Revealing

A long bank holiday is good for a rest, well sort of as I spent two of my days of down at Mustang Maniac of course. They were long days, early(ish) starts by the time I got there and quite late leaving. I had to put the headlights on it was that late! Anyway this week I started on the front end of the car to remove the under seal to see what we had. It turns out that as I was getting to the bare metal we discovered that I have a genuine matching numbers car. The numbers being the two secret VIN codes that match the visible one as well as each other. This was also verified by the fact that the decoding of the paint colour matched what we found underneath the under seal and the previous paint job. Why are matching number important? Well if there has been stolen, been in an accident or part of the car has been replaced, then this is a way of identifying that the problem. It’s easy to cut out and replace the visible VIN number, but to do that on the other numbers means removing the fenders and bodywork to get to them which can be a real pain. I was a happy (Easter) bunny!

original colour

matching number 1

matching number 2

Last couple of weeks I have been getting to bare metal on the floor pans as you know. This weekend I managed to get the front end of the car cleaned up and stripped of the under seal. The process is exactly as before, plenty of elbow grease, a good flexible wall paper knife, patience and above all lots of good paint stripper. As I was working at the front there was lots of grease and dirt and mud wedged in places that should have been drain holes. I needed to clear these all out then get to work on the under seal. Some of the old original under seal was easily chipped of and no stripper was required until I got to the primer, but the newer stuff was hard work. I spent a complete day on each side of the shell to get it clean. We did uncover so rusty places that will need a patch put in. but nothing to horrendous I am glad to say. I have added the full set of photo’s to the main page under the “Photos Menu – Under The Car & Chassis – Under Seal removal”, or click here for the quick link.

This set of pictures was the left hand side:

original colour

This set of pictures was the right hand side:

As it was raining on an off over the days I was there the pack of dogs soon found a place that was dry for them to sit in, my little work area! It’s quite funny having to step over dogs when you need to get tools from one place to another. If you look carefully you can spot a couple in the photos now and again.

On another note:

I need to work out the female psyche, when women are upset and they have a few tears, A man asks “What’s up?” the answer returned was “Nothing”. As far as bloke is concerned that is the end of the matter then as nothing is wrong as you have just confirmed. BUT, if a woman brings it up again a while later saying “Not as though you care, when I was crying!” is unacceptable. I witnessed this first hand and the face that the poor bloke had as he was looking on in amazement at the woman was a picture. I felt for the bloke, I wanted to give the geeza a little bro-mance hug to say “I feel for you mate, here’s a beer”. He was getting it big time, both barrels in fact. Why is there the need for the word “nothing” meaning “I have the right hump”, and now I am going to start a row. I just don’t understand. If anybody can explain this to me I would be most grateful.

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Getting There!

A trip to see the guys at Mustang Maniac on Saturday was filled with a little bit of fear. I knew what was coming and last week I hurt when I got home. But, I felt pleased with the progress although it seems slow while you are doing it. This time there was much more of the area to clean and what was to come of was more of the tar, under seal, paint and what ever else they piled on it. The newer paint is a lot harder to strip back due to the advances in the process I guess. The work was hard and painfully slow all day or so it seemed, but when you pack up to go home, look back at the car there is lots that has actually been done. I even had Adam tell me that now I was a “volunteer apprentice” (I’m proud of that title), no using electrical tools as that was cheating! We did get to use them later on though for a few test areas after we saw bare metal. During the day, I had an interesting experience should we say. Although I am working in a very, very well ventilated area, in fact the wall is a massive full sized steel door, when opened the sun floods in and natural light helps with what you are doing, I even had a mask on too. I was using thinners earlier to clean up a section and decided to take a short break. The thinner fumes had obviously impregnated my clothes and the can of Red Bull that I decided to drink, certainly gave me wings should I say. Now I know how Pink Floyd came up with those songs they did should we say. A quick wander around to the other work shops to see what the dogs were up too and take in some fresh air soon brought me down again, I seriously don’t recommend that one! Next time I think it will be just water to drink. Anyway, I came home in the evening and I was hurting again, poor ol’ me, but with a massive smile. The results are amazing I must say on the car and I’m pleased again with the amount of work that got done when I look back at the pictures. Adam joined me later in the day and he did get some tools out to see what was under the rust. We found a couple of issues but nothing to horrendous, some good old filler had been used on a chassis rail so a section of that rear rail will need a new section welded in. The previous welding has a lot to be desired and we will take some of it off and put back in some proper welding. Tip, never give your classic car to a bloke who can’t weld!

top part where the panel was loose

bottom section holes

Adam doing a test patch

old floor supports and pan

Once we had bare metal we needed to protect the metal so a spray of Gibbs Brand was used and she will not rust up again now. In fact she looks almost new underneath now. Apart for the suspect welding that can be seen on the top chassis rail, and the bottom floor pan section. Next week I hope to move to the engine bay and fire wall for a strip down. I am developing a better technique each time I start using the stuff I am pleased to say.

I woke up today with arms that felt like they belonged to an orang-utan. As I was allowed to go and “play cars” all day yesterday I did promise that I would help the wife in the garden today. I had to put up a trellis, but the trellis was on its own to create a patrician. So I had to dig three deep holes for the posts to hold them up. So here I am having trouble holding the mouse let alone typing. The aches will pass for sure and I will be ready to go again next weekend. I even tried the sympathy vote on wife, I got “the look” and carried on digging. The trellis does look good, but right now – I hate it!

Quick Links:

Under seal Removal – Photo Menu – Under The Car & Chassis – Under seal Removal or click here for the hyper link.

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Stripper For A Day

The stripper was of course the chemical sort to get me down to bare metal on the underside of my car. There are so many innuendos I could use for this post, but I wont go down that route. The day was of course at Mustang Maniac where my day of hard work was to begin. The car looks quite menacing when you stand there with just a three-inch scraping knife. I used some stuff called Starchem – Synstrip. This has been given quite a few reviews on how good it is. The old school strippers like Nitromors has had an ingredient change due to new laws or health and safety for what ever reason. The results speak for themselves, they don’t work like they used to. So this stuff is one of the few old school strippers left out there that you can get your hands on. Professional use only with disclaimers all over it on the label. It took notice and used goggles, face mask and gloves. Is the stripper any good? I shall review it fully soon, but it does burn like hell on your hands, that should give you an idea.

Anyway the car was given a good slap of the mixture on the under seal and it was obvious it was attacking not just paint but under seal, tar and any other stuff sprayed on it. It was going to be a long day, the first attempt removed a lot, the second exposed the base paints and we were almost there with the third. Why take it all off? Well, we wanted to see what was under the sealers to see what work need to be done or what filler needed to be removed. So a tip is – don’t buy a car that looks great as it could be covering a multitude of sins. It’s better to see bare metal and you know exactly where you are. I exposed a bit of filler around the welds, nothing to bad as it was just to smooth it all out. There was some real good clean metal by the tunnel gearbox area and a little surface rust on the rear panels by the fuel tank partition. The work was slow, made my arms ache and Adam gave me hand towards the end of the day too. What a difference it has made already. I will start on the other areas next week if I have recovered enough by then. Hopefully there will be a lot more bare metal all round next time. The process is apply the liquid, let it bubble up, scrap it off, add more, rub it in with wire wool, scrap it all off and repeat. The pictures I took after each treatment, you can’t really see a huge difference between the sessions, start and finish there is a difference.

What it looked like:

After the first session:

After the second session:

After the third session and the end of the day, we rubbed the chemicals down with thinners to see the bare metals. The surface rust will be attacked again with a little aggression where I can. Anything that looks bad – we will replace and patch properly.

Well that was all day Saturday taken care off, Sunday I was rubbing down my driver’s side fresh air vent. It was a real mess and needed rubbing down, primer, and a couple of top coats. I have added the full process under my Photo Menu – Inside The Car – Drivers Air Vent Refurbishment, or click here for the quick link. Here are a few pictures of the before, during and after. My arms are killing me and I am pleased with the results. for both days. On the assembled pictures for the air vent the finger prints were my oily fingers, it wiped of clean. Unfortunately there is too much exciting stuff to look at here apart from different angles of course. I was well chuffed with the results, even if I do say so myself.