Spring is here - time to get back at it!

[Zak's Z]

Hi all,

Finally its thawing out here in Toronto and the weather is getting warmer. I have been hibernating quietly all winter, keeping up to date and reading the forums.

I opened the garage and actually rolled the '72 work-in-progress out today to re-evaluate. Pretty soon it should be warm enough to lie under it without my mittens on, so IM BACK IN BUSINESS! WOOOOooooo hooooooo!

My plan is (so far)...

1) Finish scraping the 33 yr old undercoating off the last rear well and por-15 it like the other one.

2) Clean and por behind the rear skirt.

3) Finish removing the lines and booster from the engine bay

4) Clean out engine bay, sand it down, por and prime with tie-coat.

Then it should be ready to start the prep for painting (sure it sounds sooo easy...but I'm sure Ill find a gagillion other things to do before I get to this stage!).

Cheers guys,

Zak

[cremmenga]

What method are you using to get the undercoating off?? I too am going to start in on my Z and get all of the under coating off and por-15 it all. I was thinking putty knife and wire wheels. any input would rock!!! THanks

[Zak's Z]

When my Z was at the body shop, the guy let me come in and work on it. I did the front that way, and started the rear side using putty knife/wire wheels/wire brush/de-greaser....and man it took me forever on the rear side. The mechanic saw me and started laughing. He brought me over a heat gun. When I started using the heat gun, it took me no time at all. It came off in nice strips.

I read also on here guys use a dry ice method. That sounds even easier, just search for it. But at LEAST get a heat gun...youll be under there for days with a gooey mess without one.

Zak

[cremmenga]

Ya I think that I might go see how much heat guns cost. I used the putty knife and wire wheel trick on the floors, tunnel and rear deck area of my Z, now just for the underside. I jus hope it comes off easily!!! I did try the dry ice method on the interior but it was kinda a pain in the arse going and buying dry ice! it wasn't that much more work for me to just putty knife it off. Did you clean it off with acetone or something after putty knifing and wire wheeling????

[Zak's Z]

It was a mess. The wire wheel only got gummed up...they had a big industrial drum of dewaxer/degreaser (im not even sure if it was acetone but i think it was). That coating was on there good, and even with the wheel off, there wasnt much room to work. When I used the heat gun, i would heat up a strip then scrape it off, then use the degreaser to clean the area.

When I was done, and it was all wiped clean down to bare metal(with the solvent), I washed it with water, then used POR-15's METAL-READY to etch the metal. after that dried, i wiped that off, dried it with the heat gun and applied por-15 on the inside of the wheel well, and quite a bit on my arms and head (its very thin).

That stuff stinks and I'm told its quite hazardous so I wore a 3m particulate filtered mask, and I still had a headache for the rest of the day.

Theres a photo in my gallery showing the front inner fender and under the new floors...Ill put a pic of the rear well in there if I have one.

I dont know if there was any added undercoating, or if Canada got an extra coating...but I'm sure it was almost as old as the car, because when I took it off there was the original orange under it (some PO painted it red sometime). That stuff was really hard to get off without the heat. Im definitely going to pick one up to do the other side.

[Zak's Z]

I forgot to add....now that Ive coated it with POR, I just dont know if I'm going to leave it black, or put their Tie-Coat primer on and paint it body color or Black top-coat after. I did buy some of their primer, and applied it to the front inner fender, but I dont know if I jumped the gun and made extra work. Ill do whatever it takes to get the results I want, but I remember reading a few threads here earlier where the guys talked about what looks better: black inners or body colored inners. They even posted some pics, and black looked OK.

Then youre probably just going to re-coat the inners with some type of sound deadening/protection undercoating anyways, which will be black...so I think I just answered my own question!

The por doesnt need anything, its really is tough (but it cant get exposed to light or it turns color). I painted over a screw hole in the engine bay from the fender side. I had to punch thru the por and I slipped with the pick once and it ran about a foot up the surface. It only left a small scratch where it normally would have dug into the bare metal. DONT PAINT OVER (or even really close) TO SCREW HOLES!!!

[cremmenga]

Zak some great news happened to me today!!!! An old guy that restores old 30's roadsters and packards taught me how to lead today!!! I got out of classes and didn't have to work and stumbled upon this guy at a welding supply store and I ended up driveing 15 miles to his shop where he spent 3 hours teaching me and letting me try how to do it and even gave me some stuff to get started!!! I"m so happy cant wait to lead, say good buy to bondo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Zak's Z]

Hey, great stuff...I love getting lessons on how to do new stuff (i need all the help I can get). What exactly do you mean by 'lead' though? Im not too good with welding and metal, I'm not sure I know exactly what it entails.

Zak

[Virto]

Hey' date=' great stuff...I love getting lessons on how to do new stuff (i need all the help I can get). What exactly do you mean by 'lead' though? Im not too good with welding and metal, I'm not sure I know exactly what it entails.

Zak[/quote']

Lead. Like what pencils used to have...the stuff that'll poison you.

Basically it's like giant scale lead solder, except instead of joining some wires, you're compounding and filling dents and rebuilding body damage using molten lead. Not at all an easy skill, and not all that common in the age of easy to replace car parts and bondo.

There were some really good pics from someone that was doing some leading on here a while back...I wonder if I can find them.

[cremmenga]

Mull has an great video!!! i'll find it

[cremmenga]

http://www.voodoo-people.com/~daz/mull/wmv/

video number 14, I love his stuff I literally burned it on to a dvd to watch over and over!!!!

[Zak's Z]

Thats what I thought he meant, I just didnt think it was common to use lead for welding. After the guy doing my body work put in the new rockers and floors..I think he used bronze to do some 'fill-in' and shaping. I'll check out those videos.

Zak