Finished Body!

A major milestone on the project has been passed, the body is finished! Well, I still have to paint the tail panel when the body is off the rotisserie as it's obscured by the frame, but apart from that it's done!

It's not perfect but for a home job it looks great. I better make the most of it as once you spray a matte top coat it will only look worse over time. You can't buff anything out and matte finishes always mark easy. But right now it looks fantastic.

I had my fair share of trials and tribulations, setbacks and breakthroughs, but the end results are good enough to be worth it (just...  maybe). I think for future car projects I'm going to pay the pros to paint them, as right now I feel there's no way I want to go through this again!

It's been another steep learning curve for someone who's never done anything like this before. I can't wait to start bolting all new and clean parts onto this body for the last time.

I have to share a picture of the rad little spray gun I used for the top coats. This is the Spraylien, a limited edition DeVilbiss GTi Pro-Lite. I kept it real clean and it will be going back on display on a shelf once I'm done as it looks so cool. And it did an amazing job of the spraying as well. Bonus!

2015

Lots of work has been going on lately, just not a lot of it posted online. None actually. So here's a good catch up to what I've been doing the last month.

Before I finished the body and pulled it off the rotisserie I figured I should use the spray booth for the other bits and pieces that needed painting. Turned out there was a lot, this image shows just a few. Parts were sandblasted then coated in Durepox, a really nice epoxy urethane.

The doors needed some work too. There were dozens of little dents and the construction of the doors didn't let me get to the other side to body work them out. So a little filler was used and those tricky 'cuda bodylines made nice and new again.

Ready for topcoat.

I added a drain plug to the diff housing before getting it blasted.

The rough old fuel tank was full of pinholes, so I decided I'd weld it up and add some baffles while I was at it. I had it acid dipped when I dipped the car body, so it was pretty clean. I used a tank sealer after I'd welded it up, as seen in the bottom left image. Not sure yet whether or not I'll coat the exterior in Raptor Liner.

Thanks to some rad local businesses I have some final 5mm alloy brackets for the seat. Big thanks to the Water Cutting Company and Kia-Ora Sheetmetal!

Final test fit of the trunk mounted battery and Pelican case bracket. I love this sort of stuff, I could photochop a rad robot from this image.

I reinforced the floor under the trunk mounted battery box with this bracket.

All sealed and painted.

The pedals were blasted, painted, rebushed, then drilled for the billet pedal covers. I'll probably get these anodised black with some other bits soon.

The fourth big shipment of parts from the states arrived. There was a big box with new front and rear glass too. I wonder if those 325s will fit... 

These were probably the coolest parts of the lot, adjustable rebound Fox shocks tuned by Hotchkis. Apparently very nice.

Lucky I have a spare room for all this stuff.

I added the final brace to finish off the steering quickener bracket, then it got prepped and painted too, along with all the other column bits.

Speaking of painting, here's some of the test cups I've sprayed to try out various top coat options. Most of them are to test the kind of sheen level (or lack of it) I want in the clear coat. I've ended up going with a PPG product designed for Lamborghini's.

Here's the car ready for topcoat. I sprayed it in sections, A-pillar and door jambs first, then engine bay yesterday. Tomorrow I'll be spraying the body, so I should have some images of the finished body soon.

Cheers and happy new year!