Car Restoration

[clowny]

So I took on a BIG project. I purchased a 1978 El Camino, as my first ever car to restore. There are some rust holes and surface rust, I am doing all the work my self except final paint. I have a question I have currently sanded down the hood to bare metal, not completely as there are dips and dings that were filled in with primer and paint. I am storing this car in a heated warehouse that has lots of dust and sand, and birds... What is the best way to prep the car for paint including primer as I am going to do this restoration over years. I started with the hood being sanded down by hand not machine as I can buy the crowl hood if need be. My first question is now that the hood has been sanded down to metal should I prep and apply primer now or leave as bare metal until all priming is being done right before paint?

[clowny]

everyone likes pics! or at least I do. Not original motor someone swapped in a 3.8 litre v6 from an S-10 for the original 350

[Aquattro]

If you leave bare metal, it will oxidize.

[PFoster]

Yup, if you strip it down she will rust...

Decide on the level of resto you want to get into.
Make a plan.
and stick to it.

If you want to strip it to bare metal you would be better off to strip the car down, remove any/all trim, fill holes from trim you dont plan on putting back on and either have the car dipped or blasted down, filled then painted.
This is a big project and can get out of control quick, fyi.

Cause while its stripped, you might as well drop a ford 9" in the rear.
And if your doing that you might as well put in a 4 link suspension (if its for the strip).
then you might as well pull the motor and put in a 454 bbc.
and so on and so on.


If you want to make the car nice and straight, clean paint job and a decent motor thats a lot easier and quicker of a project and it can be on the road again for next season.
Sand, fill, remove trim if required and just prep for paint.

I have built several cars and never stripped one down to bare metal.
And i currently have one in my garage where i am trying to get the project under control again.....
400 sbc freshly rebuild but not started. So its got to be stripped down and re-lubed and reassembled.
But if I am tearing it down i could either
1) reduce the compression and install the 671 blower i already own....
hmm.... and i have the spacer plate for a nice little moderate NOS system....
2) destroke with a 350 crank as they rev super fast and high rpm.
but then might as well go cast crank
then might as well go full roller motor...


and so on and so on.



Make a plan,
is this car for the fun of the drive or the fun of the build
Personally I wouldnt strip it down to bare metal unless you were stripping it and sending it to paint right away!
But thats just me.

[clowny]

I must have been greatly miss informed as I was told stripping to bare metal was the best way to get maximum quality paint color and straightness. The paint that was chosen (from a survey of family and friends)

As for the car it is just going to be a fun to drive summer car, not perfect as it was a first time restoration by me. I will be putting in a bigger engine later on, once this one has run its course or the restoration is complete and more money shows up. My main concern is if I do have to strip it can it sit with primer on or is that no good as well? If I don't have to strip it how do prep the current paint for primer?

[sirruckus]

I went down to metal on my 80 malibu project - just like you, I was misinformed and had the wrong idea. I encountered factory bondo / and sealant which made my life a whole lot worse.

having done my own body work myself, I would never do it again unless I had all the proper tools that pro's use, ie. screw compressor so I could use and air board for quality sanding.

G-bodies are so cheap and easy - you may want to consider doing a frame off resto, sending the shell out to get walnut blasted, get the frame blasted and coated as well.

I'm only going off of what I know and typical capabilities of others, body work isn't the strength of 99% of the people, I had slight aptitude for it and still didn't turn out well. I would rather spend my time money and efforts elsewhere and hire a painter to do that work in the mean time.

you may want to check out a couple other forums:

www.bcgbody.com is just a community full of guys who give each other a hard time

www.maliburacing.com is a great technical website

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by clown

I must have been greatly miss informed as I was told stripping to bare metal was the best way to get maximum quality paint color and straightness. The paint that was chosen (from a survey of family and friends)

As for the car it is just going to be a fun to drive summer car, not perfect as it was a first time restoration by me. I will be putting in a bigger engine later on, once this one has run its course or the restoration is complete and more money shows up. My main concern is if I do have to strip it can it sit with primer on or is that no good as well? If I don't have to strip it how do prep the current paint for primer?

there are several ways to go about it, sanding dow to bare metal (with out destroying the factory leading and such) should be done right before you are going to paint. so sanding with the final grit in the morning then clean, bondo, sand, clean and spraying a primer in the afternoon type thing.

you can't just use any primer you have to find one that is rated to be left as the only coverage for an extended period of time, normal primers will oxidize also, but there are ones for your situation even clear ones but I wouldn't recommend going with a clear primer.

couple problems with going to bare metal, the first being is you have now taking the smoothing layer of bondo off. it is very very rare to have a bare metal surface that is flat or smooth enough to result in a decent paint job. what you normally do is put on a very thin layer of bondo, then sand it until it is smooth and you stop sanding when you just start to see steel.

as it is now you have made a horrible amount of extra work for your self as you need to get something on there before it starts to rust, so go out and buy a primer that you can apply bondo over (go to a local body shop and ask them what to use but probably an epoxy primer) and practice your spraying. then you have time. what I did with the last car I restored was left the paint alone and fixed any dints and such in the small areas where they were, then when I was ready to paint the whole car I did a complete sanding then repainted.

oh take the time also and do some reading on what you want to do, just like fish tanks there are ways the pro's do it that save time/money and give a first rate result and there all out there for the reading.

Steve

[sick lid]

Good luck with the build. I'm confused on why you would swap out the original v8 for a v6 . Also, there was never a 3.8L in a S10.

[sick lid]

sorry, I can't read. some one else already swapped it out