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Bodywork and Paint |
| This part is going to be really messy | |||
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We are going to try our hand at bodywork. This part will be very time consuming and we hope to save some money by doing the prep work and having it painted professionally | |||
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Well no real bodywork has started yet, but we have the supplies to grind and fill the seams. Our first project with West Epoxy will be to bond the hood hinge. |
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| Prior to bonding the hood I prefit the hood hoop. I then laid the hood down and marked the where it should be bonded from underneath. |
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| I temporarily attached the hood with two bolts through where the latches will eventually be installed. |
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| I used lots of small C clamps to hold the hood and the hoop together while the epoxy cured. My assistant then check the quality of the bond. |  |
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| The car was dropped off at the body shop on May 24, 2002. The car will be painted Dark Carmine Red Metallic which is a common color on GM trucks and Suburbans. |
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| After checking the fit on the body panels, we disassembled the body for the painters. They already had a body buck to support the body while it was painted |  |
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| A few areas were really rough and there were some defects that looked like spider webs. These areas had to be ground down and then filled over with fiberglass filler. |  |
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| There are lots of exposed edges of fiberglass in the front of the car that need to be finished out well. |  |
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| The backend of the car had several bad places in the fiberglass that were ground off and then built back up. This work was in addition to the seams that were ground and filled. |  |
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| We then took the chassis back home to finish the power brake conversion. The Expedition took a hit from the trailer hitch. A good lesson was learned that day: a 2" and 2-1/16" trailer hitch look very similar!!!! |  |
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| After lots of grinding, filling and sanding the car really started to look smooth. |  |
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| The curve of all the fenders had to be "built" back up after the seams were ground down. |  |
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| Here is the front and rear of the car almost completed. We had to cut down the spacers for the rear quick jacks because it pushed the body out too far for the trunk to close properly. |  |
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| The are area around the sidepipes and fender vents got a lot of attention. |  |
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| Duane (aka Venemous) showed up to lend a hand when we removed the body for final painting. |  |
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| Here are some pictures of the body in the paint booth. From a distance the stripes looked good, but there were some defects and they had to be repainted. |  |
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| The striping was an additional expense and some aggravation for us as well as the paint shop, but we feel it added a great look to the car. |  |
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| Here is Damian next to his Aggie maroon baby. |  |
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