MY66GTO - Just got painted.

[my66gto]

Howdy, here is MY66GTO - Just got painted and I thought I should let folks know a little about the job. This car was stripped using 80 grit paper on a power sanding disk (no kidding, I thought the scratches would ruin it), it had lots of rust cut out and new sheetmetal welded in etc., then bondo-ed some, then primed, surface primed, sanded and smoothed, and surface sanding primered again, then 2 coats of color and one of clear. Anyway, it took $5,000 and over 5 years to save the money and I did a lot of the prep work myself. Drop me a line if you want the painters name.

[goatweed]

looks good :o just 5 years is a long time ???

Now you can enjoy driving it ;D

[H.O.Goat]

Looks good :)I myself and proably others would like to see a bigger pic

[THOR]

I had the chance to see Ken's GTO today in person. Paint job is a PPG Candy Burgundy. It looks great and Ken mentioned that he's now working on the brightwork and waiting to put new tires and wheels on.

Nice job Ken, it's a very tasty '66 4 speed!!! 8)

[LonnieS]

Here's a bigger pic of Ken's '66 - emailed to me by Bruce, A.K.A. "Thor" ;D

[Kevin-D]

That'll be a sharp car when the chrome is on it! Nice... ;)

Will it be at Tiger Run?

[H.O.Goat]

yes indeed, nice looking car! 8)

[Anonymous]

Geeze guys, thanks for all the replies and encouragement.

I borrowed a book from Bruce M. and learned how to polish up the stainless. Its a bit of work, but dang, that old pitted stainless can polish up real bright and nice. So anyone need a tip, I've got a couple.

Tiger Run sounds so cool, but I don't think this car is ready to go to Oregon yet. We'll try going around Mt. Rainier once or twice first. Got a couple bugs to work. Should be ready for club events in a couple months, but I'll be bringing it around this year regardless of the amount of work left. I like the "well, I'm still workin on it" look anyway.

[67DropTop455]

Nice work Ken! I'd like more info on the painter! Always looking for some good contacts!

Thanks - Brett - 67 Drop Top 455!
brett@cisdirect.com

[my66gto]

Here is the painter's info. He's out in Snohomish.

Steves Auto Restoration
1-360-568-6423

[canonbkr]

What is the name of the book? I am pulling brightwork now in prep for stripping mine down and so when I can't be sanding, grinding and welding, I can polish!!! ;D

Thanks
Jeff

[my66gto]

Here are my polishing tips:

They are working out great for me. I'll get that book back to Bruce and back in circulation, but the buffing tips I found that came with the Eastwood kit of wheels and rouge for $30 are good too. Mostly, you need a grinder/buffing wheel set up at 3500 rpm and I've got 6" wheels and,

The steps and a tip are:

The stainless probably has at least some of the original coating on it (big tip), which is hard to just buff off, so I used 400 grit emery cloth to sand down the piece first (which is a real wise thing to do, cause although it looks like it kinda scratches it up, this level of scratches buff right out. You can try to polish them out first, but the hard parts will stand out a lot and take a long time to get rid of, like 10 minutes or more, so the 400 grit works real well.

Then it is just the usual 3 wheels and 3 compounds, rough wheel with stainless rouge, med. Wheel with emery, buff wheel with white rouge and it’ll shine like crazy. Takes about a minute or so on each wheel (on a 10" piece). Any deep scratches need a good sanding first, and may not come out completely, but you’ll hardly notice them when you're done. On a regular car those finger nail scratches will be pretty much gone and the piece will look fine.

Good luck, its great fun to see a dull and dusty piece of metal shine like crazy.

My66gto

[canonbkr]

Great!!! I will give it a shot. This rain is giving good reasons for polishing chrome inside. ;)

Thanks Much

[goatweed]

when sanding the deep scratches in the stainless steel you can start with a 180 - 220 grit sand paper and than work your way to 400.
You can also remove small dents with a hammer and dolly after the dent is out, use a fine file to perfect it. After it is filed flat start sanding it start a 180 and work you way to 400 grit. You know when it is ready to polish when you can't see any of the 180 grit scratches.
I repair a rear deck lid moulding that was junk and polished it, you could not see that there was dents all over it, unless you looked at the back.