What do u typically pay for dustless blasting to strip a car. I think my buddy paid around $175/200 and it was done in a little more than an couple of hours. With the cost of materials, wear n tear on compressor and your time etc that seems like the route to go
So, I inquired about dustless when I did the Tealmist car. The guy that ended up blasting the tub and chassis told me that he COULD do dustless, but wouldn't recommend it. He said that it has a tendency to pack into crevices and it's impossible to get it out...which then creates a recipe for rust. So he ended up doing the standard blasting on it. I'll be doing that again with the silver mist car. I'll get the car split apart....body on the rotisserie and rolling chassis. Will blast the entire chassis and the underside/inside/jambs of the body.
Roof rail trim and runner is on. Windows adjusted. Only took an hour to adjust the windows! Carpet is going in now...tomorrow I hope to have the majority of the interior complete. This car is buried in the shop...and unfortunately I have to wait for a new driveshaft to move the 62 Electra that’s sitting right in front of it. Hopefully I’ll have that next week, and I can get the orange car running.
Some of that depends on how good of a car you start with. Fortunately, we were able to use the back seats again, as well as all of the door panels and rear side panels. Only the front seat covers, headliner, and carpet were replaced in this interior. All of the sheet metal (sans the beat up LH quarter) was reused. Engine was only touched up with new seals and freeze plugs. I had the trans rebuilt "because it was already out." We are not really touching the underside, except new exhaust, brakes, gas tank, and shocks. But yes, from start-to-finish if you don't do your own work, it gets pricey. But the Tealmist car I am finishing up....pretty much had to start from scratch on everything. Every piece of that car had to be replaced, painted, plated, stripped, or cleaned. Those are the ones that are not for the faint-of-heart.
Looks great Adam. That’s a super straight dash pad too. Not easy to find one that straight with the fasten seat belts indicator light on it.
That is the original dash...I had the outer front corners repaired. Looks ok...but it beat having to find a good one.
I think I got lucky on these. The convertible ones were a lot easier than I thought they'd be, too. Maybe I'm actually getting the hang of this LOL
I spent the morning getting the car ready to start. Installed the starter and bought a Delco battery from the Chevy dealer. Fuel pump is dead....and it's a Stage1 pump. Since no one seems to have one, I am picking one up from a buddy tomorrow who had one in his stash. Once I was dead in the water on startup, I moved over to all of the stainless that was ruined by the chrome shop. I gave them perfect cores with nearly no dings. NONE of the front and rear window moldings had dents. Some of them were even NOS from my stash. So I literally had to go back over every piece and sand out the grinder marks from their handy work. I started to polish on the wheel this evening and gave up once it got dark. I have learned my lesson about stainless. I have to specify that I want perfect, or I'll just do it myself. There is a weird click coming from the starter (I think). I believe it's only happening when the starter is engaged. I had it running for a few seconds several times today, and it seemed to go away. I pulled the trans cover and had my wife run the key so I could listen. It sounds like one click every revolution. I can't see anything though. Hopefully, it goes away when the car is running...so I can limit the issue to the starter and not some crazy other problem. I don't feel like dropping the transmission at this stage.
New fuel pump fixed the fuel problem. New dimmer switch because there was no power going to the headlights. It appears that the starter is the culprit of the clicking sound when starting. It took a while to get it started today...it would only run if I advanced the timing like 40 degrees. So I popped the distributor out and slipped a tooth. Instantly fired up and idled pretty well. I let it run for 5 minutes and then did a little adjusting on the idle circuit. Topped off the coolant and transmission fluid. when I took it for a test drive, I instantly noticed it was running on 7 cylinders. Uh oh... I had spark at the plug. I tested the ohms on the wire and it seemed a little high compared to the others. 18k, compared to 9-10k. So I swapped it with one I had on the shelf. No difference. I came back around to the cap and pulled wires one at a time, checking to see if it changed the idle. There was one wire that didn’t make a change (which I knew already was #6) and it was definitely sparking, but very weak compared to the other ones that were sending me through the ceiling. Ive never had a bad cap until now. Right out of the box...nice $30 brass connection one. So I bought a $12 one from Auto Zone and it fixed the problem. It runs like it should now! I took these before I parked back in the shop.
Wow Adam, that "Invisible Glass" cleaner works great and the car looks fantastic as per usual with your touch.... Nice job!