So what's everyone doing for thanksgiving?

[Whiskeydan]

Al, Tons of food at moms tomorrow at 3pm if you've nothing to do. She's just up the road from my ranch. Give me a ring if you're hungry.

Otherwise...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjPadN82SYQ

[Scutch]

I'll be having friends over for a dinner party. We got a few inches of snow here in Fort Collins, CO yesterday. This is our first cold snap this year. It isn't getting above freezing until Sat.

I may try and take apart my rear Zenith 35/40 and clean it out and see if I can figure out why it is flooding. It was sad to not be able to drive around in the snow with the heater on and that nice warm 60's heater ambiance.

Eddie

[KAdams4458]

First off, happy turkey day! The wife works tonight, so she's sleeping now. No one even tried inviting us over for dinner today, and we wouldn't have been able to go anywhere, anyway.

I wanted to get a battery for the Merc and see if my engine repair work has done any good, but circumstances beyond my control prevented me from making it to a store in time yesterday, and it sure isn't likely that I'll find a place open today to buy one. I very nearly had MB Roadside Assistance go to the car and drop a battery in it to the tune of $165, but what's a couple more days of waiting if it means I can save $65 or more?

For now, I'll just sit here in my apartment, and scrub dirty salvaged bits and pieces for the 300D in the bathtub. There's not much else I can do, today.

[alabbasi]

Today was brutally cold, we did more sanding with finer sand paper as the DA did a great job of hitting some areas but there were too many patches left. Thanks to my good Friend Ken (Wodnek) I managed to get the bumperette off on the right side and the headlights.

I also worked out the dent of the rear door with the help of my workshop neighbor Tim who helped me out today and is loaning me his space to paint the car (my shop is packed with cars and parts).

Today was brutally cold. It started to snow later that afternoon (snowing in Texas!).

The sanding is 90% there. I need to a little more sanding and glazing and pull the rear lights and the mirror. I hope to mask it and paint it by Saturday.







This is Tim, Tim took the morning out on thanksgiving to give me a hand it's bloody freezing outside and he turned up on that bike in the picture above so he deserves some props.



I was supposed to go back and put glazing putty on, but i'm so full from the Thanksgiving Dinner at David Poole, thanks should go to him and his lovely wife for a fantastic meal.

[ADP]

Hey Ali,

Does car painting have any sort of temp restriction like other kinds of painting?

Ann

[alabbasi]

Ann

Yes it does, you need to match the reducer with the temperature you plan to paint in. Today, it was 40 degrees outside and we used a fast reducer and placed a heater in the shop while painting. The temp inside the shop got up to 68 degrees which was almost to hot for the reducer that was used.

[alabbasi]

Well, it's finally sanded prepped and painted. We had to fill in some chips and dings which took quite a lot of time. I then removed the remaining chrome, mirrors and lights and wet sanded the scratches from the courser paper.

Where the paint went down to bare metal, I hit it with spot primer and sanded it again one more time with 320 grit paper. After that, we gave the car another wash and then wiped it down with clean terry towels and masked it. Finally we hit it one more time with a degreaser and wiped it again with a tack cloth.

The first picture of me with the 6.9 completely stripped and masked. It was getting dark and the picture came out funky.



The lower panel (behind the bumper) was really grimy and rusty, I sanded it as best as I could and the used epoxy primer to seal it.



A quick picture of the rear.



The base coat went on well, you cannot see well in the picture because of all the solvents in the air, however the paint looks really good.



The temperature was cold outside so we used an electric radiator to pre-heat the the shop before painting started. This raised the shop temperature to about 68 degrees which was almost too warm for the reducer. The paint was flashing really quickly.



The clear went on quite well for the most part, there seemed to be a problem with the hood where the metallic material on began to lay flat on right side hump and began to more away from the hump itself. We'll try to repair it tomorrow but it will more then likely require the hood to be re-shot.

This is a lot of work, what was I thinking?

More pictures to come tomorrow.

[twinockchef]

It is looking very nice. Are you using the original color and will you paint inside the door frames and inside parts of the engine area? Also how many coats of clear coat will you do?
My holiday work was to repair the heater blower and change out the heater core. At the some time I will finish up about half dozen some jobs and her up and running by Sat.
Have a happy thanksgiving.

[ADP]

Originally Posted by alabbasi

This is a lot of work, what was I thinking?

ha ha ha !!! That you'd save yourself money and time and get a better job doing it *yourself?

It looks great Al, and I'm enjoying the photographic documentation and descriptions of progress. I'm just messing with you.

Ann

*why Ann would rather pay someone else and just come and pick up the car when its done.

[alabbasi]

That's exactly what i was thinking. It would be fine if I had one or two cars, but when you have 13, this could easily turn into a full time job.

We have a very good painter at the local Maaco, the base coat , clear coat package that they sell is only $899. But they wouldn't have taken the dings out or pulled the dent of the rear door and they would have masked instead of removed all the trim pieces. If I do not count my time for labor and just count my costs in materials and Tim's time. I am in it for about $600 right now and probably $800 when it's done.

[alabbasi]

A couple of more pictures for today, all the masking has been removed and we started to do a little wet sanding but it was too cold!

The hood was totally messed up, it seems like the metallic flakes moved away from the center and left a parting. We'll have to wait a few days and re-shoot it off the car.

The rest of the paint came out really well with just a little bit of dust specs here and there that need to be wet sanded off.

Here are a couple of pictures:

[JMURiz]

My thanksgiving was great, even got a nice treat of seeing a VERY nice 250C with DC plates on Rt 460 on the way home from Appomattox to Arlington, VA.

BTW that car is looking good!

[alabbasi]

Some outside pictures of the car. Most of the body has been wet sanded and buffed with the exception of the hood which still needs to be buffed as it was just painted.

I'll try to buff out the rest of the car on the weekend and then start putting it back together. All in all, I'm happy with the result. Here are some pictures:

[meltedpanda]

looks great, reminds me of of Libby , my restore, I went back to my restore thread and took a tour down memory lane.
1971 220

Keep up the good work!

[Dee8go]

Thanks for the photos and descriptions. I doubt I'd ever try that myself, but it's nice to know what is involved.