With dry blocking complete, I hit the body with 2k surfacer to get ready for paint. I also did a final two coats of black epoxy on the dash, firewall, floor, and trunk floor. Once that was on, I sprayed body schutz on the rear wheel wells and outer trunk drops to mimic factory undercoating. I will go ahead and wet block the 2k once it cures. After that, I'm going to drop the body back on the chassis and hand the doors. I'm taking this step to avoid any issues if some sort of body alignment problem happens BEFORE paint. I'll also hang the front sheet metal to make sure there isn't a problem. I found out that the fenders we have with the car are NOS and have a serious case of flat top. The passenger side is low by about a half inch. Driver side is typical 1/4. In lieu of repairing these, we are going to use a pair of solid originals. Once I get them, I'll body work them and the hood after I do a test fit on the body. When everything is kosher, I will power wash and blow dry the body to make sure there aren't any little dust pockets lingering after sanding or otherwise. Masking the undercarriage/chassis will be a challenge, but I feel more comfortable with the car somewhat together before I throw a bunch of high $ paint and clear on this thing.
After a 2 hour sweeping and vacuuming session, I went to work on blocking the surfacer. Just finished everything this evening...so I will get the body back on the 4x4 spanners and hope I can get the body back on the chassis by myself.
Looks like you're not far from shiny. There's a C.L. ad for a '68 Pontiac LeMans nearby. He doesn't have the body brace, which I understand is a complete no-no. I suppose the same kind of person that puts a half inch of bondo over rust. Anybody gotten away with not bracing a convertible?
Interesting question Adam. Not that I can tell from looking at the photos. I was under the impression that convertible bodies should be braced before they came off the frame. https://cincinnati.craigslist.org/cto/d/hamilton-1968-pontiac-lemans-convertable/7057779324.html
I don't disagree...was curious though. I'm sure that if he still had the doors on it, they would not close.
Yeah...as long as the doors are shut when the body is lifted off without bracing, it will remain that way. Might screw with the gaps a little, but will settle back down. I have the car back on the ground, body bolted down. Doors on. I pushed it back into the house garage so I can get some work done on my 57 to sell it.
"Now I'm curious...what did Fisher Body do sending a completed convertible over to final assembly?" The entire shell was shipped over with all the sheet metal on it from the firewall back, including the doors and trunk lid. The only thinsg that were not on it was the front carpet, front seats, and everything that bolted to the firewall. Adam you have great before and after shots already. Just wait until it's done. Duane
Our plan to use original fenders didn't work out, so I am back to using the NOS/replacement fenders that came with it. They're really solid, so at least there's no rust to contend with. So today, I tackled the front sheet metal install and alignment...mostly to make corrections to the fenders. I loosely installed the fenders and core support, keeping the support-to-frame mounts loose so I could move that around, too. Once the RH fender looked good at the door, I moved to the LH fender. Then to the hood, using the hinges that will be installed on the car. I don't know if that really makes a difference, but it can't hurt. It was a challenge aligning the hood, because the space for it to sit in between the fenders was just barely big enough for it to sit inside. So I was nearly back to square one on the fender alignment...but I managed to shimmy everything around to get it just right. I actually moved the doors out a little bit where they meet the fenders, so I could pull the fenders away from the hood. Once the hood was where it needed to be, I could see the RH fender was not right. It had an angry brow...and there is no adjustment there. I cut the spot welds out of that bracket where it mounts to the core support and pulled the outer skin of the fender down to where it sat straight with the hood. It is just held there with Vice Grips right now. I'll have to weld the top holes, then pull the fender back out a little bit on the side, because I think it is pulled in toward the middle of the car just a bit. That's where I quit for the day. I grabbed the headlight bezels and grille from the parts car to make sure nothing else was tweaked on the core support. There are a couple spots on it that need to be pounded out, but didn't appear to affect the mounting of these items. My HOPE is that I can grind the welds out from inside the fenders and just do the ones along the centers, keeping the outer welds intact. The fenders aren't as bad as I thought they were. When I stuck them against the hood before installing, they looked REALLY bad. These are pretty subtle. But....there is no way I could have done all this alignment work with the fenders painted. I'm glad I took the time to do this.
I started on repairing front sheet metal today. Someone had clearanced a little bit of the hood inner structure for what I'm assuming was an air cleaner...so I had to cut out a good piece from one of the trashed hoods we have here and graft it in. Same for the spring on the front of the hood. The good hood we have came from a 72...so it's gotta go. I also have worked the fenders to where I can weld the inner edges back up. I'll take care of that tomorrow.
