3. Clean and paint
First proper progress update.
Spent about the past 3 weekends and a few evenings during the week cleaning the shell up. Wire wheeling the thick OEM stone chip protection off the bottom and removing the vast majority of the seam sealer inside and out. I am yet to find an easy way of doing this apart from many hours with the angle grinder. Found the twisted knot brushes best for removing the stone chip then use a crimped wire brush for paint. The die grinder with wire end brushes is great for getting into corners and other harder to reach areas, however my battery die grinder eats the batteries.
Once the worst of it was removed I then set about sanding to give the paint a better surface to adhere to. Starting with flap discs on the angle grinder (I really started to dislike them) and working my way down to hand sanding pads. By no means perfect but much better than not sanding anything back.
So masked the external panels of the car off and then it finally came to paint! We (mainly James) had done a lot of reading about what is best to use with lots of conflicting information on what is best. However we finally decided for the underside doing 2 coats of Jotun Jotamastic 87A, using seam sealer in between the primer coats (Puraflex 40 seam sealer), then will finish it of with black Jotun Hardtop AX. The wheel arches will get the same treatment but get a coat of Upol Gravi-Gard between the primer and topcoat. Hoping the 2k epoxy primer will do the job and we won’t have to worry about it for a long time.
The engine bay will be a bit simpler, using Upol etch primer, black top coat followed by a couple coats of clear lacquer. The inside we wanted it to be dark grey and the Upol etch primer is a pretty ideal colour so we are just using the etch primer followed by a couple coats of clear lacquer.
Started with spraying the engine bay and inside after a round of panel wipe. Ended up using 7.5 cans of primer to cover the lot, did pretty well and only missed a couple spots but they can be sorted on the second coat.
Prior to painting the underside I tried getting rid of some of the rust towards the rear, nothing to serious mainly surface rust. Tried using some Bilt Hamber Deox Gel, didn’t work as well as a proper critic acid dip but got the worst of it off. Covered the gel in cling film to stop it drying out and left over night.
Pretty pleased with the result so a worth while step even though cleaning the gel off took a while.
Spent about the past 3 weekends and a few evenings during the week cleaning the shell up. Wire wheeling the thick OEM stone chip protection off the bottom and removing the vast majority of the seam sealer inside and out. I am yet to find an easy way of doing this apart from many hours with the angle grinder. Found the twisted knot brushes best for removing the stone chip then use a crimped wire brush for paint. The die grinder with wire end brushes is great for getting into corners and other harder to reach areas, however my battery die grinder eats the batteries.
Once the worst of it was removed I then set about sanding to give the paint a better surface to adhere to. Starting with flap discs on the angle grinder (I really started to dislike them) and working my way down to hand sanding pads. By no means perfect but much better than not sanding anything back.
So masked the external panels of the car off and then it finally came to paint! We (mainly James) had done a lot of reading about what is best to use with lots of conflicting information on what is best. However we finally decided for the underside doing 2 coats of Jotun Jotamastic 87A, using seam sealer in between the primer coats (Puraflex 40 seam sealer), then will finish it of with black Jotun Hardtop AX. The wheel arches will get the same treatment but get a coat of Upol Gravi-Gard between the primer and topcoat. Hoping the 2k epoxy primer will do the job and we won’t have to worry about it for a long time.
The engine bay will be a bit simpler, using Upol etch primer, black top coat followed by a couple coats of clear lacquer. The inside we wanted it to be dark grey and the Upol etch primer is a pretty ideal colour so we are just using the etch primer followed by a couple coats of clear lacquer.
Started with spraying the engine bay and inside after a round of panel wipe. Ended up using 7.5 cans of primer to cover the lot, did pretty well and only missed a couple spots but they can be sorted on the second coat.
Prior to painting the underside I tried getting rid of some of the rust towards the rear, nothing to serious mainly surface rust. Tried using some Bilt Hamber Deox Gel, didn’t work as well as a proper critic acid dip but got the worst of it off. Covered the gel in cling film to stop it drying out and left over night.
Pretty pleased with the result so a worth while step even though cleaning the gel off took a while.
Finally ready to start painting the bottom. Was keen to get this done before are surface rust started to appear.
Mixing the Jotun 87A and hardener was nice and easy, invested in some scales to get the mix just right. Leaves a great finish bearing in mind it’s applied with a brush.
Properly chuffed how it’s started to look, we did quite like the bottom being silver but the black Hardtop has already been purchased so it will end up being black.
I have left a section in the middle on purpose. Going to get the fixings for the internal fuel lines and foot rest trays in place before painting over them. The fuel lines have dual pipe clamps with a single bolt so will use rivnuts for those. The foot rest trays haven’t arrived yet so still need to figure out what to do with them. Didn’t want to paint and then have to weld something in place and end up messing the paint up.
So next on the list is to sort the fuel lines out. The order from Atec arrived a few days ago, it’s really nice stuff.
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