Anglia Progress

[Jonny69]

I'll sort out a fresh thread with the history on this car and tack this on the end but I've had it some time and kind of neglected to finish it when I started a major rebuild. I left it almost ready to paint just over a year ago and it hasn't moved since then. I'm losing my garage soon so first job is to get some paint on it, then I can re-assemble and get it roadworthy again.

The tyres were flat and it had become a bit of a junk store with parts for my Pop dumped all over it and a bike propped on the front. I haven't kept the garage tidy at all so this was what I was up against:

Junk everywhere and no space to move in what is actually quite a big garage! I dumped the shopping trolley out on the road "as seen in my engine build thread" and one of my busybody neighbours kindly walked it back round to the supermarket. Stuck a few things in the Pop and it was ready to drag out so I could clean the garage:

Bit by bit I managed to pile all the junk at the end out the way to make some space:

Getting there...

Much better. After hoovering the roof, walls and floor I could get on with some work and priority was getting a makeshift bench together. Two Workmates and a length of discarded worktop prove perfect for my masking and paint mixing table:

No makeshift bench would be complete without ghetto makeshift toolmaking. I bought a roll of brown paper to mask up with and figured it would be easier if it had a dispenser. I had a length of pipe the right diameter and exactly the right length to hang it between a pair of axle stands:

Now some lines marked on the bench at various lengths and a sharp 60cm steel rule to tear the paper and I'm ready to go.

I already did the engine bay so that needs to be covered up which I tackled first:

Behold how dark it is. Side windows were next but it was too dark so I'll do it in the morning followed by the doors and back window, then I'll be able to lay some primer on it.

Got nice dry weather predicted tomorrow and searing 13 degree C heat so should be ideal for a bit of priming

 

[Jonny69]

Nah, no straight restorations come out of my garage! This one is fibreglass flipfronted, Lotus steel wheel shod, disc braked, full race screaming pre-crossflow powered

 

[Jonny69]

I had wondered about that, thanks for confirming

 

[Jonny69]

Yesterday I left off with the engine bay masked up but I couldn't see to stick the side windows in. Actually the problem was there was too much junk in the car and it wouldn't accomodate me as well so I pulled it all out and set about giving it a damn good clean inside because it was full of dust, a common blight with spray jobs be they professional or er, not professional like mine.

I got some lovely mint seats and had the sense to cover them up with a sheet so it was as clean as the day I scrubbed it down in the bath when I pulled the sheet off:

A heavily patched floor well hidden with satin black paint:

I stuck the masking paper on the inside so that the outer edges of the window frames would get paint. It would have been a lot easier to go on the outside but I don't have the window rubbers yet so I don't know how much they overlap. If I'd masked on the outside there's a risk I might see an edge around where the rubber sits:

From the inside, hardest bit was near the front of the door because the steering column was in the way. Also had to take the gearstick out to stop it sticking up my bum:

And finally after papering myself in the car I had to climb out the back window which had somehow shrunk to half its normal size. Glad I lost that half stone I put on over Christmas. My view as I peered back in:

A quick re-arrange of my garage and I got the car into a position that I could get down both sides to spray it:

Damn cramped and the neighbours seem to have smelled that something exciting was happening because as soon as I popped the lid off the tin of paint they all came visiting to see what was going on. I got rid of them like this...

...and got on with a bit of this:

It's two good coats of yellow high-build primer all over. I'm going to stone-chip the sills, inner wings and back panel next then give it one more heavy coat of yellow, then it's a quick flat down to knock off the orange peel and on with some red.

 

[Jonny69]

what are you using to spray?

I've got a vintage compressor made by a little old guy on his apprenticeship with about a 10 litre tank. It's one of those things you've got to really mind your fingers and feet near! Using a Screwfix £25 mavity fed gun which I bought on recommendation and it is indeed very good

 

[Jonny69]

How did you find painting in cramped conditions? I'm considering doing the 205 outside under a gazebo.... I'd do it one side at a time but there's no roof guttering so I'd get join lines.

Difficult and I'm going to have to do the final coat outside. Primer isn't so critical but there's no way I'll get an even coat of red in there. I'm going to do mine in 4 sections (roof, rear panel, two sides) but I'm lucky to have some join lines in the body I can use.

 

[Jonny69]

It looks cool, and I guess you don't have that much to do as you've already stripped etc. a year ago. I take it you 'just' have to respray and reassemble?

Pretty much. Engine and gearbox are in, brakes need plumbing up and a few finalisations on the flipfront but that's pretty much all that's left. They say the last little bit takes the longest though

 

[Jonny69]

Particularly heavy brown paper?

Not really, it's quite thin

 

[Jonny69]

Moving swifly on, next on the agenda is a dose of stonechip paint, a thick rubbery paint that dries with a texture. Its main purpose is to prevent stone chips breaking through paintwork to the metal underneath but it goes on with a texture that you can control with the thickness of the paint. This is what I'm interested in. Because I have replaced the sills, rear quarters, rear panel and heavily repaired the front quarters I want to lay on a 'distraction' line along the bottom of the car to hide any slight contour changes in my filler work or the new panels which will show up in flat gloss.

This is what I mean:

Basically this pillar is heavily repaired and I have filled the outer face smooth. It's under the flipfront and out of view most of the time but when I open it I don't want people going uuuugh when they see welding lines, so I have hidden them under the stonechip. You can still see them but it's not screaming in your face.

At the back of the sill you can't immediately see that the replacement sill isn't exactly the same shape as the original:

Once painted one colour and with a bit more primer the texture will mask that line and you won't notice it. Same at the back:

This is underneath the back panel so you won't see it at all, I guess I got bored and wanted to waste precious paint:

Finally while I had the mask out I doused the exhaust manifold wrapping in VHT (very high temperature) paint. I put enough on there to soak in well to give the wrap some added support and strength and hold the fibres down.

If it works, great. If it doesn't, meh

 

[Jonny69]

Yup that's true

A new set of flexible sanders has been ordered and plenty of paper. A few more coats of yellow and I'll be ready to block sand it ready for a topcoat or 5

Their site seems to have gone down as soon as I wanted to shamelessly hotlink a picture though

 

[Jonny69]

Yeah you could say that. The bodywork was the reason I shelved the project for so long. The amount of filling and sanding was killing me. Never mind, light at the end of the tunnel now. Just been out and put a coat of yellow over the stonechip. One more coat in a bit and that's the priming done for me, then its ready for some red stuff!

Oh yeah, then the doors, then the bootlid, then the flipfront need doing. Does it ever end?

And the back panel. Seemingly not eh?

Edit: here's the sanders:

 

[Jonny69]

I've managed to get a bit further than I thought I would this week already. The body is now primed up and doesn't need any more, just a quick knock back to take off the orange peel and then the top coat can go on. I also got a quick coat on the back panel since I had some paint left in the gun. The temperature has dropped a bit so I won't do the topcoat this week, but I'll get the doors and bootlid done in primer and maybe look at starting the flipfront. As long as it stays dry I'll be fine because I can poke the car out the back of the garage while I spray the other bits.

Anyway, watch this space because tomorrow I'll have some more pics of the other bits licked in yellow creamy goodness!

 

[Jonny69]

Metallics aren't gloss so you have to use a clear over the top and you can get it all in cans from Halfords. If it's silver then use a few coats of white primer, allow to dry and just smooth off the orange peel with some 320-grit sanding paper. Then a few coats of silver but don't flat it down, allow it to dry over night and then a few coats of clear on top. If it's any other colour then use grey primer. Let it dry for about a week before you polish the clear, it allows the paint to fully harden and shrink a bit. If you sand or polish it when it's still a bit soft it'll look great at first but shrink back and you'll end up with lines on it.

 

[Jonny69]

No need to if you get a good even layer. You can flat each if you need to though, just not the top layer of colour. Problem with metallics is if you flat the top layer before the clearcoat you will see the scratches in the surface of the colour coat under the clear.

 

[Jonny69]

Tonight I would have got more done if my stomach hadn't got the better of me. I was literally running on fumes and by 8pm I was forced to pack up and go hunting instead.

I dragged the car outside to make some space in the garage because I wanted to mask up and put some paint on the doors. Fear the power of the flash on my camera:

Then I set about masking the windows in the doors and ran into my first problem which was where to spray them. It's not my garage so I can't just go and spray and not worry about the paint on the floor or walls so I had a re-arrange of my comedy oversize boxes and propped one behind the doors so I could spray against the wall:

The bootlid was easier because it could just sit on the spare workmate, it just meant I lost the bench I use for the keeping the spraygun on and cleaning up afterwards. That went bang smack in the middle, looks randomly placed but I actually orientated it so that when I was spraying I'd have light reflecting off it so I could see how much paint I was putting on:

Don't ask what's sprayed on the inside of the lid, it was before I owned it...

Mixed up about 260ml of paint and sprayed the inside of the doors and a good coat inside the bootlid. The reason I did the inside first was I can flip it over and I don't need to worry about overspray getting on it when I do the other side because you won't see the insides. It's interesting how far the paint goes, would a 300ml rattle can have gone this far?

It was at this point my stomach was rumbling so much there was risk I'd disturb the dust in the rafters so I knocked it on the head, cleaned down, showered and headed to Kebab Ye for a shish kebab and chips with a few glasses of red. Yep you've guessed it, she's out tonight

 

[Jonny69]

Tonight I flipped the doors round and the bootlid over and slapped on 4 nice heavy coats of yellow. So it was back to this again at first:

I lifted the doors off the ground by standing them up on bricks so they wouldn't stick to the cardboard I'm using to protect the floor:

After 2 coats, they looked great but I was a bit keen with the spray gun and got a couple of runs:

This is fine because I'm going to be block sanding and with two more heavy coats on top of that the runs are now hardly a problem at all. It's amazing that I blocked down the original paint and filler with 180-grit paper and this paint has completely buried it!

Boot looks nice and consistent now and I managed to get a few coats on that pesky back panel:

So this is nearly it. The car is now down to just three colours, red in the engine bay, yellw all over and blue flip front. Next job is to tackle that beaten p beast and get it in some kind of shape that I can spray onto. I roughly got it there before but it needs a lot more work before painting.

 

[Jonny69]

Did you mean dust? Don't think it's going to rust, it sat with a load of bare metal patches for over a year and they were still bright when I sprayed and now it's primed

 

[Jonny69]

Dup, that is a cracking idea! I'll get it done.

 

[Jonny69]

i really should keep myself awake while posting, i meant run!!!! doh!

Yep, runs definitely

1) because I'm still a spaying noob and 2) because I'm spraying so close with poor light. I'm going to do the roof and back panel in one go, allow it to cure and then mask up so I can do one side at a timepushd right up against the wall. It was just too difficult to get in with the car down the middle.

Looking good, i spent the last 2 days sanding down, re-shaping and spraying my rear n/s arch. Its good fun

My spray gun is crap though, might get this screw-fix one you speak of.

It's this one:

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/21063/Power-Tools/Air-Tools/mavity-Feed-Spray-Gun

Says it needs a 2 hp/25Ltr compressor but mine is 1/3hp and 10 litre approx and it copes fine. It's just running constantly but the pressure seems to hold ok.

 

[Jonny69]

Bit of a late start today and not got very far compared to the rest of the week. I've been block sanding but not having much success so it's a good job I started on a discrete easy to fix panel, the bootlid.

Just had a chat with a mate on the phone and we think the problem is my grade of paper is too fine, that's why it's clogging up real fast and not knocking the orange peel back. Mark suggested 120 which I thought would be a bit too coarse since there's going to be topcoat going straight on it. I just double-checked my order and there's a few metres of 180 and 240 so that's a top result. Change of plan then - I'll be working on the flipfront instead. I can do a bit of prep on that, filling etc then blow the inside in with stonechip paint tonight and it'll be ready to handle tomorrow.

Right now, a few moments web surfing and a tea and donut (tip your head back and make that Homer Simpson mmmmm donuts noise)