to get rid of all the little surface rust spots but I've been working on it or months and literally could not do it anymore. Frankly, there was already surface rust under the old paint and it had been there for decades so the decision was made to paint over the little areas that were left and move on. Plus, the car will probably never see rain so I'm not worried about it becoming an issue any time soon. Time to move on.
In retrospect I should have had the underside blasted but for whatever reason, I just didn't feel like dealing with it at the time. I paid for that decision by spending 4 months doing it myself and ultimately not getting the entire thing as clean as I would have liked. I busted my *** trying to get it spotless but ultimately I could only do so much.
As far as doing the paint job itself, I'd never used a "real" paint gun. Always wanted to try my hand at painting stuff and this was a good place to start. Luckily, a friend of mine is a top-notch body and paint man and he loaned me his primer gun for the job and guided me through the process. (Thanks Ricky!) I used PPG DP50LF with DP402LF catalyst and some reducer. Nice to have decent tools and materials to work with, makes a rookie like me look like a pro.
Took a little time to get used to using the gun and how to get the correct spray pattern. At first, I had way too much paint in the cup and it was spilling out all over me. Eventually I realized I should probably dump some paint out. Honestly though, it's not that easy to paint a car on a lift. Next time I'll have a rotisserie.
I eventually got the spray pattern right by randomly turning the knobs on the gun until I was happy with it. Honestly, I had no idea what the heck I was doing. Regardless, once I got it to where it looked OK, it was just fill the cup and spray away.
So yeah, big accomplishment by getting this part done. What's left is to prime the front wheel openings, engine bay and trunk but those areas should be a little easier now that I have the chassis under my belt. Then it's single stage, 1971 Tor-Red/Hemi orange paint on those surfaces. Last step in the paint project will be some sort of lighter protective coating for the rear wheel wells.
The other main reason I pushed to get this job done was because I am having hip replacement surgery tomorrow (4.20.22) so I won't be able to do anything for at least a few weeks. Feels good to have this done beforehand.
Not as dirty as the undercoating removal but still need to scrub up.
More to come.
