Spent this month cleaning stuff and painting the car. I've been preparing the bodywork for a while, finding all the small rust marks that were showing just under the existing paint and sanding the area down to uncover and remove them. Although the bodywork is pretty much rust free there were a lot of these small 'rust-worms' that needed fixing, especially on the roof. Unfortunately if you paint over the sanded down areas they will still show through as flaws in the new finish because the paint isn't level, so I then had to patch those areas with new paint and carefully sand them flat. A couple of dents also needed fixing on the rear quarter and another showed up as soon as I put the first new layer of Blue on, so that also needed fixing again.

When most people paint cars they seem to get a more professional heavy-duty paint spray gun - and then strip the car and paint it all in one go. I didn't want to do this as I prefer to work on just one area of the car and take my time with it, checking the surface over for imperfections, bits of rust, marks and dints. Then carefully stripping the parts off and masking everything as well as possible. As a result of this I resorted to just using normal paint spray cans that you buy from motor spares shops. These are normally just used to fix damaged areas or replacement panels, not the whole car, but they work for me and give me the flexibility that I want. It also helped that I managed to buy a fair few cans at an Autojumble for a pound a tin! At first I started with the idea of using 'Halfords' paints for the final finish but they didn't seem to give an even colour - the first front wing that I did earlier had clear darker lines on caused by the spraying. In the end the 'Car Plan' (also called Tetrosyl) paint sprays gave a far better finish and a nicer shade of Electric Blue.

I split the car up into eleven sections, to be painted one at a time, checked and then repainted again. The doors were completely stripped of parts including the locks and handles - I had to open the doors by running strings from the internal door latch's and through the rear hatch. My paint scheme is a little different to most cars. The doors are normally one colour, outside and inside, however I wanted the inner panels to be Black to match the vinyl trim. So my doors are Blue on the outside, satin Black around most of the inside panel, gloss Black along the more visible top strip and then silver down the side. That took a fair bit of masking tape. Also when you open the door the Blue bodywork only goes around the edge with most of the exposed door frame being Black too.

The existing exhaust silencer had now been split for several months and was making a strange noise so I decided that it was now time to replace it all. I had a new front pipe but no box, so I spent a couple of hours tidying up the one I got off the red scrap car. I had cut it off with a section of pipe still attached and now I had to remove that pipe - queue more sweating and swearing and the use of a big hammer. The silencer was then cleaned up with sandpaper and spray painted with a heat resistant red paint that I had. No problems getting the old one off - luckily it had been put on correctly with the bracket on the engine the right way round, some are put on wrong and the nuts become recessed and near impossible to remove.

October 18th 2009

I finally refitted the interior trim to the doors, together with the rubber edging strip and all the other bits - the doors and interior are now finally finished. All of the trim has been cleaned as much as possible and treated with the usual 'Back to Black' type products to make the plastics look new. Generally speaking most of the parts have lasted well over the 30 years but oddly the door handles have got a funny white finish? I thought that the plastic was completely knackered and almost didn't waste my time trying to fix them but they too have cleaned up and reverted to Black, although it wouldn't surprise me if they turned white again - must be a chemical reaction in the surface finish.

The front two new wings have been cleaned up and painted over the last month. There was a good deal of small scale surface rust which I had removed but this had left the surface rather pitted in places. Several coats of primer and gloss paint were applied and rubbed down to fix this before the final two coats. The inside of each wing received three coats of Hammerite and then a coating of underseal - so I'm hoping they will now last forever!  

Before I could fix them in position I had to apply the 'Waxoyl' product that I had bought months ago. This was sprayed inside the box sections to try and prevent future rust. To do this I first had to remove some from the can and then thin the remaining mixture, then warm the can, shake the can, warm it, shake it, then attached the sprayer and then ....... it blocked up and I was in a right mess. Finally I got it to work and I've sprayed the stuff in plenty of hard-to-get-too places but boy can it smell!
The first thing I did was spray the interior of the doors, before I put the trim on, and now the car stinks. I'm hoping this will fade away over the coming months. If it doesn't I will have to remove it, I can't drive around with the windows open all the time!

October 20th 2009

The new bonnet is now on - again a strange paint scheme from me, a mostly Black interior but with the frame picked out in Silver.

Today I started the car and let it run for quite a while to see how everything was working. The lights are mostly fine with just a front left indicator bulb failure and one of the small rear number plate lights not working. The engine warmed up nicely and the cooling fan activated, so thats all working fine.