06001 Restoration

Thanks for posting...
I never knew one could use a putty knife to scrap paint off a body!

with the layers of bondo and extreme thick primer that defined the shape. are you going to do the body metal work back to desired finish during this "new paint only"

as for the nice but weathered wheels, I thought I saw three different types, a 10 and a 5 spoke, plus a stamped steel

Well...actually...I didn't either. I had a local sand blast guy at the hose checking out 4042 last summer when I had the surface rust on it. While he was here I asked his opinion about having 6001 soda blasted. He told me I was welcome to bring it to his shop...but he would just scrape it, not blast it. I said "huh"..... and he proceeded to use one of my razor scrapers to demonstrate. I was amazed. As many cars as I have restored..and I never considered this method. I then bought a box of heavy duty single edge blades on Ebay and a heavy duty scraper handle and got to work. I have effectively stripped the car in about ~3 hours of collective time. There are still areas that I will have to go back and do with the sander...but this was way faster and I didn't have to run my compressor for 2 days to make it happen.

Yes, it appears I have uncovered some panel deformations (based on the bondo), and I will address those areas during this chapter of the restoration. Hopefully mostly with a hammer and dolly rather than body filler.

I also have the front wheels. They came with it. I removed them to help with the turning radius moving it around the shop, as the tires are too large and they rub. For ease of getting her on the road for the spring 2016 target, I may just pop the Cobra Rs on her from 4042 (which are now on the fronts).

quote:

and he proceeded to use one of my razor scrapers to demonstrate. I was amazed. As many cars as I have restored..and I never considered this method.

Years ago a good friend asked my opinion on stripping his 58 Vette. After looking at the car and the orange paint job that had been brushed on in the early 70's, I asked him for a razor blade and proceeded to show him how easily it would scrape off. 2 hours later, 99% of the faded chalky flaky orange paint was off, revealing some prior accident damage and poor repair work.

Rob

Looks as if it is going to weigh a lot less when you finish.

How do you add so many pics to one post in the thread. I thought you could only add one pic at a time?

Bob

Hi Rob,

I'm sure the car will look fantastic when you're done with it. You do great work! Looking forward to watching your progress.

Tim

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Borruso:
Found a section on the passenger door that had primer which was about an 1/8" thick. I didn't know it was possible to spray it so thick...???

It MIGHT be "featherfil". That or a generic is what you need to use on fiberglass to get a smooth surface to work with.

It gets used with a hardener and is a mixture of epoxy primer and very fine body filler. Fine enough to spray it on.

This actually looks like body filler to me though?

Some body fender guys like to think of themselves as sculptors and skim coat almost everything.

Don't stand too close in the shop without moving. They might get you also.

Hi Bob,
I host my photos on a godaddy storage site, and use the insert photo button above the text box in the message window (button between the envelope and the film strip). You can line up as many as you like... (or ..at least I haven't hit a limit yet.. ) After I insert the first with the menu bar tool, I actually then copy/paste the text, and just update the photo number to save time.

Yes... I think I shed about 10lbs off of her already. The paint on the hood alone was probably 1/16" thick. The hood actually feels lighter now when I open it. It was so hard that I had to use an angle grinder to get it off. Unlike the scraping process...the hood took me half of Sunday....








Thanks Tim... appreciate it. Let's see....stay tuned

Doug, I was thinking the same about the Featherfill. It's the only material I could think of to create such a material build. Who knows.... I do know however that it is not body filler. I thought for sure it had to be, so I carefully looked at the cross section. It's the same material all the way through. Crazy man...crazy... lol

Anyway, got the hood done. Unfortunately it took longer than it should, as my compressor couldn't keep up. Seems I need to rebuild it. Can't really complain I guess, it's given me 13yrs of hard labor. Rebuild kit on order, should be here for the weekend. Only real down side is I will have to spend valuable garage time working on equipment rather then 6001. errrgh

OK, so...compressor rebuilt and back to work. Boy...what a difference it makes to not have to keep stopping for air. With the slow performance degradation over the years, I had forgotten how well this thing worked when it was new...

Spent today taking off more layers of paint and quite a bit of body filler. One of the primer and paint layers had to have bee catalyzed primer and enamel.. I had to use the grinder again to get through them. I really don't like doing that on such this panels, but think I managed it w/o getting into the metal much. The really good news, no rust found yet! However, there is body damage on every panel. I can only speculate that there is no rust because whenever the owner wanted to drive it, he had to first call the body shop and see if it was ready to be picked up yet from the last time he drove it. Therefore...not getting very many miles over the years..

Anyway, I'll take dents over rust any day of the week. There was what seemed to be a lot of unnecessary body filler in many places, so between the 4 layers of paint and a gallon of body filler...she should be a bit lighter when I'm done too.

It appears the color change was done professionally and at the same time the bumpers were shaved. The work after that looks like local bump shop quality work. There was none of the original red found, so the color change guy sanded it clean, even in all the nooks and crannies. All the subsequent paint jobs were black.

I still have to do the lower panels. I want to put her up on the hoist for that to make the work a bit more comfortable on the old back. Next weekend's work...

Looking good Rob! Can't wait to see it

Looks great. You are really making progress.

Make sure you hit with some preservative if you decide to take a break on this one!



Rocky

LOL Rocky... no doubt!!!

Hello; Is that a 1969 Mustang Mach 1 with a shaker hood pictured?

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Borruso:
Hi Bob,
I host my photos on a godaddy storage site, and use the insert photo button above the text box in the message window (button between the envelope and the film strip). You can line up as many as you like... (or ..at least I haven't hit a limit yet.. ) After I insert the first with the menu bar tool, I actually then copy/paste the text, and just update the photo number to save time.

Yes... I think I shed about 10lbs off of her already. The paint on the hood alone was probably 1/16" thick. The hood actually feels lighter now when I open it. It was so hard that I had to use an angle grinder to get it off. Unlike the scraping process...the hood took me half of Sunday....








Thanks Tim... appreciate it. Let's see....stay tuned

Doug, I was thinking the same about the Featherfill. It's the only material I could think of to create such a material build. Who knows.... I do know however that it is not body filler. I thought for sure it had to be, so I carefully looked at the cross section. It's the same material all the way through. Crazy man...crazy... lol

Anyway, got the hood done. Unfortunately it took longer than it should, as my compressor couldn't keep up. Seems I need to rebuild it. Can't really complain I guess, it's given me 13yrs of hard labor. Rebuild kit on order, should be here for the weekend. Only real down side is I will have to spend valuable garage time working on equipment rather then 6001. errrgh

I have never seen paint that thick. Ever.

I suspect that you are going to use a lot of primer/filler and have lots of blocking to do on it.

The point of that process is to take the little ripples out of the sheet metal. You use a lot of primer but most of it gets sanded off in the process.

Use as long of a sanding block as practical and use long strokes and lots of water.

Pay lots of attention to what you are doing and it will come out great.

Hi Speed,
Yes, it is a 69 Mach (no shaker thought). That one they will have to bury me in.. You can see the full restoration here Link: 69 Mach build

Hi Doug,
I know...crazy...right. The funny thing was I had to grind out another 1/8" of body filler too. Unreal. I put a straight edge up to the door afterwards. I can see there is a low spot just ahead of the door handle...but don't get why they would have loaded it down the way it was done. I'll spend some time with hammer/dolly and see what I can achieve, but there really was no need for all the fill..??? Anyway, as mentioned, I'll take dents any day of the week over rust. All is good!

quote:

Originally posted by Rob Borruso:
Hi Speed,
Yes, it is a 69 Mach (no shaker thought). That one they will have to bury me in.. You can see the full restoration here Link: 69 Mach build

Hi Doug,
I know...crazy...right. The funny thing was I had to grind out another 1/8" of body filler too. Unreal. I put a straight edge up to the door afterwards. I can see there is a low spot just ahead of the door handle...but don't get why they would have loaded it down the way it was done. I'll spend some time with hammer/dolly and see what I can achieve, but there really was no need for all the fill..??? Anyway, as mentioned, I'll take dents any day of the week over rust. All is good!

Hello Rob; Always was a BIG fan of the 1969/70 Mach 1s with/without the shaker hood.

I was bidding on this example...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970-F...rksid=p2047675.l2557

But the winning bid was well beyond what I thought the value was.

I own a 1973 Mach 1 CJ, Q code, factory 4 speed, highly optioned that is "1" of "1" according to the Marti report.

Thanks for the link to the 69 Mach 1 rebuild, look forward to reading it in it's entirety!

the Mach1 is awesome!! Its hard to take your eyes off of it.

My, be mindful of the DA, keep it moving.
Strip it all to bare metal, it's the only way.
Be prepared for the next step applying a good epoxy sealer over the metal to prevent surface rust as you move to the next step, getting it straight. How far or how much do you want to spend and what is your finish vision?

quote:

Be prepared for the next step applying a good epoxy sealer over the metal to prevent surface rust as you move to the next step

A simple rub down with phosphoric acid will prevent flash/surface rust for months.

Is your minion the same gal as in your 4042 thread? Wow she has grown!

Yep...same minion UFO. She's become quite a useful shop helper. I'm a lucky guy..!

OK, so the whole house came down with some kinda of wicked funk and we've been out of commission for the past two weekends. Finally feeling healthy enough to get back out in the shop. Decided to put her up on floor jacks on the dollies so she would be up higher and still be a little mobile. Cut some boards to lock into the dollies, then secured the stands to the wood. Seems to work OK, let's see how it goes. I will also appreciate painting it up in the air.





Spent the day under the nose stripping paint. Not much to share...a lot more of the same. Grinding...sanding...blah..blah.... Was nasty work, covered in dust..but got her done! Good news remains...more dents, very limited rust. No complaints!!

It's coming along nicely Rob. Good news on low rust! The more I'm digging into mine the less I'm finding compared to what I was expecting.

You have to love having good minions. I do fire effects for a living and my 3 daughters LOVE getting amongst the flamey stuff when we get into testing mode. I think it's a good thing to have our kids getting hands on (boys or girls) experience - there's too much virtual / disposable world out there keeping them squeaky clean and quiet these days.

And, I think I have some serious garage space envy as well. I simply don't have the space at my place so 1424 is down at my (very awesome) mechanic's place getting things done. I'm in the process of acquiring space where I can build some serious garaging.

Great idea with the mobile stands Rob. I like it!

The rollie jack stands worked out great today. Was able to move her around as needed to get access and lighting to the lower & rocker panels. Got them all stripped and cleaned up today. I really have to say how lucky I feel...the rockers are spotless clean. The drip holes look great. The car gods are treating my kindly.. And to think...I almost sold this car last year.





Whomever did the bumper elimination, did a decent job. Too bad his hammer and dolly skills didn't match his welding skills. There was 1/4" thick body filler on the rear panels. Holy cow batman... I had to put on a fresh grinder disk to dig though it....


This dent was filled in. Crazy...there is full access behind it...why..why..?
Hopefully I can get it hammered respectability straight before it's all said and done.








All in all..between the layers of paint and gallons of body filler...she's probably 20lbs lighter now. No joke!

Next step will be starting to straighten panels.....

Great progress! Thanks for the update. You have MUCH to be thankful for!

Hey Rob

That's really cool to Watch your progress. Very rare to see a car as clean as 6001. Congratulations !

Nice job, Rob! She looks amazing. Looking forward to watch how you straighten it out. Love the work.

So...started the hammer work on the RF corner today. Got the corner to be pretty close. Had to reshape the wheel opening a bit also. However, forgot to take pics at that....will catch up on that next weekend. Once I got the corner a bit closer, I welded up all the holes from the accident repair I found under all the body filler. Then...spent a bit more time hammering. She's about 90% or so to where I want to get her. The area between the sharpie marks is about 1/16" low still. Next weekend.....

That's really cool Rob. I'm in complete awe of you guys that can work the metal yourselves. It's something I wish I knew how to do. Not sure a Pantera is one for me to learn on though.

Hi Michael,
I won't profess to be great at it! I'm just stubborn ...and don't like to accept my shortcomings . So, I power through and keep at it until I'm happy with it. The Pantera body is thin metal, which sometimes makes it easier to work, however can create its own challenges too (stretching, welding). Patience is the key/and challenge for me.

As a buddy of mine (MkIV/4280) once said....


"The slide hammer... The bane of all of us artists in sheet metal...."

(Of which I certainly am not one).

Very nice work. I am hoping those holes were from the PO, so you don't get mad at me for my comment....

Rocky

quote:

Originally posted by Rocky:
As a buddy of mine (MkIV/4280) once said....


"The slide hammer... The bane of all of us artists in sheet metal...."

(Of which I certainly am not one).

Very nice work. I am hoping those holes were from the PO, so you don't get mad at me for my comment....

Rocky

I was thinking the same thing Rocky in regards to the "sliding hammer" & posted suggesting this method/tool...

http://www.autobodytoolmart.co...us-4550-p-16146.aspx

No issues Rocky... either way. But yes, they were from the previous owner. It is a method I do not condone, specifically/especially if you have back side access.

Speed, I've seen these, but never used. It may be one that has to end up in the shop sooner or later.

Great work Rob. The car looks really nice once you removed all the filler. I wish I had the talent to do that work. Keep the pictures coming, I love to see the cars progressing.

Thanks Rapid. Here are some more for ya... :-)

Ok, so took some vacation from work... So, got a bit hammered out today...

Started the day with the finish shaping of the RF wheel opening which I had done a lot of work to a couple weeks ago. I had the big dent out, but the outer profile of the curve is still quite flat.



I may revisit it later to try and get the ripple in the lip fully out, but I'm happy withe the contour now. The curved profile is now uniform. Getting the metal of the lip to shrink enough to get them out is kinda difficult. Got most out..but the really big ones are "smaller"...but not gone "yet" :-)


Then I moved to the passenger door. When I started there was about a 5mm deep dent. I tried to show it as best I could....a bit difficult... :-(


Spent a few hours banging a prying... getting close....


I hung a straight edge with tape and kept it on the roof, so I could quickly drop it down for status checks. The door got nailed pretty good. The skin was bent profiling the side intrusion bar inside the door. This created a horizontal line on the skin, which I found it quite a challenge to get out, as access behind the intrusion (crash) bar was a bit difficult.



All finished. It will only need a skim coat of filler now.


Then moved to the rear and straightened out the rear valence.

Then to the LR to address the caved in rear quarter.












Another hour or so and I should have the LR buttoned up. I'll get on it again in the morning.

Did your PO take your car "four-wheeling"?

Nice dents, and nice work to remove them.

Rocky

Hi Rocky,
Thx!
Man....I'll tell you what... I think either four wheeling or demo derby. Or...maybe he just let his wife drive it. oooh...damn. My wife just slapped me. I should probably save those remarks for when she's not looking over my shoulder..

Thanks again for taking the time to document your progress. It must be very gratifying to progress so well utilizing your own talent. Nice work.

Thanks JT, appreciate that. Yes, I take a lot of pride in doing all my work myself.

Spent a few hours with hammers on the LR quarter today, very happy with the result. Won't need any body filler at all...







Will get going on the LF fender in the morning....