I've really been getting into the car building shows on TV - Car Warriors, Overhaulin, "Chop, Cut, Rebuild", etc. Obviously, they show some of the differences between restoring a car yourself and having a pro do it. Car Warriors and Overhauling, in particular, do a complete car in 48 hours, or a week, using entire teams of people. And I'm doing a car in 5 years by myself. Quite a contrast.

Part of the difference is the amount of labor available - there's only one of me, and this is far from a full time job.

But another part is that the pros have done this hundreds of times. And this is generally my first experience with a job like this. Which shows up in numerous aspects. But a couple in particular are:

1)learning on the job, and having to redo things when I didn't like the results of my first attempt; and

2)not being sure what's "good enough" vs "gross overkill", and spending time on things that aren't going to be discernable in the final product (i.e., spending time on things that a pro wouldn't, because nobody would pay him to...).

I think that really shows up in paint prep - priming, block sanding, repairing, repriming, and wet sanding.

Once I got the initial block sanding complete, I was able to see areas on almost every panel that needed touching up. Examples were the lower front PS fender actually having a ding in it (where'd that come from?) to the driver's dogleg being 'below' the lower rear corner of the driver's door, and the driver's sill being a bit below the front end of the door/rear end of the fender. Almost every panel had some pin holes, or areas where the final filler wasn't as smooth/even as it needed to be.

So I started working around the car. Mostly I used U-Pol Dolphin Glaze for pinholes and minor repairs. I would mix up about a tablespoon or two at a time - it set up quickly and sanded easily. The driver's side dogleg and sill needed more filler, so I used Rage Extreme there.

After all the repairs were complete, I sprayed on 3 more coats of primer, reduced by the max amount the Tech Sheet permitted. Even then, this came out pretty rough, and had some runs. So while I first thought I'd block it out with 400, I resorted to the 220 when I realized how long the 400 would take.

The reason for the 3 add'l coats was that I had numerous sand through's after the first blocksanding. They weren't areas that I felt I could tap down, and it didn't occur to me to grind a little metal out, so I thought the extra primer would let me level things out without doing any damage.

So, more guide coat, more blocking. But this time I tended to switch to a shorter block more quickly, to try to reduce the sand thrus.

And I didn't get many, and my repaired areas looked good. So I went ahead to wet sanding - once I dealt with a real mystery.

Which was - after hours of analysis, bodywork, and block sanding, the SECOND pass of block sanding showed an issue with the driver's side rear 'tail', just ahead of the rear light. It was 'mushed in', just a tad, on the inside surface, between the peak and the trunk opening. Very odd, but the second block sanding definitely showed it - I must have hit that area with too flexible a block the first time, and sanded right into it.

So, a bit more Dophin Glaze, a bit more sanding, and the body work was done. On to wet sanding.

Mike recommended 600 wet, vs 400 wet or dry (the paint I'm using indicates 400 dry is fine, but that it will also stick to a 600 wet sanded surface). I bought about 10 sheets, cut them into quarters, had a couple of 2 gal buckets filled with warm water and a few drops of dish detergent, and several small blocks of varying flexibility.

I was a little concerned going from 220 straight to 600, but it went well, and really looked good. I'd wet the surface with a rag (which washed off some of the graphite, but not the graphite in the 'pits'), then hit the panel with 600 paper that had been soaking in the bucket. It cut quickly, and usually after a couple of passes of sanding/washing off the slurry, I had a smooth, actually glossy (especially when wet) surface. A sheet generally lasted for about a panel, or a bit longer.

But still, I had some sand-throughs. So I bought another quart of K36, put several coats on the sand-thoughs and surrounding areas, and went right back to 600 wet sanding, and got a good surface. Still some VERY minimul sand throughs though.

My PPG reps counsel was pretty much "Sand-throughs happen to everyone. Don't sweat it. Just hit those areas with some self-etching primer, buff the dried primer with a 3M pad, and paint your car".

So that's my plan.

What I think I've learned (won't know for sure until the paint is dry...)

1) Block the car once - not twice. Twice is just asking for trouble, and just isn't worth it.

2) My 220 dry/600 wet 'prescription' sure looks like it did the job.

3) Come up with a strategy for each sand-through. If it's minor (i.e., small and you can't feel it) then primer over/around it, and resand with a more flexible block. If it's larger and/or has a "low" near it, then add filler to the "low", maybe tap or grind down the high, glaze, reprime and reblock.

I'm guessing a pro wouldn't have needed 6 coats of K36 over the entire car, and 3-4 more coats over the high spots, to get the panels straight and flat. So he would have saved a bunch in materials and time. I'm clearly not a pro, but judging from how this car looks, in primer, wetted down, I think I got there, if not very close, eventually.

Next step - color.

When it comes down to it, the key factor in an MGB body restoration are the doors. Basically, you assemble the side body panels around the doors, and if they're not right, if they don't fit correctly, if the surrounding panels (front and rear fenders and the outer sill) don't match up correctly, then the entire body will look out of sorts. Maybe even more than that, the doors are the part of the structure that the occupants physically come in contact with most often - how they fit, how they move, how they function will be a major factor in how the car is perceived.

So for the benefit of those coming behind me, here's what I've learned about MGB doors:

1) Understand the anatomy

Like anything else on the car, you need to understand the parts, how they function, how they're built, how they connect to the structure, etc..

The key aspects of the hinges: Two per door (duh), 5 fasteners for each hinge to the body, 3 for each hinge arm to the door. The body fasteners are four #4 Pozidrive machine screws on the hinge face to two threaded bars 'floating and captured' in the a-pillar, and one nut on the front face of the a-pillar that attaches to a stud on the front face of the hinge. Thus the hinges 'bridge' the a-pillar, and are fastened fore and aft, and really locked into position.

The 3 fasteners for each hinge to the door are also #4 Pozidrive machine screws, that pass through holes in the door inner panel (the steel panel under the vinyl door pad), through the hinge arms, and screw into threaded floating plates 'captured' in the inner door structure.


2) Start with the hinges.

Our cars are old. Hinges wear out. There should be NO vertical movement possible in the hinge arm. Open the door partway, lift up on the end of the door - you should not feel any slop in the door - the lifting force should be transmitted directly to the body of the car. If the door moves and the body doesn't, then your hinges are worn.

There is some adjustment possible to account for this wear, but at some point the hinge wear will exceed the adjustment range. When that happens, you will not be able to correctly position the door in the opening - and ultimately the lower rear corner of the door will have too small a gap, or even contact the sill/b-pillar, and/or the latch will not engage the striker. You'll have to lift up on the door to get it to close correctly.

If your hinges are worn out, your options are:

- Buy new hinges. These are available from the usual suppliers, at $100 to $125 per hinge. $400 to $500 for a complete set.

- Buy used hinges. These are available from junk yards, parts cars, and E-bay. E-bay prices are in the $50 range, but you may get a better deal. The problem with used hinges is, of course, that they may be worn as well.

- Rebuild your hinges. I went with this approach. I searched the web for car door hinge rebuilders, found a couple and emailed them. Neither had done MGB hinges, but one seemed confident and quoted $25/hinge. I sent off some pictures and got a positive response, so off the hinges went. Two weeks later I got them back. The shop had media blasted them, dissassembled them, custom made new bushings and sleeves out of oil-lite bronze, custom made new hinge pins out of hardened steel, reassembled everything, and primed them. They were perfect. Hinge movement was stiffer than before, but that had to be. There was NO slop in the hinge arms at all. Closing effort was reasonable. I was happy.

My hinge rebuilder was:

Wilson Antique Car Parts
1067 Clearview Dr.
Forest, VA 24551
434-258-2606
willie@hoodhingerepair.com
www.hoodhingerepair.com

I waited until after the body work was done to do this. I would have been better off doing it before - it complicated things a bit. The sooner you rebuild hinges that need it, the better.

3) Work around the doors

If you're doing body work, and your doors are good and your door fits are good, try to avoid messing with the doors if you can. You're way ahead of the game. You can do a sill job with the doors on the car. The pain of doing this is likely less than the pain of getting your door fits back the way they are.


4) Get good at removal/installation

If #3 isn't possible - if your doors are rusted out, your hinges are shot, if the doors need work as well, you're going to have to get them off the car and address whatever is wrong. In my case, my doors needed new skins, rust damage to the lower door inner frame had to be repaired, and the hinges needed work, so #3 wasn't possible. If that's the case, you need to get real good at getting the doors on and off the car, because you'll be doing it a lot. Here's what I learned about that:

- Get #3 and #4 Pozidrive sockets. I ordered mine from Snap-on. You'll need the #3 for the door latch and striker plate. They have them in their "Blue Point" line, for about $8 each. Google: Snap-on Bluepoint Pozidrive #3 (or #4) and you'll find them. Don't try using Phillips bits on these screws, you'll just mess them up, except for the following exception. If you'd like Pozidrive bits to insert into a bit driver, you can get them from Jamestown Distributors for not much, as well, in packs of 3.

- If, however, you're dealing with hinge screws that haven't been touched in decades, that are rusted in place and aren't budging with your #4 Pozidrive sockets, get a manual impact driver. Sears has them. Mine came with a #4 Phillips bit. Clean out the layers of paint from the screws, get a 5 pound hammer, and have at it. This is how I got my hinges off the car initially, and there was no slippage or damage to the pozi drive screws.

- Replace the Pozidrive screws with Torx drive. Go to the McMaster-Carr web site and order Torx head cap screws, 5/16"x 24 x 1". These use a T-40 socket, which you can get anywhere that sells car tools. The beauty of these screws is that the Torx driver will not slip. I went through several Pozidrive screws before I converted to the Torx drive. As careful as I tried to be, I'd still get some slippage with the Pozidrive, which wore out the screw heads. And replacing the screws wasn't cheap. Even if you're looking for originality, go with the Torx screws while building the car, then switch to the Pozidrive screws at final assembly.

- Keep the original Pozidrive screws and sockets around. They have pointed ends, and are handy to use to line up the floating plates and do the initial assembly. Once they're in, but not torqued down, replace them with the Torx screws for the final torque-down.


5) Tricks for adjusting doors
Fitting new doors, or reskinned doors, to the body is likely to be an iterative activity. There are several adjustments to get correct. The door must:

a) be at a height, fore and aft, where the body feature line, just above the chrome strip, is continuous, from the front fender, to the door, to the front fender;

b) be flush with the surrounding panels - the front fender, the rear fender, and the outer sill;

To achieve this, the hinges, which control the lateral position of the front edge of the door, must be located correctly in the a-pillar, the door must be positioned on the hinge arms correctly (which controls the gap between the door and surrounding panels - fore and aft and vertically), and the striker plate must be positioned correctly (which controls the lateral position of the rear of the door).

To get this done:

a) Start by locating the hinges as far outboard on the a-pillar as possible. Mount them semi-tight.

b) Remove the latch mechanism from the door.

c) Get two decks of playing cards. You'll use these as shims to control the door's height. Count off about 30 cards, locate one deck just in front of the rear outer sill/b-pillar seam, and one deck a few inches back of the a-pillar.

d) Put the door on the hinge arms, then carefully put it in a closed position, making sure you don't hit either fender in the process.

e) Attach the hinge arms to the door, loose for now.

f) Adjust the fore/aft position to get even door gaps to the front and rear fenders.

g) Evaluate the feature line height of the door relative to the fenders. If the fender is high or low at either end, take your best guess as to how many cards to add/remove. Open the door, supporting it carefully, and add/remove cards - then close it back. Re-evaluate the feature line height. Repeat as necessary.

h) When you think you've got it, tighten down the hinge/door screws. Remove the card decks, and now evaluate the door position. It's likely that the front won't have moved, but the rear might have dropped a bit. Estimate the number of cards to add. Close the door, loosen the hinge/door screws, open the door just slightly, add the cards, close it, readjust the door position, snug up the screws, and reevaluate. Repeat as necessary.

i) When you've got the door positioned correctly in the opening, fore/aft and vertically, make a note of the # of cards you used in each deck, write it down, and put it where you won't lose it (I have two decks of cards dedicated to this purpose, they stay in my workbench and the note is kept in one of the decks).

j) Now for the cross-car position. The position of the leading edge is controlled by the front hinges. Ideally, the door is initially 'proud' of the fender a bit, since you mounted the hinges as far outboard as they could go. Loosen the hinge mounting screws a bit (all of them - don't forget the forward nut if it's on - I generally leave it off for this entire process), close the door, and press the forward edge into the car until it's flush with the fender. Carefully open the door, and tighten up the hinges. If the hinge moves when you open the door, you had the screws too loose, tighten them a bit and try again. Do each hinge separately, i.e., get the top of the door flush by adjusting the top hinge, and the bottom of the door with the bottom hinge.

k) But maybe your problem isn't that the door is proud of the fender, it's that the door doesn't come out to the fender, even with the hinge adjusted as far outboard as it will go. This was the situation with my driver's side door. It was a replacement door that wasn't mounted when I bought the car, I reskinned it, and had the hinges rebuilt. So lots of things changed. My fix was to measure the adjustment that I needed to make, using a straight-edge and feeler guages, and then make a shim up out of sheet metal just a bit thicker than needed. The shim needs to be roughly the size/length of the portion of the hinge arm that's inside the door, with holes in it to allow the hinge/door bolts to pass through it. The shim then goes between the outside face of the hinge arm and the door - effectively moving the door farther outside of the hinge position.

l) Finally, what if the hinge is mounted as far inboard as it will go, and the door is still proud of the fender? My passenger side door had this problem, but only on the upper hinge. Measurements indicated I needed to move the hinge in another .034", which wasn't possible with the standard hinge adjustment. My solution was to grind about .040" off the outer face of the hinge arm. This was roughly 10% of the hinge arm thicknesss, which left plenty of hinge arm strength. And got my doors flush.

m) Last, get the rear edge of the door flush with the b-pillar. Mount the door latch in the door, and the striker plate on the b-pillar. Line up the striker plate vertically by slowly closing the door with your eyes at latch level, moving the striker plate up/down and rotating it so that the bottom of the latch just clears the plate, and the latch engages the striker cleanly. That gives you the vertical alignment you need. Now you need to get the striker located in/out from the centerline of the car so that the rear edge of the door is flush with the b-pillar. Take some masking tape and put a strip just above and below the plate, and a strip on the top and bottom horizontal surfaces of the plate. With a fine point marker, put a reference mark on the top and bottom strips so that you'll be able to measure the in/out movement of the plate, both at the top and bottom (you don't want to change the vertical position of the plate, since you've got that correct, and you don't want to rotate the plate either). Close the door, evaluate the rear edge 'flushness', ideally measuring it if you're close with a straight edge and feeler guages. Now open the door, loosen the striker plate screws a bit, and move the plate in or out the corresponding amount. Tighten up the screws, close the door, and reevaluate. Repeat as necessary.

When you've got the hinge location, the hinge arm adjustment, and the striker plate adjustment set correctly, take a 1/8" drill and drill locating pin holes, two in each hinge face, two in each hinge arm, and two in the striker plate. Get some 1/8" steel rod and make locating pins. Now you can remove and reinstall the hinges, doors, and striker and return them to the exact position that they came from, without going back through steps a-m. Just line up your holes, insert the pins, and tighten your fasteners, and you'll be back in position.

This "pin trick" works for the hood and trunk lid, as well.

This past weekend was a 3-dayer for me, so I was able to spend some work hours on Sat/Sun/Mon and get the entire body block sanded.

There's a lot of info out on the web on the process, so I won't go into detail - if you're looking for general info on the process, Google "block sanding a car body".

Specific to an MGB body, I used:

- a 21", foam backed long board, from AFS. It has strip of sheet spring steel as a face, and 3 5/32" steel rods that you can insert or remove to the body to adjust the flex in the board. I generally used either 1 or 0 rods. This block worked well for the vast majority of the body.

- a 16" Dura-block, for areas that were too small for the board above

- a 1.25" diamater Dura-block cylinder, about 11" long, excellent for the concave area at the top/rear of the front fenders

- a 3/4" x 1.25" x 11" Dura-block, worked well for the top of the side body feature line, could get into the fillet there without gouging

- a soft foam backed, 1/8" rubber faced "Memory Block" from Motor Guard, 2.5 x 7", and a 2.5 x 6" 1/8" rubber squeegee. These worked well for the headlight cut-outs, and the tighter radius at the very rear of the rear fenders, the lower rear of the boot opening, the front of the front fenders - anywhere there was a tight radius.

- A small putty spreader, with sandpaper stuck on its face, for the top rear of the front fender around the windshield side member openings.

- Some hot-glue sticks. Small radius and flexible, worked well in very tight locations.

The only place where I had to resort to "paper and fingers" was the door handle depression in the door - I could never figure out how to 'block' those.

I used graphite as the guide coat. The plus of graphite is that you just wipe it on, it gets into the low spots of the primer very easily and stays there until sanded off. Neater and more controllable than the usual spray paint guide coat. Also good because it doesn't clog sandpaper at all.

The negative of the graphite guide coat is that it's color is similar to the color of the epoxy primer I used, so I needed to pay close attention to understand, while sanding, if the gray area I could see was a low spot, showing graphite, or a high spot, showing epoxy where I had sanded through the primer. So you win some and lose some.

I got a quart of graphite, enough for several lifetime's worth of cars, from West Marine, they sell it as part of the West System Epoxy line, as an epoxy additive to make sailboat hulls ultra slick. It was cheaper this way than buying the 3M 'dry coat' guide coat. I put some in an old margarine tub, and used a sponge as an applicator.

I started by guide coating the entire car, putting 220 grit self-adhesive paper from a 2.5" roll onto all the blocks, and then sanding away, in the x-pattern that the Google search will tell you all about.

It went fairly quickly, I probably spent 12 hours in total, if that, in block sanding. It's pretty satisfying to see the flaws sand out. Some of those flaws were just contaminants that got on the primer over the last few months. In the end, I generally was left with smooth, white (color of the sanded primer) panels, with a few highs and lows, generally around the edges, with 220 grit scratches showing in the x-pattern.

Doing this also gives your right bicep a workout, too. I could sure feel it the next day.

Next step - fix the flaws I found. I'll need some filler in some spots. Once the really bad spots are fixed with filler, I'll hit the slight highs/lows with more primer, then more primer over the entire car (well reduced so it flows out like paint), and resand the entire body with 600 wet. That should give me a surface ready for color.

My plan was to paint the car 'inside out' - doing the outer panels last. Since I've never painted a car or used a spray gun before, this would give me experience with the tools and materials before I got to the "money" surfaces.

And I'm finding that plan to be working - I'm starting to get a decent feel of handling the gun, what speed I need to move it, etc., to get a good wet coat and surface. I'm gaining some confidence.

Although I still feel a heightened nervousness before I paint, sort of like how I felt before a game when I was playing or coaching basketball - a "now it counts" kind of feeling. Obviously, the adrenalin is flowing a bit. The difference is that there isn't a ref to toss the ball up, I get to decide when I'm ready, which sort of naturally causes me to make sure that everything is set - the surface is good, clean, the tools are ready, the light is good, I'm all geared up, etc..

The last part of the car to paint before doing the outer panels is the interior. I was kind of looking forward to this, since I felt less pressure about the finished product - after all, the interior is all but totally covered in sound proofing, carpet, and panels. So in my mind it would be simple and quick - get the surfaces clean, sanded, mask it off, prime/seal it, seam seal it, and paint it. Simple.

Of course, it took longer than I thought. It always does. Cleaning the interior surfaces is a pain, because you've got to get to the fwd end of the foot wells, under the dash, etc.. So there was a fair amount of time on my back. And of course everything was filthy with dust, dirt, grease. I used various solvents depending on what I was up against, kerosene, lacquer thinner, and wax/grease remover (mineral spirits?), and tools, everything from Scotch pads, scouring pads, heat and scrapers, and paper towels.

Once clean, I went over everything "one last time" with wax and grease remover, until the paper towels came up clean (pretty much).

Then it was on to sanding. 200 grit in the first pass, then 400.

Then again, another pass with wax and grease remover.

I did this prep in series with prepping the bay and boot/trunk. Then I masked off the interior, using the plastic masking film, and painted the bay/boot. That took about a month. When I unmasked the interior, it was pretty filthy, so I got to clean it again - vacuum, more wax/grease remover. By now I have a pretty good idea what clean metal/primer looks like. It's a dull look - no 'sheen' from oil at all.

Next step was to mask off the bay/boot/exterior. I hunted for every little screw hole, access hole, whatever, between the interior and the bay/boot, and plugged them all. At times this meant just jamming paper towels into odd shapes, like the back end of the trumpets, and the upper/outer corners of the trunk, where I couldn't effectively tape. Same for the holes through the bottom, and the battery bins. I didn't want primer spraying on my pretty color that was already down.

The first coating was DP50LF, reduced 1.5, as a sealer. I was using my normal size gun. The challenge here was getting material to the front of the foot wells and under the dash - the gun is pretty 'tall', with the hose and regulator hanging onto the bottom of it. I kept the cup no more than 1/4 full, so I could rotate it a bit to horizontal, and alterered the fan to halfway between horizontal/vertical, and that helped. But at times I was more just spraying/blowing paint from a distance.

Same thing under the rear panel - it's a challenge getting paint there, and into the air plenums at the fwd end of the trans tunnel.

So I painted the tough areas first, as best I could, then the 'easy' areas in the middle.

I thought maybe I could do sealer/color in one Saturday session, but I got some runs on the wheel arches and rear panel that bugged me. The problem here was that 1) the reduced DP runs fairly easily, per "Greg the PPG guy", and I hit the arches inadvertantly trying to get good coverage in the corners above/behind them.

Those runs didn't matter, again, everything would be covered and no one would ever see it, but I couldn't help myself. I waited for the primer to fully cure, then sanded the runs out, then put some more sealer on top.

I did run into a minor issue for going too quickly, for one of the few times in this project. Before spraying the 'repair' primer/sealer, I seam-sealed around the floor. This was an 'old school' seam sealer (a generic version fo 3M's "Fast n'Firm" that requires exposure to air to cure. Apparently I didn't leave it exposed to air long enough before I primed/sealed over the top of it. It didn't harden up at all.

So the next morning I went over the primed seam sealer with a paper towel and wiped the primer/sealer off, exposing the seam sealer to air. Within 30 minutes it was firmed up. I didn't put down any more primer/sealer, since I knew the color would cover up the seam sealer fine. Pretty silly of my to prime over the seam sealer before it set up, but live and learn. The finished product still looks fine, but again, not that anybody will ever see it.

Then on to color.

After dealing with my large gun, I bought one of those small detail guns that has a 'rotating' cup, so you can spray at off angles without dripping paint from the cup, thinking it would handle the foot wells/plenums/etc..

So I tried it out. It was crap, basically had a very small fan of large droplets. Terrible. I tossed it in the trash, literally.

I sprayed color pretty much the same way I sprayed the sealer. I've found the color less likely to run, and easier to "see" in terms of the gloss when laying it down - it gives pretty good feedback on how fast/slow you need to move the gun. I'm getting fairly comfortable with it.

And reducing the DP really does give a pretty good surface to paint on. It's a shame I didn't learn that earlier, the underside of the hood and deck lid would look better if I had.

I waited an hour and unmasked. I'm really tickled by the result - it looks great, and feels great.

Now on to putting the fenders and doors back on, blocking the exterior panels and getting color on them.

With the bottom finished and the shell mobile, it's time to get some serious painting done - the engine bay and the boot/trunk are next.

The plan is to use epoxy primer/sealer, PPG's DP50LF (the 50 means it's a medium gray, LF means lead free), and top that with PPG 'Concept' DCC urethane single stage. The color is Honda "Milano Red", R81.

First up was to sand everything down with 200 grit, then 400. Doing that showed up some dings in the engine bay, one in particular that was right in the middle of the inner fender 'cup' on the driver's side. I didn't want to be looking at that every time I had the hood opened, so I filled it with some Rage Extreme and kept going.

When I thought I had it ready, I masked off the major surfaces so I could start by painting the inner cavities - the trumpet pockets at the top/rear of the bay, the fresh air plenum to the heater box, and the plenum from the heater box to the footwell. Those got the DP then the color.

Once those were dry, I masked them and the rest of the car off and sprayed the bay/boot with the DP. That was early in November when heat wasn't an issue, it was a beautiful day in the 70's. Then life intervened, and I didn't get much done for awhile. Then it got cold. Then I got worried and called Greg, the local PPG rep. He's been very helpful consulting me - so he knows when the "guy restoring the '72 MGB" calls who I am.

The reason I called Greg was to find out what kind of reducer I needed to paint in cold weather. I was using DT870, which is for temps in the 70's (see last two digits). I got two important pieces of information from Greg:

- For catalyzed paint to "kick", and harden, the surface temperature must by > 50 degees F. So get a thermometer, and whatever heat sources you need to get safely above that. They do make a DT860, which is the 'fastest' reducer they have available, so if you're in the 50's/60's temp range you go with that and it just takes a bit longer to dry.

- I told him that I was using DP as a sealer. During the reducer discussion it came out that I hadn't used any reducer with the DP - just base and hardener. He asked me about orange peel. I hadn't painted color yet, in the bay/boot, but I had used DP 'straight' on the bottom side of the hood and trunk lid, and wasn't happy with the orange peel. I thought it might have been my spraying technique (too fast, not wet enough), or maybe my gun, but Greg indicated that it was almost certainly because of not using any reducer in the DP. The data sheet calls for 1-2 parts of reducer "optionally", with 4 parts DP and 1 part hardener, and now I know why. It's optional if you're interested in a smooth surface.

So I went back to sanding. Which I needed to do anyway, because the first coat of DP, in addition to being rough, showed where I hadn't faired the transitions from metal/old paint well, or where I had scratches, or where the metal had rust pits, or every other flaw that I probably didn't want to have to look at every time I popped the hood. So I sanded some more, and used some U-Pol Dolphin Glaze to deal with the rust pits and some underlying paint scratches. It handled them beautifully.

I also had a couple of runs with the first DP coat. Both wheel arches in the trunk had a run on them - it's tough getting material up behind them, and then painting them, without getting a run in them. So those got sanded out.

By now it was December. I got a thermometer, and a $50 electric radiant heater from Walmart. With the heater and my four halogen shop lamps, I could get the garage up from 50 to the upper 60's in about an hour. With ventilation going, it would drop a few degrees, but still well above 60.

Once everything seemed smooth, another coat of DP, this time reduced with PPG's 'off brand' version of DT860 ("Advantage" - at half the price of DT860), went on. Things were better, but still some flaws were visible that I didn't want to deal with. So more sanding, more glaze, and more DP.

After a couple of passes of that process, I was happy. It wasn't perfect, but it IS an engine bay, and I had learned a lot that will come in handy when I do the exterior panels. And of course, my final 'out' was that my goal is to have a "very nice driver", and this bay should give me that.

When I thought I was ready for color, I ripped off all my masking, dewaxed/degreased, re-masked everything, tacked the surfaces off, found a few more flaws to deal with - fixed them, and dewaxed/degreased and tacked off again. I changed out my desicant pellets in my air dryer, set up my ventilation system in the garage, and got to spraying.

The primer was good practice for spraying color. The bay is tricky - there isn't a lot of room to maneuver the gun in there, and the gun's pretty big. I used the 'air hose over the shoulder' trick, sprayed the edges first, then the larger areas, and somehow avoided hitting sprayed areas with the gun or hose.

After the first coat was done, I checked things out closely to see where I had missed spots, or didn't get a good wet coat, and made sure not to repeat those problems in those areas the second time around.

I like the result. I'll need to sand/polish out a few nibs, but I like the gloss, I didn't get any runs, and it generally looks like a good job for my first color painting that will be visible without jacking up the car.

Next step, seal/prime/paint the interior.

With the bottom finished, it's time to retire the rotator, and get this thing horizontal again. And mobile.

I made a frame out of 2x4's. The inside spacing of the two side rails I intended to make 38.5" wide, so that the rear verticals, bolted to the inside edges, would fit into the middle of the front spring hangars. I missed that measurement by about 1/4" somehow, but they still fit, just barely.

I notched the top/front edge of those uprights to give more clearance, and put a 1/2" hole about 1" from the top. That allows the rear supports to be thru-bolted with the front spring hangar bolts.

At the front support, I just built a raise cross-member to support the front rails.

The casters are 100 lb units from Lowe's. The shell is 300 lbs, and it rolls easily on those casters.

I put my 186 pounds in the cockpit, and everything is very solid. Zero impact on the door gaps with my weight, btw.

Now it's on to prepping the bay/interior/trunk for sealer/paint.