742 replies to this topic

[jonny f]

Good work Bounce!

 

Gives you a good boost laying down some paint.

[MrBounce]

Jonny you are SO right!! Am a bit nervous about prepping though - it's all new to me....

 

Not much to report this week - I moved the car out of the garage into the blazing sunshine again and finished off all the missed bits of stonechipping. I didn't take any pictures as it looks much the same as the first one. I will get a friend or two over and we'll put it back on its belly so we can start prepping it for the painting process. Eek.

I dragged the MIG welder I've been given out and decided to create my own captive nut engine mounts as the ones I had were - for want of a better word - rubbish. I ground off the crimped in round threaded "things" (they certainly weren't nuts) and cleaned up four nuts I had in the box. I then proceeded to not make a pig's ear of things and surprised myself by welding on the nuts without too much bother - I have only welded once before! I am sure it would have been better if I had a proper arc-sensitive flip-down mask rather than the hand-held one I have and things would doubtless have improved with a lot more practice, but I was quite pleased with my attempts. I wasn't the most accurate as my free hand was holding that damned mask but I know a friend with a proper mask if necessary. Granted there was a bit of pigeon-poo splatter on my first attempt (the nuts weren't spotless) and I managed to weld the tip up, but I fitted a replacement and all was good!

Captive nuts done (this is probably the best of them)

[xrocketengineer]

Good job on the welding! It becomes addicting. I have been helping a friend with a very rusty 69 Chevy Camaro. The idea was to do some patching but we ended replacing/welding most of the car ourselves!

[MrBounce]

Once more I have been putting off sanding the bodywork (mainly for silly reasons such as next door having an afternoon in the garden and Mrs B telling me not to sand whilst the washing is out...) That said, the first 50% of sanding the main part of the bodyshell is now done. It makes such a difference as well. I have my mojo back and all is good. I have however got sunburn. Ow.

Before I finally got out to do some bodywork, I asked David if he would mind sandblasting my rocker cover when he next had a moment? Half an hour later, it was done! This happened when he popped back to his to get his slide hammer whilst Tink & I were trying to remove my idler bearing in my flywheel housing. We'd managed it by the time David returned, but he'd taken a while because he sandblasted the cover. Once home, I primed it then gave it two further coats of Rover Platinum Silver to go with the rest of the bits on the engine. Typically the bolts I had were too short to fit it. I rectified this with a pair of T-bars from Mini Spares, then topped it off with a new oil cap. Am tempted to have a "Midas" sticker made up for it but am not sure...

I was also struggling with my indicator stalk and after a particularly bad time in the garage I said "Sod it!" and ordered a new one from Mini Spares. This arrived and has been paired up with the good wiper stalk I have. The wiring has been recovered in decent electrical tape. Another thing I have finished was the front brake pipe on the subframe. I fitted the front braided hoses with new nuts and washers, then bent the pipe to fit as best as I could , being a total novice at this!! Although it's far from perfect, it isn't bad for a first effort and nobody's going to see it anyway unless they're really nosey! Next week is hopefully going to filled with LOTS more body prep. I am feeling good about it.

Beautiful rocker cover now fitted.



New indicator stalk, now paired with its wiper stalk buddy (Blatant advert in the background!!)



Brake pipe made up and fitted to subframe.



First bit of sanding done. It's SO white now!!

[Ben_O]

good to see some progress mate.

 

Love the rocker cover. such a nice change from polished alloy.

[MrBounce]

It has been a while I've updated this as Mrs Bounce has recently had major surgery, so I have not been out to the garage much. She's now on the mend and I have turned my attentions to paint. Having looked into various options, I was left with these 3:

1. Give it to someone else to spray. I don't have the budget for this at all. A 4-figure sum is not in my plans so that's out.
2. Respray the car myself. My garage is too small, but there's the option of a decent sized gazebo/tent/temporary structure of some sort and my friend has a compressor with spray gear. And here's where it gets awkward. I have never sprayed before, so would need practice and there's no guarantee I would be much good at it. Add to this the problem of the breathing gear needed for 2-pack (and the legislation attached to not being allowed to spray outside) plus cellulose only really being available via the internet and things were starting to look bad for a spray job. There is of course the option of finding larger internal premises to spray in, but I do not know anyone with such a place plus there would be the additional ball-ache of borrowing car & trailer to transport it there and back. Whoop-di-doo.
3. DIY paint job using rollers. I have done a fair bit of research on this, and as my car will not be a trailer queen/concours vehicle, I am happy with just a half decent shine. So I have gone down the Rustoleum route as they have a wide range of colours, and it's easy to apply with no primer once it's been thinned. Flat down with fine wet & dry then re-coat. And Shaun's just bought a polisher. Plus there's the added bonus of it being much cheaper!

There's only a minor bit of prep left to do, I've now got all the paint and equipment, so will let everyone know how it goes.

I'll just leave these two pics here...

[Ben_O]

Rustoleum on a plastic car?

 

Is it any good on FG then?

 

Ben

[MrBounce]

According to guys on the Midas forum, it's awesome.

[jonny f]

Interesting! Good luck with it.

Make sure you research the right rollers to use. I used some with 2k paint and it started to eat the rollers.

[MrBounce]

No two ways about it - the first rolled coat is on! The only difficulty at the time was getting the amount of thinning right. Originally I'd planned to use 10-15%, but about 17.5% turned out to be better. There were a couple of minor runs but these were only right on the edges. These will all be flatted back before the next coat but I will be leaving it for a week to harden. The overall finish at first shows a few of the darker bits through where it's been repaired but these will disappear after the next coat or two. In the meantime I will have to do the bonnet and doors; shouldn't take too long!

First bit done; no going back now!



It's ORANGE! Not gonna lose this in a car park...



Looks good from the back too. Shaun doesn't. He just looks scary...


 

[Ben_O]

It looks really great!

 

Well done!

 

Ben

[jonny f]

nice one!

[domdee]

looks brilliant!

love the rocker cover too lol

[MrBounce]

Not too much to report this week other than I have given Zippy his second coat of paint. It was a much easier process second time around as I think I know what I am doing now. I think that this time round I go for two coats before flatting back. I am thinking probably 4-5 coats in total and it should eventually polish up quite nicely.

I also dragged out the bonnet, painted the underside in satin black, then flipped it over to give it a coat of orange once the black was dry. All went swimmingly until I packed up and left everything outside to dry. I shut the garage door straight on to my freshly painted bonnet. How I didn't swear I will never know...

Underside of bonnet now black.



More orange.



And yet more orange. Before I hit it with the garage door. Nuts.

[jonny f]

Not long until you'll be putting it all back together!