Date: 07/02/05
This pre panel beaten 57 Chev came to us for painting - I had nearly no hand in this one but have included it to show what else gets done here.
Date: 07/02/05
This is a 150 series very base model Chev - has a 1/4 panel mould like a 55 Chevy- This car was absolutely riddled with rust - resulting in the floors right through to the boot - the 1/4 panels, wheel tubbs and sill being replaced. Not much of the car was left and the sand blaster thought it would be scrapped after he finished with it- ( we got a phone call and the only words spoken were - 'This cars fukked!".....seven weeks of panel beating saw it like new agin... thankfully it was'nt me that had to do this one......
Date: 07/02/05
Finally after a lot of fine tuning to the panel work its in primer. Graham Carr our painter is a perfectionist when it comes to flaws in what the panel beater has left for him, so rest assured this is one very straight Chev...now.
Date: 07/02/05
The Chassis and numerious other minor parts received a coat of satin black two pack for that old school OEM look.
Date: 07/02/05
With the body on the hoist - all the underside was fully sealed and given a coat of stone guard and the fire wall was final painted at this stage also. All seams received a full going over with sika flex b4 this met the chassis again... shouldn't rust this time.
Date: 07/02/05
After six weeks of painting amongst the holiday season - the car emerges and is ready for delivery - but it dosent end here - Graham will go to the customers place and oversee the hanging of the panels... generous bloke isnt he? Mostly this is just part of the job- he would not want to see his hard yakka undone at all.
Date: 07/02/05
Now you can see the unusual two tone treatment of the 150 series - as these are rare cars it pays to keep the originality and not just add Belair trim like the other three million 57 chevs. These full sun photos barely do this car justice... the white is actually a off white and the sparkle in the mettalic turquiose is just brilliant - I will add more pics later of the finished car.
Date: 18/10/04
And another view - this should give an idea of what's involved for this sort of repair - all the doors have been painted off the car - and are carefully stored. the end result when we reassembled the car - was that other than shiny new paint - it looks pretty much the same as the opening shot - other than the rust and dents of course . Another very happy chappy - the doors were loaded with rustproofing and I dont expect this one back for this repair ever again.
Date: 14/10/04
...It gets opened up- the suprising part is the lack of rust proofing - no attempt has ever been made to try and prolong the bodgey repairs - I s'pose if ya gonna take shortcuts you may as well take all of 'em.... Not on my watch!
Date: 14/10/04
About this point is where I differ from most shops - I dont want to ever have address this rust ever again - so I built a largish sandblast cabinet for this very pupose- All offending areas are cleaned and the door glass / trim is masked off as not to damage anything. All sand is removed while the wounds are still open.
Date: 14/10/04
As you can see it gets rid of all the rust allowing me to see what pinholes need welding or brazing.
Date: 14/10/04
Acute observers will notice for this end of the door I finally removed the returned edge- The small amount of oxidisation left or missed by the blaster is addressed with Phosphoric acid - to neutralise any surface rust.
Date: 14/10/04
The acid is cleaned away with a moist rag after it's done its job and then the inner areas cleaned entirely with a scraper - to remove any tar or sealant residue inside the remainder of the bottom of the door and finally all inner areas are given a good dose of etch primer .
Date: 14/10/04
Letting out trade secrets here - I use photo type card and run my thumb over the card to leave an impression as to where the edge lies - beware - this is only a guide and the factory outer skin doesnt always follow the inner door edge - so only use this as a guide for cutting out the new peice of steel.
Date: 14/10/04
Fast forward to the new installed peice - and notice the joins on the inside are brazed - this takes another trip back to the blast cabnet to remove any acids from the brazing process.
Date: 14/10/04
The repaired door skin - this was mig welded as the oxy would destroy the integrity of the door - great car is taken to keep the welds quenched with a moist rag or air blown onto the panel - warpage still occours though.
The door was trail fitted back onto the vehicle and heat shrinks where required around the new welded in patches. After this door was determined it fit perfectly, application of a light coat of fibre glass filler over the welded areas - to make sure moist
Date: 27/09/04
The door was trail fitted back onto the vehicle and heat shrinks where required around the new welded in patches. After this door was determined it fit perfectly, application of a light coat of fibre glass filler over the welded areas - to make sure moisture won't seep through any microscopic pinholes - the whole lower was given a very thin skim of a two pack blade finishing putty - not bog - and filed with 80 grit- theses file marks were reduced again with a good sanding back of the whole lower door , using 180 grit on a sanding block. - no file marks will come back to haunt you later.
Date: 14/10/04
This is another of the doors - the process begins again - As you can clearly see - the previous attempts at rust removal show the patch welded in - over existing rust - mean that this poor repair is never gunna stand a chance with all that rust around it.
Date: 14/10/04
Yet another poor example of rust repair- just because the panel beater shows you the rust he cut out - you cannot be sure he got it all - or prepared the surrounding areas properly- so dont be fooled.
Date: 14/10/04
The one door that was not overly rusty - was full of filler - after a really ordinary attempt at addressing a bad dent - via some idiot drilling holes in the door and using a sky hook to pull the dent up - this just made a worse mess of it all and the ensuing high spots were belted in with a pick hammer - oh - and those holes - well they were just bogged over of course . A steady afternoon -with two panel beaters - my self and Val - meant we were able to heat shrink this door back into shape, weld the holes up and only a light coat of filler was required.
Date: 18/10/04
Before the repaired doors can be re- hung - we ( -or rather Graham) took the effort to make sure the door jambs were repainted as well - we never really allowed for this but we deemed it necessary.
Date: 18/10/04
The bonnet had some minor paint chips so they were getting repaired at the same time. The primer is tinted to help with coverage. Some previous repairs were rearing their heads and this annoyed the owner - so it was addressed at the same time as the rust.
Date: 13/10/04
This 57 Chev four door hard top came to us after the new owner got tired of the rust continously coming out in the doors-after he had paid good money for the car . The previous owner was well known panel shop - here's an example of their idea of rust repairs which only lasted a few months- we get the job of correcting some one elses shoddy work yet again.
Date: 14/10/04
The first order of the day was after removing the very heavy door - taking great care not to damage anything - was to remove the paint to see what sort of woeful repairs have been inflicted on this classic.
Date: 14/10/04
As you can see - repairs over older repairs - one is even a factory repair in lead - bogging over lead is a no-no... so we removed everything back to steel...and rust
Date: 29/08/03
The T Bucket body - after I spent three days on fixing / re- glassing and smoothing it all out.
Date: 29/08/03
Another view - note the huge speakers -the owner is installing a mega sound system - I would have thought the sounds of a small block enough noise.
Date: 06/09/03
Wet rubbing T Bucket - Note the Kiwi Wearing gumboots - This should take the spotlight off my footwear.
Date: 03/09/03
DOODLE (Graham ) sanding back the spray polyester . This body has already been epoxy primed and let to sit after which the srpay polyester is applied. Some additional body work was found to be needing some re-working at this stage. We HAVE to make sure its right or others will take great joy in picking out the faults... We aim not to give them too much to pick on.
Date: 29/08/03
The dash needed a lot of work . The body is an Ian Cameron body and chassis - pretty good stuff -still requires finishing work but is quite good. As apoint of interest the front end (drop axle) uses EH Holden stub axles. Some one finally found a use for them.
Date: 06/09/03
As you can see - we get requests for the fad colours like Hot House green for all sorts of Vehicles.
Date: 07/09/03
As you can see - cleanliness is paramount.This car has already been painted and Graham is flow coating the clear.
Date: 07/09/03
Flow coating involves rubbing back the whole painted surface with 1200 wet paper and leveling out the orange peel and any inclusions. This is only carried out on jobs such as show cars.Basically means painting the whole job twice.
Date: 07/09/03
The clear being used here is PPG Deltron D880 Two Pack . This gives an award winning finish and the extra effort gives substantial results.
Date: 11/09/03
Bucket body painted and waiting to be picked up . Total time to do job - less than two weeks!
Date: 07/09/03
Here the owner is assembling the Chassis ready to fit the body to - after it has dried and been carefully checked over of course.
Date: 24/04/05
The rear view - something you would get used to seeing as it flys past you on the road. Based on an Ian Cammeron Kit- these are the way to go!
Date: 24/04/05
two years down the track - we finally see the finished article - I know its a Ford - albeit a plastic one - but its got more GM than Ford- this thing is bloody quick!
Date: 11/09/03
Sorry about all the Fords folks - But we like to show the vast range of vehicles we restore.
Date: 11/09/03
This 69 Mustang convert was already mostly panel beaten - very well too I might add by Colin Chapman - one of the countries best body men. Unfortunatley for me he didn't finish it .
Date: 11/09/03
The door on this side has recieved a new skin - as has a few other panels been replaced with new. Unfortunatley Colin never got as far as getting the body lines to match up - The lower crease in the door was 15mmm out! Not an easy task to rectifiy this let me tell you ... plus the door shape to the file finished original guard was way different. All other areas on the car Colin did get a chance to finish were perfect.
Date: 11/09/03
It took three very long days to finish the body work off on this classic. It now gets handed to Graham the painter for his part . Will be the same process as the Bucket body.
Date: 05/10/03
Mustang straight out of the booth . Colour is Mazda Mach green . A similar colour to Hot House green but a lot nicer.
Date: 05/10/03
You can see the effort in getting the body straight as possible pays off on a car like this. Not an easy task considering the age and the fact that Ford Mustangs were built to a price so the bodies vary from car to car...Just like Holdens but slightly worse.
Date: 24/04/05
The engine bay of the finished car - this car was assembled elsewhere by a very generous mate of the owner.
Date: 24/04/05
And all finished....This car went on to win a few trophies - its very deserving of them!
Date: 06/09/03
This Trans am is a example of the cheaper end of the paint jobs we do - someone else has done the body and it was delivered to us in primer. Cost - under two grand - still a lot of work though and not all the various other parts that had to painted are shown.
Date: 11/09/03
Yes another Ford. This is one we completed recently - back to bare metal and Was poorly restoered by another so called professional. We had to redo every repair includind fixing all the lower doors and sills so they did not have gaps you could slide your fingers through. This was a mammoth job - Total restoration turn around - Just over three weeks.
