[FatfreeGTO]

The sanding never ends, also got the passenger side quarter blocked out today as well.

[Greg Reid]

Looks pretty straight.

[6 Grrrs]

Originally Posted by FatfreeGTO

The sanding never ends, also got the passenger side quarter blocked out today as well.

Better you than me! I hate sanding.

Looks great by the way.

[FatfreeGTO]

I'm beginning to hate sanding as well. Once this is done I don't want to look at sand paper for quite some time!

[GT182]

Originally Posted by FatfreeGTO

I'm beginning to hate sanding as well. Once this is done I don't want to look at sand paper for quite some time!

And your hands/fingers will like you more too. LOL

That was the one thing about doing body work I never liked.... Sanding off what you spent a lot of money for to put on, and hands/fingers that were raw and sore as all hell for many days afterwards.

[FatfreeGTO]

Originally Posted by GT182

And your hands/fingers will like you more too. LOL

That was the one thing about doing body work I never liked.... Sanding off what you spent a lot of money for to put on, and hands/fingers that were raw and sore as all hell for many days afterwards.

Yeah I don't want to hold a piece of sandpaper for quite some time. I'm glad I finally got it finished!

So ended up getting the car all blocked out and took it back to the body shop Sat morning. Put the car in the booth yesterday and masked it all off, and came back today to paint it. Ted the painter at the shop decided it would be best if he were to handle to painting. The concern was with the metallics in the Marina Turquoise, they didn't want to see me "tiger stripe" the car. I would have like to have been able to say that I did everything myself but its ok the paint has turned out awesome!

To get to this point was about 100 hours of work. I had thought that this was going to be a quick and dirty job just to make it look better for a few years until I could disassemble the car and have it blasted and replace sheet metal. I never planned on spending as much time on it as I did. I am very happy with how the car looks now and I will not be ashamed to take it anywhere. I am worried about the condition of the bumpers and other trim though, might have to do something about that now..

Well here are some pics of what happened this weekend.



Spraying on the K93 sealer before paint.




The base coat / clear coat products


Marina Turquoise.


1st coat of paint is on.


3 coats of base coat.


No clear yet.


Clear is on! What a difference.

[arbys]

You should be glad that Ted the painter talked you into letting him paint the car. Looks great and you should proud.

[Greg Reid]

It looks fantastic. Very, very nice work...and yeah, you'll have to get bumpers now...at least the front one.

[6 Grrrs]

Looks great!

[66GTO Jim]

I am jealous! Sure brings back memories. Wish I still had my 66 Marina Turquoise Hardtop.... Your car came out beautiful. Bet you are glad you let the pro do the spraying on that metallic.

Jim

[FatfreeGTO]

Thanks everyone! I am glad that I didn't attempt to paint it now that I see the finished product.

I do need to find a front bumper though that's for sure. Mine is peeling and has some rust where it peeled. Early pictures in the build thread show the problems. I did see on craigslist a couple months ago a nice driver quality bumper for $75 I wrote the guys number down so I will call him this week and hope he still has it.

This color really surprises me, the color that was on the car was pretty far off from this one. And it seems to be very hard to photograph. I was looking for pictures online before I decided to go with the correct color for my car and I was never 100% sold on what I would see online. Even the pictures that I took today outside make the car seem darker then it really is. I do absolutely love the color though!

There are some wavy areas on the car that I should have spent more time on but it is what it is. Also I'm going to hold off on sanding and buffing the clear for the rest of this year.

Does anyone know where the tailpipes are supposed to end in relation to the bumper? I need to trim mine down because they stick out to far. If you have a picture to share I would appreciate it. Thanks!









Here is what the car was looking like before I started. Makes for a good before/after with the picture above.

[6 Grrrs]

That looks awesome.

I have a front bumper if that other one doesn't pan out. Not sure what it'd cost to ship, but IIRC it was a decent driver quality bumper. I believe it had a dent in the pass side. I could send you some pics if you are interested.

As far as the tailpipes...With those tips, they are supposed to stick out a little bit IIRC. Tough to tell in your pics, but the before photo they look to be where they should (except straight out - they look slightly downward).

You gonna try to have it finished for the POCI Nats in St Charles? I am making a family trip up that way in two weeks. Gonna visit my sister in Cedarburg, gonna try to stop at the POCI show on the way out, and spend a little time in Downtown Chicago/Milwaukee. Just a good old American road trip. Unfortunately I won't be taking the GTO.

[A.J.]

Really nice color and car. You're an inspiration!

[Greg Reid]

Tod, if William doesn't want your bumper, I may be interested in it. In fact, I went back to see what William's looked like because when he mentioned the bumper, was going to make a play for that one....but it looks about like the one I have now...

William, the car looks great. It's been an inspiration to me. I've been working on mine for the last week or so. It's way overdue for some attention...and as I said, your's was an inspiration for me to get mine going.

[6 Grrrs]

Like I said, I gotta pull it out of the shed. I don't remember the exact condition. If I have a chance tomorrow I will pull it out and take pics. I had both of mine rechromed so I do not need it.

[FatfreeGTO]

Wow guys thanks for the nice words!

Greg I found just getting out there and spending even just one hour on it every day or two made sure it got done. Even though there were many days that had much more time then that invested I would say after doing this that people shouldn't be afraid of trying it, not as hard as it seems. Do you think you will end up painting your whole car or just fixing something small? Either way good luck with it!

That sounds like a great trip Tod. We are actually doing a road trip vacation ourselves, leaving this weekend. Going up to the UP of Michigan, checking out Mackinac Island, and then coming back down to Traverse City area and taking a ferry back to WI.

I am going to try my best to make it to POCI, I'm worried about a couple things though. One being the condition of the bumpers, grills, etc but I can get over that and people will just have to realize its a work in progress. And the other is my rear end makes noise. I'm not sure if its the axle bearings or a pinion bearing.. The pinion leaks a little bit so maybe I shouldn't be driving it 2.5 hours just yet..

Thanks for the offer on the bumper, I'm going to call the local guy tomorrow and see whats up. I've seen enough of them listed locally in the past that I don't think we need to mess around with shipping something that large. I'm sure something will come along, so Greg its all yours.

[Greg Reid]

Originally Posted by FatfreeGTO

Greg I found just getting out there and spending even just one hour on it every day or two made sure it got done. Even though there were many days that had much more time then that invested I would say after doing this that people shouldn't be afraid of trying it, not as hard as it seems. Do you think you will end up painting your whole car or just fixing something small? Either way good luck with it!

You have to understand William that I'm full tilt boogie in the middle of restoring my '68. That's really the main reason the '66 has gotten no love. It had been sitting for quite a while when I got it and then it got slightly flooded (freshwater) between the seller's house and my house so I got kinda disgusted with it and let it sit for a few more years...dried out of course.... but still, I sometimes thought I'd never do anything with it.
Just lately, I aquired a set of Rally Ones and tires, also a bunch of other little parts which, as I added them, made the car more and more appealing to me. Now, I'm actually excited about getting it on the road. The car is in much better shape than I first thought and I have owned daily drivers not much better at this point.
I'll get it together. I'd be glad to get it to the condition yours started in.
As for the bumper Tod, take your time. I have a feeling the shipping may be prohibitive anyway. I bought a rear bumper from Mitch Kunath here on the boards. The only way I could afford to ship it was because I had a commercial address at the time. It was 3 times the cost to ship it to my door. I no longer have that commercial address so...I dunno if it'll be worth it. Just let me know what you come up with and we'll see 'cause mine is rusty and bent.

[Satyr1966]

The car looks great & I like the color. One thing you might want to do B4 you put the grills & front bumper back on is paint the aluminum radiator front black. Anything not blacked out in that area ends up being visible through the grills & doesn't look right. I ended up going back & pulling my grills out to do this on my car. Best of luck!

[Mr_GTO]

Looks great and certainly confirms my decision to restore mine back to marina turq.

[FatfreeGTO]

Originally Posted by Satyr1966

The car looks great & I like the color. One thing you might want to do B4 you put the grills & front bumper back on is paint the aluminum radiator front black. Anything not blacked out in that area ends up being visible through the grills & doesn't look right. I ended up going back & pulling my grills out to do this on my car. Best of luck!

That's a good tip, thanks!

Originally Posted by Mr_GTO

Looks great and certainly confirms my decision to restore mine back to marina turq.

Awesome!

Its time to start trying to polish the bumpers and reinstall those things. Last night I tried to do my headlight bezels. They are pretty bad but they will do for now. I was able to clean them up using 000 Steel Wool and some wax. For 30 min of work I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. It will be interesting to see how the bumpers go today. I'm also going to be removing the front and rear glass today, looking back I should have done that before painting but I had to drive the car to the paint booth so I didn't want the glass out.

Before:


After: