What should I use?

[Anonymous]

Got some questions for you paint guys.

I'm stripping the paint of my monte, taking it to metal. I don't intend on getting it painted until next winter probably, but the paint was all messed up and replaced the doors/fenders, nose/bumper so it needed taken down.

How should I go about sealing it? I'm hoping to have the car out this summer, and its garage kept, but just need something on it til it gets painted. Should I just get a primer in same brand as the paint will be? And whats needed for the nose/bumper since they're poly? I'm not doing any body work either, just priming it then whoever paints it can do the little bit of dent work it has.

Sorry for the dumb questions but I have no clue when it comes to paint.

 

[westexun]

Check out the door I just stripped over in the gallery. If you use the Must for Rust on bare metal it won't rust if it doesn't get wet and people keep their greasy hands off of it. It leaves a phosphate coating on the metal. Just use it like it says on the bottle. Make sure if you use any kind of etching primer on it to sand it all of before hand. The acid in the etch primer won't get along good with the acid in the coating left behind. If you do get a little flash rust the stuff will take it right off. It is a mild acid so don't leave it on your skin. I sand it off to bright shiny metal with 180 before I prime, haven't had any issues so far.

 

[Anonymous]

I looked at your thread but that's not what I'm really looking for.

I'm taking it down to metal at the moment, and need something to paint it with for this year until it gets painted. I'll be driving the car in the summer but need a prime or something until it gets painted.

Should I use a primer in the same brand as the paint will be? Like an epoxy?

 

[nillabu]

Try Zero Rust......Heres a link. Sodablasted the body and door frames to metal in Sept. Still looks good in the trailer.

http://www.restorick.com/

 

[westexun]

KC if I was yu, I'd just leave the paint on it until I was ready to tackle the bodywork. If you strip it now you'll just be wasting materials to cover it back up. You shouldn't put filler over anything but clean metal with at least an 80 grit scratch in it. Epoxy is supposed to totally seal the metal. I payed about 80 bucks for a gallon on Limco epoxy. Everyone brags about the Southern Polyeurthane products and they are suppose to have a good epoxy. If you do go to bare metal don't waste your time and money on those "snake postion" rust products. Just use good catalyzed materials on it, there's no need for that stuff if you get rid of the rust in the first place. That's why I made the post about the naval jelly. It's a great way to get rid of the stuff.

Skayser2, get ready for some sticker shock when you price those door skins. About 500 to your front door. That's why I kept looking for some junkers. Also I hope you neutralized that soda after the blasting, I heard it can cause adhesion problems and no one will warranty paint applyed over a soda blasted car from what I've heard. Sure hope you don't have any problems as much work as you've got in it.

 

[Anonymous]

well, i already stripped the one quarter panel, the paint was all messed up there. And being that i have brown doors, the fenders were already stripped and primed by someone else, the hood and nose is black, and the quarters were red...i have to do something lol.

Maybe I'll just spray some cheap black primer on the whole car as a way to get it a solid color.

One more question. I odn't have any weather stripping in the car and its a t-top car, so I thought about doing the door jambs and up in the T area and painting that now. This way i dont have to put weather stripping in and then have to take it out and put new in again when i get it painted. Would it be ok to prep and paint just the door jambs now?

 

[nillabu]

Westexun- yeah you're right w/adhesion problems after sodablasting. One needs to completely wash and rinse bare material after the process. Soda by itself has about a 8.6 PH which can be quite corrosive by itself if not nuetralized back to a 7 PH as water is. We used a mixture of water and vinegar (5% acidity) and then a thorough rinse with a power washer. I know I spent better than an hour rinsing the body shell alone.

I personally blasted all the parts seen with soda and finished with a setback blast w/sand to profile the metal slightly. I agree the metal needs to be opened up alittle for the best adhesion possible either by using a Da or whatever method is available after using soda. Its hard to imagine soda, which is about a 2.4 on the Mohs hardness scale, can close up the pores in bare metal preventing good adhesion. I think it's more of a cleanliness issue with the used soda (which is like talc powder after blasting) filling the open pores. By the way, sand is about an 8.5 on the Mohs hardness scale and diamond about 10. Rinse, rinse, rinse after using soda.

My son has done soda and sand blasting for a number of years. Check out his web site.

Http://www.centrasodablasting.com

As far as the skins go, I haven't decided on using the old ones or going new.

 

[westexun]

Skayser, thanks for the info. I've found that even though I complain a bunch, guess just my nature, I really do enjoy the bodywork probably as much as any of this. I've learned a lot through this project, didn't know a thing about it when I started. I had plannned to have the car media blasted inside and out when I started this project but the guy wanted 1200 bucks to do it. I thought that was outragouse fora days work and decided to just use chemical on it and blast the jams etc. with my el cheapo blaster using sugar sand. I know what that can do to the large flat panels, so I won't touch anything with it that doesn't have lots of bends for strength. Someone had cut the beams out of my doors with a torch and warped the skins to bad for me to straighten out. A better body man probably could have made do with them but I found some el camino doors instead. They looked good but the driver's door isa mess. Amazing what a coat of dull paint hides. Was curious how you got the skins off with out grinding through the flange and cutting all the spot welds. Man that's a lot of work. Are you going etch or epoxy on yur metal primer? I was using some old zinc phosphate primer but ran out so I'm using some epoxy I bought for a frame I painted for a friend. I sprayed a light coat on the door that was reduced 25% with laquer thinner then put three coats of 2k after a 30 min. dry time. A little worried about the wet on wet application, but that's how the BASF tech said I could do it. Sounds like you do lots of paint work, sure appreciate any advice, L.T.

 

[nillabu]

Hey Westexun....Like my signature says.....I'm lost and just feeling my own way through the process like allot of us here. I'm self taught in body work and paint and still learning. I used the Zero Rust to seal my bare parts because I knew it would have ample time to cure before I had a chance to get back to them. Also, the price is great compared to etching primer. The stuff also comes in rattle cans which is great for those smaller items that need sealed. The only problem I know of with the stuff is not waiting long enough before topcoating. If a persons gonna do a paint project from start to finish in a few days its probably not the stuff to seal exterior metal up with.

This is my second set of doors I've had on the car. There just aren't any good ones left up here in central Mn. Both doors had rot holes at the lower front corners all the way through the inner door frame. It took me awhile to remove the skins...big job without grinding the flanges. I blasted all the flange areas as to reveal all the spot welds (also removing all the seam sealer) and used a spot weld drill on each and every weld. There were also several spot welds in the door handle and mirror mounting areas that were accessible from inside the door frame. I used the tool on the left to get the flange lip started enough to use the sheetmetal flange pliers on enough to bend the flange up to 90 degrees. It took awhile but the skins came off nice.

The frame bottoms were shot so I replaced them with bottoms ordered from Sherman. After blasting and sealing with Zero Rust they're 100%. The old skins need a patch in each corner and maybe some of the flange replaced but are usable if I decide to put that much time in em. I'm leaning toward new skins through OPGI instead.

Once all the body work and skins are on I'll give it a coat or two of epoxy primer and filler primer till it's ready for base/clear.

goodluck with your project. I'd go with what your BASF rep advised. You should be good. Flash times are key.

 

[westexun]

Funny you said that, this is the second set of doors if bought for this car. Got taken at the salvage yard for a couple that wound up with lots of rot in them. Hard to believe they were that bad with our 12 inches of annual rain fall here. Snows maybe twice a year some years. You were lucky to have access to a real blaster, it took me about two weeks to blast the bottom of the car after scraping all the undercoating off with a putty knife and propane torch. Wasn't much fun blasting it laying on my back under the body out in the ally in the 100 deg. heat, sure glad that's behind me. You're doing great for learning on your own. I've been lucky to get some advice from a friend who owns a body shop, but he does mostly collision work and some of the ways they do things aren't as thorough as I'm going about this. I think there will be more and more parts available for these cars since most of the old classic stuff is pretty used up. I'm hoping the prices will come down. I just couldn't justify the expense on a race car. I've seen one Malibu on the road since I started looking for one. There's quite a few El Caminos running around, they must have made more of them or they were more popular. I know where a Malibu is for sell for less than two grand, If I had a place to put it I'd probably buy it just to have it. Supposed to be an origanal west Texas car.