Now to the stripping of the paint. Previously we had talked about taking her body and body panels to be soda blasted. After a visit from a guy, who has sandblasted a lot of cars, we decided to go for sandblasting instead. In order to minimise the distortion caused by the heat generated during sandblasting, we used a grinding disk to strip the paint from the larger areas beforehand.
We began by grinding the paint off her body then moved on to the front fenders, boot lid, doors and the bonnet. In some parts of the body there was an almost 10 mm thick layer of Bondo, but nothing too bad. Guess the previous owner didn't see it necessary to straighten the dents and just used Bondo instead...
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| Bondo bonanza... |
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| Another patch of thick Bondo |
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| Grindin' |
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| Front fenders ready for blasting |
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| Not quite done |
At this point we also decided to do some sheet metal work, namely replace the passenger side floor panel. After drilling the spot welds off and using a little bit of angle grinder the old floor panel came off. Then we just welded a new piece of sheet metal in its place.
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| Old panel |
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| Old panel ready to come off |
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| New panel fitted in |
After that we rented a trailer and took the first set of parts to be sandblasted. In the first set there was the body and both of the front fenders. A local machine contractor came to help us lift the body from the garage to the trailer with his wheel loader.
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| Caaaaaaaareful |
Next time you see her, all the rust and old paint will have been blasted off and she'll have a brand new coat of primer. Then it will be time for some serious sheet metal work...
