1978/79 GTS

[Vinay-RS]

Random question not related to the prep work: Why is there a piece of car floor mat on the base of the battery box? Does it act as a sort of damper for any vibrations?

[GTSPhil]

Vinay

That is a rubber mat that was cut to size to fit there, mainly to insulate and catch any battery acid. Also to try and preserve the already bad battery box.

[DomMINIque]

Kudos for putting in the effort taking her back to bare metal.

I need to do the roof of one of my cars but it just seems like such a daunting task.
Kudos for tackling it head on Phil

[Vinay-RS]

I do like the idea Phil. I think I might replicate it too

[Leykor]

Looking Good man! I need to start this process but don't know if I'm up to the challenge.
2 Quick questions,
What type/grit disks are you using?
How do you ensure no rust starts on your bare metal while the process of complete sand down is happening?

[Boyscout]

Good luck with the paint stripping Philip. It is a PITA. I also stripped my Mini to the bone with a wire wheel on a mini grinder. Lots of noise and dust. At least the wire wheel only removes paint and filler, not body work. If i were to do this again I would definitely look at having it stripped by media blasting.

I agree with you, you cant' trust anyone to do something properly anymore. Rather teach your self to do spray painting and body work. then you have no one else but your self to blame.

Keep at it!

[GTSPhil]

Hi Leykor

You have two options doing it the wire wheel way.

I have found the M14 x 60mm wire wheel with the small bristles work well for the nooks and crannies, for average stripping the M14 x 75mm wheel works very good with the small angle grinder. I have a 2200 Watt big grinder that I have found either the 75mm for average stripping or for quick stripping, but your arms get very tired quickly use the 100mm wheel. The other wheels with the bigger bristles work also and are cheaper to buy vs the finer bristle wheel.

I looked around for ages for the 3M Purple wheel etc, most places can only supply them for use with the drill and not for a grinder. The two wheels I got that was similar to the purple wheel just sucked and heated the metal up a lot, so I just reverted back to the wire wheel method. I did consider the chemical stripping, but another car of mine that I tried it on I ran into problems as the layers of paint was just too much to work nicely.

I am concerned about having a bare metal body as yesterday rain looked imminent, luckily it did not rain in the end. I will de-oxidize the bare metal areas with some or other treatment or the vinegar water treatment.

Boyscout every new skill that you need to learn takes time, money and know how, so you have to decide, are you in the market for a compressor, spraygun, DA Sander, variable speed polisher etc and again are you going for the upper part of the market's products that cost more or are you going for the entry level stuff that get the job done with some serious effort. Also youtube and other people can only teach you so much and give so many tips, the best way to learn is via trial and error and doing it yourself IF you can live with the results and have the budget for it.

What did however put me off a bit, was the spraypainter that did quote me on the respray said the part where I had the brake fluid spill would be a problem, and that made me a bit wary as I stand corrected, but it seemed like they would only flat the car and respray over that. Which would have been fine for the average enthusiast, but I am going for a very high level of build and spray painting is right in your face all the time on the car, so again if you do not have a massive budget ( I was quoted between R15 000 to R35 000) depending what gets done and what is stripped off the car by myself vs the stripping done by the shop and the low end of the scale R3500 to R10 000 depending again if you supply the paint, thinners, hardener and other stuff. Like I said earlier in the build thread I have had a "Cheap" spray job 4 years ago and was not wanting to go down that route again. Like all things in live if I do it myself with some help from knowledgeable people and is willing to put the long hours and hard work in (which I obviously am already) I hope to control the process and not like a shop where after two weeks, it seems like nothing has been done since the last time you visited them. Lastly if I am lucky and do it properly I want to achieve similar or better results than my build thread on the white clubman.

[GTSPhil]

The roof the roof the roof is on FIRE, no not really just a huge area to sand.

   


   


Finally looking like it is getting done.


   

[DomMINIque]

Getting there, you've turned this thing around quite quickly to be honest.
Any other issues that you've found under the paint work besides that brake fluid incident?

[GTSPhil]

Hi DomMINIque

Yes it is taking a lot longer than planned, but I am averaging 1.5-2 hours everyday after the salt mine, to get it to this stage.

I see the roof is having some nicks, the boot had some hidden rust under the seam sealer, but other than that a very solid shell.

Will crack on this weekend with the doors and the bonnet, then it should hopefully be ready to get some primer soon.