Silverbullet's resto: Bodywork

[Bantum]

+1 on the neat work there ...

Couldn't tell if you did this, but have you done the full 'rust treatment' by spaying inside the frame there while you had it open ? I had the wax 'Endrust' re-treatment done on mine some time a go, the original owner did this too as it stops most rust forming, but I still have some rust to remove from the bottom of doors on my '82 Touring Wagon ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[RSR 555]

Don't send the Hatch Paul you'd never get it back

The eagle eyed might notice I forgot to put a hole in the larger patch; there's a threaded hole behind there for one of the fender mounting bolts No matter, I should be able to get a rough location of the hole by putting a fender up and just drill it out afterwards. Annoying since that will open up the repair section to water again, maybe some rubber O-rings around the bolt would prevent it rusting again.

LOL.. well at least I'd have more room in the workshop


As for the missing hole. I'd use sikaflex on any gaps that you need to stop water getting in. I'd also use large amounts of anti-sieze on all the bolts you put back in

[Silverbullet]

Thanks everyone Words of encouragement always appreciated.

Bantum I haven't used cavity wax but I've used plenty of fish oil inside all the cavities I could get to sprayed with an engine cleaning gun+compressor. It's a good sign when you spray the oil in one end of a long cavity and days later see it seeping through all the seams and joins at the opposite end Also where I can I'm sealing the backside of welds/repairs with seam sealer.
And Paul sikaflex could work too on bolt holes like that, I can't see me taking the fenders off any time soon once it's finished.

No pics but the past 2 days I've been cleaning up the front/radiator support section to be re-sprayed. The original paint is very thin here and it turns out almost the entire section had surface rust uner the paint. So out with the paint stripper and then I used a wire wheel in the drill to clean up the surface rust. It's the same story on the "crush sections" under the fenders, a single layer of factory primer didn't protect the steel very well, all surface rust underneath
No matter I'm planning on etch priming this entire section myself.

Also starting to clean the underside/wheel wells of 30 years of road grime and mud. Somebody at work put me onto this de-greaser called CT-14 (available at supercrap) and can I just say this stuff is absolute magic! Dilute 10-1 with water for strongest concentration, knock the worst of the crap off with a wire brush and spray this stuff on. Leave it for 15 minutes and hose it off and it looks like new underneath! I never even knew the original stone chip stuff was supposed to be light grey, always thought it was black The front wells have cleaned up a treat and I'm onto the rear wells, and the rest of the underside. I will have to take some before and after shots just to show how great this stuff is. Also cleans up suspension parts to look brand new, amazing stuff.

[El_Freddo]

Leave it for 15 minutes and hose it off and it looks like new underneath! I never even knew the original stone chip stuff was supposed to be light grey, always thought it was black

I believe it is black - but been painted over. I'm certain that Ruby Scoo's is blue like the rest of the car... But I haven't seen it in a while so can't be 100% sure

Keep up the good work!

Cheers

Bennie

[Silverbullet]

I finished stripping down the front of the car this week using a combo of paint stripper and wire brushes in the drill and angle grinder. Back to bare metal all the way because almost the whole area was surface rusted underneath the factory paint And because you can't leave bare metal exposed for too long I was "forced" to buy a paint gun Just a simple gravity feed jobbie but it looks the goods and does a great job for what I want anyway.

I had to re-paint all the way around the crumple zones from near the corners of the windscreen on both sides and the entire front panel. I haven't done anything inside the engine bay itself yet. I also decided to spray chassis black on the crumple areas and directly below them and inside the shock towers for some extra protection. I left the main part of the wheel arches for now because I plan to use 3M rubberized underbody stuff in these areas and all the way underneath the car.

Amazing what a coat of shiny black paint does to spruce up the look of it, pretty happy with the results. I think next I will strip back and prime the engine bay in the same way. Note: just because I bought a spray gun doesn't mean I'm spraying the whole car

Front stripped back

Etch primed

[Subrau]

Wow looks good so far. You're going to have one nice and neat looking wagon when it's all done. Keep up the good work.

[NachaLuva]

That looks awesome!

[Bantum]

... I was "forced" to buy a paint gun ...
... Just a simple gravity feed jobbie but it looks the goods and does a great job for what I want anyway...
... Note: just because I bought a spray gun doesn't mean I'm spraying the whole car ...

Ha - Once you have the spray bug, you can't stop ...

Just make sure you have a mask on - as the overspray is not good for you ...

Although if you do want to get a good quality finish on the main body, you'll need a proper spray gun, prep area & technique ... Might pay to find out how much your local body shop will charge just for re-painting it ( as a full respray ) ? - You should save a bit if you do all the prep work ...

Cheers, Bantum ...

[RSR 555]

Some nice work there Sam.. Looking good

[Silverbullet]

Sheesh it's been over a month...again!:oops: We had a run of baking hot weekends, and my motivation for anything dropped off completely after that but I'm back now I got half way through paint stripping the engine bay and I ran out of stripper and I don't want to buy that cheap crap again so I'm looking for decent stripper. In the mean time I started cleaning up the suspension parts including the engine crossmember (had to scrape 30 years of CV grease off with a paint scraper) I'm thinking of getting some suspension parts sand blasted and galvanized and be done with it.

The plan for this now is to coat the underside in rubberized stuff myself, put the minimum required suspension back on to roll it onto a trailer then off to the paint shop. A bit of a new years resolution to myself was this car needs to be finished this year (!!) so I can save up and concentrate on other things.

So in between cleaning the underside and stripping the engine bay I've started prepping and rust treating some of the more fiddly areas like the door jambs. It's not much but it only took a couple hours to clean up the drivers side and etch prime it. Something that the paint shop won't have to do and save me a few dollars hehe.

Here's the end result of the last rust repair I did

[Gone Fishing]

Thats looking good mate.

[steptoe]

KBS-coatings for a great stripper

[Silverbullet]

Thanks Jonno I'll have a look for that stuff, looks pretty decent.

[El_Freddo]

Great work Sam! I'd hope to have the same patience as you for a project like this!

I know of a brumby or two my way that could do with the same treatment - at least a respray would be a great start let alone a bare metal respray!

What's the eta (and cost if you don't mind sharing) for the painters? Colour choice going to be original or custom?

Cheers

Bennie

[Silverbullet]

Hey Bennie, I'm setting aside around $5k for the paint job, custom colour and it's going to a metallic blue of some sort. I've never put that number up on here before but I suppose I've got to say it some time Yes it's alot of money (specially for an apprentice like me!) and a good paint job is what I've had my mind set on from the start of this project so I guess you can see why I'm so reluctant to attempt it myself ETA? well xmas last year I was playing with the idea of March this year but that idea fell in a heap. Now if I can pull my finger out hopefully in the next couple of months if I can get some good fenders and get the underbody stuff on.

Here's what I've been putting time into the last month or so, the engine bay. I had so much headache trying to clean 30+ yrs grease out of every nook and crannie only to find lots of surface rust underneath the original paint. So I thought screw it I'm going all out and stripping it down to bare metal. So I got some KBS coatings paint stripper (thanks Jonno that stuff is gold!) and got stuck in. It's taken hours and hours of prep, scraping, cleaning, wire brushing crouched in the engine bay but I finally got every crevice stripped and cleaned. The fantastic thing about stripping it with chemicals is the factory galv underneath remains so it doesn't surface rust over night like you'd get with sand blasting.

Today was the day I did a final clean and sprayed some etch primer on it. Going to get some primer surfacer or epoxy primer this week maybe and finish it off next weekend. I must say it looks a million bucks really happy with it. It's going to be body colour right through.

Damn I know how to ramble! have some pics

Engine bay completely stripped

I even drilled out the battery tray and jack holder spot welds to clean up underneath

And I got some etch primer on it just today

[Proton mouse]

Great work SB! $5k should get you a pretty damn good paint job, especially considering you have done so much good prep work.
I had a Fiat 124 BC sport back in the late 80's. It needed a paint job but I couldn't work out what colour to paint it.
Then one day a spray painter friend brought home hundreds & hundreds of colour chips for me to look at. I spent ages going through them until BINGO
there it was.... 'Jamaica blue metallic'. Apparently an old Chrysler colour at that time. Was beautiful, it use to change hue under certain
lighting conditions and got loads of comments of admiration. Im sure you'll get the same!!

John

[steptoe]

Silver is a bit hard to see on the open road for some drivers (unless it is a silver Volvo with those daytime lights we all laughed about)

Gen1 Kermit Green would be standout, Gen2 TennisBall Yellow ?

KBS sound like they know what is going on in the world. The inventor must have used his initials for the trading name, his brother Vaughan does all the car events displaying product and is on the end of the 1800 for good advice. BTW, Gold is the name of their rusty fuel tank fix kit !

Waiting to see that EJ screamer go in this

[sublime]

Gen1 Kermit Green would be standout, Gen2 TennisBall Yellow ?

Although Sprite green or Mimosa yellow would be cool, the amount of work put into this so far, deserves something custom!

[FujiFan]

I like it a lot! Great job SB. If your gonna do it, do it really well - and that is real thorough. You should be getting a spectacular paint job for 5k with all that prep work your doing:D

J.

[steptoe]

and keep the Brumby for off road stuff