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Thanks Kev. The way it's looking just makes me smile. Spic 'n' Span under the hood, too. Do you think you can bring yourself to strip the primer back to bare metal? With a finer disk around the whole car, the effect would be a gas! Too bad it's hard to find paint that color. Bright silver looks so nice on cars from that era. I saw a Toyota MR-2 factory paint job that was very close to a pure silver. Still dreaming about painting an old car that color, at least the preliminary paint job.

Looking good BigKev. Like others have said, I'd really like a true 'bare metal' silver colour, something very nice about it I think.

When a teenager I rubbed back my pushbike to bare metal (- it took weeks!) and then painted it with clear. You could see the scratch-marks from the sandpaper but still a nice look. It was a real head-turner, haven't seen one since, just chromed frames which are quite common now and nothing too special.

About the cleaning disks - they give a nice polish to the metal don't they. I think the only problem is if you go too hard on the one small area and heat it a lot then it could warp or buckle, especially the turret or bonnet. I just kept moving from one end to the other to spread the heat.

All I've got left to do now is the trunk lid. Hit it with paint stripper and only the top layer of paint came off. Whatever is under it - the stripper won't soften it much so I'll be taking it off with a few of those cleaning disks like you got.

If is for sure spring in So Calif. If some wanted to, they could literally attend a different cruise night every night of the week/month.

Went to a Cruise night that is about 30 miles round trip from the house and up several good size hills. Can ran very well.

The put the Clipper right in front of the line! Also there was a nice 1st gen Corvette which are my favorite ones, and a very nice 46 Chevy pickup. Lived the "Casper" bucket rod.

Besides the 1922 ford parked to my right, my car was the oldest one there with the original drivetrain.

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Been traveling for a few days, but here are some pics of recent garage activities.

First I hung up all the '54 Clipper Wheel covers that the Packard Parts Fairy left with me. There are 8 hanging on the wall, 4 on the car, and 4 NOS ones still in the wrapper in the vault.

The replacement rear side windows came in from Mike Dotson.

I went and picked up 8 qts of oil, a new filter and 12 quarts of ATF for fluid changes this weekend.

And I finally got around to picking up a bottle of shielding gas for the MIG welder.

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Made it to the paint store today to buy some metal ready. It was applied to the roof, and let soak for about 20 mins. Then wiped of, washed off, and wiped down with thinner.

What you see if the phosphate coating left by the acid on the roof. Any spots of rust left on the roof are now black in appearance. I will go over the roof with the DA remove all the chalkiness and remove the rest of the now inert rust, and also to apply a good tooth for the primer to adhere to.

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Had to pick up my teenage daughters from school today as the Wifey was taking care of some family matters. So I picked them up in the Packard. Oh I should have brought a camera...the look on their faces was priceless, when old "Rusty" pulled up to the curb. They quickly got in and slouched down in the seat trying not to be seen, and then we were off in a puff for blue smoke.

If they are still talking to you after the trauma of making them social outcasts, you could photoshop them into a good picture of a completed car showing "how it will look someday".

They can show that to the friends they have left to prepare them for next time dad drives up in his clunker....or possibly convince the friends that is what the car really looks like and if they saw anything different, it's because of hallucinations.

Finished prepping the roof today, then masked off everything that wasnt getting primered, and shot the roof in my garage with the HVLP gun. I would have usually done it in the driveway, but it was just too windy outside.

After the 2nd second wet coat was almost dry, I removed the masking, and backed the car out into the drive way to get a little sun.

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Say BigKev, are you going to have a two-toned car or just the dark metallic blue? I don't recall if you mentioned it before in a previous post.

It will be all Bikini Metallic Blue. Similar to my avatar pic.