Pantera #1424 Project

Started scraping the paint off the stainless door trims to get it "as stock as a rock"....

Also spent some time getting all the tint off the side windows and windscreen... (have to hand it to the stunt guys who can drive these things like demons with little to no vision)

It's going to be the hardest decision of the whole project later I think - to polish or paint...? that is the question.

Oh - and we've had the original rear deck lid struts re-gassed and new electric window switches installed... (no more custom trimmed rear deck "stick" required)

1424 came home for the holidays which has given me some time to sit in her, start her up every now and then and get a few things done. Seems like all projects though the more you do, the more you find. Nothing major yet though thankfully!

Took it out back for her first wash in a while - one thing was made very apparent - new rubber required all round. 1424 doesn't keep the water out too well at the moment.

Looking into a dual action polisher to see if I can get the paint looking as good as it can while I sort out the body project later.

Peter from Auto Spirit here in Adelaide made up his own removable hand brake bracket so we could get it moved safely - its got one sticky calliper, another small side project for future Michael.

Spent a bunch of time scraping things off... Black paint off the stainless to get all the silver exposed again for registration and all the remaining tint and "sticky" stuff off the windows.

All the way through the signs of multiple lives are popping through with hints of yellow and metallic bronze popping up all over the place.

So far I'm seeing it as original metallic bronze with silver window trims, then yellow with silver window trims then all over black....

Back window half cleaned...

More yellow hiding under the door seal / gutter trim.

All the silver ware exposed again. And the aftermath on the floor.

Would have liked to have had the window closed but the new switch that I got has fallen apart already so it's stuck down at the moment until I get a new new switch.

On a side note - the window switches seem pretty fickle, any suggestions on how they can be kept together better?

Removed the covers on the inside of the engine bay and the fuse box cover. They've still got the 1424 numbers on the back side of them... A little reluctant to clean that off them as they're car specific so looking into ways of preserving the numbers on the underside with a few coats of clear and getting the colour on the top side. Not sure if that's possible...

And the door trims... Original units, but have been I think well broken. I can't see how they clip in and I'm probably missing a heap of little bits to make it all work.

I've got her booked in to get AU approved seat belts installed and the front carpets replaced on the 25th of Jan at a really good interior motor trimmer here so they might have some ideas, but if anyone can share some details on how that all works it'll be good to see how it should be.

The gutter trim was driving me nuts just sticking out all over the place. Was not sure I wanted to put rivets back in as they're going to have to come off hopefully soon enough for the strip down so I got some nice stainless screws and put them in instead. I think they look ok for now at least and we're not having to drill things out again later.

Testing some links.... Hopefully it works.

Since Jan I've been steadily working away on things as I've had time. Lots to catch you all up with - but we'll try this and see if it works before I get carried away.

Finally got to dealing with the flakey clear coat on the drivers side guard.

Had to scrape the busted up clear coat off then sanded back until it was all smoothed out.



Found some more of the cars history with the yellow coming through but also had some filler on top of it in some areas....



Masked up and ready to paint - first time I've ever put paint on a car... so it might as well be on a Pantera.



The black in two areas over the filler just wouldn't smooth out.



Ended up getting a sealer coat down over that area and sanding back... made all the difference.



Ended up getting a nice colour coat on it finally.

Pics on last post didn't come through.

Hey JT - thanks.

I wondered if they would or not based on what I was seeing (little blue squares with question marks) once I posted it up.

I've set up a photo bucket account so I can get more than one photo in a post - but I'mn clearly not getting something quite right yet. I'll see what I can do!

Hey JFB - there you go!!

Thanks! I think that's I went wrong on the first post so I'll get it edited and hopefully right finally.

Always learning something new!

the match/finish looks good!

It's not perfect, but you wont notice it unless you're up real close to it and with the right light and angle.

It'll do until I strip it right back as part of the "main project" later.

At the moment, it's get it registered and drivable.

Looks great. I am enjoying seeing the progress.

Nice work, to paint is to be empowered. I worry far less about potential damage to my car knowing I can repaint it. And while I say that, I still cant blend very well.