Friday, December 2, 2011

I'm done with strippers

So one more session of stripping off paint and cleaning up around the edges of the trunk and door openings and I was all done. At last I can say that every bit of original paint has been removed - and about twice as much non-original paint went with it. When it was finally all gone I gave the car a good scrub down to remove all the mess from the paint stripper, and then dried it all really good with shop towels and the compressed air blower. Here's how it came out:


Time to deal with the rust at the edge of the roof and the A-pillars. Here's how it looked after I scraped off the paint. At first I was really worried about the extent of the rust because I really didn't want to have to start sectioning part of the roof, but fortunately it wasn't that bad.


I started by grinding away every bit of rust I possibly could, and then sanding some more after that. I was really careful not to sand any of the lead filler where the roof joins the A-pillar. This took care of the majority of the rust.


What was left was treated with rust converter, and left overnight to dry, and then lightly sanded the next day...I hope this works!


There were a good many places on the car where the paint has been chipped off in the past, and rust spots have formed, the front of the roof being a prime example. I used a small wire wheel on the drill to deal with these imperfections; later on I'll be skim coating the roof.


I did the same just below the tail light openings - the rust in this area no doubt comes from water getting inside the tail light housing, from where it cannot escape....next time out I'll be cracking open the body filler!