1958 MGA Coupe

[bobs77vet]

tonights push

man theres lots of curves........be sure you don't let the buffer backing pad dig into the curved spots, you can use a pad that has a shoulder to help stop boneheaded monents



the top could use a couple more passes but the big flat panels are done nicely.

 

[bobs77vet]

today MGACharlie (Charlie Adams) came over and he sprayed the last three coats of clear on one side of the inner splash guards so this side is done!

 

[bobs77vet]

well today same routine sand with 2000 and buff. too manyy curves to use 1000 on a machine, I may do these by hand with 1000 on warm day...today it was raining and pretty miserable

 

[bobs77vet]

i wasn't happy with how the front fenders came out so lets do it all over again. I looked at my intermediate soft pad and decided to sand the fenders again 4 passes on each fender wet with 800, 1200, 1500, 2000 and then buffing with 4 different grits and pads, at least I wasnt getting rained on .....









this will cover me for another several weeks on these fenders and then I will buff it again but no more sanding

 

[bobs77vet]

lets finish the arm rest





I know from the test mock up the foam redistributes itself inside the arm rest

 

[bobs77vet]

I had a few hours to fool around with so I polished the fenders again....no sanding this timeI

and I no longer have to worry about who will give my paint job the first good ding,because that would be me.....when I took the rear fender off the stand I was looking at what I wanted to buff some more and the front dog leg dropped on to my door

see that gray spot, oh well, it reminds of my first motorcycle, by buddy said to open up the seat take out a knife and scratch the gas tank to get it over with.....



this time just buffing with a DA





ran out of light to get good pictures of the front fenders


I can still just faintly see the dullness from the sanding on the front fenders, it is close to being gone and I think one more buffing will make the dullness go away.
the foam pads don't cut as much as the wool pad, and the DA doesn't cut as much as a rotary buffer so its a little more time involved but you don't have to worry about burning through on edges or curves...

 

[bobs77vet]

well I accidently knocked over the rotary buffer and broke the hook and loop pad.....so off to the store to buy another one, I purchased a Meguiar backing pad that can be used with either 7 or 8" pads, this is on an inexpensive Harbor Freight rotary polisher



while I was there I realized that they had the Meguiars pads that the compounds I am using were designed to be used with. so I said what the hell and bought them



I quickly buffed the two front fenders again with just the wool pad and the #85 and this easily made those dull spots disappear, I was surprised with how easy this was. Now I have done lots of buffing on these fenders and I am sure they were just waiting for me to do something but I was surprised in any event and the work for the evening went well. tomorrow I will go through all the rest of the buffing steps, #84 with the other pad I purchased with the rotary and then move to the DA to finish with the other two compounds

 

[bobs77vet]

still a little bit too much orange peel, what the hell its only work.......1200, 1500 and then 2000 all wet





then #85 with a wool pad,#84 with foam cutting pad and #83 with foam cutting the rest will be with a DA at a later date



the fender on the left is done the one on the right has not been sanded and buffed yet

 

[bobs77vet]

I got to work on the car this afternoon , and did the final polishing on the fenders. one of the front fenders has a little more orange peel in it then i would like, but I am going to ignore it until everything is mounted on the car. I have lots of clear on the car and I can sand it and buff it again at any time. once its mounted and I can see the orange peel everywhere else it will lead me to what I have to do. what I am looking for is a uniformity of appearance . the panels are shiny as can be even with the slight orange peel so the glossiness isn't a problem. you can see the plastic on the seat in the reflection



this is a little cheat sheet I made up to help me remember the color of the foam pads and the order in which you use them, as many of you I have a bunch of different foam pads and the color is not universal, so this is my notes so I don't have to try to remember the order of operation...kind of .reminds me when my youngest school kid asked me about the order of operation of Mathematics and I said left to right......then when the rest of my other kids stopped laughing they informed that left to right was important but that wasn't all of it...needless to say they don't ask me for help with their calculus





now on to the buffing and polishing the body

 

[bobs77vet]

5 hours today.....what can I do in 5 hours

well 3 passes with 1200 fresh pad, 3 passes with 1200 used pad, 3 passes with 1500, and 4 passes with 2000 all wet just the top side of the body










then with a rotary buffer 1 pass with #85 wool pad, 1 pass #85 maroon foam pad, 1 pass #85 yellow , 1 pass #84 blue foam pad, 1 pass #83 black pad, 1 pass #82 white pad

it looks good I need to do the polishing phase again. this next time will be with a DA. look for the reflection of the house or garage. I am 80% where I want to be.

 

[SRountree]

Cant wait to see it on the frame! Nice work!

 

[bobs77vet]

so it occurred to me once the body polishing is done I could put the doors and fenders on.....but not until I paint the door hinges and spacers, I cleaned them last week so they are ready to get primed and painted, used self etching primer

its a 65* night and humidity is within tolerances



base coat



clear coat

 

[JPhil]

Golly Bob the attention to detail you have is way beyond my caveman basic function focus. Isn't hardware like this what POR15 is made for? Just bust the loose rust with a quick sandblast or a wire wheel, brush on the acid primer, brush on the color and be done with it.....
I admire you, and I know I will love that little car when we see the video of it pulling out the driveway and zipping up the street under it's own power again!
(Although one question that I have often thought of while monitoring your projects, how in the hell did you ever find time to make two sons?)

 

[bobs77vet]

(Although one question that I have often thought of while monitoring your projects, how in the hell did you ever find time to make two sons?)

and two daughters too...I balance my time

the goal is to finish the out side of the body buffing so I can put the doors and fenders on

so after all the work sanding and buffing the car had great reflectivity but that was only about 60% of where we can go....look at the first pictures closely, the dull areas were present in those pictures with the great reflectivity. so the idea is to bring those up to the same level of the shiney spots. great terminology....

so 3 hours tonight with the DA, this is a Harbor Freight DA for $45. I have an expensive Griots Garage DA but I wanted to try the inexpensive one and let it do all the hard work and save my good one for the easy polishing jobs.

so tonight #84 with orange hard cutting pad, 2 passes , #84 with the white light cutting pad 2 passes, and #83 with yellow buffing pad. tomorrow night will finish it with the #82 swirl remover with a finishing pad. I am sure the professional compress this time but since I do this not as regularly as them I just go slower so I don't screw up the work I have done



its the haziness under the window and to the right of the window



and after buffing and polishing





same spot after the work

 

[Red77]

Thank you again for the amazing amount of detail you are recording here Bob. While paint and body is still several years away for me, planting the seeds of how to do it right and having such a detailed tutorial to follow is at least a million times better than any of the books and articles I have read on the subject thus far. Just another reason I love this forum!

 

[bobs77vet]

I am glad its helping.

i had to break out the 3" DA tonight just too many small spots that interfere with buffing

its really good for the small curved areas





and I now know why the one side of the top pillar posts are pushed down.....its the only way to buff that angle




I also got one complete polishing in with the softest pad....just need to repeat it one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything then the doors go on.

 

[bobs77vet]

busy day today...

painted boot prop rod black



my son and I made end caps, mine will be removable for inspection purposes, I also made my internal inner sill supports be parallel to the frame so you can look from one end to the other. still need to be painted












tried my hand at making a rivet split tool....I am not sure I was successful....








these are a PITA to do.....this will be done during the week one panel at time with a brewski

polished the car for the last time


lets get the doors on

I am not going to sand the rocker sill to much scuffing so I am going to leave all the clear coat on it

lets buff it before the door rough fit

 

[bobs77vet]

boot prop rod installed





boot installed...you can tighten the bolts from the inside, so aligning is easier





final buffing




I may be able to close this up some more


how I finally did the split rivets


a shaft for under the rivets held in the vise

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

It's a trunk, not a boot.... just like it's football, not girly-soccer.

 

[bobs77vet]

bonnet, boot, hood, spanner, whitworth its just all part of the charm.....

goal for this weekend is to have all fenders on......so i need to wrap up some loose ends

so lets paint the end caps and while i am at it the hand crank



it was strange i wiped down the hand crank with lacquer thinner to see it had been painted with some thing else over the last 50 years and no lacquer paint color came off, which is usually a sign it has some other paint on it....lacquer paint is temperamental this way and it prefers to only go over lacquer or a good primer sealer ..so i sanded/scuffed it primed it then used a primer sealer and took a chance i wouldn't have a paint incompatibility issue





it doesn't look like i have any issues with paint incompatibility on the hand crank. i am pleasantly surprised.

 

[bobs77vet]

my son and I popped the door off and swapped the hinges and it made all the differences, I did stamp the hinges for P and D , but forgot to stamp a top and bottom mark.
if you look closely you can see the difference in the two halves of the same hinge



the one on the left has a slight twist in it



and the alignment with out us trying to do anything to improve it.

 

[bobs77vet]

some quick work this am in preparation for putting fenders on

drill out a hole



drilled and touched up


end caps drill holes touched up, drill shavings vacuumed out




end caps in place

 

[bobs77vet]

fender install day

mark fender piping for holes





started out with a gasket punch but by the end I was using the box cutter only



I am not sure who that old man is but that's what I was doing fitting the piping. on a coupe it changes direction there and is horizontal




it is good to have sons



so all fenders and piping is in, need to tune up the doors and the right front fender fit









and all tucked in for the night

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

looking good, when is the body/frame marriage happening?

 

[bobs77vet]

looking good, when is the body/frame marriage happening?

well on this car the interior headliner has to go in first, then the vinyl for the dash board then the windows, and the dash, and main wiring harness.......then it can go on the frame


so that should take me a little while to get it right, there is not much to the interior, but it has to be done right, so maybe early next calendar year.

 

[bobs77vet]

today was as big of a day......we collapsed tent city frame and I cleaned up and packed away all the painting gear.

well we did all that after I painted the shut face panel and the front parking light backing rings. the backing rings will get epoxy glued in place.. just didn't get the ordering sequence right on that one. I was thinking of making my own but when I ordered the seat belt install kit it was so easy to hit the easy button on that one,

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

looking good, when is the body/frame marriage happening?

well on this car the interior headliner has to go in first, then the vinyl for the dash board then the windows, and the dash, and main wiring harness.......then it can go on the frame


so that should take me a little while to get it right, there is not much to the interior, but it has to be done right, so maybe early next calendar year.

I've been in the process on my FJ40 to determine when, in the order of events, the body should be mounted to the frame; so it was more then just idle curiosity

 

[bobs77vet]

I've been in the process on my FJ40 to determine when, in the order of events, the body should be mounted to the frame; so it was more then just idle curiosity

the trick is to try and find how the factory did it. and follow their lead

 

[bobs77vet]

well had a quick 30 mins before dinner to do some work, not really enough time to address this but its moving it in the right direction

the radiator duct panel does not really have good access to buff and that raised X is just asking to get too much attention



sanded by hand lightly, this area got lots of over spray from the engine bay and from the front shroud, probably needs to be sanded again



and a quick buffing with an orange cutting pad and 85 and then followed with 84 and a softer pad.....still needs some more love




I don't need perfection but it needs to be a bit smoother

 

[bobs77vet]

spent some more time on the radiator duct valance






I have a bag of new nuts and bolts for the frame and trying to figure out where everything goes is giving me ahead ache

so lets start putting them where they belong



assembled front extension