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Well with my truck at the body shop getting repaired after the accident I have not been able to take many of the body parts down to the school to work on. But last time I was there I did manage to strip the hood down to bare metal with 40grit on a DA, and then coated it with a solution of rust preventer. Basically just a wipe on wipe off solution and leave the metal with a slightly cloudy sheen. I with wipe it with wax/greaser remover before I move on to priming.

Speaking of which, I went down to the paint supply store and picked up the primer, activator and reducer. So now I can start to shoot some of the stripped parts. Just waiting for my paint gun to arrive. (look for a review on the paint gun from me soon)

Also what did arrived that has been on back order for a while is the Eastwood Shrinker/Stretcher combo which was on sale when I bought it. I plan to using them to fabricate some of the rust repair panels I need.

I took my Bikini Blue paint chip into the store and they are going to run a custom match on it in Single Stage. It will cost about $180 for a gallon of it with the activator and reducer. I also found a match for the interior (dash) color to a mid 70's Porsche color, I just need the store to mix that in single stage for me. So I will pick up a quart of that to respray the dash (both sides), glove box, and window revels as they have some spot rust on them and are faded in some places from exposure.

The plan is to get the stripped panels into primer. Finish any needed body work on them, and have them blocked and ready to go for paint. I will respray the firewall and rims with the new matched Bikini Blue to keep everything consistent.

Then the next item is to spray the black on the underside of the hood and inside (engine side) of the fenders below the drip edge. Once those are done, then I can reassemble the front sheet metal and work on the exterior as a whole as the engine bay painting will be complete.

Lots to do! I hope my truck is ready tomorrow, this rental car is the pits.

Pics follow...

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Well, I managed to get one thing done on the car today. I got the old tranny lines removed from the car. A couple of the lines were frozen to their nuts. So I had to cut the lines to get them loose. I will use these old lines to pre-bend the new ones into the correct shape and then try to "tetris" them back into place.

Removing the lines from the side of the Gear Start was a real pain in the ass. I am sure that a lift would have made it much easier then laying on the concrete with the front end on jack stands. I came out from under the car just covered in grease and old tranny fluid.

One disturbing thing I would while under the car was the fact that at some point the kick down linkage has slipped off the tranny. So now I will have to figure out how to reset it back to the correct position. It's just a splined shaft that comes out of the tranny, and there is no key position for it. So you have to adjust it, and the tighten down the clamp to hold its position. At some point the clamp loosened up and slipped off the shaft.

Also I am not sure if the lines were ever change, or this was something different to the Gear Start, but the lines run completely down the passenger side of the motor. It has all the appropriate clamps to hold it to the block. Probably much easier to change the the style of lines that ran over the tranny, and up the drivers side, and then crossed over to the cooler.

Pics follow....

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sounds painful. I didn't think it got that cold in Southern California.

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(groan)

Procedure for adjusting the 54 linkage is in the 55 serv manual, Twin Ultra section page 52.

I'd also be concerned about if or how much it was driven in that condition. Clutches are unforgiving of wrong pressures that problem might have caused. Maybe why parked.

I agree Howard. I guess I will find out once I try to get the beast moving!

Mal, I think I would rather have frozen nuts, then corroded ones!

Got my truck back today and it looks great. I had the shop also paint the front air dam on the truck to match the body color. At the trim level my truck comes with, it was black from factory. Looks much better body color.

Anyway with my truck back home I loaded up the '54 hood, all the primer, and paint supplies, and my paint gun and headed down to the college to shoot the primer. But when I got there I found out that the college had contracted to have the industrial air-compressors that provide all the air to the entire automotive wing of the college replaced/upgraded over spring break, and there were some SNAFUs. So they had no compressed air as they were behind schedule. Well, you are not going to get much work done in a body shop with no compressed air. So I just hauled everything back home. I will try again on Wednesday.

I bought the Eastwood Concourse paint gun. The interesting thing about this new gun is that it is a HVLP gun that is designed to run on 4cfm at 29psi. So it is purpose made to run on a compressor that most folks may have in their garage. I will have my instructor spray a few test panels with it and give me his impression. His shop is the one that repaired my truck, and also he paints all of John Force's NHRA cars. He was also on a couple episodes of Overhaulin where he and his shop painted the project cars. He uses all SATA ($$$) guns in his shop, so I will be curious to see what his professional opinion is of this very low CFM gun.

Hopefully it lives up the claims and the hobbyist will have access to a HVLP gun that doesn't require a hefty compressor.

Well I didn't get a chance to test out the new gun tonight as the paint project car wasn't ready to shoot just get.

But I did manage to shoot the first coat of DTM primer on the hood. I used my cheap-o Harbor Freight gun and it was spraying a little on the dry side. Hence the tiger stripes on the rear of the hood. But this is just the first coat. I still need to do a guide coat and a rough blocking to see if any skim coating is needed. The hood looks real straight, and there is not a speck of filler on it at the moment. But the guide coat will show all. There was one small high spot I could feel my hand, and I knocked that down with a pick hammer.

One I verify that everything is straight, then I will re-prime it and then it goes back on the car to wait. After the entire body is put back together, and all the panels are repaired, then I will block the entire car as a whole.

Fenders and trunk lid are next.

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Time for a Caribbean hood scoop Kev!

Don't give away all my secrets Eric!

For anyone interested in the brand/type of primer I am using. Attached is the data sheet for it. It's real good stuff, and your can over-reduce it to turn it into a sealer.

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