The Beginning	The Donor	Floorpans	Wiring and Interior
Cutting out the rust	Heater channels and support rails	Brakes	Reassembly
The motor runs!	Paint Prep	Paint	Top

June 22, 2004
I've finally gotten the car stripped, rust all fixed, holes filled and all sanded down. The weather is perfect for painting, 80 degrees, little humidity and it was Father's Day on Sunday so I could have a guilt free day in the garage. I'd gotten the primer purchased a month or so ago, had a new HVLP gun so I was ready!

I used Nason acrylic primer that's mixed 1:1 with the thinner. Its pretty thick and seemed to be a good "build-up" primer. (On the orange car, I stripped the paint down to the metal so I used an acid etch primer on that car. It didn't build up much and was not happy with sanding as it was pretty thin.) Reading about painting cars, you soon realize that there is an incredible body of knowledge on automotive paint. I've relied very heavily on the counter man at the auto paint store. This brand is apparently low end stuff, but is reported to produce good results. (It's still $16.00 a qt...)

Painting along. Notice the respirator. Even with the open garage door, the stuff is pretty noxious, so in an attempt to keep what memory remains, I figured I'd give my brain cells a break from this stuff.

Fenders all primed and ready. In the background is the top I recently picked up at a swap meet. Not only are the bows in pretty good condition, but I'm hoping to reuse the pad as well.

Crisis!!! On filling the paint gun, the gun slipped and tipped over, spilling paint on the majority of stuff in its vicinity! What a pain in the neck! Before I go further, I'll need to make some sort of stand for the idle gun!

The interior of the car.

All finished with the first coat. Tomorrow its back to the store for more advice. The paint can calls for 2 coats of primer, so I'll check on that. Also I've read there is a time limit between primer and color coats, so I have to check on that. Also, get a recommendation on block sanding and the compressor settings for the HVLP gun... and whether there needs to be a sealer coat between the primer and color, then there's the single v. 2 stage (base coat/clear coat) options and recommendations.....Check back on these and more mysteries solved!

A week later... The paint guy was full of information and answered everything. No time limit between primer and paint. Got checked out on block sanding (essentially use a block, not your hand to sand the primer. Some even recommend spraying a contrasting color with rattle can paint to see high or low spots. I figure too many curves on the VW for the extra color, but I did block sand the primer.) The HVLP gun isn't popular as it uses tons of air at the compressor and is a result of the gubment restricting pollution - but they don't paint as well as the conventional gun. The cool thing I learned is that the paint guy can mix a sample of paint and put it in a rattle can. So I thought I liked this color, Yukon Yellow. I had it put in a rattle can and sprayed the license plate light housing. This color is too green a yellow, so I won't be using that color. But very cool that they can make samples cans like that.

A second coat of primer after block sanding went on today. I went around the car after the first coat, sanded a couple of runs, lots of overspray and fixed a couple of dings and low spots I found. There was a good dent at the decklid handle area that I hadn't noticed until the paint went on. I hammered that out and smoothed it with filler. In today's painting I avoided continued crises. The car is still grey but now a thicker grey, and very smooth! I could add a couple more pics of the car with its second coat, but won't. Stay tuned for the next step, color. After many considerations of a color, I finally saw a color I liked on a new beetle convertible. Its called "Harvest Moon Beige." These cars have a light brown top. I think I'll check out this color but prolly go with a darker brown top.

August 26, 2004 The decision has been made. This is the license plate light housing painted Harvest Moon Beige. Next to it is a pair of brown leather chaps. This will be the final color. It would be cool to get a brown leather top! I finished sanding the fenders and hoods, so this weekend I'll get started on painting the color coat. Stay tuned!

August 28, 2004 Saturday morning, hot still day and the car is ready to paint. A couple of more walk arounds to be sure the body is straight, and get the garage ready for painting.

All ready, then I find (actually remember) that there are holes in the rear firewall. I think these were probably holes that had rusted at the point the back bow of the top was secured to the car. So a quick cutting out the cancer and welding in new metal set the painting back an hour or so.

A trip to the paint store and couple of hundred dollars keeping DuPont in business, I get 1.5 gallon of paint and the accompanying necessary chemical additives. If you can see them among the workbench clutter, this is the paint, catalyst and reducer.

The paint guy decided that I need to seal the primer. Here the fenders are showing off their new sealing. This stuff is apparently time sensitive, the directions indicate that paint is to be applied after this sealer flashes, that if you wait overnight, they must be resealed. No turning back now.

Painting away!

All finished with the first coat.

I hung the fenders and hood around the garage to so I could avoid painting down (which the gun hates) and freeing up the need for assistance (which is reluctant around here.) The garage looked like a meat locker with these things hanging in there...another visitor said it looked like the Olympics Opening Ceremony.. Just think, they could have filmed this garage and saved a pile of money!

The first coat. It suffers from quite a bit of orange peel. I've heard that by spraying with a fine mist of laquer thinner will make the paint flow together. (NOT - it screws it up!) Also, spraying another coat then wet sanding with 2000 grit will smooth the surface. In any case, I'll paint another coat today and hopefully end up with a glass surface! I'll let you know...

August 29 Here's a close up of the orange peel. This condition is the opposite of a run - that is, the paint drys before it flows together. Too much paint causes a run, or a sag. (also bad) So the trick is getting the right balance of paint to the surface so it flows together and won't orange peel but not too much so it runs. I think they measure the tolerance of this balance with a micrometer, whereas given my skill, I'd prefer the tolerance to be measured with a yard stick!

Just so you have a reference, this is a run. I"d like to say I made this to have an example, but in attempting to spray enough paint to avoid the op, I went too far resulting in this and several other runs. I figured out the fine mist of laquer thinner messes it up and too much sanding takes the paint off. So subsequent coats and probably the added experience of the painter brought many areas the smooth surface that should be there. To fix the runs, I let it dry enough so it will sand then sand it out and get the right amount of paint to it. Simple.

This is the left front fender, which actually is mostly right, no runs, little orange peel. This is after 4 coats, two of which suffered some sanding of runs.

Here's the interior of the car. Nice flat small horizontal surfaces are easy to get right, like the edge of the door that will be exposed after the door panel gets on. With the right light you can see the paint going on and flowing together and not running. Such a rare, yet pleasant experience! Next is putting the car back together. I think I'll put it back on the pan and loosely attach the fenders and hood before I put the paint away. That way any gross negligence will be apparent and I can fix those areas while the paint is still green but before the next step of wiring begins.

Everybody tucked in.

September 5, 2004 Time to replace the body onto the pan. This was a big day! Here, Chris, or GHB (garage helper boy) begins the disassembly of the rack that has held the body in place for several years. We used tie down straps and come-alongs (or bring-alongs as they're known here) to raise the car enough to remove the cross pieces, then to lower the car onto the body.

As I was sort of busy until now, I didn't get pics of the lowering process. But, in spite of a quickly released bring-along on the front of the car, we were successful in getting the car back to its pan.

The steering column and wheel is reinstalled, as you can see in this view from the back of the car.

These are the pan washers that are used with the bolts to hold the floorpan to the body. I wirebrushed these, then painted them as you can see here. Finding the right bolts has eluded me. I run down to the open on Sunday hardware store and paid $1.00 apiece for metric bolts, and grind one (invalidating the warranty I'm sure) to a point like the originals. The mother doesn't fit, apparently it's the wrong pitch, or some such metric speak. So I'll return 19 of those babies and order the right ones from mail order man. Needless to say, getting to the point of figuring out they weren't right cost quite a bit of profanity.

Since I was stopped in working on bolting the car together, I figured I'd procrastinated enough and moved to the thankless job of wetsanding out the orange peel. The plan is to first try the buffer with machine polish and see whether that will bring out the shine. If not, it will be another coat of paint, with no orange peel! Stay tuned for what happens...

September 14, 2004 Saturday I put the fenders back on (with only two bolts so I could get them out of the way and they'd be easier to send and paint) and finished wetsanding out the orange peel. Here's a pretty good shot of the car after being sanded. You can see the runoff on the driveway. I buffed out the right rear quarterpanel, and the shine was incredible. Its tricky getting the right amount of goop on it and getting into the edges, but man, this buffing is the trick. I had too many runs and had missed parts of the windshield frame, so I stopped the buffing and figured I needed one more coat of paint.

Back it the garage ready for another coat of paint. The sanding of some runs took some spots down to primer, as evident in the circled spot on the fender. Notice my new Harvest Moon Beige garage floor!

Hopefully the last coat of paint is now applied. Looking much better now, I'm not sure whether the better look is due to having sanding the car prior to painting it again or increased expertise in painting. Whatever the case, the next step is to lightly wetsand with 2000 sandpaper to knock down some dust nibs and overspray, then buff out the paint. Fortunately I can wait for the paint to cure during the week, then hopefully accomplish the final sanding and buffing this weekend. Next is buffing, stay tuned! I'm more than willing to share the buffing experience with anyone interested, so come invest some sweat equity when you get a chance!

September 19, 2004 Here is the buffer and the goop. I use a wool pad on the grinder and machine polish.

The fender after the paint is buffed out. After a light sanding with 2000 grit sandpaper the dust nibs and overspray are off, but the shine is dulled. The machine polish buffed with the machine restores the shine and makes the surface smooth. Apparently the heat that is produced contributes to the process.

The other fender, with the turn signal and the headlight cover test fitted. The beauty ring is also test fit on the wheel. I don't have the right hubcaps, and only two beauty rings, so that goes on the list. You can see the fine result of the buffing with the smooth finish of the fender. That's is for painting. Next is putting it back together. I figure getting the wiring in will also have to be the next priority, so check on that soon. (I'll put a link in at the top for reassembly and for electrics.)