1973 GT6 Restoration

[NonMember]

Those "Scotchbrite" wheels are very good. They take paint and rust off even quicker than sanding discs but produce only a "brushed" surface on good metal.

[Josef]

I agree. Though they vanish faster than you might like given their cost! The bonus over a wire wheel though is that you won’t be hit by flying bits of wire…

[DJB350Z]

I tried out the grinder with a regular sanding disc and also a poly version. Looks like I'm going to carry on without them - the metal is so thin and I'm terrified I'll make a mistake and cut into it.

I prefer the slower method, safe that I have more control. It's a combination of an orbital sander, hand block, and 2" sanding pads on a power drill.

Got more of the rear quarter and half the roof done in a few hours today.

[DJB350Z]

[DJB350Z]

A set of wheel dollies would be nice right now to shift it over enough for me to get down the otherside.. Guess I'll just push it forwards and backwards a hundred times to get it over enough!

Pleased to say that underneath all the body filler at the rear above the valance there was nothing nasty hiding. Phew.

[DJB350Z]

Opened the garage door and manoeuvred her over to make some room to start sanding back the otherside. Plan after this is to get her up on stands so that I can sand around the bottom of the tub - with some luck I'll be able to do that from my stool rather than crawling around on the deck.

[PeteH]

Are you intending to Re-paint yourself of farm out?. I`m having great difficulty finding anyone who will do it. My space is too limited at home to paint, with all the other "crap" (domestic) in the garage. Doing prep work is bad enough, bit cold out there too at pressent, even in multipole layers.

Pete

[DJB350Z]

1 hour ago, PeteH said:

Are you intending to Re-paint yourself of farm out?

Great question. I've invested in a compressor, spray guns and the accessories so my wife would wring my neck if I changed my mind now - looks like I'm painting it myself!

What led me to this decision was that for a long time I'd wanted to 'do up a classic car'. To me that means do, and learn as much about the task as I can. Though I still enquired about farming it out because like anyone I want to get a really good end product. I got estimates from people on the internet for £5k and from businesses around £12k. The latter was based on something like 120 - 200 hours labour.

£12k was way out of my budget given this is a hobby project.

I only found 1 of these mythical £5k bodyshops near me. Given it was a bit of a gamble I figured I'm confident enough to do a good job myself, something that 80% of people will think that looks great and the other obsessive 20% will find flaws. If I do it myself I know exactly what's what, the process used, and if I mess up it's on me and I don't have to argue it out with someone to get it put right or money back etc.

At a rough count I'm about 40 hours into the bodywork and I'm still enjoying it.. though I've started talking to myself rather a lot. I'm glad I'm able to do it whilst I'm young because the sanding becomes quite a workout.

 

[PeteH]

2 hours ago, DJB350Z said:

though I've started talking to myself rather a lot

😂, Your in good company there!. My Grandkids must think I`ve lost the complete plot at times!.

At the moment one option, comes down to putting a cheap "party tent" to keep the bird droppings etc off the job, in the barn belonging to the son of an old collegue, but he`s hard to tie down as he works world wide, he was out in India before Xmas. My compressor is small enough to take up to his place in the trailer, and run off the Generator. But It`s a 20/30min Journey each way.

Pete

[Jase1969]

It's not that difficult to be honest, you need to take your time and it is all about the prep. I went with an airfed mask mainly for clarity as I found myself rushing with a normal mask, it helped a lot with my final painting. I only use cellulose which is very forgiving. 

[NonMember]

15 hours ago, Jase1969 said:

It's not that difficult to be honest, you need to take your time and it is all about the prep.

Absolutely!  As a first timer, I was able to get a tolerable coverage and no runs or sags, but not a good gloss from the gun. Had my brother allowed me to take the time to flat the primer properly before doing the top coat, we could have polished it to a "perfectly acceptable" state. Because he rushed us, his Spitfire always had horrible orange peel.

[DJB350Z]

My drill packed up today. Inherited it some years ago and it's had a hard life, but it couldn't quite hold on until the end of stripping back. Shame.

[alan.gilbert_6384]

On 03/02/2023 at 17:55, DJB350Z said:

My drill packed up today. Inherited it some years ago and it's had a hard life, but it couldn't quite hold on until the end of stripping back. Shame.

Re the drill, the biggest problem is blocked air ways (either contamination or the way it is being held), leading to overheat and one of the coils gives up.  You can dismantle it an try to find where the break is and solider it up, worked for me.  The older tools are so much better than the modern stuff.

[PeteH]

If all else fails. there are a number of cheap online options, including Aldi at around 20+quid?. At those prices If it outlasts the Aldi 3 year warranty, you have a win?.

Pete

[DJB350Z]

Cheap replacement arrived from Amazon today. £23, though whilst it has a higher RPM it's bigger, heavier and louder than my old Bosch. Doesn't feel like the same build quality either.

It'll get me back up and running but I will take the old one apart again and check the coil as mentioned above. Failing that will keep an eye out for a similar second hand one on market place or a bootsale.

[PeteH]

9 minutes ago, DJB350Z said:

Cheap replacement arrived from Amazon today. £23, though whilst it has a higher RPM it's bigger, heavier and louder than my old Bosch. Doesn't feel like the same build quality either.

It'll get me back up and running but I will take the old one apart again and check the coil as mentioned above. Failing that will keep an eye out for a similar second hand one on market place or a bootsale.

The OLD bosch stuff was "quality", and the top favourite with the "trade". But times change Bosch are now made? In China!. Most of the trade people I see now are using Makita, DeWalt or Milwaukee. Einhell are coming up as well. My Angle Grinder was recently deceased and replaced with a DeWalt, heavier though that the old one.

Pete

[DJB350Z]

The day arrived when I decided to start sanding back the bonnet. Of all the panels this one was hands down the best so to start peeling it back to bare metal was a little sad.

However, there were signs of oxidation as well as some scratches and minor chips so in the long run it's a necessary evil. The other thing is that bringing it back to bare metal means we don't have to worry about matching new red with old.

The paint was much thicker here than elsewhere so I had to bring out the grinder with poly disc to get through the top coat, primer and body filler. However, up until now the cheap replacement drill from Amazon has been doing a stellar job.

The filler was a bit of a surprise (read nuisance). I found some, then some more, and then more. Why? What was it hiding? Not sure. So far as I can tell its not hiding any rust or damage... there seems to be minimal, if any waves in the panel either. It's just a massive pain because as soon as any powered tool runs over it dust plumes EVERYWHERE. I'm particularly fastidious about keeping the working area clean so this cleanup operation is next level and testing my OCD. I'll have to pull the car outside and do a deep clean of the garage when this round of sanding is finished.

I'm nearly done with this top side, but need to decide what to do about the underneath. I'm conscious I won't be able to easily A: sand in all the nooks and B: spray them either. Maybe instead of attempting to get to bare metal on the underside I should just scuff it with 240 grit, prime and then spray? The metal is in good condition and I'm not as worried about matching the shade of red here since it largely goes unseen.

In other news I got a couple cans of Dynax S50 to spray into the cavities of the tub when the time comes. 

Anyway.. some progress pics.

[DJB350Z]

Topside of the bonnet is stripped of paint so that's a big (and the toughest) section done now. I've started getting round to the nooks and crannies that I've been putting off. It's actually really satisfying seeing the paint stripped off in areas like this:

I also got the car up in the air so that I can get round the bottom with some tools to strip the remaining paint around the sills and rear valance (think that's what it's called).

HOVERCAR! 😆

I trialled a first coat of UPOL Gravitex Plus today for the underbody coating with stone chip protection. It went on real nice but I'll leave it to cure longer to make sure it doesn't react or anything before I do extra coats and move onto the rest of the tub's underbody - right now I just focussed on the boot section. The plan is to overpaint this in the body colour.

[DJB350Z]

My trial coat of UPOL Gravitex Plus went down perfect so I will go ahead and get the tub up in the air separate to the chassis so that I can do multiple coats nice and easy.

I've popped the tailgate glass out from the frame by cutting away at the perished rubber seal that held it in place and started stripping the last of the paint in and around the previously inaccessible edges.

A quick test with a multimeter shows the heated glass element seems to be working still.

This was my first time removing glass. A little tip, beware of the tailgate attempting to uppercut you in the chin, as the weight of the glass no longer prevents the sprung loaded boot mechanism from wildly opening.

Annoyingly, when I went to remove the tailgate lock 4 of the 6 screws wouldn't budge. 1 turned to chocolate so I stopped there and will tackle them with a cooler head. 😀

Edited April 18, 2023 by DJB350Z

[Blakes73]

I'm new to the forum and club, I've recently acquired a 73 GT6 so have just read the thread start to finish. Looking good and cracking work so far, I'll be watching with interest.

[Pete Lewis]

welcome aboard   ask away   there is  always pleanty of answers on here 

Pete

[DJB350Z]

Been too busy to find time to work on the GT6 recently but this week I managed to make some progress.

First up were the 4 stuck screws holding the tailgate lock in place. Liberal amounts of WD40 and a second attempt at removing them was no good, and I ended up rounding the heads. So out came the drill... and 5 bits later I freed the locking mechanism.

Now I can finish stripping the area around the lock back to metal. Woohoo!

I also spent some time prepping the interior floor, tunnel, boot and roof for paint. Kudos to PO, who appears to have done some decent repairs in the past and I just had some minimal surface rust to clear up.

The worst part of the prep work was getting rid of what I think is carpet/headliner glue from the drivers footwell and roof. Stuck like ****!

In the really tight areas I used some rust converter and once that's had some time to cure I will apply some Dynax S50, before laying down some fresh paint followed by sound deadening. Hopefully some nice progress pictures to follow.

In other news I got some new garage equipment; a 2 tonne hoist to help me lift the tub away from the chassis and of course eventually drop the engine in. It's a Switzer model from eBay - build quality is fantastic IMO but the assembly guide lacked, and I spent probably 2.5 hours putting it together. Also, I was gifted a petrol generator. It doesn't start, but if I can fix it it's mine. I'm not sure what I'll use it for yet so maybe I'll sell it on but it might be a fun project regardless.

First time she got to see daylight since last summer! Good opportunity to vacuum the red paint dust.

Edited May 12, 2023 by DJB350Z

[DJB350Z]

I was busy this afternoon separating the body from the chassis! It was actually a fairly straightforward thing and I more or less managed it by myself.

The plan was to support it on some timber propped up by 4 trestles at each corner but in the end the hoist ran out of range. I settled for placing the front on 2 work benches and then supported the rear from underneath and will leave the hoist attached with minimal tension. To be honest the body shell weighs so little 2 people could easily press it up higher onto the trestles as I'd originally wanted, but it's up high enough so I'll leave it as it is now.

The bolts that were securing the body down look to be all brand new, and stainless steel so that's another win and a few quid saved on a kit. A bit of copper grease on each one made removal nice and easy.

So now all remains is to clamber underneath and apply 2 coats of Gravitex Plus and then finish it in red.

[DJB350Z]

Finished the underside coating in the Gravitex. Ended up doing 3 coats since I decided to roll it on and it was a bit thinner than it would have been if I sprayed it.

So basically hand painted it in around 5 hours or so over a couple of evenings. Had to use a brush to cut in and get into the hard to reach places, so I did a kind of stipple effect to match it in with the rolled sections but it's taken well and looks like a neat and tidy job. Not that anyone will really see it mind... 

Some in-progress photos:

Going to do a test patch with the red top coat to make sure there's no nasty reaction next.

[DJB350Z]

This morning I checked on the test patch I'd done the night before and no nasty paint reactions to report, so I happily carried on. I managed to get both rear arches differential tunnel and boot floor covered in a first coat.