Auto Restoration 101

The body was rolled out back of the shop on Friday to get sandblasted. I use RC Mobile Sandblasting out of Wichita, Kansas. He does a great job and really takes the time to do it right. The next step will be to get some primer on it right away. The weather has really been humid in our area this year. If the body sits for too long in bare metal it will start to rust again. We will most likely use Zero-Rust on the insides and on the underside of the floor. On the rest of we will use an epoxy primer.
If you hire someone to sandblast your car make sure they know what they are doing. It is possible for an inexperienced person to actually ruin the body. Sand generates a lot of heat on the metal and can cause major warping of the metal if they are not careful. Our guy has a lot of experience with old cars and knows the techniques to keep the metal from warping. He also uses soda, potash and several grades of sand depending on the condition of the metal, the location of the metal on the car and whether he is removing paint or rust.

Dan from RC Blasting hard at work on the Merc.

The firewall looks nice and clean.

The rear of the car after blasting. I was skeptical at first about having the outer sheetmetal blasted. But after talking it over with Dan he assured me that he could do it without warping the panels. He was right. They turned out nice.

I have some rust repair work to do on the trunk floor and the spare tire well. Both are full of pin holes that were not evident before it was blasted. We will take car of the repairs after we get some primer on the metal to prevent it from flash rusting from the high humidity.

In 2000 I did a body and paint restoration on a car that I had never heard of at that time. The car was a Talbot Lago. It was a 1954 T26 GSL. GSL stands for Lago Grand Sport. The GSL’s were produced from 1953 to 1955. One source I found said there was a total of 30 T26 GSL’s produced. With about 15 produced in 1954. These cars were powered by a 4,482 cc DOHC 6 cylinder with triple carburetors with close to 200 horsepower @ 4,500 rpm. These same engines were used in Talbot’s Grand Prix cars which were the T26C. The two seater T26C claimed Talbot Lago’s biggest victory by winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1950.
The Grand Sport also used a four speed Wilson pre-selector gear box. The front supsension was coil spring and the rear was leaf spring. I remember having the car on a lift and cleaning and painting the complete underside of the car. They also had four wheel drum brakes which as I remember were huge.
I stripped the car down to bare metal and started all over. The car had previously been restored but not very well. They had painted over surface rust. After taking the car down to metal I noticed that the main body was steel and the doors, hood and trunk were aluminum. I spent some time getting the doors to line up too. The car turned out very nice and went on to be shown at Meadowbrook.

Car at Meadowbrook Concourse

Notice the car is right hand drive.

Great looking car from this angle. The picture shows the car redder than it actually is.

The car looks good with the dark maroon color. Photos Courtesy of Creative Interiors

Also visit these sites for more info about the Talbot Lago
http://www.shorey.net/Auto/British/Talbot/T26/htmltree.html
http://www.thoroughbred-cars.com/cars/france/talbot/history.htm

I was kidding….. it’s a massive dent! This happened on a 1940 Ford Coupe. Apparently it was driven underneath a four post lift that was too low. This dent had the largest “eyebrow” I had ever seen. If you look closely at the dent pictures you will notice the “eyebrow”, which is the crease that runs almost all the way around the dent. The dent was really not that hard to remove but the eyebrow crease took a lot of hammering and dollying to get out. To get the dent out my son got inside the car and pushed up on the roof with his feet. While he was doing this I was hammering on the eyebrow to relieve the pressure. We finally got it all removed.

The crease in the rear part of the roof above the back window really took a lot of work to get out.

I think this dent would hold about 20 gallons of water.

You can really see the “eyebrow” in this one. Especially at the bottom of the picture.

This is after we got the dent out and the metal all straightened out.

After the first three coats of primer was dry, I block sanded it once with 180 grit and then loaded it up with primer again for 400 grit wet sanding.

This is what it looked like after I sprayed it. We then color sanded it and polished it before we re-installed the glass.

It’s amazing what can be done to make an old part that looks really bad and turn it into something that looks great. Especially without spending a lot of money. When I first glanced at this gauge bezel I thought I might have to get it replated to make it look new again. But a little cleaning with some #0000 steel wool, some silver Krylon spray paint in a rattle can and a little time this bezel looks brand new. After I cleaned it with the steel wool I cleaned it with some wax and grease remover. I then taped off the chrome that I didn’t want painted. For the thin lines I used some 3M 1/16 masking tape. I then applied a few light coats of spray paint to duplicate the factory flat silver.

Before and after restoration………Gauge bezels from a 1965 Buick Wildcat.

The frame is completely apart now. When I was taking it apart I noticed several stress cracks. A couple of them were on the old welds. One was on the left front frame rail right in front of the spring tower. The rear spring mount brackets were also bent inward causing the bottoms of the frame to bend. I was able to straighten them out with a large (three foot) pipe wrench. I am going to box this area of the frame to prevent it from happening again in the future.

Make sure when restoring your frame to check it over real well for stress cracks. With all of the dirt that was in this car when we cleaned it out, I knew it had thousands of miles on the rough rural dirt roads around Kansas.

The frame is ready to be sandblasted. After it is sandblasted I will weld the cracks before we prep it for paint.

Stress crack on the left front frame rail.

This is the left side where the steering box mounts.

This is the rear crossmember on the left side. Both sides of this crossmember were cracked.

This is the rear spring mounting where the lower spring bracket was bent inwards along with the bottom of the frame. Both sides of the frame were bent and cracked in this area. I will box this area of the frame after it is sandblasted.

Hirsch Automotive enigine enamels work great and look great also. I highly recommend them if you are looking for a high quality engine paint. They claim that over 50% of high scoring cars at leading car shows are using Hirsch engine paint. You can purchase their paint in aerosol cans or in quart cans for use in a spray gun. Their engine paint is good up to 500 degrees too.

This is a 1964 Oldsmobile engine that I used their product on. I purchased the quart can and used a spray gun. The color is Oldsmobile Gold Late. It sprays real well and has a good gloss.

Visit their website HERE