Friday, April 24, 2009

Cut, Grind, Weld, Paint: All in a day's work

Welcome back to another Friday edition of Reggie's Motorworks Blog! Today's entry is coming to you from my perspective, as Reggie's wife, Stephanie. Hopefully what this post lacks in technical detail and graphic design will be made up by way of illustration. Let's take a closer look at the work Reggie's completed so far on the now infamous Alpine weiss cabriolet.

As you may recall, last week's blog left off right here. Unfortunately, rust had its way with this poor section of metal.





Reggie gets his cutting wheel out and lets the sparks fly when removing this rotten area.



Next he smoothes the edges of the rectangular void. Please remember to wear your safety glasses at all times! You'll see there is a little rust behind this area, and Reggie will address this in just a moment.


Here are the various tools used for this portion of the project. Sounds like a day at the dentist, only much louder!







To make sure that pesky rust doesn't find its way back, Reggie paints on some rust treatment. This area is prepped inside and from behind the quarter panel as well.




So now that there is a piece of this cabrio missing, proper replacement metal must be used to make it whole again. As luck would have it, we had this donor door ready and willing to help. Well, as willing as any inanimate object can be. No matter what the case, this 320i door was going to give up a piece of itself to help out a fellow Bimmer. (Yes, I did just have to ask Reggie the model of this door. I'm still learning!)







The rest was pretty easy as far as I could tell. Reggie traced the old rusty piece to get the perfect size pattern for the new patch.







Then I stood back a good distance while he used the handy cutting wheel to send sparks flying.







Now that the rust treatment is pretty well dry back on the cabrio, Reggie can get the newly cut patch lined up and ready to weld in place.



While the patch was being held in place for a moment, Reggie sprayed some self-etching primer in the battery tray and just under the grille area on the front of the car.







Now back to the patch repair while the self-etching primer has a chance to thoroughly dry.
These magnets proved to be quite useful in holding the patch in place as Reggie welded it on to the rest of the car. He first did some tack welds, just enough to be able to remove the magnets and continue welding.






Note: Reggie wears his welding helmet to prevent damage to his vision. It's also important to protect your eyes while photographing such things. I got the camera focused on the area, closed my eyes, and gave Reggie the ok to proceed. As soon as I heard sparks, I pressed the shutter several times.






The surface of the newly patched area was a little bumpy after welding. So all Reggie needed to do was smoothe it out with the grinder. More sparks!

There are a few little valleys that could stand to be filled in. Reggie mixes up some Bondo. This cabrio needed just a little bit of help getting back on track to a smoother, paint-ready surface.

The Bondo was applied to the front and side area of the quarter panel. It doesn't take Bondo long to get set up. It's ready for sanding after about 15 minutes or less. Amazing!

Once the area was satisfactorily sanded, Reggie masked off the area and was one step closer to spraying some paint. Note that there's really not much Bondo left after sanding. Like I said, there were just a few valleys that needed to be filled in. He rolls back the masking tape in a few layers to prevent getting a distinct line when painting. This will help to blend the fresh, new paint with the 21 year old paint. Below the area is masked off and sprayed with self-etching primer.



It's time for the respirator! Reggie mixes up the lovely Alpine weiss paint, along with the proper amount of reducer. Stir it up!




This mixture gets poured through a filter into the jar.

We put a drop cloth over the entire car to prevent any unwanted overspray.

Next Reggie got to work spraying the battery tray under the bonnet, followed by the area under the grille, and then the new area on the quarter panel. Anyone see a pattern here?

And we're back at the driver's side quarter panel, ready for paint.

After just a light sanding to blend the old with the new, the paint looked pretty darn good! Movin' right along!

All that's left to do now is mix up the clearcoat and lay it on. The following photo was taken from the safety of our office. This stuff not only smells horrible (in my opinion!), but it's not advised to be without a respirator when using it or being near it. You guessed it, a shiny round of clearcoat for the battery tray, the area beneath the grille, and, of course, the now invisible patch on the quarter panel.


And here it is...the moment we've all been waiting for...drum roll, please!



Reggie did one heck of a job, and I'm not just saying that because I'm his lucky wife. It really does look great, and I'm so excited to reveal the finished cabrio in a future post! The paint was allowed to cure overnight, and will be ready the next phase. This cabrio will enjoy a relaxing day at the Reggie's Motorworks Spa, with complete detail included. Maybe even a frosty libation with one of those cute little umbrellas too. Ok, now I'm getting carried away. But I do like the idea of a day at the spa...

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , , , , ,

Rust Repair on our Rescue Convertible, and a New Shop Truck (Wagon)!

Hello all, Reggie here. This is MY first post. Kipp, my jack-of all trades (web-designer, T-shirt producer, eBay listing writer, and shipping guru) typically handles the blog, along with my wonderful wife/photographer, Stephanie. They have both been taking my experiences in the shop and bringing them to life here on the web.


I want to point out that I am NOT a "trained" professional. I am a former DIY guy that has decided to go "pro" simply meaning that I do this everyday and pay my bills by doing so. The processes I show/describe are ones that I have learned from reading, trying, and believe it or not....watching TV. Most of the projects you see me tackle on this blog are ones that I have done between 0 and 3 times prior. This being said, I can not be responsible for any "less than desired" results if you are using my blog as a how-to guide.

This week I've been doing more work on the 1988 325ic that belongs to my good friend Sean. Just a quick bit of history on this car:

I bought this car back in the summer of '06 for $300 and a scrap Mercedes-Benz 190e. The poor car was literally on the back of a wrecker on its way to be sold for scrap when my towing guy spotted it. He told the scraper that I may be interested in buying it, so brought it by and a deal was made. I purchased the car on Sean's Birthday, and he since happened to already have an '87 325is track car in the same color combo, it seemed like a sign that he should own it. It had around 86,000 miles on it, but it had sat outside for a long time. We've been piecing it back together ever since. We will be calling it done after this last extended stay at RMW, so you will see the final results next week.

For now, we have some rust repair to do!!

Here are the three areas I will be addressing: the battery tray (up front on a convertible)/frame rail, the top of the valance - just under the grille, and the left quarter panel - in front of the wheel and above the rocker.




First I remove the battery and any attached brackets/wiring to expose the majority of the damage:


Next I use a combination of wire wheels and sanding discs on die-grinders to remove most of the scaly rust.






Next I use "Rust Prep" to stop the rust in its tracks. The bottle in the photo is of a product that I have used with decent results, but in the later repairs you will see that I have switched to a Permatex brand product that I like much better. All of these do the same thing. They chemically convert the rust left behind into a black paint-ready surface that will not continue to corrode.







After reading the direction on these products, I find it is necessary to leave them for 24 hours before paint. For this particular project, I will be painting over the pitted metal, as the battery will be sitting on top of it. In an area that is more visible, I would top-coat with a body filler (or replace the bad metal) before painting.

Here are some photos of the prep work on the other areas. All of the work is similar, although the other areas will be sanded and smoothed out much more before paint.

Here is that panel below the kidney grille. As you can see it needed a bit of straightening before the rust could be removed. I sand this with 120, 220, then 400 grit papers to get a nice smooth finish to prime over.





Sadly, this area was "repaired" by a "professional" body man less than 8 months ago!! When I went to grind away the big bubble, water splashed me in the face. He just sanded it down a bit and spread some putty on it. As you can see in the photos, this was THROUGH rust that came from the back side. In my experience, you can get by with body filler on pitted rust if it starts on the exterior (if well-prepped), but if it's coming from the back it won't work at all.

Initially I thought I'd be able to weld these holes shut, but some prodding with my pick made it clear that the back of this metal was badly corroded and the rust would continue to eat away at this section.



At this point, it's time to start cutting, and I am out of time for posting.

In the meantime, what do you think of our new shop truck?! Its a 1980 Volvo 245 (wagon). It's got 342K on the clock, and has plenty of character. My decision to buy this old girl is part inspired by the "rat-rod" or survivor car scene, and part inspired by the fact that I see an awful lot of you e30 guys rolling up in Volvos to pick up your parts. I plan to keep this old beater pretty much as-is, aside from replacing some suspension/maintenance parts. This will hold me over until I have time to chop up an e30 for a pick-up truck project!!





Thanks for looking and have a great weekend!!























Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)